The difficulty of normal content is great as is. Do not revert them.

[Lieri]

It seems hard the first time. It's not hard the 2nd time.
Then after a while, once you use them to level up other jobs they become easy to the point where you get bored.
Another thing they can do is to not start every boss fight with raidwide damage. It has become a boilerplate at this point.

[TDawnstar]

My whole point is that your statement is predicated on a single point of view.

Yes, because I was replying to that particular person. Now, if I would be writing an essay, then I would do it differently
Not sure what is so surprising here.

You're saying if they make content harder, people will stop running roulettes, when the fact is that people already stopped running roulettes because of the exact opposite problem as well. You lose some players if you make it easier, and you regain them while losing others by making it harder. You only care about half of this equation.

You DO realize that most roulette content is not even from DT (and mostly not even from EW)? Hence, the argument about making DT easier or harder is moot, because most of the stuff in roulettes isn't from DT to begin with.

I'm not saying your point of view is true or false, it just has nothing to do with DT difficulty. Unless you are calling for the devs to go back and adjust every single piece of old content to a level where you don't find it boring. Well, the chances of it happening are rather low

[Alice_Rivers]

Pray tell, why does "casual" or "MSQ" have to be synonymous with "braindead"? Even at level 70+? People aren't wrong when they say that Stone Vigil and especially Stone Vigil (Hard) W2W are harder than a lot of level 60-90 content. I don't believe the level range should merely represent a power level, it should be reasonable to expect some level of skill scaling as people learn things throughout their MSQ. I remember when the last boss in Keeper of the Lake could actually wipe parties.

I'm in agreement with the apparent majority, engaging gameplay is good, DT's dungeons are generally good. As a healer I actually want a reason to press my buttons, DT especially during my initial leveling experience gave me that and it was great. The raids still give me that and it's great. Am I gonna go savage? No, I'm not that level of player and my memory sucks too much. But yes, it's years past time we demanded people actually engage their brains and press their buttons. I still see too many "level 100" tanks that do not use mitigations, the other day I even watched a "level 100" WHM spamming cure in DT rather than using their kit. Why should we put up with that? Why should we tailor the game for these people? The devs put the abilities in the game, it's reasonable to expect us to use them, if people refuse to read or use their skills then the content SHOULD punish them, it's called learning.

[Khutulun]

That is an incredibly selfish point of view.

Selfish? Meh. Honest? Very. Regardless of how you wish to perceive it, the comment still has a place in these forums or in a suggestion box. Right now I look at how my run tanking Alexandria went on GNB, and I realize the threat level has dropped to 0 even when I'm lazy with mitigation- I have horribly powercrept via my ilvl. I respect your sense of virtue in wanting EVERYONE to enjoy the game, it's a good goal even if it's horribly unachievable- and that's not a smack to FF14, it's devs, the genre, or even people in general.

Woah woah I was gonna side till you said -snip to save space-

Yep, I know, selfish and totally crazy. I want the maximum ilvl allowed in synced content to be lower so that I actually get to see the boss mechanics. Foreign concept really, I don't believe you should be able to kill Cloud of Darkness BEFORE it splits the alliances into three groups to perform a split DPS check. Hell, I want to interact with Glasya Labolas AT ALL- and every time I enter Sycrus. I like FF14's boss design, but the game prevents me from enjoying it in roulette content (a large part of the class to class and tomestone progression). I WANT to play the game, and that's actually the problem.

To address your main point though, I AGREE that changes should be made for the benefit of the majority. However, I don't believe most people in this forum, or really anywhere, are any authority on what the majority of players want. I don't believe Square, with all their data and development expertise, are any authority on the matter either- considering they get it wrong with something every expansion. That leaves us with the capacity to make assumptions and/or to speak from the heart. I'm choosing to speak from the heart without any assumptions as to what benefit the change brings to others- for I simply have no way of knowing if this would be a pro or con for player retention and enjoyment factor. Maybe the majority will be happier due to using more of their brain, maybe the majority want progression to feel more like an idle game experience. Maybe the increased amount of mechanics experienced will help new players become better faster, maybe it will destroy the playerbase because years of non-existent difficulty has created a majority that only wants that ease at all levels of roulette content.

Once again though, I respect the sense of virtue.

I'd rather not see a third MMORPG destroyed by raiders.

Suppose I shouldn't let this slip by due to implications in the statement: I'm not some high level player. I just have basic desires. FF14 has interesting boss designs. I want to enjoy the interesting boss designs. Older FF14 content melts incredibly quickly due to how ilvl scales. This leads to me not getting to see all of the boss' design. This makes me sad. I wish this was different. /entirethought.

[TDawnstar]

Pray tell, why does "casual" or "MSQ" have to be synonymous with "braindead"?

Because it doesn't have to be braindead. But SE shot themselves in the head by removing everything everything else but encounter mechanics. They removed CCs (well, they are still there), they made tanks completely independent of healers, etc.
So, the only thing they can act on to make a fight harder is to make more (or less) telegraphed mechanics and make them more or less punishing.

People aren't wrong when they say that Stone Vigil and especially Stone Vigil (Hard) W2W are harder than a lot of level 60-90 content.

