Difficulty of normal content.

[alfarini]

I never said me. I stand with people who want to be able to clear default content because I think it's a non-issue for default content to be easy. I don't need it to be challenging because I've never found default content in MMO's challenging on any level. Painting casual players who want to see content as the entitled ones is easy to do but the truth is more nuanced. Wanting to see content at the endgame is not that entitled and should be expected. An MMO needs to have content for these players as well and it doesn't come at the cost of anything important.

Ermm...again this is not "default" content, it's optional. In one post you said "saying its optional content is disingenuous" but then you turn right around in your next post and say "The content is optional in the same way the whole expansion is optional." So your being a hypocrite here. "Default" content is content required to get to endgame, that means MSQ getting to appropriate level for said MSQ, story dungeons and the one mandatory raid series for crystal tower.

Literally everything outside of that is optional. This content is easy, and not hard. All of the MSQ can be done via duty support and it's now single player game until DT lvl 100 trail. This is not a non issue for content difficulty, there was no midcore content before dt came out, now that we have it entitled people that got fostered of easy difficulty in ew are pushing back for seemingly no reason at all.

There is no point for a super casual player to be doing these fights weekly, glamor? No you can't even dye this set, won't do savage so they can either. Nor do they need Ilvl at all, the ally raid is there to offer catchup gear later on.

I'm sticking with the idea your newer and that's fine but honestly until you get to current content your opinion is somewhat moot. If you came in saying

"I'm new to the game I like/dislike it so far, I think the content is fair/unfair, this is my take on what content is like as a new player...." then I can get behind your point.

Again it is entitled for players to think/want to be able to do content with little care on learning a fight/mechanic and expect to be rewarded. No if you want to do this content pay it at least the slightest bit of attention and learn it. That's the main crux of this whole post. It's a matter of a player/players not willing to put in the slightest bit of effort needed to clear a raid series, that is and I will say it yet again, completely optional and nobody has to do it at all if they don't like/want to.

[CinaedhVik]

I'm on page 1, you can see my thoughts there. I'd like to add that if you are okay remaining dead the whole raid then you are a griefer and I hope your party (OP) reported you for not taking the raise if you sat there and didn't.

No one said you had to execute flawlessly, but you do have to try. If you don't want to try, you can just not queue for this optional content. It's week 1 of normal raid, and OP expects to be able to queue in blind and clear without getting a vuln stack? This is the stress Yoshi P was talking about: content should be challenging. Not impossible, but challenging, even in casual settings. Fewer punishments, fewer gear and skill requirements, but a challenge nonetheless. Removing this doesn't make content accessible, it makes it banal. If you want that kind of content go play another game. It's really too bad that SE let people like this become emboldened by how easy and antisocial Endwalker was.

[Pharys]

You are speaking for people and not yourself. Focus on yourself.

This game is not difficult. You are declaring that it is and sitting on this hill until people believe you. When you first learned how to walk, you fell down multiple times. When the Weeping City of Mhach released it was hard for players. Now it is easy because players are used to it. Perhaps, maybe, just maybe, the developers want to give us a light challenge in our battle content.

If you think running around an arena dodging pink aoes and pink hearts is difficult, you should not be playing video games at all. Because any game you declare you love the most will have stuff on that difficulty level. Yes no one likes the first boss in the whimsical dungeon but little by little you will learn to get better at it. Hone your focus and defeat the 3 to 6 minute long boss.

Try. That is what you should do. What you should not do, is call out the developers for *catering to other parts of the community and not to you*. First off, Raiders get content like......once every 8 months. This is the content that raiders like to do, so of course Arcadion is tuned to them. You don't see raiders complaining about map dungeons, or levelling dungeons being too easy, or even guildhests.

Please, find the content in the game you like. If you want to raid, become a raider. If you want to be casual about it, then dont go for "harder" content that amounts to running around in a mario kart fashion.

Come on...be serious.

[alfarini]

Come on...be serious.

