Difficulty of normal content.

[Jinglypockets]

It wasn't long ago that I finished the Void Ark series of raids from Heavensward, which seemed brutal enough given the number of instat-kill mechanics and how over half of them involve doing things you've never been asked to do before until that exact moment, so a lot of surprises and a lot of wipes, especially with this being Dynamis where a lot of people either haven't gotten to do raids in general or have only become accustomed to Crystal Tower. And that would *seem* like an accomplishment

I say this with the utmost sincerity: If you had the mentality to struggle through any raid with a group of people who hadn't seen it before, enjoyed overcoming it, and you look forward to the next challenge, you already have 90% of what it takes to be successful in *any* content of *any* difficulty.

Of course the victory meant something, but it's not the last step in your journey. If you were to run Void Ark again, you'd find that it's much easier the next time around. You're a better player as a result of having beaten Void Ark, and now you're more prepared for the next challenge. As you go through more content, you'll experience more new bosses who introduce more unfamiliar mechanics. You'll mess up on a large percentage of them because of the unfamiliarity. Some of them will be harder than others to learn, but they'll all teach you something that will make you more prepared for the next raid.

This is how you get good.

Don't worry about whether you're keeping up with everyone else. A lot of us have a headstart on you, but who cares? That doesn't do anything to diminish the value of struggling through and overcoming content that was new and challenging to you.

Just focus on enjoying your own journey.

[Banggugyangu]

I'm not sure I really "enjoyed" it so much as I was just glad it was over, and that's how I've felt on subsequent runs trying to collect stuff from them. It's not really "fun" so much as "necessary" because there's no way to get things like the minions otherwise. As for looking forward to the next challenge, that's where the dilemma lies, that I'm not sure I even *could* deal with the next challenges depending on how the game ramps up from here and at some point I'll have to start skipping optional content and relying on Duty Support/Trusts to get me through the mandatory stuff because I would just be a blight in the duty finder otherwise.

This is 100% the wrong attitude to take. If you're so dead-set on remaining bad, then you'll remain bad. No one ever starts at their peak performance in anything whatsoever. You start at a baseline, and everyone's baseline is different, and then you improve from that baseline. You can either work toward improving and relish in the noticeable improvements, or you can remain complacent and complain that things are too difficult. You don't need to make a job out of the game to improve beyond what's necessary to complete this content, also. FFXIV's known as the MMO that respects your time for a reason. The mechanics may differ in difficulty to execute, but they always share one thing: They're easy to learn. The exceptions to this are all in what one would consider high-end content, but that's the point of that content. Savage mechanics are by no means more difficult to execute than normal mechanics. The added difficulty that savage brings is that the mechanics are more obfuscated and complex. You have overlapping mechanics in savage that aren't present in normal. The telegraphs are faster or less in your face, if they're even present. This all makes it a bigger challenge to LEARN, but once you learn them, the actual execution is often times EASIER than the normal mode due to more static patterns. I legitimately have a more difficult time running P2 normal than I do running P2 savage because P2 savage is more heavily scripted than P2 normal is. I'll find myself doing savage strats that just don't work in normal.

Have you ever seen the look on someone's face when they lose 50+ lbs after months of hard work in the gym? They're ecstatic because of the improvement. They see the results of their hard work and it makes all of that work worth the effort. The same can be said about improvement in all facets. Rather than taking the attitude of "I give up!", you'll be doing yourself a great service if you change it to, "How can I do better?"