Difficulty of normal content.

[Khutulun]

I think this is a very good issue to bring up, because it brings us to the logical conclusion of requiring FFXIV be played from 1 to 100 sequentially. The only people who can play Dawntrail endgame are those who have beaten the entire 400-hour MSQ and "got gud", or those who "cheated" by buying a boost. It's a great thing for us to showcase, because we're finally becoming like World of Warcraft, a game that you all claim to hate. Meanwhile, World of Warcraft is actually more friendly to newer players because you can start at the second-newest expansion and reach endgame content within only around 20 hours of playtime. A lot of you HATED the "elitist" nature of your former game, and you came to Final Fantasy XIV because it was "the friendly MMO". But now you all are more hostile to new players than the game you want to replace. Your attitude resulted in the world's former top MMO losing its spot to FFXIV. And what happens when your attitude takes over this game too?

Imo, playing FF14 sequentially should be the expectation for new players. Don't feel like it's a matter of toxicity towards new players, ARR is where FF14's tutorials are. Even during low points of difficulty, the quantity and complexity of mechanics has increased with expansion count. FF14's storytelling follows the same structure as well, with the world/characters/lore building from start to finish. A new player jumping into the deep end of a MMO story and game spanning over a decade... is senseless at minimum?

Regardless, I feel like your post is misplaced in this thread. From what I can tell, the debate on difficulty is purely between long time players with multiple day 1 expansion experiences under their belt. It's not a matter of new players flopping on mechanics they don't understand.

[gorgomanteia]

some of y'all need to accept that you suck at the game and that isn't reasonable justification for everyone else losing what has been actually engaging and enjoyable on release battle content for the first launch in a long time

[Magikazam]

A lot of you HATED the "elitist" nature of your former game, and you came to Final Fantasy XIV because it was "the friendly MMO". But now you all are more hostile to new players than the game you want to replace. Your attitude resulted in the world's former top MMO losing its spot to FFXIV. And what happens when your attitude takes over this game too??

You are so out of touch with the reason people quit WoW to play FFXIV. The only reason WoW lost it crown is cause the dev just got so out of touch with the playerbase for SEVERAL years. The toxic/elitism WoW community you hear people that only played FFXIV claimed to be an issue is like, a very small player base that people alway clowned on cause they're the type of people to make a Party finder and ask you to know every mechanic of a whole raid and have said raid gears and BIS while they never touched the raid normal difficulty themselves.

Like I played both WoW and FFXIV since ARR and I've seen more people complain in normal dungeon in FFXIV than WoW, by a far margin.

[fatvalentine]

Tbh if you're having trouble doing story dungeons or trials, it's possible that it would be easier to play with other players instead of doing trusts. Most of the time, trusts make you reset an encounter if you die, whereas other players can keep resurrecting you or shielding you to survive/recuperate from more mechanics.

As for the level of difficulty itself, I think it's fine, but also at the limit of what I would like for normal. Compared to EW, my wish was not necessarily for fights to be harder, but "to have more things happen more often" which is what DT does, although it can somewhat translate to a higher difficulty depending on the mechanics.

[Yushees]

Time to get good. Enough with this boring easy content. Normal dungeons and raids are finally engaging after so so many years.

[Lieri]

DT difficulty is alright but please reduce using fall damage (falling through the floor) as an artificial difficulty. It doesnt feel good and the game isnt designed to be a platformer. Do you need to be punished if you screw up a mechanic? Yes. But im sure there are more creative ways than "The floor is gone now so youre dead" or "Oh no the arena is shrinking, be careful of falling". I dont think theres any other MMO with a proper battle system and raid that rely so much on falling through the arena to kill players as if its a platformer. If i want to play a platformer game, I will do it. This is an MMO. And in this game theres a snapshot, its not very responsive. You cant adjust and jump properly. Its not designed to be like that.

[Oizen]

Oh no, you wiped. So what?
Pick yourself off the floor and do it again.

Overcoming challenge is what makes games fun. DT already did enough to cater to the Visual Novel crowd with that slog of an MSQ, please don't turn every aspect of this game into baby mode story time.

[DanielleFarlow]

Huh.

