The slow decline of FFXIV, a summary.

[AvoSturmfaust]

But we disagree that that would happen.
They need to gently increase the difficulty in a way that educates people.

Don't make casual content much more difficult. Just a little.

Where normals and trials are in DT right now is 'perfect*. *Just knock 5 item levels of the sync cap to keep it interesting as people Op.*
DT Dungeon bosses are perfect. *Again, knock 5 item levels of the sync cap*. The stuff in-between bosses is awful in it's lack of suprise. Create something interesting and fun SQX. I never want to see a 2 mob 2 wall run again.

ShB Ex1 Dancing plague is THE missing content! 4 experienced people can help 4 people blind prog it *MINE*, in 1 hour. It can be done. That's what's missing.
We need 12 if 'those' per expansion. They need to have three mount rewards among them that you don't have to sweat more that 10-15 clears if each instance for.

The normals need to have 'exactly' the same reward structure as savage. There needs to be a really good mount al fit the 4th of every one. Frankly it should be a recolour of the savage mount. By all means make people clear 1,2,3 per week. By all means keep the drop rate the same.

Jobs need to be more interesting. Challenging to play properly. Doesn't mean it should matter if people don't for their MSQ. What that does to ultimate, casual doesn't give a F as long as there are 8 jobs which can clear ultimate. If you want to Meta it, go ahead.

No and No and even more No

Dancing Plaque was one of the easiest Ex Trials ever, seriously we dont need more of them clearly not and the current ex trials are really easy and i think for a "EX Trial" the Difficulty is more then perfect

Mount in Normal Raids? Rather not, if you want the Mount just do savage, if you cant do it, your own fault

Classes should be challenging yes but thats something which will never happen, lets be real for a second you could play your whole Rotation with 1 Button and i guarantee there are some people which still would be to sorry to say it so hard dumb to press the one button, before you can make the classes more challenging you need to get rid of these people

[Arohk]

Classes should be challenging yes but thats something which will never happen, lets be real for a second you could play your whole Rotation with 1 Button and i guarantee there are some people which still would be to sorry to say it so hard dumb to press the one button, before you can make the classes more challenging you need to get rid of these people

I just recently had a white mage in a lvl 50 dungeon who only spammed Cure III, when i told her that is not good and why she would only use that spell. she replied "It is my highest level healing i got, i am toxic for criticizing her"

[Gurgeh]

No and No and even more No
...

Hey?... Is that Yoshi-P come to spend more time in the forums now you've got more time on your hands? Ahh! I got you! You bin sussed Yoshi!

...Dancing Plaque was one of the easiest Ex Trials ever, seriously we dont need more of them clearly not and the current ex trials are really easy and i think for a "EX Trial" the Difficulty is more then perfect...

First of all, if you do content higher than extreme, ie savage, then you just don't get a say in anything below it. Extreme isn't even necessary to unlock savage.

Also you misunderstand.
- I want 12 of the current extreme difficulty. (not 7)
- And I want a further 12 instances per expansion of Dancing plague level difficulty.
- I expect at least 3 mounts per difficulty tier. MUST NOT BE RECLOURS OF EACH OTHER. I expect that without having to clear the same instance more than once every week, and on that basis to be guaranteed a mount within that patch period.
- Square Enix, as far as I'm concerned if you expect to put 'my' money in your pocket, I will then be 'ENTITLED' to the above. (what the rest of you do with your money is up to you)

...Classes should be challenging yes but thats something which will never happen, lets be real for a second you could play your whole Rotation with 1 Button and i guarantee there are some people which still would be to sorry to say it so hard dumb to press the one button, before you can make the classes more challenging you need to get rid of these people...

That really is Yoshi isn't it? Well your plan is working. You're getting rid of plenty of people!
I don't think I explained very well. For absolute normal content, then if the jobs get harder and dungeon boss difficulty stay where it is, they will still clear by not even bothering with 1,2,3. Casuals aren't the problem with job design. Its hardcore, who refuse to use a job if it makes harcore anything less than as easy as it possibly can be. Casuals don't even know they are playing badly. And will play the job anyway to level it, and go back to their favourite 1 DPS, or their favourite healer for those insta queues. 'facts'.

