The Difficulty Schism (And Why The Real Enemy is Scaling & Max iL Sync)

[cloveCardamom]

Hello!

I’m not a forum poster, but this seems to be where the discussion is unfolding regarding the difficulty of Duty Finder content in Dawntrail.

While I agree with the sentiment that I vastly prefer DT’s encounter design over ShB and EW, I’ve noticed a fundamental miscommunication happening between players who started in ARR-SB and players who started in ShB-EW.

People have been asking a fair question:

How did these players get to this point, hundreds of hours into this game, not knowing how to watch for arena & boss queues for mechanics? The game has always featured mechanics like this, how did they get this far without learning anything?

After discussing with several friends and taking notes during my own roulettes, I'm reaching the conclusion that players who began playing in ShB-EW didn’t actually have to learn any mechanics in order to clear more demanding ARR-SB content.

This isn't to say new players are inherently bad! I am friends with several who are better than me! But those players chose to learn, because the game never convincingly forced them to learn when scaling adjustments and maximum iL sync completely undid 99% of encounter design. It’s only getting wonkier as expanding Healer & Tank cooldowns can cover even more severe mistakes.

This is observable in real time as EW content melts, especially the alliance raids.

So I understand why players complaining about the difficulty of Dawntrail are getting heat. As someone who was healing A1N-A4N on the hot mess of launch AST, I cannot conceive of the Arcadion as difficult at all. I have 100% been engaging in some "get off my lawn" behavior this week.

But when I got A4N in a roulette yesterday, having forgotten every single mechanic? I didn't need to do a single one. A few panic Helios casts were enough to fix any mistake.

As I queue for ARR, HW, and SB content with this in mind, and it's becoming obvious what the problem is. The new content isn't becoming too hard! It's old becoming unrecognizably easy due to iL sync and other scaling changes.

Blaming newer players frustrated with DT fights just isn't being honest about the fact the game they played is completely different from the one we played when older content launched. If you're incredulous at newer players not being able to handle DT's difficulty, I recommend you queue up for some Duty Finder content that you found memorably challenging on release. How does it feel now? That feeling is all someone who began playing in 2021 knows.

tl;dr I think Dawntrail is so much fun! I hope they keep making fights more meaningfully challenging. But I hope we can also start asking the development team to reconsider the pacing & scaling of older content. In it's current state, it feels like we've been denying new players the engaging experience the old players won't shut up about.

[koko-on-da-forumz]

Honestly get rid of gear progression at this point. Solves a lot of problems and future proofing.

[Dhregin]

I think it's safe to say, that things are more stressful than they were prior, even when we remove the discussion around ilvl sync and old-content becoming trivialized. The movement requirements and the speed of which mechanics are executed is a bit more demanding than say, P1 Normal, P2 Normal from Endwalker. The most you had to do there was a left-to right movement at a relatively brisk pace.

Now? Its a lot more frantic - stressful - you need to find your safe spots a bit faster. It's more demanding of the player - Playing the new fights on a hard caster, like Blackmage, will really show that to you.

Is it difficult content really? Not for a seasoned Raider - but the Extreme Trials were a bit much for most Extreme Trial Enjoyers - and now the Normal Raids Also.

But this isn't to say it's too hard. Your character became a higher level, the content became more demanding. This is a good thing - atleast you aren't bored, you're just... kind of faced with your own inadequacy .

Which we all were. We all have been there in this game at one time or another. The reason why people are saying these players need to get over it is because we all had to get over that same thing. I don't really care that the old content is trivialized - the current content was not trivial back when we veterans learned the same lessons and the current content now is not trivial when these newer players are attempting to clear.

Too Hard? Hardly. Why? Because Victory will be met. It may take 4-5 wipes. But this is no different than when Stormblood was new and normal raids were wiping parties UP UNTIL LOCK OUT EXPIRATION. Mentor Roulette back then was wild - Imagine timing out on a normal Raid! But it was a frequent-enough occurance.

And yet, I look back favorably on those times - many do. We may have to endure some hard learning for a time, but this will be some of the most fun we've had in casual content in quite some time. A lot of people complaining are going to be pleasantly surprised at their journey and how much they've grown if they stick with it. They'll remember DawnTrail Favorably for it.

[Kisshu]

iLV is only a small part of the problem. Heard people say that even doing minimum item level Cyrcus Tower, you still skip the super attack of boss 1 and 2.

The biggest issue are new jobs getting much more potent abilities at lower levels. Back in 2.x, DRG's Full Thrust was high damage at around 300 potency, SMN's Fester was one of the strongest abilities at around 450 potency I think.

Looking at new jobs, PCT got 3 hammers a minute for 560 direct crit, SAM has a 700 crit every 8th GCD or so.

