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

[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.

[BurningSoul]

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

You have to consider that we're several expansions in, level 100, and optional. There has to be a point where personal responsibility and being okay with failing are acceptable in this game. The more you play that fight, or any. You'll start to respond to mechanics without as much effort. If you don't have time for all that, that's okay. It's not msq. With that said I think you and everyone else are more capable than you give yourselves credit for sometimes.

If the difficulty of the overall experience doesn't amp up in any way it's going to get stale for everyone I promise.

[Archenn45]

R1-4 were "hard" sure but they were definitely pretty easy, casual is not "brain off clear go next", thats what you want, casual is just people that just do what they want.

[Haami]

it is casual difficulty, you are just bad and needs more practice. if you refuse to learn the mechanics.
Blame yourself for that, not the content.

[Zuccubus]

I'm sorry but the normal raids definitely are. M1 has very clearly choreographed half arena and cone stuff, with the checkerboard thing that is also pretty easy to understand, the knockback might get you once but it's pretty simple past that. M2 is a bit harder but outside of the heart mode where it's just dodging it's very easy. M3 is really easy, and M4 is cool but quite easy as it gives you a lot of time to react, the clones are very readable after you see them the first time. You might be thinking about it wrong, because a pyrrhic victory is way more satisfying and fun than an easy clear usually, and from the sound of it you were clearing first try?

[Dhanauranji]

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

Of COURSE it was casual difficulty. I passed it on the very same day they popped (and with just a few tries on the third one). That's how casual content works. Anything further than that requires practice and refinement (like Extremes and, to a further degree, Savages and Ultimates).

Are we SERIOUSLY reaching the point in which people complain about CASUAL CONTENT? First dungeon content, now this? Do you really want every single encounter to be facerollingly easy like Shadowbringers and Endwalker? I'm convinced you would've cried blood in Heavensward and any alliance raid pre-nerf (like Mhach's Ozma or Orbonne's Cid).

I'm a 40+ years old, VERY casual player. If you can react to a street light changing from green to red, you will be able to do these just fine as well. Just PRACTICE your job, LEARN the visual queues you should've learned already (you're level 100, after all) and stop complaining because you didn't pass something without dying or wiping a few times.

[royox]

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

Unlocked them yesterday.

Cleared 1 on 1st try without dying.
Cleared 2 on 2nd try, wipe was at 15% because a change of mechanic caught us by surprise.
Cleared 3 on 1st try, died once because I didn't see some bombs have a longer wick than others. Noticed it, didn't die again after that.
Cleared 4 on 1st try without dying. I felt it was the easyest of the 3 encounters.


Last time I did "savage" content was on Stormblood and my last EX trial was Hydaelyn during EW launch. i'm hardly a "hardcore player" or "hardcore raider". I really REALLY don't see all those things you listed:

-Use and abuse of non standard telegraphs.

In every raid set almost every boss has it's own new non-standard telegraph that is easy as F to tell once you see it once. I really don't understand what you are talking about.

-Nasty mech overlaps, stuff you would see on extreme and harder fights.

Mechanic overlaps have been a thing in normal raids since Heavensward. Brute justice comes to mind (when all the parts separate and start doing all the mechanics at once, Alexander himself (time stop, 2 players marked with aoe damage, 1 player marked with stacking marker, black aoes scattered on the floor). Several in Omega, several in Eden and I'm kinda struggling to remember any in Endwalker...maybe you got TOO SPOILED with how easy the EW content was, that was not standard.

-Mechs resolving too quickly for the mental capacity they demand to process.

That says more about you than about the game if the rest of the players can process and react. Still, maybe the first time it catches you by surprise, "omg what is this what should I d-" dead. It's ok. Now you know it, next time you will react faster. It's a game, dying in a game doesn't matter.

-One too many "catch this!" mech (mechs that have you running around like headless chicken evading seemingly random patterns).

Again, stuff that happens since heavensward.


All I see is a person spoiled by the lack of difficulty that EW had and who is being a bit dramatic about STANDARD stuff that the game had since the first expansion.


Summary: git gud.

[Sqwall]

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

P8S would beg to differ.....

And P10S....

Those fights were tuned to the max....

Damn near ultimates.