Difficulty of normal content.

[Kaurhz]

I haven't logged into the forums in years but I saw this post circulating and had to put my say in.

Absolutely I do not want them to adjust the difficulty to be easier at all and I want my voice to be heard just as much as OP.

It's quite literally a skill issue if you're incapable of learning these.fights. I'm sick of people being coddled. There are people at level 100 that don't understand basics and it baffles me how they got as far as they have.

This is a puzzle game. Raids are puzzles. Please figure them out. Don't nerf. I wouldn't even mind them being more difficult!

It shouldn't baffle you.

This game does a tragic job of teaching the fundamentals of the game, and this has only gotten worse and worse over the years.

[ArielTimeshrine]

It shouldn't baffle you.

This game does a tragic job of teaching the fundamentals of the game, and this has only gotten worse and worse over the years.

It does, on that I will agree wholeheartedly, but that kind of spells out the issue: Rather than being willing to bring players up and teach them the fundamental skills underpinning the combat system, we're coddling them and willingly letting them be bad and the playerbase's overall skill level deteriorate because CBU3 isn't willing to make HotN more informative, isn't willing to put a stricter skill gate before current content, and isn't willing to start using EX/Savage to gate out bad mentors. Those are issues that can and should be fixed, but the fix isn't to make the entire game easier. There is no timeline where that's ideal, it's putting the cart before the horse, and shooting the horse so it stops complaining about the cart.

[tank2fish]

The difficulty is perfect. Frankly, it could still be a little harder and still be good casual content. If you're struggling, make a PF and ask for help. This game is FULL of people who LOVE to help and explain how to do the content, or even be happy and willing to carry you through the content you struggle with if it feels hopeless on your own. Genuinely. I can't tell you how many PFs I have joined specifically to help people through the content they struggle with, and I know I'm not alone bc those PFs always fill up FAST.

And frankly, the idea that it's "too difficult" is not an accurate assessment. You are too used to the game's difficulty being tuned way down, with EW being the easiest the game has ever been, and too used to running content while being heavily over-geared. Now that a new expansion has released, everyone is running at min ilvl, which means things are the hardest they're going to be, for now. As time goes on, things will get easier as better gear becomes more widely available.

Personally, this has been the most fun I've had in the game running dungeons and raids so far. It would be a tragedy if they were to tune the difficulty down, so please don't do that.

I do want to say there is an argument to be made (and should be made!) about there not being enough accessibility features for people with light sensitivity or color blindness, and tbh I feel like all these discussions about "difficulty" always distract from the actual bigger issue of accessibility. If there were more accessibility options (ability to change aoe colors, arena colors, saturation, brightness intensity, etc.), that could also HELP with people struggling to see the mechanics who may not normally "require" accessibility features. But instead we're out here, asking for the content to be nerfed instead. There needs to be a wider view when looking for solutions instead of "too hard, make easy?".

[Kaurhz]

It does, on that I will agree wholeheartedly, but that kind of spells out the issue: Rather than being willing to bring players up and teach them the fundamental skills underpinning the combat system, we're coddling them and willingly letting them be bad and the playerbase's overall skill level deteriorate because CBU3 isn't willing to make HotN more informative, isn't willing to put a stricter skill gate before current content, and isn't willing to start using EX/Savage to gate out bad mentors. Those are issues that can and should be fixed, but the fix isn't to make the entire game easier. There is no timeline where that's ideal, it's putting the cart before the horse, and shooting the horse so it stops complaining about the cart.

They should go back and fix older content to better support the expected skill level of current content, on that I can agree. But this is only part of the problem in itself.

Why? Because of the discrepancy in time that players spend at relevant level-cap. In many instances a lot of players are only ever going to complete 1 duty once, before going back to do a further tens-of-hours of MSQ again before the next relevant duty. A lot of consistency in both how the player does, and how well they can read the game will only come through doing actual content fairly extensively, and this is something that IMO most players actually underappreciate. Even in terms of de-rusting, etc., - Many players are still also coming back from pretty extensive breaks.

[jdtuggey]

It shouldn't baffle you.

This game does a tragic job of teaching the fundamentals of the game, and this has only gotten worse and worse over the years.

I mean, I've brought in maybe half a dozen players since endwalker from a community I share with them, and they've been able to learn and adapt fairly quick. They question themselves, they want to improve, they also question me and others. I see the same thing in novice network, some sprouts just have a pristine attitude and genuinely want to learn and get better, but there's definitely a set of players that like to complain and don't want to put in any effort ? Like, they want immediate, effortless solution ? There's also no personal responsibility in how they express themselves ? "It's the game's fault". Hard to put in words for me. I'm not sure teaching players how to play the game is the problem when a subset of players don't want to put effort into learning or taking advice and think we should accomodate them delivering a minimum viable product. Like, there's exceptions to this, I came across this guy who lost a hand, I could tell it was not easy for him, but I could tell he was trying, some players try, some players don't and don't want to, and I think the latter is the problem.

I think it's okay that the game isn't like, verbatim telling you how to play, cause these standards can change because a lot of them are community based. A tutorial for the game would tell you that a healer's job is to keep everyone healthy and hale, that dps is a secondary thought, when the perception of the community looks more like push as much dps you can while keeping your party alive (not necessarily healthy!) using OGCD's as much as you can kinda thing? I don't think the game could properly teach about a concept like uptime, we as a community emphasize its importance. Same with slidecasting. I think these things are much better learned by osmosis. Just need to want to learn I guess. :P

There are some things they could really teach better though, like the meaning of the different markers and what to expect of them comes to mind.