Difficulty of normal content.

[FlorineC]

I think this is a great argument as to why Square Enix needs to consider new content that is below max level. Limiting multiplayer content to those that have already been playing for hundreds of hours is incredibly limiting for an MMO. The entire game before level 100 is single player. In a subscription MMO. And yet, you must do it, you must not skip, otherwise you are a bad player (per the posters here). You can not learn in level 100 content, you must already be good. Otherwise you need to unsubscribe (per the posters here). FFXIV will stop growing and your game will die out or become an elitist c-jerk like WoW Classic.

This is such a bad faith argument that it's funny. This entire thread is full of people saying that it's fine to die, it's fine to be bad at new content (level 100 or otherwise), you just need to try and learn from it. No one is saying you can't learn in level 100 content and you must already be good. Even the people saying "get good" are literally saying that you just need to be willing to learn and adapt, blunt as they may be in their phrasing. I also do think that if you're someone who buys a story/level skip, you should expect to struggle with things more because you're passing over 10 years worth of content teaching you how to play the game, and you should take that into account when playing.

[Zakuyia]

Honey b fight is what i live for. Shes cute, shes adorable, fiesty, a monster girl, her music is banging. And her fight is hella fun.

[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.

[ExiaKuromonji]

And we also want a game that survives another few years without being turned into maintenance mode. We don't want FFXIV to be a stagnating ditch of level 100 players who've been playing for 10+ years. We don't want FFXIV to turn into a c-jerk like WoW. We'd rather FFXIV be more accommodating to new players, even if it means we're not allowed to dig up parses and harass people online. We think the TOS should be respected rather than e-celebs and 4chan brigading the forums just because of one person with a bad opinion.

(The difficulty of the raid here is irrelevant because we can all agree that it wasn't that hard)

Time to get a grip on reality. The difficulty of these dungeons and normal raids and trials is not even close to this point. Stop being the first to bring up streamers and blaming them for the opinions you're seeing here today. Not everyone is a sheep.

[talloran]

We are way past being nice to people like OP. It's time we drive them out through sheer hostility.

Think the game is too hard? Then leave.
Don't like how the mechanics are being handled? Then leave.
Do you believe there should be more "casual", "singleplayer" experiences for your regular anxious blorbo? Go play something else.

We do not need you here. We do not want you here.

You ruined Endwalker post patches, you WILL NOT ruin Dawntrail.


Either know your place in the game's hierarchy or leave.

We will drive you out, OP. This game is not for you anymore.

[Tenebrosi]

That week, I was going for my mentor crown. I needed 1000 coms or dungeons and I was on 999. I thought, eh, quick easy trial roulette on my scholar should be no problem. Ended up spending over half an hour coaching sprouts through Shinryu. Was a huge pain, but felt great afterwards.

Agreed, I love difficult moments in this entirely scripted game.
As of DT I had noticed that mechanics have been stacked atop each other which causes the player to think, or mechanics are behaving more dynamically, essentially it has picked some of the difficulty that the game once was back in the ARR-HW era that's long gone, excluding coils, coils was absolutely brutal back in the day, and that's what I loved about FFXIV, that you'd spend weeks facing trial and error on Turn 5, to finally be competent enough to clear it, to be roadblocked by Nael, which was fine.

I enjoyed picking up Mentor back in Endwalker, but due to the community, I really don't think I could be as exemplary as the community really wants it's mentors to be, when in reality, I've just been turned away from wanting to.

But if I may say so about the new raids, they have been absolutely amazing to play with. And that yeah, there may be some mechanics that are devastating, but alongside that, that mechanic has had long and multiple tells prior to its execution.

I don't want the game to be down-tuned at all, I have really enjoyed the latest patch, it didn't up the overall difficulty of content, but it ensured that normal content had a fair bit of mental gymnastics to first figure out what's going on, then it became muscle memory, enough of that makes it more interesting, especially the overlap of multiple mechanics.

Enjoyed the standard content in DT, the extremes(Cleared EX2 100+ times), and attempted an ultimate.
The first time of any extremes, Savage, ultimates I've went for, I've never survived on my first attempt, it's always been practice makes perfect.

