Difficulty of normal content.

[ReqCat]

This unfortunately is an MMO. There should be content catering to a wide range of playstyles and people.

If you take away Normal Raids, Savage Raids, Extreme Trials and Ultimates, there is still a wide plethora of content for any chill or casual xiv player to immerse themselves in.

The Normal Raids every expansion have purely been optional content, and the only gain from doing them is to acquire gear to make said content and/or the extremes at the time easier to tackle, even some pieces being used for early savage prog best in slot. To make such content easier than it already is (it is not as hard as some people are claiming it is, a lot of the mechanics are incredibly slow and boil down to basic memorisation simon says or not standing on bad orange ground) would be a spit in the face to anyone who actually enjoys the combat side of FFXIV.

In comparison to the casual content the addition of "hard" content is very small in comparison. You do not see raiders asking for island sanctuary or story puzzles to be made harder so it is slightly absurd that we get the same reaction from casual players when it comes to content they honestly shouldn't even be attempting in the first place.

It is okay to not be part of a certain demographic in this game, you don't have the check EVERY box for content. I don't enjoy island sanctuary and I don't enjoy the story so i skip out on both of these things without a care because they are simply not designed for me. I suggest you do the same instead of try to mislead the devs into dumbing down already relatively easy content by being a loud vocal minority.

Fishing is a good passtime, try that.

[caffe_macchiato]

As much as you wish to believe it hostility in this game is not entirely from WOW refugees nor is expecting a level of competence to complete a normal raid at level 100 toxic elitism

Agreed! It's not JUST from WoW, because we have our own home-grown elitists who love the gated nature of our game. They've been playing for 10 years and can't fathom new players in their game in 2024.

Imo, playing FF14 sequentially should be the expectation for new players. Don't feel like it's a matter of toxicity towards new players, ARR is where FF14's tutorials are. Even during low points of difficulty, the quantity and complexity of mechanics has increased with expansion count. FF14's storytelling follows the same structure as well, with the world/characters/lore building from start to finish. A new player jumping into the deep end of a MMO story and game spanning over a decade... is senseless at minimum?

Agreed as well. The MMO genre is stagnant and FFXIV isn't a good steward of the genre. When we require players to trudge through 400 hours of MSQ and demand they master the game before reaching current content, the player base will be bottlenecked. A new MMO will finally be allowed to become popular, or WoW will improve itself. FFXIV needs competition and your attitude is necessary for that to happen.

You are so out of touch with the reason people quit WoW to play FFXIV. The only reason WoW lost it crown is cause the dev just got so out of touch with the playerbase for SEVERAL years.

Great point! Our new raids aren't that difficult nor are they impossible for new players. But the player base (you all) want them to be. You desperately want something that the devs aren't quite giving you. You are far more hostile to new players than Square Enix is, and the same has been happening with your previous MMO for years. You are deviating from what the devs want, and you are causing expectations to differ.

This thread would've been far better if people just argued that the raids aren't that difficult and just have telegraphs that look different. Instead, you just couldn't resist pulling the old "get gud" card, even when it doesn't apply here. This is the new face of FFXIV. Sad!

[EponaTBHSMH]

I did had to learn all these mechs to beat said fights (particularly because I ran dungeons with trust and if I die it's insta wipe) but that doesn't make it any more "chill". One does not choose what bothers oneself, it just does.

I don't completely agree with that, when something bothers oneself, you do things to make said things not bother you anymore or at least mitigate it to make it bothers less.

I'm pretty sure a couple of the mechanics you've encountered before Dawntrail have been stressful at first, unless you consider the transition to Dawntrail to have been really that steep?