Dungeons, trials and normal raids have not increased in difficulty. In fact, they are now easier to read, and we even got a red shiny text bar that tells people "Heyo hello there's a mech coming up". You're either out of touch, or out of the game loop.
Even with the "hurdur live service game" excuse, it is still an mmo game, where dungeons on the higher level are supposed to get broader and introduce more mechanics. Dawntrail, with many flaws on the main story, did it splendidly.
You do not need to know fight. You come to understand it, by seeing mechs resolve and thinking about where to stand on next time. It is not in fact a problem of the game, if you expect to queue up to level 100 content and get the same treatment as the Main Scenario roulette.
If you want casual content, consider Island Sanctuary. If you want to play casually at dungeons - learn.
Otherwise,

[MakariaZofura]

Dear friends,

I've read though this forum patiently, and I am going to do my best to stay empathetic and measured.

If it makes those of you who are anxious feel better, you are not alone. Anxiety is certainly a human condition. In my years I have never met a single person devoid of it, often about things that are fairly meaningless to observers. Feeling anxious and scared of failure is ABSOLUTELY NORMAL. We have all experinced it. If you don't have this experince, please let me know, i'd love to chat.

I taught Organic Chemistry for some years. A notoriously difficult subject, but like so many things, it's nowhere near as hard as people say it is. I would say 90% of people who underachieve in chemistry do so not because of chemistry, but because of their crushing anxiety. With some time and effort, almost everyone can do it. It's building confidence and not letting anxiety ruin your focus.

I have personally spent several years paralyzed with anxiety and struggle with it every day, not about FFXIV, but about other issues. It has made my life worse in many many ways. All my regrests in my exisistance were from either things i was too scared to do or times when i got too anxious to perform. IT took me a while, but this fear and anxiety is the main inhibitor we face and stop us from living up to our potential in the world, but please believe me when i know it is hard.

I'll hit you with the depressing story first. My father, who was a great dad and i love him dearly, lost his job in 2006 or 2007, though something which objectively was not his fault. However, the crushing weight of that blow, coupled with his anxiety to learn new things, his lack of patience and frustration with the learning process, coupled with fear, depressing, and alcoholism, sent him into a place where he really couldn't do much for an extended period of time. In retrospect, my dad was great at his job, great with people, but he struggled with computers and literally no one was willing to hire someone in their 60s who struggled with technology, among some other things. Instead of learning a new skill or deciding to keep trying, my father gave up and drank far too much. Last January, he died slowly and painfully in the ICU.

[MakariaZofura]

This doesn't mean learning things is easy. I once had this chemistry student i remember. She was pre-dental and drew as a hobby. I would tell you her art was gorgeous. She was obviously very smart but she had some sort of block around O-chem. She kept a good attitude and kept trying and her final exam score went up a ton, and she passed the class. I assume now she is doing dental work somewhere and being excellent at it.

As for disabilities, I once was a guild lead in another game where the gameplay was much faster paced and the fights were far less forgiving than they are in FFXIV. Sadly this meant that if people couldn't keep up with mechanics or damage, I had to bench them or else i was making the other 19 people waste their time. I had a player who was missing two fingers on his hands due to a machining accident, which I felt HORRIBLE about, but i was forced to bench him. Unbeknownst to me, he made an alt, kept trying, kept practicing, got quite good, and earned his spot back. I was super happy and proud of him.

Even now I am changing careers and going through a difficult job search. I DREAD checking email and LinkedIN every day. I feel anxious, depressed and angry every time I think about it, which is anytime i have about 10 spare seconds. I still force myself to do it because there is no other way I will ever reach my goals no matter how hard it try.

The best teacher in life is failure. Us humans, we are imperfect beings with strong emotions, flawed heuristic decision making, and often times do incredibly stupid things against our own self-interest. This is NORMAL. Feeling that fear, that anxiety, the crushing defeat of failure, getting frustrated or angry, contemplating quitting and giving up - this is the gameplay loop of human life. If we want to achieve our goals we have to keep on trying. The people who are successful in this world, they decided to try, i'm sure they failed, but they didn't give up and go home. If you love this game, or if you love anything, you gotta keep doing it and getting better.