Difficulty of normal content.

[Banggugyangu]

She's right though, the community is nowhere near as "friendly and welcoming" as we pretend, and that is coming from a 10 years veteran on the game. I've had some of the nastiest drama ever on ffxiv.
The community is certainly a community. It's the same people as in other communities, the same kind of behavior, everytime there's a few people that are mindblown at how "mean" people are, but that's just how it goes in communities like this.
(insert steam forums PTSD story here, like being told I'm endangering RL lives for an opinion on DRM)
Better be upfront with her ? Also, there's always virtuous knights coming in telling people how nasty they are too, which inflames everything, and then they victimize themselves when they started it. :P
Square is just really tight on rules concerning language and confrontation, so people find other more subtle ways to air their grievances.

Concerning empathy, there isn't any in OP's statement, so that kinda invites the same kind of behavior.
I've tried to remain mature through it, some have less control. I wouldn't say this lady's post is in any way reasonable or empathetic to my perspective, for example. :P
Like, she's saying a significant portion of people are telling people to GTFO, this ain't reality at all, there's a few for sure, and I'm against that. :P
But there's also a legit argument like "if the game isn't for you anymore, maybe it's worth considering looking for things that are, for your sake and mine" ?
I feel this is as empathetic with everyone's perspective as it gets, but I don't feel Aido would perceive it like that. :P

I would argue that the biggest issue the FFXIV community has is toxic friendliness. A situation where the community goes so far toward "acceptance" that if you have a differing opinion, then you're called toxic for disagreeing with them. It's also disingenuous to claim that the community is "friendly and welcoming" to act as if there's no drama or issue with it. The key take-away is that it's FAR MORE friendly and accepting that practically any other MMO. Having played nearly all of them, the other communities are what I would call "horrific" most of the time.

[EponaTBHSMH]

Concerning empathy, there isn't any in OP's statement, so that kinda invites the same kind of behavior.
I've tried to remain mature through it, some have less control. I wouldn't say this lady's post is in any way reasonable or empathetic to my perspective, for example. :P
Like, she's saying a significant portion of people are telling people to GTFO, this ain't reality at all, there's a few for sure, and I'm against that. :P
But there's also a legit argument like "if the game isn't for you anymore, maybe it's worth considering looking for things that are, for your sake and mine" ?
I feel this is as empathetic with everyone's perspective as it gets, but I don't feel Aido would perceive it like that. :P

I absolutely agree with OP's statement and their various posts in this thread lacking any empathy

Which is why I do believe that this thread has already run its course because it's been a mix of people trying their best to genuinely help the OP with advice and "git gud" crowd brought by content creator farming this for their "content is not actually hard" videos, which was then met with complete dismissal by OP so now only the "git gud" crowd is left now

[SpookGhoulman]

nah the battle content this expansion has been some of the best in a very, VERY long time. actually having to use my brain during normal content has been very fun and enjoyable, and actually makes the content fun to play through more than three times.

[jdtuggey]

The key take-away is that it's FAR MORE friendly and accepting that practically any other MMO. Having played nearly all of them, the other communities are what I would call "horrific" most of the time.

Possibly, I'll admit that I've had experiences on ffxiv that are way more horrifying than a lot of other drama I went through elsewhere,
so much that I suspect I've just been unlucky the times I've involved myself in the community and lucky (luckier?) with other communities ?
The way I perceive it is that toxicity in other communities is upfront and direct, bad people just advertise themselves to you, you're free to block em, rofl.
It's more underhanded and subtle on ffxiv, and it grows and grows without you noticing until it blows up spectacularly.
Comes from people you might consider friends too, so there's more considerations into blocking them.
I acknowledge that this may only be my own experience of it, I've chosen not to engage really in-game anymore.
I'm still a mentor and I care about getting sprouts in and chipping in to help and to meme a bit on NN. ;P

Which is why I do believe that this thread has already run its course

It sure has. It's a bad look for everyone. I feel like everyone should take a deep breath and give this exp a couple more weeks. ♥

