Difficulty of normal content.

[Astronema]

You already have been prove wrong in EW when most of the criticism was that the content for casual and midcore was boring and non existing, the lack of engaging fights is what was killing EW and ppl actually stopped doing content already cuz of that so don't worry they already know if they design braindead content ppl will stop playing and Yoshi P knows it very well

They will stop playing just doing the DT msq alone. Yoshi rubber stamped summertime fun with jar jar binks. The idea they know what they are doing is laughable at this point.

[pizzapizzapizza]

People think they can just instapull and bring half the party in when they're still trying to acclimate to the arena and expect it to not be a rough time. Let your party members have some breathing room at the beginning, set a timer to start if no one else does. You'd be amazed how much better you are at the game when you have breathing room to pay attention or when you don't have the weakness debuff 5 seconds into the pull because you took the first auto.

To start, Expert roulette is called just that, expert. Why shouldn't post-MSQ dungeons be remotely difficult?
Did I get annoyed at cactus boss the first time he pulled that surprise expansion aoe? A bit. Then I learned and got to watch others in DF fall for it, and then learn as well, and we got to bond over thinking he was a rude SOB. Rely on your party members if you're having difficulty, follow them if you're having difficulty. You're not by yourself.
I started playing during late shadowbringers for the Nier raids, and even as a new player I found most content to be exceedingly easy, but because it was so easy, I got overwhelmed in savage because there was a significant jump in difficulty, and I felt bad dying repeatedly and wiping us when other content was so easy.
It felt like there was a ceiling for me in shadowbringers because normal raids were SO easy and then I got into savage and got flamed for not standing in spot xyz with perfect cadence.

But this expac? It's actually fun. Frenetic at times, but it's really not that difficult. Most mechanics can be easily avoided by taking a "pay attention to surroundings first" approach.
Afraid of bee lady? Don't hug close to her. Watch. You'll learn that her hearts have a very specific pattern. The other mechanics do too. Take some time, cooperate with other party members and talk with them.
The mechanics may be spooky and fast for some, but they're not that punishing. I see people running around with 3-5 vuln stacks on the regular as first timers and living. Previous stuff? You get that high, the next mechanic is killing you-full stop.

The raids are clearly supposed to be a pipeline for harder content. Savage hasn't released, but I already feel so much more prepared than previous tiers. Last expac the first fights were so boring in normal that I legitimately was falling asleep(and once did with ericthonios) waiting for mechanics to happen, then I hit savage and the groups I was with were so unprepared for the difficulty spike that half the parties disbanded after a couple pulls.

People forget that last expac, there was a lot of stuff that would just instawipe you anyone managed to fail. This time around you get a harder mechanic, and everyone who fails gets a vuln stack, for the most part. If anything it's more forgiving and gives you better feedback if you messed up.

Normal raids should prepare you for savage, and this tier does just that.
Frankly, M4 could stand to be more difficult and bridge better to savage.

[LilithKha]

But if you feel that I represent such a small minority of the player base wouldn't it be healthier to just ignore me and move on?
And BTW, I wouldn't take people in this forum agreeing with you are as a solid metric, forums and other social media interactions are such a small portion of the player base in any game, this is not exception. That's why I don't let the 29 pages of comments berating me get to me because I know they don't represent the community of the game.

Yep! Good point, you aren't really relevant to the discussion here anymore, and neither are the handful of people still complaining. That being said, I think it is very important to shut down your talking points because I think most of the people here, who disagree with you, would absolutely hate for normal content to regress to please you, a member of a tiny minority of players.

[MakariaZofura]

See, the unique thing about "video" games is that the video is supposed to be important. So when you press a button, it shows up on the screen. But the "new" style of video games (pioneered by Dark Souls, mastered by FFXIV) is where your actions do not correspond with the video. And the key to beating the game is to do exactly what you shouldn't do. So in these new raids, you move in the "bad" zone when it's still bad but a second before not being bad. And if you can't do it? Get gud! 100 levels! The old masters of video games (1970s-2010s) couldn't handle the sheer power of "shapshotting". Only a company as rich and prestigious--excuse me, a small indie company--can come up with this ingenious system.[/QUOTE]

Hi, first of all, no - older people could do snapshotting just fine.