We already tried telling OP how to improve and give advice on what they might be doing wrong. Hell, one person very kindly said they'd be willing to play with them and help out with tips and tricks. But it's not what OP wants they dont want help they just want to complainon on an issue that only affects such a small minority of players. They just want SE to listen to change it just for them.....out of some odd 30 million players. Op will sit on this hill till the end of time.

[Priddy]

You expect me to believe that you and others here bullying someone for thinking normal is hard have no plans progressing past normal difficulty? Ya'll are transparent and it's embarrassing that you think you're fooling anyone.

I think everyone has a right to their opinion, but yes, I think that finding the current level of difficulty of normal content unbearably difficult is absurd, and I have never done a single current-expansion Extreme trial in my 5000 hours of gametime.

I limped through P1S twice with my FC like two patches after it came out. That is the extent of my non-normal content experience.

The current normal content difficulty is good, and frankly, could afford to even go a little bit further to make things like off-tanks less inconsequential.

[MissingNovice]

I disagree with both the take that "The content is too hard and unfun" and "The content isn't hard at all, actually."

Personally I feel like the content this expansion IS hard, but thats WHY its fun. The only time I've ever touched a Savage or Extreme has been with overleveled party members to help me farm mounts, never to actually DO them. I haven't wanted to stress about having the absolute perfect gear, and needing to watch several guides to know the fight ahead of time or risk feeling like I'm personally dragging the party down. The normal content hits that perfect sweet spot. The game respects that I've been playing it for 100 levels and is challenging me to put those skills to use. Its difficult, but not so difficult that I can't do it with a group of randos - and I don't feel bad when I fail, because it feels fair. The chance of failure is what makes them engaging too. Theres a sense of accomplishment when you WIN. I had one run where the entire party went down save for a single healer, who was just a few ticks away from having LB3. That kind of anticipation is GREAT. Its so rare that moments like that happen in pre-dawntrail content, and it feels bad when they do since the game is so forgiving you really shouldn't be doing that badly in the first place.

I understand how having anxiety might make what I find to be a thrill unbearable to someone else, but while I do think more inclucivity in videogames is always a good thing, there's a limit to how much flexibility in difficulty an MMO can have. This isn't like Elden Ring where you take your first steps into the game and it immediately curbstomps you - we're 100 levels in, and the game is expecting us to act like it. Like many people in this thread have said, its okay to fail. It can even be FUN to fail. If you can't reframe your thinking to view the challenge as something exciting to be overcome, rather than the game punishing you, I'd understand why you'd be turned off, but I assure you many players do in fact enjoy this new difficulty.

[AgathaAllalong]

The normal difficulty content is finally somewhat fun again for the first time in a very long time. It's literally the best thing about this expansion so far. I really hope they don't revert to the mindless "gameplay" from normal difficulty content in Endwalker ever again. It was so boring and mind numbing.

[mallleable]

The only DT mechanic that is actually kinda BS is from the snake world boss fate. The tells for the in/out left/right sandstorms are way too similar, and the boss is too big to properly see them. They are especially hard to read at night. A fair fix would be to change the color or tone of the particle FX of left/right attack so that players can better distinguish them at a glance to find the safe spots.

[alfarini]

The only DT mechanic that is actually kinda BS is from the snake world boss fate. The tells for the in/out left/right sandstorms are way too similar, and the boss is too big to properly see them. They are especially hard to read at night. A fair fix would be to change the color or tone of the particle FX of left/right attack so that players can better distinguish them at a glance to find the safe spots.

Whenever I was doing it with like 500+ people in the zone I swear I thought I got hit but the game let me live lmao. Then I think the tics caught up to me and I just died outta no where lmao. Got me rodent ez peezy tho. Will do again for insane exp and gems, super fun. I hear is up in 5 more min.

[caffe_macchiato]

We got posted on Reddit again! The bacon Narwhals at midnight my fellow Redditors!

The developers are going to see the critics on the JP forums and the anti-critics on the English forums/Reddit/YouTube and conclude that these new raids were a mistake. None of the 1000+ commenters were saying any of this stuff during Endwalker. If you complained about the game being too easy or boring, people lashed out and told you to play other games. But now it's different. Everyone's regulators must've gotten an update.