Difficulty of normal content.

[Kissune]

You will have to excuse me if I disregard anything being said from an account created 3 months ago with almost 200 posts.

I mean if we wanna play that game I can disregard the opinion of anyone who doesn't play savage, bc to me they dont know what 'difficult' really is. But here I am, trying to engage with you. And for the record, my forum account was created recently, bc i didn't feel a need to offer any feedback until the DT AST rework. But go off, keep putting me in your box, like a bratty teenager.

Because now I can tell you really are just bad at this game. You are level 100, you claim to be playing since stormblood, and yes, there is a step up in difficulty. But y'know why it exists? Because from heavensward to endwalker, each expansion has brought the difficulty level down. This is not a 'sudden increase in difficulty' it's a slight return to form. Like I'm sorry but if you think this is hard do you not remember, idk, eden ramuh? Giant circle aoe that had no obvious big circle to tell you it was about to straight up one shot you the size of the whole arena? The thing I see kill at least one person even now when I get it as my roulette?

You have an incredibly delusional view of how ff14 used to be, if you think this step up is a new level of difficulty for the game. Especially considering job design used to be more complex and difficult, this is the tradeoff. Easy jobs, difficult encounters. No one wants to play a visual novel. Git gud.

[JadeCurtiss]

You will have to excuse me if I disregard anything being said from an account created 3 months ago with almost 200 posts.

Disregarding posts based on statistics and other people are the trolls? I see forum etiquette is still the same as it was 20 years ago.

[Elkanah]

You will have to excuse me if I disregard anything being said from an account created 3 months ago with almost 200 posts.

I see you Titanman, well played on the charade! But this is definitely Titanman. I always wondered why we never really heard from his posts anymore.

You'll have to excuse me if I disregard anything being said from an account that hasn't played for 10-14 years like some of us.

[Avram]

Enough is enough. Why it's always casuals people who are grumpy? Never happy! Dude, Bozja/Zadnor are too hard because of critical engagement, but 1500 memoquartz to get is relic weapon isn't fun at all and casual complain there is no instance. You have play a couple of hour, you're in level 90-100 content. YOU MUST KNOW HOW TO PLAY ON THIS GAME. Orange circle on the floor? You must dodge. If you like Sastasha's difficulty do it in a loop. Seriously, no content for casual? Pexing gatherer/crafter is for casual, making dungeon and trials, it's for casual, pexing jobs is for casual, 24 raids it's for casual, normal raid is for casual! You have no enrage, if you die, there is no wipe. You can make all this fight without knowing any single mechanic on this. And all the old content are for casual.
There is always HL content? 8 month between each savage and 1 year or more between each ultimate. 3 criterion in 2 years of expension. How many dungeons? Trial? Hunt? Fates? Craft? Harvest?
Fortunately the difficulty in casual content grows up, after 5 expension don't treat people like childs. Always complaining, never happy. I'm starving of this.

[Sacae]

It's not casual players who are complaining. It's people who have this conception of FFXIV as being a visual novel with some occasional imput attached to it. They're not for FFXIV as a game, they're here for an experience.

The problem is, XIV is, first and foremost, a *game.* That means things have to have a progressive level of challenge. Later content should be tougher than earlier content, because you've learned more of the game.

The problem is that ShB, and ESPECIALLY EW overcompensated for problems with Heavensward's raid design (it generally takes them about 2 expansions to actually get around to acting on this kind of feedback,) and MASSIVELY overcorrected, simplifying jobs and encounter designs (big asterix here), and it turned what was supposed to be a progression system of "Overworld/Fates>Quest Fights>Dungeons>Normal/Alliance Raids>Extreme>Savage>Ultimate", and essentially shoved the middle of those into the same general difficulty, gutting midcore content. In Shadowbringers and Endwalker, there was no ramp-up from Dungeons to Extremes, because the alliance and normal raids weren't noticeably harder than the dungeons, which, for the most part, were also way undertuned. Shadowbringers Alliance Raids were/are also plagued with problems, mostly due to an overrcorrection from Ivalice, which resulted in mechanically simplistic fights against massive HP sponges. The point being, since Shadowbringers, we haven't had a functioning progression system for content, just a wall that people have to climb over to get from dungeons to extreme.

Endwalker was even worse. Aside from the Tower of Zot, the dungeons don't actually hit hard anymore, especially after you get to 90. The normal raids weren't really any tougher than the story trials, the alliance raids were and are a joke, and the new content, variant and criterion, did absolutely nothing to bridge the gap between casual and hardcore content, because Variant was designed to be done with any number of people, and Criterion was at times on the level of Ultimate. Nothing in the middle.

Shadowbringers and Endwalker were cinematic, and a part of the game where the story really kicked up a notch. Some of these new players, who started with ShB and EW never actually had to get good, the older expansion were nerfed into oblivion by item sync, and it's not like they were going to grind against a wall for Extremes. The problem is, the ones who are saying that "Dawntrail is too hard," were playing a fundamentally flawed game, one that even the developers were saying put them to sleep. Shadowbringers and Endwalker were *broken,* just like Heavensward was, except in the opposite way because they were the overcorrection from HW.DT is the correction from Shadowbringers, and it's putting us back to Stormblood levels of difficulty, which were fairly balanced. That's why so many older players are so happy right now, because the game feels like it's in the right place, gameplay wise.

