Difficulty of normal content.

[SirShady]

Even on very easy mode it still took me several tries to clear. I think that hinders players more, who cant progress on MSQ due to a stupid solo-instance they cant clear or have anyone help them with. I felt this way about some solo instances in previous expansions too, though.

Solo instances are not hard for the majority of players. It's mostly avoiding orange circles and that's about it. You can get hit by several and get passively healed too. I don't know of anyone who has been "hindered" by solo instances this expansion. If you're dying several times on "very easy" you need to reevaluate what you're doing.

As for the raids, the 4th raid is the only one my group kept consistently wiping on. I think if some of the damage was tuned down a tiny bit it would help a lot, because it was not fun when our group started fighting each other over DPS not being able to stay alive. Could have just been our group, I guess. I feel with some more time it should only become more doable as people get more experience trying to clear them. Regardless, it is optional content and the community as a whole seems to want more of a challenge. I am too new as a player, joining last year, to say if its actually too hard.

Your group was fighting over dying in normal content? Sounds like you're playing with a bunch of crazies. I wouldn't recommend playing with them if they're treating normal mode content like anything serious. And no, they don't need to turn down the damage. The majority of healers have been asking to hit their heal buttons more often and are doing just fine.

I was hoping to try out savage for the first time with these raids, but I don't think I will be able to try out savage now just because of how difficult it already was for me.

Why would you even think about doing savage content? Clearly if you didn't enjoy the difficulty of normal content then you're not going to enjoy the difficulty of savage. That's the whole point of doing savage. Don't spend months of your life learning fights and dying over and over if you're already having a rough time with normal content. Not all content is made for everyone and that's ok.

[Lizvette]

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.

it's unbelievable how disingenuous you are.

[Sydney_0r0]

Would you be interested in running content alongside me to help you learn/understand the newer dungeons if you're still having problems? I wanna see in real time what players who are having this issue are experiencing or having trouble with to help myself understand where opinions like this are coming from! I'm an upstart livestreamer and would love to not only hear your opinion in more depth but also get into content alongside you, not to flame you or make you out to be a bad player but to have a log to potentially share with other players like yourself to maybe help them either reach out or understand content better.

Please message me back if you're interested! Same goes for anyone else who is having problems with Dawntrail content I'd love to help people not only improve but also be heard.

[AuraflareRising]

I have disabilities (anxiety being one of them) and I don't mind the new content (barring the first boss in the Deadwalk dungeon, that one I have issues with). I still raid savage and ultimates (granted not in HC), and actually enjoy the challange. I have learned ways to make my disabilities less impactful on my play, like using controller to keep my back from seizing, adjusting rotations a little bit to keep my hands from cramping (to much weaving causes issues for me), and knowing which mechanics will cause a freeze reactions for me and thus having to use a follow the herd tactic to get through it. My numbers on the forbidden abacus ain't great, but they are decent. I have cleared 6 raid tiers on content, and 3 of the older ultimates on top of it. Almost made it through DSR before my previous ult static disbanded, so found a new one and looking forward to redoing TEA with em soon. So disabilities are not an excuse, even though it makes things more difficult.
I had a feeling that some of the more casual people out there would have problems with the new content, but it's still doable if you pay attention to the new telegraphs. Damage is survivable if you use your mitigations, which I saw a lot of low mitigation usage during previous expansions.
Also it's new mechanics not seen before, which always will cause people to take time to learn them. Just keep at it, don't be afraid, and be prepared to use your kit

[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.

[IGotTooMuchLove]

I just want to say that the 'difficulty' (for me) is balanced. Some instances were easy, some more challenging but not something that's impossible to get through. I am very happy with the 'difficulty' that is at the moment. Haven't felt so excited to wipe, get up, learn and clear in a while. Might give the savage raids a try. If not to clear, then just to see how it is and cheer on the people from the sidelines who want/are good at savage raiding.

[SirShady]

Yeah, that sucks. I've haven't been approach in game as of yet. But even after being lambasted by posters, ridiculed by 3 mayor content creators and some smaller too, raided by 4chan and reddit, I am still here and I still believe that my opinions are fair and sensible. I stand by everything I wrote.

I respect your opinion, but the majority of players enjoy the new difficulty. Content, even normal content, is meant to be semi-challenging. You are meant to mess up mechanics and die and yes, sometimes even wipe. That is what makes the game interesting to a majority of players, the fact that it engages them.

I'm sorry you find that frustrating, but you are in the minority and that's just how it is. You have the right to ask for more easy content, and everyone else has the right to disagree with you. I'd recommend if you want to enjoy this new content, since more than likely they are going to stick to this level of difficulty that the majority of the playerbase enjoys, that you move past your frustrations. If you get better at doing this content, you won't have any reason to complain. You might even find that you enjoy the sense of accomplishment.

[Revuwu]

Would you be interested in running content alongside me to help you learn/understand the newer dungeons if you're still having problems? I wanna see in real time what players who are having this issue are experiencing or having trouble with to help myself understand where opinions like this are coming from! I'm an upstart livestreamer and would love to not only hear your opinion in more depth but also get into content alongside you, not to flame you or make you out to be a bad player but to have a log to potentially share with other players like yourself to maybe help them either reach out or understand content better.

Please message me back if you're interested! Same goes for anyone else who is having problems with Dawntrail content I'd love to help people not only improve but also be heard.

They are clearly not interested in actually playing the game or helping themself or others overcome their struggle.

[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.

[alfarini]

This will be my last post on this.
I hope the next 2 8 man tiers and the ally raid series are more difficult. People who want it easy so they can play idle games on the side or watch Netflix while raiding should consider not playing ff14 anymore. It's a multi-player game do not sandbag people because you have short attention spans and can't focus. Ew was stupid easy and enforced this kind of playerbase. Dt is making a change that the majority of the players have been asking for. This is only the start, and I hope it continues, I want excitement not apathy that I have to do my weekly raids. I want to play the game, I want to be engaged. There was this great moment in AAC 1, we all fell off the platforms either when black cat was breaking them or when we got tossed in the air. My whole party was ecstatic a mech got them good. We wiped a few times on brute bomber but had an absolute blast! This is what I was hopeful for when Yoshi p mentioned that he and the team were looking to make the game less stress free. We should be reveling in this! I'm actually going to prog savage because I like the fights so damn much, I never did it in EW because I never felt the fights were all that engaging, God and the ally fights were an absolute snooze fest. I can practically do them blindfolded and only have audio tells only.