Difficulty of normal content.

[holydiver1286]

This is the "new Final Fantasy XIV". Because the reviews and the story are so bad, the only people who are buying Dawntrail are those who want to play the endgame content. FFXIV is no longer for general audiences, it's for those who've already mastered the content and want harder content. So all of the elitists have come out of the woodwork now that they finally feel it's safe to do so, and are spilling vitriol everywhere. I've even seen your post referenced in game, without anyone prompting it. They're so overjoyed that they have an expansion "just for them" and they want to make sure that no one else can ruin "their moment".

Until we get massive edits to the Dawntrail MSQ or a new starting point for new players, this is how FFXIV is going to be from now on. Odd how WoW is going to be the MMO for general audiences again for the first time in 20 years.

lol or as many people are saying over and over again, we just don't want it to be braindead easy. This has nothing to do with "hardcore players should be the only ones that matter". Nobody that raids feels like they're having "their moment". Nobody wants normal content to crushingly difficult or brutally punishing. Nobody wants to turn basic content into dark souls. We just want it to be somewhat interesting instead of feeling like youtube or netflix has to be up on a different screen so we can avoid falling asleep while essentially fighting a striking dummy of a boss. A basic example I can think of that is nowhere near crazy difficult is the hallway near the end of Puppet's Bunker. The one where the turrets are shooting down the hallways while the orbs are flying around. This is super easy, but it asks for the most minimal level of engagement where you have to pay attention and move or you get some kind of punishment like vuln stacks or death. This is all we're asking for when we say basic, but in the form of boss fights. I can literally go into almost any pandemonium normal fight, not move almost at all, not avoid any attacks, gain all the vuln stacks in the world and not die, not contribute in any way, and still come out rewarded and be on my way. That's incredibly boring, not to mention griefing the rest of the team. You are supposed to playing a game. Why would you pay a monthly subscription for something that you don't actually want to play? A boss that you can defeat by basically just repeatedly beating on it without any requirement of thought or effort is just a striking dummy.

And yet again, Dawntrail is not doing anything special in terms of increasing difficulty. All it's doing is reverting some changes that were made in endwalker. Endwalker took the pace down to like -3 compared to content before it. Dawntrail is just resetting it back to 0. I can almost guarantee that after you get used to the pace of Dawntrail content, you will very likely feel the same after ending up in something like pandemonium in a roulette.

[VioletCatastrophe]

This is the "new Final Fantasy XIV". Because the reviews and the story are so bad, the only people who are buying Dawntrail are those who want to play the endgame content. FFXIV is no longer for general audiences, it's for those who've already mastered the content and want harder content. So all of the elitists have come out of the woodwork now that they finally feel it's safe to do so, and are spilling vitriol everywhere. I've even seen your post referenced in game, without anyone prompting it. They're so overjoyed that they have an expansion "just for them" and they want to make sure that no one else can ruin "their moment".

Until we get massive edits to the Dawntrail MSQ or a new starting point for new players, this is how FFXIV is going to be from now on. Odd how WoW is going to be the MMO for general audiences again for the first time in 20 years.

How do you actually reach a point where this is how you think? Behaving like this is incoherent with everything about FFXIV. With its themes, with its playerbase, and with its content.

For example, the entirety of Endwalker focused on not giving in to despair and continually moving forwards. See the cutscene dialogue in "You're Not Alone":

I know it well. That sense of defeat. I've tasted my fair share of it.
But as many times as we've fallen down, we've learned how to pick ourselves up and carry on.
We take each other's hand. Share in each other's courage. Follow in each other's footsteps. And turn sorrow into strength!
There are times when we fail. We bear wounds that do not heal. But these experiences are part of life, and they make us stronger!
We rise, fall, and rise again!

It doesn't say give up. It says try again! If you love the story so much, try paying attention to it.

The playerbase too, is all too happy to deal with wipes and people learning. It's not a big deal to all but an extremely weird minority of people who get toxic over wipes, and I hate to break it to you but it seems to be the people wanting the content to be easier who have the least healthy attitude with wipes so far.

The content is also designed to make it as smooth and effortless to try again after wipes. You have AI party members you can play with instead if you feel self-conscious, or other players if you want to learn in a social environment.