[JadeCurtiss]

Some people have forgotten this is supposed to be a videogame. An interactive experience. As such there must be a certain amount of stress and pushback to facilitate engagement, just as YoshiP himself said. Some Endwalker dungeons are so devoid of engagement you're almost playing a walking simulator. Now that you have to actually pay some attention again the whiners are coming out of the woodwork.

Ignoring optional content, all I can say is if you seriously are having problems clearing MSQ dungeons and trials then play something else. There are an endless amount of more casual lower stress games. Like it or not, not every game can be for everyone.

[Sacae]

I am one of those casual players who was *desperate* for midcore content in Endwalker. And it never came. Just more visually stunning, but mechanically empty dungeons and trials and normal/alliance raids, that were too easy for me, and not tough enough to help me improve enough for Extreme.

It's true that hardcore content is gated. But not by raiders, it's gated by the design of the game. the jump from normal content to Extreme in ShB and EW was *insane.* You went from faceroll easy to "die a hundred times because nothing makes sense and everything kills you."

Dungeons and Normal Trials and Normal Raids and Alliance Raids are not just there for you to walk through and mutter about how pretty they are. they are supposed to be a linear progression that challenges you gradually and sets you up for endgame content. The devs WANT people to do extremes and raids, that's why they put so much time and effort into them.

Dawntrail, so far, seems to be doing that. Based on what we've got, there's a clear progression in difficulty. The Dungeons are tougher than fate bosses or hunts, the trials tougher than the dungeon bosses, and the normal raids tougher than the trials, with the first 2 extremes being beyond the normal raids, but not totally out of reach. This is how the game SHOULD feel.

[kingskye]

I wanted to wait to see the raid tier before I say anything. There are already post about dungeon and trial difficulty, and now normal raids should be thrown into the discussion too, and I might repeat points already said but I think we should really make a point of this, we (the people not ok with this difficulty) need for the devs to hear it to hopefully make a course correction.

The problem with the difficulty on normal fights as I see it is:
-Use and abuse of non standard telegraphs.
-Nasty mechanic overlaps, stuff you would see on extreme and harder fights.
-Mechs resolving too quickly for the mental capacity they demand to process.
-One too many "catch this!" mech (mechs that have you running around like headless chicken evading seemingly random patterns).

All this has been making fights in this expansion frustrating and exhausting.

The Honey B fight had me wishing for the healer to not raise me, I was there in the floor, dead for the Nth time, thinking that I don't really want to be on that duty.

And it's not an issue of learning the fight, because that I can do, but we don't do this content alone, you know? I think it was the 4th time I was doing Valigarmanda when I finally managed to finish without dying myself, but that's a moot point when half the party was dead half of the time, even knowing the fight doesn't make it any less of a disheartening experience.

And yes, this concerns normal raids too even if they are optional content. In fact I gonna take the skip option for this raid tier, something I haven't done since I started playing in SB. And that's the point really, for the most part in the past 3 expansions difficulty for normal content was fair outside of some hiccup here and there.

I firmly believe that content meant to be done via the duty finder (where you don't choose who you playing with) shouldn't be this level of punishing. And I know that JP people do savage in the duty finder but we don't do that in NA or EU, for better or worse western players doesn't behave like JP players.

Finally I think that people that thrive with difficulty (the ones that demand harder content) already have extremes, savages, ultimate, criterion dungeons, and more (Yoshi-p is even touting of savage alliances), this people is eating really, really good. Do they need to take normal content too? Can casual players have something easy-ish to play? Please?

news flash, you dont HAVE to do the content...but you are a LEVEL 100 character...act like it...the content overall needs to evolve and improve...nothing cant be easy...we have everything easy in endwalker yet you cried and complained...its ok to fall off the bike sometimes...as long as you get up and get back on that bike...and hey if you dont like how the content is, just not do it lol

[AurisNix]

Sometimes I dont understand this community and its wilde to see complaints about everything, but at the end I just blame SE cuz they try to take care of everyone when they shouldn't, and this raid tier I found it way easier than some of the pandemonium fights looking at P10 normal, also big news you wont enter a fight and kill it in your first try and if you do that content is doomed to become very boring look at the EW alliances those were so beautiful and stunning but too bad was a snore fest after the first month, if you die and die and die again in Expert Dungeons and Normal Raids then thats good maybe in your third time you will get it and will be great. DT had its issues but in terms of content is at its best I dare to say that all the dungeons Trials and Raids are the best we ever got and I hope they keep going with this path for everything is to come, stop complaining about cuz you cant kill it in your first run and if you really get stuck then probably that content isn't for you sorry if it sounds bad or something but SE shouldn't try to plaase everyone

[Alzinor]

bla bla bla

You are lvl 100.

Those raids are everything but hard.

Yes the mechanics combo is annoying but you can get rid of it.

You're a casual like you say, so no one forcing you to keep uptime, you can easily stop hitting for a couple second until mech resolve, there is no enrage in normal raid since titan in shb, wasting 4 or 5 or even 10 of your gcd will not make your team wipe.

Also you're lvl 100 like i said previously, you should know how to push your buttons and doing basic stuff, because that's exaclty what's required right there.

now stop complaining and see that as a training, a way to improve, stop being a whiny when you can't succeed to something, just step up, move forward and smile when victory is yours because congrats, the fight is over and you're now better than at your entrance.