It may be a bit less true now, but pre-EW number squish, Stone Vigil was non-stop healing spam, and it was fun, if stressful.

Why should we put up with that? Why should we tailor the game for these people? The devs put the abilities in the game, it's reasonable to expect us to use them,

IMHO, that is because the class progression for most ARR jobs is backwards. For WHM, lily should never have been lvl 52, it should be something you get on lvl 10 as soon as you get your other healing buttons (okay, maybe lvl 30). So that when someone starts a CNJ at lvl 1, they don't have to spend 52 levels spamming cure II.

[TDawnstar]

Selfish? Meh. Honest? Very. Regardless of how you wish to perceive it, the comment still has a place in these forums or in a suggestion box. Right now I look at how my run tanking Alexandria went on GNB, and I realize the threat level has dropped to 0 even when I'm lazy with mitigation- I have horribly powercrept via my ilvl. I respect your sense of virtue in wanting EVERYONE to enjoy the game, it's a good goal even if it's horribly unachievable- and that's not a smack to FF14, it's devs, the genre, or even people in general.

It's not about virtue, it's about the fact that if you declare a piece of content to be mandatory, then people should be able to get through it. Also, if you want to make faster mechanics (looking at you, first Alexandria boss), then fix the archaic netcode, so that both you and the server see your character where it actually is.

Suppose I shouldn't let this slip by due to implications in the statement: I'm not some high level player. I just have basic desires. FF14 has interesting boss designs. I want to enjoy the interesting boss designs. Older FF14 content melts incredibly quickly due to how ilvl scales. This leads to me not getting to see all of the boss' design. This makes me sad. I wish this was different. /entirethought.

Well, old content difficulty is another question entirely. Maybe the min ilvl thresholds need to be adjusted to account for number squishes and whatnot, but the option is still there. The issue is, roulettes were designed for older players to get alt job XP, not to force them to run throught a min ilvl clear to prove they can.

[Morr_Ar]

Luckily I've found the increased difficulty of the DT MSQ and Normal content to hit the perfect sweet spot for me. The Arcadion Raids feel fast with varied mechanics that don't have to be memorised or progged step by step but still demand a reasonably quick reaction. I'd be disappointed if they were nerfed substantially.

[NightHour]

Luckily I've found the increased difficulty of the DT MSQ and Normal content to hit the perfect sweet spot for me. The Arcadion Raids feel fast with varied mechanics that don't have to be memorised or progged step by step but still demand a reasonably quick reaction. I'd be disappointed if they were nerfed substantially.

They shouldn't be nerfed at all.


Nerfing content because a player is unskilled enough to complete it is dumb.

[Mihka]

You DO realize that most roulette content is not even from DT (and mostly not even from EW)? Hence, the argument about making DT easier or harder is moot, because most of the stuff in roulettes isn't from DT to begin with.

I'm not saying your point of view is true or false, it just has nothing to do with DT difficulty. Unless you are calling for the devs to go back and adjust every single piece of old content to a level where you don't find it boring. Well, the chances of it happening are rather low

"The problem is so bad taking one step in the right direction doesn't immediately solve everything, so why even bother?"

Great logic. I can't tell if you're trolling or actually just incapable of thinking more than one step ahead.

Dawntrail is a step in the right direction. It is not a full solution. If they continue in this direction, then eventually things might balance out in a slightly better place than they are now. And that's why it's important that people who want content to continue in this direction make their voices heard, otherwise CBU3 will only see people complaining and decide to nerf it again.

Or maybe they'll ignore the complainers just like they ignored SCH mains about Seraphism's design, and non-JP/West Coast MCH players about the animation lock system making the job objectively worse if you don't have low ping.

[Alice_Rivers]

Because it doesn't have to be braindead. But SE shot themselves in the head by removing everything everything else but encounter mechanics. They removed CCs (well, they are still there), they made tanks completely independent of healers, etc.
So, the only thing they can act on to make a fight harder is to make more (or less) telegraphed mechanics and make them more or less punishing.

In other words there's plenty of room to improve the game's difficulty and engagement factor, the infrastructure is already there, they need only use it. But tell me, if MSQ content "doesn't have to be braindead", why is it that you appear to be advocating exactly that?

IMHO, that is because the class progression for most ARR jobs is backwards. For WHM, lily should never have been lvl 52, it should be something you get on lvl 10 as soon as you get your other healing buttons (okay, maybe lvl 30). So that when someone starts a CNJ at lvl 1, they don't have to spend 52 levels spamming cure II.

Lilies being level 52 is perfectly reasonable from my standpoint. You spend level 15 to 30 learning how to heal (and preferably mix in some damage too), level 30-50 with cure 2 learning to be more measured, to judge when and how much to heal, then at level 52 they give you your first instant cast GCD heal. I consider it to be good pacing, it fits with your character learning more white magic, it fits a reasonable pacing of actual player skill. What it is not is an excuse to just press cure 1 or 2, worse at level 80+ when you should be versed with Asylum, Tetragrammaton, Benediction, Divine Benison and doing weaves like Regen > Divine Benison > Afflatus Solace > Tetragammaton if things are really dire.