I live for challenge, especially in DF.

[Dacendaran]

Just so we are perfectly what I am asking for is to return to the same difficulty level of SB, ShB and EW when it comes to normal dungeons, trials and raids.
And to all the people giving me tips on how to play, thank very much but I've been playing for 6 years, might not be a 1.0 players but I know how to play the game, and I stand by what I wrote in the OP, there is a clear jump on difficulty in normal content compared to the last 3 expansions and if you don't notice it congratulations on being a big d!ck player, I guess.

With all due respect. This comment is literally why you are having issues. You clearly are NOT at a play level for the basic player base and need advice and help to play better. But you saying "Screw your advice I know how to play" is the biggest tell saying you are against adapting and learning mechanics. It actively makes your entire opinion invalid because you are provably just not open to getting better. You don't know how to play the game and until you understand that point you will never know how to play the game.

[LilithKha]

You do not believe that MMOs are for me, even though I have been playing for almost ten years. I have been "weeded out" as an undesirable, too late and too inexperienced, despite having completed mid-core (not hardcore) content.


Why do you disagree with everyone else here? Everyone is praising the raids because they changed the design. Now you say they didn't?

At least try to represent people's arguments correctly. I do not believe this game is for you not because you are "too late" or "too inexperienced", I believe it is not for you BECAUSE you claim to have so much experience, and yet you are whining about core fundamentals of the game's design that have NOT CHANGED in 10 years, and demanding that they change to fit your personal needs, rather than considering that, perhaps, you might be the problem. All that people are asking for is for people like you to wake up and realize that the world does not revolve around you, no one is required to make their experience worse because YOU have a problem with the way something is designed. That is unbelievably selfish and entitled. And by the way, nothing about the CORE FUNDAMENTALS of these raids are difficult or even different from previous encounters. They did not change anything about the netcode of the game, or the way telegraphs or snapshotting works. That is YOUR complaint, and everyone else is saying that it is not a problem and they are correct. Why are you lying?

[ExiaKuromonji]

At least try to represent people's arguments correctly. I do not believe this game is for you not because you are "too late" or "too inexperienced", I believe it is not for you BECAUSE you claim to have so much experience, and yet you are whining about core fundamentals of the game's design that have NOT CHANGED in 10 years, and demanding that they change to fit your personal needs, rather than considering that, perhaps, you might be the problem. All that people are asking for is for people like you to wake up and realize that the world does not revolve around you, no one is required to make their experience worse because YOU have a problem with the way something is designed. That is unbelievably selfish and entitled. And by the way, nothing about the CORE FUNDAMENTALS of these raids are difficult or even different from previous encounters. They did not change anything about the netcode of the game, or the way telegraphs or snapshotting works. That is YOUR complaint, and everyone else is saying that it is not a problem and they are correct. Why are you lying?

That one's been making bad faith arguments all day. You'll get no where arguing that lmao. It may be fun though I guess.

[ElliCat]

Watching the boss's castbar is integral to modern FFXIV fight design...

Agreed on the Amon fight, but with respect to the actual content being discussed here:

It's entirely possible that I missed something, as I only did the fights on the first night (and boy were they fun, even the handful of wipes): but aside from Brute Bomber's green mist breath, it looked to me like most/all of the other attacks had some sort of physical telegraph.

Black Cat's half-room cleaves were prefaced by her claws charging up, mouser had the square pattern in place, the knock-up (whatever it was) was blatantly obvious with several seconds to position, etc.

Honey B. straight-up stole the slash indicator from Barbariccia with the line and donut sweeps.

Brute had the arm charging on the lariats, and the bombs had (fairly) simple, easy to read indicator (*cough*after the first wipe*cough*).

Thunderhorselady was super-telegraphed. Only thing I could think of that might have been difficult was the 4x3 arena-shattering cannon, but that wasn't a "look at the castbar" so much as a "see which 3/4 of the arena was being hit and have plenty of time to run to the safe 1/4."