I'm not really sure what type of content you run now that you've cleared all these MSQ dungeons, but its very possible that this type of content becomes more relaxed for you if you run them more, and get used to them

[Ramund]

I really find it disheartening that someone can say they have played this game for six entire years and are still having troubles with the easiest content this game has to offer which is dungeons. Like, for real, just go work on your own play. Decouple the boss castbar from the boss HP and put it close to the center of the screen. Stop looking at your buttons, it's been 6 years the muscle memory should be there (or, if you need to look at SOME buttons, put them also close to the middle of the screen just for reference). Almost everyone I've ever seen who has problems with dodging stuff, seeing stuff has these problems because they are spending way too much time looking at their keyboard and their skills instead of the arena and the boss and because their UI is not conductive to a good playing experience. Go on youtube and research some system, character and UI settings to make things easier for you and let your body just guide you. Imagine driving a car and having to consciously think about breaking, turning, changing gears... or riding a bike and have to consciously think about keeping yourself steady... these are all things that your body SHOULD know how to do without you having to actively think about it, the same should go for your rotation and buttons and where your fingers go to on the keyboard to do those things, even more so after 6 years of doing the same activity over and over again.

[SargeTheSeagull]

Oh cry harder. This expac’s content is some of the most fun I’ve had in this game ever. If you want easy stuff go do fates or side quests. This is optional for a reason, you aren’t missing any major plot points or main character moments. This content exists specifically for people who want a bit of a challenge but don’t want to commit to hours of progression.

Could you clear the fights? Yes? Then it’s not too hard.

[Furrysparks]

I think the biggest thing is people need to just learn to be ok with dying and wiping. It's been so long since I've seen groups actually be able to wipe in ANY content and it needs to not be seen as such a failure. There is no penalty to trying again.

[Kissune]

Can casual players have something easy-ish to play? Please?

Awh, is someone upset they have to actually learn how to play the game 5 expansions in? It's about time.

Also casuals have enough content? The msq, normal raids, and trials are casual content. Not to mention fates, variants, etc. Just because they're too hard for you doesnt mean they aren't meant for casuals. Like I'm sorry but... what kind of gameplay do you actually want to see? Bc it sounds to me like you just want a clear of 'casual' content to be all but handed to you. This content is not hard, I'm sorry lmao.

If you die, you get raised. If you all die, you wipe and start over. Theres no punishment for it. Idk what kind of quality of people you play with, but I have literally never taken more than 1-2 wipes to clear any msq content or normal raid this expansion. The only time we wiped multiple times was during one of the expert dungeons (I imagine people can guess which one), and even then that was more due to accidents than anything.

Like reading this just further tells me that the DT difficulty increase is a good thing. You are level 100. Knowing how to give the game the most basic of effort in fights that have literally no punishment for not being optimal should absolutely be expected by now. Theres no dps check, no enrage, no careful allocation of heals and mits to squeeze out as much as you can. You can just slam your face on the keyboard and eventually you will clear, regardless of skill.

If you find DT content too hard... have you considered, idk, getting a little better and practicing instead of complaining on the forums? I was struggling a bit during the r2 bullethell part... and then I did it more, and now suddenly I'm a lot better at it. Crazy how that works! But instead you run into a bit of trouble, a piece of content you can't just mindlessly blitz through, and that's too far, huh? Like I do want to reiterate this is level 100. You have had 100 levels, and 6 expansions worth of content to use to improve. This just tells me you've gotten too used to having everything handed to you, and I'm glad DT is finally taking steps to say 'okay, show us what you've learned'.

Besides, casuals are the reason jobs are so easy to play. I thought the whole idea was 'easy job, harder fights'. Now you want 'easy jobs, easy fights'? Like these fights dont even ask you to git gud. It's more like... git gud enough.

[NovaStella]

I want to play a video game. When I load into an instance, I don't want to press random buttons for 10 minutes and get a reward, that's not playing. If there's no difficulty, there's no game. Unless like cookie clicker is your thing I guess? Or idle games?
The dungeons, trials, and raids were fun. They made me actually pay attention to the game, instead of considering pulling up youtube.
They were also easy enough that wiping is a surprise. I think it's at a good medium between "difficult enough to be interesting, easy enough that almost anyone can do it".

[Kissune]

Also I just wanna say a couple things as a general reply to some stuff I've seen in this thread.