The item level part is mostly an issue that will show itself in the patch series (Like Endsinger) due to no iLV sync on the content.

[cloveCardamom]

iLV is only a small part of the problem. Heard people say that even doing minimum item level Cyrcus Tower, you still skip the super attack of boss 1 and 2.

The biggest issue are new jobs getting much more potent abilities at lower levels. Back in 2.x, DRG's Full Thrust was high damage at around 300 potency, SMN's Fester was one of the strongest abilities at around 450 potency I think.

Looking at new jobs, PCT got 3 hammers a minute for 560 direct crit, SAM has a 700 crit every 8th GCD or so.

The item level part is mostly an issue that will show itself in the patch series (Like Endsinger) due to no iLV sync on the content.

Oh, totally true! I was mentally considering this as part of "scaling" but probably could've afforded to be more specific about it. I know friends who do Ultimates are always discussing this element but I didn't even think to look into how it was affecting normal Duty Finder content...

[Maltothoris]

iLV is only a small part of the problem. Heard people say that even doing minimum item level Cyrcus Tower, you still skip the super attack of boss 1 and 2.

The biggest issue are new jobs getting much more potent abilities at lower levels. Back in 2.x, DRG's Full Thrust was high damage at around 300 potency, SMN's Fester was one of the strongest abilities at around 450 potency I think.

Looking at new jobs, PCT got 3 hammers a minute for 560 direct crit, SAM has a 700 crit every 8th GCD or so.

The item level part is mostly an issue that will show itself in the patch series (Like Endsinger) due to no iLV sync on the content.

Correct in that in Fester was based on how many dots were on the boss at 3 dots being 300 pot. Currently, it sits at 340. However, it's just one example. Take WAR fell cleave in endwalker, its starting potency was 460, over the course of the expac, it changed to 470 to 490 to 520.

MCH was the big one. Drill, Air Anchor and Chainsaw did 550, wildfire 150 per hit, heat blast 180, etc etc. Then by 6.3 the three moves did 600, wildfire 240 per hit, and heat blast 200.

It's the powercreep on all the gcds and ogcds that happens that helps in this gradual decay.

[ThorneDynasty]

The more challenging normal content, especially in expert dungeons, has made me a more sympathetic player than the past hundreds of hours of braindead content. And when I think back, I've never been shitty to a new tank accidentally pulling everything in Aurum Vale either, because I was there once, man. But am I annoyed when a tank can't handle the most basic of the basics, like doing double-pulls after HW, though? Absolutely.

This attitude of "demand less than the bare minimum" breeds so much more the SE's dreaded "player friction" than it does challenging them a little, which becomes a shared experience.

[Fawkes]

iLV is only a small part of the problem. Heard people say that even doing minimum item level Cyrcus Tower, you still skip the super attack of boss 1 and 2.

You could do that shortly after it was added. At least for the second boss, the phase where you jump around the outside of the arena has almost always been skippable.

[Colt47]

Honestly get rid of gear progression at this point. Solves a lot of problems and future proofing.

They need to flatline end-game gear progression, not gear progression entirely. The point of gear and character level is to abstract out the gains from training in a way that isn't impacted by the true skill of the player, either because the level skill needed to play the game is rather low, or the game is not capable of enabling a growth in skill in some other way.

In FFXIV the representation of growth is split into the players class / job level and the gear they have equipped. Normally, the idea is that the gear improves or gets better as someone continues their journey, but in the case of FFXIV that only applies up to level 50. After that point it isn't possible to judge what the gears true strength would be since it just became a tool to show another aspect of character advancement. They basically needed a way to reward player effort if they went the extra mile to grab a full set of gear or went through some heavier trial. However, all the extremes and savage became non-canon so it never made sense that they rewarded better or more powerful gear.

[Eyrilona]

They need to flatline end-game gear progression, not gear progression entirely. The point of gear and character level is to abstract out the gains from training in a way that isn't impacted by the true skill of the player, either because the level skill needed to play the game is rather low, or the game is not capable of enabling a growth in skill in some other way.

In FFXIV the representation of growth is split into the players class / job level and the gear they have equipped. Normally, the idea is that the gear improves or gets better as someone continues their journey, but in the case of FFXIV that only applies up to level 50. After that point it isn't possible to judge what the gears true strength would be since it just became a tool to show another aspect of character advancement. They basically needed a way to reward player effort if they went the extra mile to grab a full set of gear or went through some heavier trial. However, all the extremes and savage became non-canon so it never made sense that they rewarded better or more powerful gear.

This sounds interesting so I am trying to understand what it is you are trying to say, and what point you are trying to make with it, but could you make it a little less abstract? I have a feeling that this has a lot of context in your mind that you didn't include in your post and that is making it hard to interpret.