The people who you made up who are playing the game again for Endgame don't exist. The savage raid tier isn't even out yet. I did a 5 healer clear of ex1 earlier with some friends just because there's absolutely nothing to do but grind extremes which are generally considered to be easy content by raiders.

Calling us toxic because we are asking you to improve and enjoy the content is genuinely pathetic. I'd love to help you be a better player, but I can't make you want it.

[ForteNightshade]

Can we cut it out with "the game maybe isn't for you anymore". I think we grew too accustomed to tell that to new players that criticize the game without finishing ARR, but you don't understand how awful is to say that to a person that sunk god only knows how many hours into the game, that the game they love is kicking them into the curb for no fault of their own, and you don't understand how disheartening it is because it's not being said to you.

And rest assured that the people that don't enjoy the game anymore won't be playing it, only WoW players keep playing a game they actively hate and even they have a limit.

I hate to break it to you but the people in your position who find the normal modes and DT dungeons so much of an upswing over prior expansions they'd rather quit over it are a distinct minority. None of Dawntrail's content is some massive jump in difficulty. It's simply asking for the bare minimum, i.e, you pay attention to the mechanic. In other words, Dawntrail stopped handing out participation ribbons because you had a pulse.

If these raids are too challenging for you, that's perfectly fine. Wait until you have better gear which will allow you to brute force through regardless of how many deaths occur. If you're not willing to wait then maybe finding another game is the best option for you. What you're asking for ruins several other people's experience. The Twelve raid series is a perfect example of that. I used to love 24 man raids but I found all three so mind numbingly boring I stopped queuing for them unless asked by friends. Even then, I stopped after a while because they just weren't fun. None of the bosses do anything. They all are little more than striking dummies with pretty animations.

[Lucyfurr1988]

Can we cut it out with "the game maybe isn't for you anymore". I think we grew too accustomed to tell that to new players that criticize the game without finishing ARR, but you don't understand how awful is to say that to a person that sunk god only knows how many hours into the game, that the game they love is kicking them into the curb for no fault of their own, and you don't understand how disheartening it is because it's not being said to you.

And rest assured that the people that don't enjoy the game anymore won't be playing it, only WoW players keep playing a game they actively hate and even they have a limit.

have you ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy?

[FlorineC]

Can we cut it out with "the game maybe isn't for you anymore". I think we grew too accustomed to tell that to new players that criticize the game without finishing ARR, but you don't understand how awful is to say that to a person that sunk god only knows how many hours into the game, that the game they love is kicking them into the curb for no fault of their own, and you don't understand how disheartening it is because it's not being said to you.

Buddy, you need to wake up to the reality that the world does not revolve around you. It's a live service game, and the nature of the genre is that things change, and not always in ways every single player likes. I mained SMN from ARR beta through 6.55 and hated the changes they made to the class in SB, and then hated the EW changes too, and you know what I did? I adapted to the changes, I played other jobs more, and I played other games more, because the HW and ShB versions of the job I loved no longer existed. Playing since SB and loving the game doesn't make your opinion any more valid than anyone else's, and certainly not more than players like me who have played longer (~18k hours on one character) and love the game just as much if not more. You need to accept the reality of the situation that this is where the game is, and this is where the game is going. If you're not having fun with it, your options are either to adapt to the content and learn to find enjoyment from it, do other content in game that you enjoy more, or play a different game. It will not and should not cater to your specific fringe tastes.

[Slab_Rockjaw]

Can we cut it out with "the game maybe isn't for you anymore". I think we grew too accustomed to tell that to new players that criticize the game without finishing ARR, but you don't understand how awful is to say that to a person that sunk god only knows how many hours into the game, that the game they love is kicking them into the curb for no fault of their own, and you don't understand how disheartening it is because it's not being said to you.

And rest assured that the people that don't enjoy the game anymore won't be playing it, only WoW players keep playing a game they actively hate and even they have a limit.

To be fair, if the casual content is too hard for you, and if you are like the other poster who wrote about having an anxiety attack everytime they queue a dungeon then you honestly should either find a new hobby or at least new game. Don't play something you aren't having fun with. There's a sea of games easier and more tuned to a hyper casual audience. Hell throne and liberty plays itself, consider that.