"But what about the new players"
No one is a new player at level 100. If you story skipped or bought a job boost, the expectation should be that you learn to play it at a level expected of the content. Asking the devs to design level 100 content as if johnny sprout who picked up the game 5 hours ago is going to do it is absurd.

"But what about disabilities"

So fun fact, I'm a disabled player. In addition to being colourblind, near sighted and developing the beginnings of a RSI, I also have this interesting thing called an attention disorder. And I know people love to weaponize attention disorders as their go to for talking about people who cant function in the slightest in this game... but my disability makes it so that I can't focus on a single thing. I can, however, focus on multiple things. That's why if you look at my history of gameplay I tend to play jobs that have a lot of things to focus on, like AST, SAM, or recently I've been enjoying VPR a lot. But the thing is all of my favourite jobs have been made easier and easier, with less to focus on then ever before. But yknow why I'm still enjoying DT a lot? Because the fights have taken that place. EW was my least favourite expansion because it was the crossroads of piss easy fights and uninteresting classes. DT, however, still has those uninteresting classes but now that the fights are engaging, I havent had as much trouble maintaining focus. Even an easy rotation becomes a bit of a challenge when you've gotta do a tricky mechanic. So if you make this contest easier for me, content, mind you, that you HAVE to do to get to the harder content you keep telling us to play... I'm going to be enjoying the game less because my disability isn't catered to. I'm not asking for my disability to be front and center in their design, but the fact that I can't engage with their content unless it gives me something to focus on (which most EW content didnt. I usually just ended up watching a video on the side) should play into people's arguments about disability, no? Weird how it doesnt. It's almost like it's not actually a real argument beyond virtue signalling.

[SamLeens]

Awh, is someone upset they have to actually learn how to play the game 5 expansions in? It's about time.

Also casuals have enough content? The msq, normal raids, and trials are casual content. Not to mention fates, variants, etc. Just because they're too hard for you doesnt mean they aren't meant for casuals. Like I'm sorry but... what kind of gameplay do you actually want to see? Bc it sounds to me like you just want a clear of 'casual' content to be all but handed to you. This content is not hard, I'm sorry lmao.
If you die, you get raised. If you all die, you wipe and start over. Theres no punishment for it. Idk what kind of quality of people you play with, but I have literally never taken more than 1-2 wipes to clear any msq content or normal raid this expansion. The only time we wiped multiple times was during one of the expert dungeons (I imagine people can guess which one), and even then that was more due to accidents than anything.
...
If you find DT content too hard... have you considered, idk, getting a little better and practicing instead of complaining on the forums? I was struggling a bit during the r2 bullethell part... and then I did it more, and now suddenly I'm a lot better at it. Crazy how that works! But instead you run into a bit of trouble, a piece of content you can't just mindlessly blitz through, and that's too far, huh? Like I do want to reiterate this is level 100. You have had 100 levels, and 6 expansions worth of content to use to improve. This just tells me you've gotten too used to having everything handed to you, and I'm glad DT is finally taking steps to say 'okay, show us what you've learned'.
Besides, casuals are the reason jobs are so easy to play. I thought the whole idea was 'easy job, harder fights'. Now you want 'easy jobs, easy fights'? Like these fights dont even ask you to git gud. It's more like... git gud enough.

Instead of being so arrogant and assuming that everyone can do everything, the next time you say "i can't do that" or "That's too much for me", think about your text here and answer yourself with "Awh, is someone upset they have to actually learn how to do something?"
I also need my X attempts to get everything right and train my reflexes. My brain is rotten from depression, which also means my focus and attention sometimes spontaneously drops. Yes, i did Savage. No, i was never good at it. btw, my ast is lvl 100 and I'm not able to play this class properly. what now? am i not allowed to say this class is difficult?
One of the purposes of the forum is to vent your frustration in the right place, because most people can't keep their bad mood to themselves. Let them rant!
i don't like the insta-dead mechanic of the new dungeons either. Of course i don't want them to take them out of the game, bc i don't have to like everything and i can live with that.