Snapshotting is inherent in every online game because of the latency between the servers and you, so there is some inevitible communication time due to the simple fact that information takes time to travel. In games with high budgets and fast gameplay (think LoL or Overwatch) they can somehow reduce latency down quite a bit to something around 30ms, but even 30ms is too long in games like those.

Now when it was built into mechanics, Genshin Impact and older games such as Neverwinter, Blade and Soul, and probably more had i-frames built in, where if you dodged the mechanic within a certain window you just wouldn't get hit. FFXIV didn't use this mechanic.

Back in Wildstar we had a player who literally just dodged and played better because his home was near the servers and would have 10ms latency. It was literally a different game to him.

now what FFXIV did is the have an inbuilt server latency of somewhere around 100ms, so there is a bit of a delay on everything, which leads to a good amount of the snapshotting issue. I also find this really frustrating when i get hit and killed by telegraphs i simply was not in. IMO it's the most frustrating part of playing FFXIV when you wipe a ten minute fight at minute 9 because of some snapshotting BS.

That said, it's probably something deep in the code from 1.0 that they can't easily remove or change, so we gotta live with it or quit.

Thankfully, it rarely happens outside of extreme or savage or ultimate, but i somewhat agree with you on this side point, but also I don't think this is what the thread is about.

I'm also qutie sure it's why almost no mechanics in FFXIV are truly fast. You have PLENTY of time to dodge everything if you notice early enough.

[MakariaZofura]

On this point, that one dungeon boss with dolls is pretty annoying at times. I think we'll get used to it, but not yet.

The main issue is i get nauseos on the teacups. I love roller coasters and can handle extreme rides, but the teacups make me sick.

[DKMR]

That said, it's probably something deep in the code from 1.0 that they can't easily remove or change, so we gotta live with it or quit.

Thankfully, it rarely happens outside of extreme or savage or ultimate, but i somewhat agree with you on this side point, but also I don't think this is what the thread is about.

I'm also qutie sure it's why almost no mechanics in FFXIV are truly fast. You have PLENTY of time to dodge everything if you notice early enough.

Snapshotting does happen outside of extreme and savages.
I just wanted to add that ping does not effect much in FFXIV as long as you have a stable ping that does not go up or down too much when you're playing. I play on high ping since I play in the NA server but I'm not even in NA, but I do fine when I dodge the mechanics. It's just whether or not you're used to the timing that's all.
I have better ping advantage in the JP servers, but because I'm not used to the low ping I actually sometimes run into the mechs too fast and get hit even though I'm really familiar with the fight (for example time difference mechs).

[SeaJae]

I have MS Multiple sclerosis and my hands tremor and shake often. Dawntrail is the first expansion that makes me want to quit. The ramped up difficulty results in me chain dying or unable to do some of the new normal content. I have been priced out of this game. I had to take an extra dose of meds trying to complete alexandria dungeon boss 1.
If housing auto demolition wasn't a thing i would unsubscribe right this minute. I don't like dawntrail for the most part it sucks the msq being the worst. picto and viper are ok.

I am GENUINELY curious. With the trouble you have described, how is viper an ok job for you, yet you can't move your character to do mechanics?

[Mondschnee]

I absolutely love the difficulty in the normal raids. Did them for the first time yesterday and I had a BLAST. Finally something that's not so hard that you have to prepare guides and go into PF to do it (like extremes), but yet something that's not so easy you fall asleep while doing it.
Since this is optional content people can skip, imo this is the perfect place to start to step up the game a little.

[MakariaZofura]

I have a friend who plays from Bangkok on the NA server, and she's consistently pink logs on everything... wow! I'm amazed.

[Merp0fc]

As a healer main, I finally feel like I actually have something to do. For the last 2 years of me healing consistently I ACTUALLY have to manage resources and such now. That's GREAT! These mechanics are a near perfect speed to be completely honest. Each boss fight in DT so far SHOWS you the mechanics one by one at the start of each fight before overlapping them. It's normal for MMO difficulty to go up in later levels. Keep in mind, this is ON content stuff so it's not like you get amazing gear that makes it so you can get hit by 20 different things. In all honesty, it feels like you've become to comfortable with endgame gear protecting you. Dawntrial finally feels like the content that siphons out actually bad players to some degree and it feels great. It FORCES you to check casts bars and keep you on your toes like the game was ALWAYS supposed to do. Not to mention, once you've seen a new mechanic more than once it's easy to compare it to something you've seen before on a more complex level. That's completely normal for what is supposed to be LATE game.