Difficulty of normal content.

[Sprag]

Well I'm sorry if people is thinking that, but I knew my position was weak even before I started this thread. I did it anyway, sometimes you need to stand for what you believe.

if what you stand for is the game to basically become hitting a striking dummy for hours on end (which is likely what the game would become if DT's content was as brainless as endwalker), maybe you need to stick to MSQ & doing everything you can with duty support & trusts exclusively since that's the autopilot experience you seem to be looking for. the difficulty bump in dawntrail is by far the best part of the expansion & the dawntrail content we have right now is worth replaying since it's not gonna bore the hell out of the average player.

i get that difficulty is a subjective matter, but i think dawntrail's difficulty straddles the line of casual perfection & i'd hate to see encounters get nerfed because people refuse to learn & adapt because "it's too hard!", i hope next expac keeps it going & further improves what we've got now.

[LittleOwl]

I noticed that when I was younger the mechanics were quite a bit more difficult for me, however once I started to play more and learn from others it became easily over time. I definitely feel like I've grown as a player. This expansion's mechanics and gameplay content are pretty good, I'd like to see the difficulty stay where it is right now. 10/10 Thank you so much Yoshi P for making the game so I don't fall asleep anymore.

[Oku-1]

Nah, nah, nah! everybody knows that mech was stupid and anyone saying otherwise is bullsheeting. Koji-Fox was even confronted in a fan fest for it! You not only need to know the directions the word meant but the follow up was inverted which screwed with your brain, also when it was current and the fight when for longer there was a point it followed a stack marker with the lar/starboard, meaning the tank was in the stack and Omega started the mech looking at the raid which inverted the directions and then inverted the inverted directions, that broke my mind.

I remember when this discourse was going on originally. I asked my kid brother if he knew what Starboard and Larboard meant. His response: "Starboard means right I saw it on Spongebob so does that mean Larboard is left?"

Most of the "starboard + larboard" discourse was ironic joking at the expense of people who couldn't figure out their Lefts from their Rights. Any confusion about the antiquated nautical terms was immediately ended once you wiped the first time and had a chance to realize it just meant left and right, and then wiping a second time when you had a chance to realize it meant Omega's left and right, not yours.

The main issue was just people refusing to learn at all and instead choosing to blame the game, which is what you're doing now.

[Komarimono]

I had no idea that normal content was considered that more difficult. I took it as part of their slow steps to re-balance encounters around being more attentive. I've enjoyed the changes personally, no more idly watching the second monitor while playing.

[Smoozie]

O11N might be a little weird, but there are also visual tells. The issue here isn't the mechanic, it's whoever the hell chose starbord and larbord (itself an extremely antiquated term compared to port), IIRC the original JP just had it as left/right.

Nitpicking, but JP does use the same nautical language, Starboard - Ugen (右舷) and Port - Sagen (左舷) rather than Right - Migi (右) and Left - Hidari (左), now the astute among you will probably have noticed why the difficulty of reading the mechanic didn't translate and why this is nitpicking.

A much "fairer" localization would've been Rightship- and Leftship- [mechanic], as that's what the Japanese more or less literally translates to.

As I said, nitpicking as I agree with the sentiment.

[holydiver1286]

I had no idea that normal content was considered that more difficult. I took it as part of their slow steps to re-balance encounters around being more attentive. I've enjoyed the changes personally, no more idly watching the second monitor while playing.

This. This is exactly what I've been saying. Anyone can clear this content easily. They just have to pay some attention unlike in previous fights, especially endwalker.

[Oku-1]

Agreed, the new content itself is good. It's not as hard as you want to think that it is. I don't understand why everyone else is acting like it's such a big change, but you are. You and your acolytes are using these tiny raid changes as an excuse to lash out against one single person who has a criticism to make. There are over 900 posts in this thread now. Most of which are spewing vitriol against just one person. FFXIV is so unlike its players. I wish the players could respect what the devs were trying to do, but you don't. You want it to be "your time". You all saw the smidgen of changes happening in raids and used them as a shield to do things that are very against TOS. You all have swarmed every corner of the forums, Reddit, in-game chat, and elsewhere, just within the past week. It's incredible how quick everyone's programming changed.