[Banggugyangu]

I absolutely agree with OP's statement and their various posts in this thread lacking any empathy

Which is why I do believe that this thread has already run its course because it's been a mix of people trying their best to genuinely help the OP with advice and "git gud" crowd brought by content creator farming this for their "content is not actually hard" videos, which was then met with complete dismissal by OP so now only the "git gud" crowd is left now

You can't empathize with a situation that you do not share. I don't empathize with the OP and I won't attempt to claim I do. I DO, however, sympathize with the OP. That said, there have been a plethora of sympathetic responses offering advice on how to learn and enjoy the content at its current difficulty. These aren't derogatory "git gud" responses, but legitimate advice. The fact of the matter is this: The dev team, INCLUDING Yoshi-P, have stated that this was an intentional change and the direction they want to take the game. The majority of the player base actually enjoys this new difficulty. If you cannot enjoy the direction that the game is going, you have three options: continue to vocalize your displeasure in hopes that the game is changed, which in turn is a negative change for that majority that enjoys the difficulty, learn how to adapt so that this difficulty is no longer unenjoyable, or move on to a game that you can enjoy. The OP's post was taking the first approach, which is steeping in selfishness. In short, the whole thread is filled with people who want their own selfish desires to reign supreme, however a large group of one side has attempted to provide a means to common ground.

[Kiurt]

Um... wow. What I've learned from this discussion is that:

1. I'm eventually going to hit a wall in normal content because the hardcore crowd needs *everything* to be a ball-buster even though they already have their own exclusive modes.
2. The playerbase is not in fact as "friendly and welcoming" as they claim when a significantly large portion of if it so willfully, and happily even, tells people to "GTFO then" when some players run into difficulty.

As someone who only recently touched down in Stormblood, this is the first time I've had to stop and think about how I'm going to do the blue quests because doing so would be adding things to the duty finder where I'll just end up dead weight it seems, or I'll be forced to 100% rely on Trusts for the MSQ the whole way because I would be better off avoiding the majority of the playerbase who clearly doesn't want me in their runs anyway. Is this really what I was subbing for this whole time? To go pure solo because I have neither the confidence to do the upcoming harder content, and because the community wasn't anything like I had been lead to believe?

This has definitely been an eye-opener compared to when I first started playing during Endwalker, and I probably should start treating it more like a single player game to prevent future issues.

1)You don't have to worry about hitting a wall, you still have plenty of content to go to get there. As long as you know how to do in/out/stack/spread and avoid half room cleaves (once you reach Endwalker, you'll eat these mechs A LOT), you should be fine. It's still the same in Dawntrail, they're just either coming a bit faster (fights are mostly more dynamic, not HARD by any means, your average player clears it fine) or in a less telegraphed way.

2)I won't say you're wrong, but I won't say that you're right either. It's all about context in this case. Most players wouldn't mind helping someone, teaching how to do something or giving some tips. But in this case, there was no discussion to being with. OP stated his opinion, people tried to help, give their opinions, counter-argument and all, but it all ended as soon as OP said "I've played the game for 6 years !". And right after tried to victimize himself by blaming content creators (when people were already disagreeing with him BEFORE) for all of this, ignoring what people were saying. At this point, it was obvious that person is selfish and just want to seek validation.

It is a MMO game, you'll obviously meet all kind of people, and forums aren't representative of a community as a whole. If you're having trouble in a dungeon or a raid, if you do not mind communicating with your team, or accept the help of others, you'll do just fine.
But do not expect the magical perfect community.

To also add, a tip that I should apply to myself => AVOID FORUMS (or social medias) for a game. You'll enjoy it more.

[Volgia]

Not to be nasty, I don't think we should be friendly and welcoming to people who want to dumb down the content. We would be more friendly if they were asking for help, tips, or whatever and not asking the game to be catered towards them because they refuse to learn how to play.