In the case of the other person, they are literally damaging their IRL health by playing the game if what they said is true, and that's not good. I mean this in the most sincere and kindest way possible written from concern: If queuing a dungeon without NPCs gives you a panic attack STOP PLAYING. You are shaving years off your life.

[caffe_macchiato]

850 posts in this thread and 30 other threads. All from a single post from a single person. OP is the most powerful person in the FFXIV community right now and has you all in a vicegrip.

One (more) note: a lot of you use the standard-issue "you should know the game by level 100 and 300 hours of play time" cope. And that's true! But what of the rest of the game? Are you seriously suggesting that Final Fantasy XIV is a good game while also requiring every player to trudge through 300 hours and 100 levels of absolute boredom? The entire game is single player until level 100. Final Fantasy XIV will experience a terminal decline in player count. While obviously this is the developers' fault, your new standard-issue cope is also at fault because you aren't even giving people the option of using a skip. Final Fantasy XIV can no longer be called a good game for the vast majority of gamers and I would never recommend a new player start now.

[kajv95]

850 posts in this thread and 30 other threads. All from a single post from a single person. OP is the most powerful person in the FFXIV community right now and has you all in a vicegrip.

One (more) note: a lot of you use the standard-issue "you should know the game by level 100 and 300 hours of play time" cope. And that's true! But what of the rest of the game? Are you seriously suggesting that Final Fantasy XIV is a good game while also requiring every player to trudge through 300 hours and 100 levels of absolute boredom? The entire game is single player until level 100. Final Fantasy XIV will experience a terminal decline in player count. While obviously this is the developers' fault, your new standard-issue cope is also at fault because you aren't even giving people the option of using a skip. Final Fantasy XIV can no longer be called a good game for the vast majority of gamers and I would never recommend a new player start now.

If people want to skip, idc. I main red mage. raising people through content is already what I do anyway.
I don't necessarily disagree that it's getting increasingly more difficult for people to get into the game but pushing this onto the playerbase because players who've been playing for thousands of hours wanted to get out of the tutorial level is probably the most massive cope of all time.

As long as the standard dev expectation isn't to skip to Dawntrail, this is fine. Hell, even with it being the expectation, it'd be fine in terms of dungeon difficulty; The dungeons ramp up difficulty quite nicely. Bigger problem is the absurd gameplay drought between dungeons because gotta speak to wuk lamat again.

I just came out of doing Aitiascope and I could literally stand still on the Amon boss without dying as a dps, getting hit by several things. I'm not playing Disney's Dreamlight Valley over here; I want to be engaged and feel the need to move around and such, thanks.

[Menriq]

I would like to add my voice to those who disagree with OP and like the difficulty of the dungeons, trials, and raids and hope they keep this up as they said they would throughout this expansion and the future.

[Kiurt]

850 posts in this thread and 30 other threads. All from a single post from a single person. OP is the most powerful person in the FFXIV community right now and has you all in a vicegrip.

One (more) note: a lot of you use the standard-issue "you should know the game by level 100 and 300 hours of play time" cope. And that's true! But what of the rest of the game? Are you seriously suggesting that Final Fantasy XIV is a good game while also requiring every player to trudge through 300 hours and 100 levels of absolute boredom? The entire game is single player until level 100. Final Fantasy XIV will experience a terminal decline in player count. While obviously this is the developers' fault, your new standard-issue cope is also at fault because you aren't even giving people the option of using a skip. Final Fantasy XIV can no longer be called a good game for the vast majority of gamers and I would never recommend a new player start now.

New players can do just fine. If they obviously want to learn and put a good attitude for it, unlike OP has shown in his reactions again and again and again. People can also skip, which isn't forbidden. If I have to talk from experience from 2 friends doing it, they do learn just fine by themselves, sometimes they get hit by something new, they're just like "Oh, that's how it works" and then proceed to do fine. Every game has a learning curve, if you don't want to take a bit of time to do like EVERYONE in this game did, then... your attitude isn't suited for a MMORPG.

I guess I'll just recommend the game to more people just to balance things out.

FFXIV already experienced a decline in player count during 6.1-6.5.

Game has been stall for years, gained popularity thanks to WoW decline (Jailer planned it btw) and streamers.

They need to renew their formula and take risks to keep the game interesting.