Telling someone to uninstall the game is a bit too far.



Actually, the devs mostly read the Japanese forums, and they are complaining a lot more than we are, mainly about hitboxes and clipping. Their community is less of a hivemind and their national economy doesn't rely on YouTubers and Twitch streamers dictating what they're allowed to think.

You are by far the most toxic person I've seen in this thread at this point.

This impulsive, violent hatred you seem to have for people simply voicing their disagreement with the OP is wild. You're trying to imply "the majority of people here are spitting vitriol because they're a hivemind that follows youtubers" like do you actually hear yourself right now? Can you genuinely tell me that you honestly think that you are totally in the right and a good and pure little angel when you say nonsense like that?

Meanwhile in a previous post you're trying to bring up the "reviews" of Dawntrail which are near entirely positive except for Steam where a bunch of scathingly bigoted individuals are leaving nasty reviews calling Wuk Lamat's VA slurs and whining about "wokeness", ironically because those people actually do just go attack and harass people at the behest of a handful of culture war grifters on twitter.

Please take a breath and log off. You're not helping the OP.

[thordan_inss]

where DT is harder in general? look to Ihuykatumu for example, the first boss is literally dodge super slow circle shaped AOE's and go to the safe zone, grab the adds (if they live sufficient to the tank grabs it). 2nd boss is dodge straight lines AOE's and a buffed version of these aoes (u have adds here too but they die quick). third boss is the """harder""" with no doubt cuz the tornado, but just pay attention to the marker beneath them and u're done, and remember: you can just stop to do damage and pay attention to mechs only, this isnt high end content.

[Deslyxic]

Extremely easy mechanic to figure after you've seen it a couple times at most

For you maybe, I have to agree with the first boss of Vanaspathi when he does the "what is right?/what is left?" mech. I'm like "Same, buddy. Same."

[Morphiana]

Everyone forgets one key thing about early xpac end game normal content, it is always harder at first due to low ilvls, always. When an xpac begins you have the majority of the community utilizing gear closer to the min ilvl for a dungeon more so than any other point in the xpac's life cycle. This dramatic shift is so noticeable because when Endwalker finished most people had max ilvl attainable for those dungeons / raids and now that isn't true at all.

Why does this matter so much?

The bosses in dungeons / raids go through two phases to oversimplify it:

• You have your learning phase where the boss uses one attack at a time so you can learn the individual ability (this is easy because it is teaching you what each ability on their own does, it isn't trying to take you out just yet)
• The second is the phase where the fight actually begins, when the boss starts combining their moves thus making the fight more complex the longer it goes on (until it reaches a certain limit on combinations).

When ilvl begins to go up across the board for the community, the normal mode content becomes way easier, too easy even (looking at you Hades, not even a shadow of your former self). This has already begun to rear its head, I was in a dungeon as a tank the other day with 2 fantastic DPS and we made short work of the first Strayborough Deadwalk boss because he barely got to use his abilities in combination with one another and keep in mind we're not at max ilvl for these dungeons yet.

Soon, more people will have gear that brings them to the max ilvl be it from normal raids, crafted gear, extremes, tome gear, savage, etc. and you'll be grouped with people who are better equipped in these dungeons with each passing week. As a result, the dungeons will become easier, far easier than they are now.

A more recent example of this was the Endsinger. Look at how stupid easy she became once people hit max ilvl before they lowered everyone's ilvl on that fight. You skipped so much you barely saw her more challenging combinations of attacks or the RP for that matter. The same can still be said of Thordan / Hades / the Endwalker 24man raids which became far easier a month or so after release. They all need the same fix, they're far too easy for a capstone fight or a 24 man raid where you end up skipping the coolest abilities because the max ilvl is set too high.

Are some of the new mechanics a bit annoying? Sure, a couple are. Are some more engaging and fun? Yes.

Most importantly, this will all get easier in time. If after a month you still feel this is too difficult then report back and let us know that because that's roughly the ilvl everyone will be closer to when going into dungeons for the remainder of the expansion.