[Banggugyangu]

Um... wow. What I've learned from this discussion is that:

1. I'm eventually going to hit a wall in normal content because the hardcore crowd needs *everything* to be a ball-buster even though they already have their own exclusive modes.
2. The playerbase is not in fact as "friendly and welcoming" as they claim when a significantly large portion of if it so willfully, and happily even, tells people to "GTFO then" when some players run into difficulty.

As someone who only recently touched down in Stormblood, this is the first time I've had to stop and think about how I'm going to do the blue quests because doing so would be adding things to the duty finder where I'll just end up dead weight it seems, or I'll be forced to 100% rely on Trusts for the MSQ the whole way because I would be better off avoiding the majority of the playerbase who clearly doesn't want me in their runs anyway. Is this really what I was subbing for this whole time? To go pure solo because I have neither the confidence to do the upcoming harder content, and because the community wasn't anything like I had been lead to believe?

This has definitely been an eye-opener compared to when I first started playing during Endwalker, and I probably should start treating it more like a single player game to prevent future issues.

This is definitely the wrong take-away from all of this. The correct take-away is that as a player, your skill grows between levels 1 and 100. For most, that skill growth is plenty to be able to adapt and learn mechanics as they're introduced. For others, it may not be enough. For ALL of them, however, there is an ability to grow even more. This is the very foundation of video games. You start at one level and improve over time. The mechanics in the raids this thread was written for are not so dramatically different than previous. What we're seeing is a paradigm shift in how they're being presented to us, but that's ok. You can either have raids that give the same mechanics every expansion using the same presentation, or you can have raids that introduce new mechanics or new presentation. If all the raids are the same, then what's the point of new raids? If you never grow as a player, then what's the point of playing the game?

The only people who have issue with the difficulty of the new content are players that want to remain stagnant in the game, and the point of the majority of posters is that stagnation WILL kill the game.

[W0rldsastag3]

Not everyone wants a constant challenge. You ex players and raiders get your own modes and challenges, some people just want to veg out and enjoy a non challenging game, which the game has been for ten years, to it's success. Stop trying to make other people play your way.

PF is getting worse with third party tool parses being demanded, and friends I do have whonhave gotten clears in savage ar getting kicked off teams constantly for the tiniest mistakes.

Giving the 'crushing difficilty' people an inch has caused the game to get less friendly, forgiving, and fun.

[jdtuggey]

Not everyone wants a constant challenge. You ex players and raiders get your own modes and challenges, some people just want to veg out and enjoy a non challenging game, which the game has been for ten years, to it's success. Stop trying to make other people play your way.

PF is getting worse with third party tool parses being demanded, and friends I do have whonhave gotten clears in savage ar getting kicked off teams constantly for the tiniest mistakes.

Giving the 'crushing difficilty' people an inch has caused the game to get less friendly, forgiving, and fun.

Like, I thought we had debunked the "Ultimate raiders demanding they make casual content harder" conspiracy theory like... 100 pages ago.
I took baby steps in ultimate, same with like, current savages, not more, yet am pretty vocal about loving dawntrail. Lots, lots of other people like me in this thread. :P
I'd wager it's the people like me that like Dawntrail the most. We can't/don't want to commit to savages/ultimates, but we still want challenge in the casual content we can do, and square enix took a (tiny) step in that direction, and it feels to me like the response is overwhelmingly positive. Qualifying Dawntrail's difficulty as "crushing" is also a gross mischaracterization or a really subjective statement that is not representative ? It's not what I would want either.
To me, it don't feel harder, it feels more dynamic and engaging, especially now that I've gotten used to the new pace.

Like, it would be really easy to turn this argument on you and say
"Giving the turbo casuals an inch has caused them to demand more and more, and now Yoshi P's lifework was making him sleepy and I didn't feel this game was for me anymore up to dawntrail, despite having played since ARR"
And again, like, yeah, am decent at the game, I think, but I'm not a raider and I don't want to be lol.

Like, the dawntrail changes to pacing aren't targeted at savage raiders at all, they deal with much, much, much worst lol.