Difficulty of normal content.

[Jaxtaro]

So I am an aging (over 55), disabled dude who couldn't even play this game on console until I learned you could resize dialog text. I also firmly believe that a certain percentage of normal dungeon content is overtuned, that there should be a normal tier of daily and MSQ content which is less stressful and accessible by all, and that extreme shouldn't be just the top normal dungeons, but should be a little rougher than the current default.

Having said that, in the last couple of days, I've done 3 of the first 4 Arcadion raids, and despite wiping multiple times because of the nature of it being a pickup raid in the current expansion that isn't well known, was a ton of fun. Are there some mechanics that are rough to deal with? Yes, Lariat on the 3rd boss can be pretty brutal, the venom pots on Honey B can be a little quick, but they aren't unfair.

Now, because I'm not too bright, I didn't realize you could turn others' spell effects off (settings>character configuration>control settings>character tab in case someone doesn't know), and nothing could have made a bigger difference in the ease of the fights than being able to see your target's spell effects without looking through 8 peoples' spell effects.

Anyhow, my pickup raid wiped about 6 times on the bomber before calling it, a couple hours later joined another group and we beat it the first time.

The big difference at this point is that since I started playing just after the Endwalker launch, every other raid up to this point was "be the one guy who dies a lot while people who have done the raid a hundred times carry me" and this one...totally different. I feel valuable, able to learn, and frankly these fights sre super fun and interesting.

25 years ago, I played Everquest, which had and basically introduced complex boss mechanics in MMO's, but there was no Youtube, no guides, each group that tried a new encounter had to learn by failure. The culture was no one shares strats of any kind...and it was amazing, especially the elation after a big victory.

I have felt better about beating these fights than any raid in FFXIV so far (ok, I did one Eden raid that wasn't a carryfest), and I think the heart racing pants on fire feeling leading to the "thrill of victory" that only accompanies encounters where you have a chance of failure can't be beat, and I'd hate that raids not have that.

I suspect that as time goes on that will go away and it'll be "7 people who know the fights well carrying one person who dies a lot" will return...heck, If I want that, I haven't finished Omega or Pandemonium yet, and eventually Khloe will make me go there, but there's plenty of that in the game already, I like "thing you can fail" much better.

Edit: Wicked Thunder is dead too