Well carry on though Yoshi (I mean "AvoSturmfaust!" ;-> ) everything is fine! Change nothing! You're certainly getting rid of those players.

Hey seriously Avo.I know your bating me. I also know you genuinely don't care. And if XIV dies, you'll move onto some other sweat challenge. It makes no difference to you. What's more you will get to enjoy being toxic in game too, which is what really completes the experience for you.

[AvoSturmfaust]

snip

First of all you should finally start to stop with splitting between "Hardcore and Casuals" i know many really many many Casuals who even raid are they now hardcore?

And no casuals are the issues for the easy job design and im not talking about the standard casual which even does extreme trials or huh even savage? IMAGINE WHICH BLASPHEMY CASUALS DOING SAVAGE HOW DARE THEY ARE, im talking about the hardcore casuals which are to dumb to even press 2 buttons in a raw and refuse to do content where you have to follow a set mechanics, people which even called dungeons like alexandria TOO HARD, so even with dungeons staying the way it is and improving the class difficultiy these kind of player couldnt even press 1-2-3 without a 10s delay between each skill, so pls even when i would love to see more challenging classes, with that kind of playerbase here its not possible

Hey you wanna know something funny? I even do Ultimates with my Main and still say "NO" to easy Extremes like the Dancing Plaque

[Valence]

First of all you should finally start to stop with splitting between "Hardcore and Casuals" i know many really many many Casuals who even raid are they now hardcore?

And no casuals are the issues for the easy job design and im not talking about the standard casual which even does extreme trials or huh even savage? IMAGINE WHICH BLASPHEMY CASUALS DOING SAVAGE HOW DARE THEY ARE, im talking about the hardcore casuals which are to dumb to even press 2 buttons in a raw and refuse to do content where you have to follow a set mechanics, people which even called dungeons like alexandria TOO HARD, so even with dungeons staying the way it is and improving the class difficultiy these kind of player couldnt even press 1-2-3 without a 10s delay between each skill, so pls even when i would love to see more challenging classes, with that kind of playerbase here its not possible

Hey you wanna know something funny? I even do Ultimates with my Main and still say "NO" to easy Extremes like the Dancing Plaque

Oh we have a badass over here.
I've never seen a casual complain about the complexity of a job. I've seen them complain plenty about the difficulty of encounters though.
I think this should tell us something there.

Especially since casuals coasted by just fine when jobs were a lot harder to play at a decent level. I still remember ice mages and the likes. They cleared content just fine. They didn't complain about anything. The team sure complained about them but it's not exactly something that's disappeared today (cf your post).

I mostly agree about introducing more failure and raising the skill ceiling of the game overall, but I wanna point out that casuals didn't "went by just fine" during HW. HW was the period where, to my experience, the playerbase was at its most toxic because of the job design. Job design was convoluted, complex and satisfying to optimize maybe, but also unintuitive for most jobs, and a time where balance was at its most out of wack. It made it so casual players were scorned by midcore/regular players and some hardcore players for not mastering what they thought should be the baseline of job usage. It's one of the many reasons for the simplification that started in Stormblood (notably the cross-class skills system, remember that casuals were supposed to "know" they had to level up Thaumaturge for Swiftcast or Lancer for Invigorate).

And yes the game didn't exactly crater, but it was also maybe it's most dire moment since 1.0 too at the beginning of the expansion. Gordias remains the most ill-received raid tier in the game's history and almost killed its raiding scene, Diadem which was supposed to be the expansion's major feature failed catastrophically 3 times in a row. The game took a better turn in 3.2 but raiding remained unappealing not only because of the sheer difficulty of Midas, but also how gatekeepy the difficulty of both job design and encounter design made this side of the game (both in terms of investment required and community behavior towards "less skilled" players). Even the first release of Deep Dungeon 1-50 was poorly received. That's why we got the new raid design we still have now starting from 3.4.

