The Difficulty Ramp Is Perfect

[yoshinoharu]

I have seen a lot of coverage of posts complaining about the increased difficulty of optional content in this game, and even, interestingly enough, complaints of the final dungeon of the game. For these people, I genuinely wonder why they play games to begin with, and whether or not battle content is even for them, or if they are even legitimately attempting to play the game.

I personally think that the difficulty ramp of the dungeons perfectly leads into the level 100 dungeon. The optional Expert dungeons are a step up in difficulty from the MSQ level 100 dungeon, and in my opinion that is exactly how it SHOULD be.

For the first time since Stormblood, Trials actually feel like a trial of your ability to play the game. Expert dungeons feel like you should have learned how to play the game through the duration of your journey through it and actually demand a certain level of expertise. That is to say, things actually feel labeled correctly now and there is a logical progression of difficulty that now actually includes the optional expert dungeons being a step up and basically an accessibility ramp to move into normals and EX.

There used to be a logical progression of difficulty in dungeons during the levelling experience. That was entirely lost in Shadowbringers and Endwalker where we saw an initiative to make everything clearable with minimal effort. I am beyond happy that I can now add optional and even levelling dungeons into that difficulty progression.

I know that fun is a subjective thing, and some people don't really enjoy needing to put in effort into what they are viewing as a recreational activity, but that doesn't mean they should use their opinions to spoil the difficulty design of the, and I must heavily stress this, optional content that the long-term endgame players that truly invest their time into the game have been asking for for years at this point.

I guess all this is to say, if you are finding the game too difficult past watching the credits roll, that content might not be for you or actually require extra effort. It is okay for people to have to work for their rewards. It is okay for not all content to be for everyone. Anyone who says otherwise, regardless of actual circumstances, I would argue is being incredibly narrow minded, selfish, and should consider the experience of the rest of the people around them.

Let's not forget that a vast majority of this game is already designed to be accessible to everyone. Combat content, however, is the one place in this game where people who desire a challenge must draw a line in the sand. The rest of the game belongs to everyone, is it really so much to have, and I again I reiterate this, optional content be for people who desire, you know, the option to be challenged? Must it really only be a sheer cliff wall of difficulty being designed into ultimates with no ramp of progression in difficulty?

[freekyfreezer]

It doesn't feel much harder except for maybe the netcode doll mechanic in the Strayborough Deadwalk. Unless I got "lucky" five times in a row, the Serpent boss in Tender Valley does not even have different floor patterns for its arrowsurfing mechanic even though you have like 15 seconds to figure it out. It is just more fail once and never fail again like pretty much every dungeon ever.

[yoshinoharu]

Personally, my anecdotal experience has been similar. I still don't find the endgame content difficult, but then we're in the Savage waiting room, right? It definitely does feel more engaging than the last two expansions though. I do feel like I have to pay attention to what's going on rather than playing an entire different game on a second monitor to keep my brain occupied. It's not a huge step up, but it certainly is more than I'm used to and it might just be the brainrot from being coddled by the last two expansions haha.

[Kaurhz]

I am happy with it.

I've had a few friends which have complained about it, and I have just told them it's OK, embrace it, keep playing and you'll only get better. This is the problem with their old design is that it was actually discouraging people from trying, because, why? Content wasn't asking you to use your eyes.

and in my opinion it's the perfect difficulty. The mechanics are very simple, and the tells are there, to where all you need to do is keep your eyes about, and you'll eventually get the mechanic and figure out the tell, and it's really done in such a good way that even if you're good, you still need to keep your eyes about you. Some players may not notice the ramp, as I personally think if you have done certain levels of content, then you may grasp mechanics and tells a lot more intuitively to players that haven't dipped their toes in the water, so to speak.

I would say yes and no to the last paragraph though. A lot of the combat content goes hand-in-hand with story-based content. But I do think currently they have the perfect level of difficulty. It's not insurmountable, but you need to keep your eyes about you.

[freekyfreezer]

That I can agree on. It definitely feels more engaging than the Endwalker optional dungeons, especially Smileton (I was always thankful for Smileton though because that was just a 12 minute in-and-out usually).

[OliverQ]

I agree. I find the difficulty just right for normal difficulty. The new raids aren't hard, despite people complaining about them.

[caffe_macchiato]

When is Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. going to fix the netcode? Even Yoshida agrees that it's a problem:

https://www.finaland.com/?rub=site&page=news&id=6801

That is what's so difficult about FFXIV. Every time you take an action in the game, the game will communicate with the server, check for cheating and come back afterwards. This creates a delay that an offline game doesn't have, since there's no need to check on the Internet. This limitation is something we've had to deal with for years, and it does limit us somewhat in what we can manage to implement in the game.

Yet he chose to add mechanics that are overlapping or faster-resolving than the previous expansion. A lot of people disagree with Yoshida and feel that this isn't an issue, but why would you want your game to be this way? The raids are otherwise fine, but when is Square Enix fixing this?

[Kaurhz]

I agree. I find the difficulty just right for normal difficulty. The new raids aren't hard, despite people complaining about them.

IMO a lot of players are probably just hiding behind it, as there is definitely some occasions where I feel it is like hiding laziness behind difficulty, where it isn't necessarily "This is too hard", but rather "I actually need to look out for tells now?!?". Some people I also think are just far too used to following other players, which works well when the content has been out for a while, but not when it is new and everyone is learning it.

The reality is that if most people were to just stay calm, watch the boss, see what happens just before the boss does attack, or what the boss does leading up to an attack, then in 99% of cases they will grasp the mechanic naturally.

[sharknado]

For these people, I genuinely wonder why they play games to begin with, and whether or not battle content is even for them, or if they are even legitimately attempting to play the game.

The game doesn't mandate job quests, job stones, or that a healer uses anything more than cure I at level 90-100... And when the game does that you will get a wide range of skills and "you don't pay my sub" of players playing the game.

And there are multiple aspects of how difficulty could be implemented in a dungeon or a boss. There will be personal takes on that. I did the MSQ as a healer and got really angry with some of the mechanics, like on the first boss of 100lvl dungeon. Someone named it "if healer wipes we all wipe". Even as there is more healing to do tanks are fine with multiple stacks, while non-tanks can get KO pretty easily with gear at that time at least. Personally, it's not fun when multitasking personal responsibility mechanics causes you to wipe the entire group.

[Venarius]

What difficulty ramp? People struggling week 1 on minilvl is not a difficulty ramp.