Difficulty of normal content.

[Deslyxic]

I wanted to wait to see the raid tier before I say anything. There are already post about dungeon and trial difficulty, and now normal raids should be thrown into the discussion too, and I might repeat points already said but I think we should really make a point of this, we (the people not ok with this difficulty) need for the devs to hear it to hopefully make a course correction.

The problem with the difficulty on normal fights as I see it is:
-Use and abuse of non standard telegraphs.
-Nasty mechanic overlaps, stuff you would see on extreme and harder fights.
-Mechs resolving too quickly for the mental capacity they demand to process.
-One too many "catch this!" mech (mechs that have you running around like headless chicken evading seemingly random patterns).

All this has been making fights in this expansion frustrating and exhausting.

The Honey B fight had me wishing for the healer to not raise me, I was there in the floor, dead for the Nth time, thinking that I don't really want to be on that duty.

And it's not an issue of learning the fight, because that I can do, but we don't do this content alone, you know? I think it was the 4th time I was doing Valigarmanda when I finally managed to finish without dying myself, but that's a moot point when half the party was dead half of the time, even knowing the fight doesn't make it any less of a disheartening experience.

And yes, this concerns normal raids too even if they are optional content. In fact I gonna take the skip option for this raid tier, something I haven't done since I started playing in SB. And that's the point really, for the most part in the past 3 expansions difficulty for normal content was fair outside of some hiccup here and there.

I firmly believe that content meant to be done via the duty finder (where you don't choose who you playing with) shouldn't be this level of punishing. And I know that JP people do savage in the duty finder but we don't do that in NA or EU, for better or worse western players doesn't behave like JP players.

Finally I think that people that thrive with difficulty (the ones that demand harder content) already have extremes, savages, ultimate, criterion dungeons, and more (Yoshi-p is even touting of savage alliances), this people is eating really, really good. Do they need to take normal content too? Can casual players have something easy-ish to play? Please?



Edit: For anyone wondering about the amount of pages of replies, when this thread was around page 11 the streamer Arthars covered it live, twitted about it and then uploaded it to YT. Later I found out that other big content creators covered it too and that this thread was linked both in 4chan and reddit. What you are seeing are multiple big streamers and some smaller ones too putting a target in me, this thread and anyone sharing this opinion (plus 4chan trolls for good measure).
While I understand that some of my opinions in this and my other posts in this thread can be interpreted as hyperbole I stand by them. My position is unchanged.

[Supersnow845]

Normal raids has always been the bridging content between true casual content and extremes, it’s why it’s optional

Normal raids are designed to be tuned to about as hard as the devs are willing to make content with a full pick me up group and no actual strat discussion

EW was the outlier here as besides P3 the rest of them are over glorified trials rather than actual normal raids

[EponaTBHSMH]

I feel you, you have a vocal minority(?) to blame for this situation, it's the people that somehow don't play savage but complained over and over that normal content is too easy, and now here we are.

I think I saw somewhere someone dubbing that group the "hardcore casuals"

[Deslyxic]

Normal raids has always been the bridging content between true casual content and extremes, it’s why it’s optional

But you agree that normal raids are casual, right? Because what I played today was not casual difficulty at all.

[AmiableApkallu]

The problem with the difficulty on normal fights as I see it is:
-Use and abuse of non standard telegraphs.
-Nasty mechanic overlaps, stuff you would see on extreme and harder fights.
-Mechs resolving too quickly for the mental capacity they demand to process.
-One too many "catch this!" mech (mechs that have you running around like headless chicken evading seemingly random patterns).

I haven't yet done the new raids, but…

• The telegraphs in Dawntrail are actually quite good. The last time I saw a non-standard telegraph would have been... some optional ARR dungeon?
• Overlapping mechanics in normal fights has been a thing since at least Stormblood.

I'm reminded of a philosophy from the training of surgeons: "See one, do one, teach one." See a mechanic played out once. Do the mechanic yourself once. Teach the mechanic to someone else once (or, be prepared to, anyway). This approach has carried me through Dawntrail just fine.

Not getting a mechanic correct on the first try is fine. Party wipes are fine. But instead of just trying to power through and do, actually take a moment first to see. The hallmarks of a normal mode fight — that is, to say, "casual" content — are that (1) it's obvious how you failed to recognize a telegraph and thus failed the mechanic, and (2) as Supersnow said, you don't need to strategize with the rest of the party to do it correctly.

[Kiurt]

Wasn't Yoship the one saying that he was falling asleep in his dungeon runs ?

I thought the whole point of these threads was => Make MSQ easier, optionnal content harder (Side dungeons, raids, side trials...) ?

Most of Dawntrail content is fine. People aren't used to the basics of FFXIV. And most importantly, watching the cast bar.

Besides some gimmicks "gotcha" like breaking platforms, which kill you once but not twice, I didn't see anything that might be too hard for anyone who can actually pay attention to whats happening. Most of the mechanics can be done by following someone if you're having a hard time.

It is the FIRST day of release aswell, I don't get why people are entitled to clear content day 1.

[CinaedhVik]

If you thought the patterns were "seemingly random" OP, you weren't observing properly. This is the best tier I've ever played for normal raids, and I've been a player since ARR. Awesome music, great vibe, and fun and engaging raids. This is level 100. You don't get to just do in/out spread anymore, and you should have been clued in to that by the dungeons released with 7.0

[CinaedhVik]

And furthermore, players need to understand ITS OKAY to fail. It's okay to get a vuln stack, or fall off the arena, or get KO'd and wipe. You don't lose EXP like in FFXI for dying. You just start again. This raid tier is tuned properly: there's a challenge, but that challenge is not so difficult that you can't overcome it in a few pulls or, if things go really awful, a single lockout. You're not meant to be able to queue into any duty blind and clear without a single mistake every time, unless you're some hardcore type gamer who can read ahead. Even so, those of us who do savage raids still make mistakes now and then. Mistakes are okay. It's too bad you're quitting before even trying.

[Raraka]

And furthermore, players need to understand ITS OKAY to fail. It's okay to get a vuln stack, or fall off the arena, or get KO'd and wipe. You don't lose EXP like in FFXI for dying. You just start again. This raid tier is tuned properly: there's a challenge, but that challenge is not so difficult that you can't overcome it in a few pulls or, if things go really awful, a single lockout. You're not meant to be able to queue into any duty blind and clear without a single mistake every time, unless you're some hardcore type gamer who can read ahead. Even so, those of us who do savage raids still make mistakes now and then. Mistakes are okay. It's too bad you're quitting before even trying.

I would add onto this that this time they got a bit more interesting, by replacing vul stacks with dots and status effects, wich kinda help the complains about healers not having much to do from EW, overall really fun fights

[Shadow_Darkmoon]

Regret putting anything in the forums, should have known it wouldn't go well so plz forget i was ever here