So yes, I do agree about introducing more failure and raising the skill ceiling. I'd add also skills that are more interactive than "fancy animation + x potency". But HW was way dire for casuals than people seem to remember, if the main story didn't hit as much as it did, it would be treated worse than Dawntrail currently is.

I do not have that recollection from casual content. Hardcore players have always crapped on less skilled players, it's a universal constant no matter the game nor its complexity. They still do today. I've spent most of HW doing casual stuff (unlike later expansions), played a ton of roulettes and casual content, and I can safely say that casuals went by just fine. The big difference was the skill gap and skill expression showing, when today it just barely does in comparison. But obviously you'll get less skill expression gap if there is less depth and skill ceiling to jobs, when the floor hasn't changed that much except for support jobs that have become literally braindead.
HW job balance was all over the place but it mattered in savage, not in casual dungeons and whatnot.

I really don't see what Gordias/Midas savage or Diadem have to do with casuals vs complexity though? Savage is by definition not casual, and Diadem failed not because casuals couldn't cope with its difficulty (it was all but hard, and a lot less grindy than eureka), but for other reasons.

[Sekundessounet]

I do not have that recollection from casual content. Hardcore players have always crapped on less skilled players, it's a universal constant no matter the game nor its complexity. They still do today. I've spent most of HW doing casual stuff (unlike later expansions), played a ton of roulettes and casual content, and I can safely say that casuals went by just fine. The big difference was the skill gap and skill expression showing, when today it just barely does in comparison. But obviously you'll get less skill expression gap if there is less depth and skill ceiling to jobs, when the floor hasn't changed that much except for support jobs that have become literally braindead.
HW job balance was all over the place but it mattered in savage, not in casual dungeons and whatnot.
I really don't see what Gordias/Midas savage or Diadem have to do with casuals vs complexity though? Savage is by definition not casual, and Diadem failed not because casuals couldn't cope with its difficulty (it was all but hard, and a lot less grindy than eureka), but for other reasons.

Opposite experiences and bubbles i suppose haha, I remember the toxicity against casuals clear as day. Of course hardcore players have always been somewhat elitist, but the game-design during Heavensward favored this kind of behavior, which is not so much the case today. I was mostly midcore/casual during HW (Only cleared up to A2, then carried on A6, then A11), and playing on EU, so maybe different expositions to people.

I mentionned these contents first because I was answering to the idea of "casuals went on just fine", but also because they were thought of along the job philosophy of HW. Back in ARR, the community was priding itself on beating complex challenges like T9, and the game direction moved to an overall complexification of the game because the vocal playerbase was asking for that kind of stuff, which left casuals in the dust in most endgame content. Even back in ARR, casuals at least tried out the first two fights of a raid tier just for fun, but the focus on complexity, be it on job or encounter design, made Gordias and Midas a pain to play for casual audiences, hence Creator catering back to them more, making raiding more accessible (also, Gordias was also kinda shit altogether).

And then Diadem, which was supposed to be a more casual experience and the focus of the expansion, also shit the bed. For a good while, the only decent content you could really do casually in XIV were EXs and dungeons.

All in all I wanted to say that I agree with your overall point, but wanted to clarify that HW really was a rough time for the first 3 patches, and while I think casual content needs more opportunities for failure to keep being engaging and job design needs to be more interactive, I also think we shouldn't look back to HW for that.

[ForsakenRoe]

I mostly agree about introducing more failure and raising the skill ceiling of the game overall, but I wanna point out that casuals didn't "went by just fine" during HW. HW was the period where, to my experience, the playerbase was at its most toxic because of the job design. Job design was convoluted, complex and satisfying to optimize maybe, but also unintuitive for most jobs, and a time where balance was at its most out of wack. It made it so casual players were scorned by midcore/regular players and some hardcore players for not mastering what they thought should be the baseline of job usage. It's one of the many reasons for the simplification that started in Stormblood (notably the cross-class skills system, remember that casuals were supposed to "know" they had to level up Thaumaturge for Swiftcast or Lancer for Invigorate).

So, rather than, idk... teach the casual players how to play their jobs with ingame resources (Hall of the Novice, Stone Sky Sea giving, to practice, the rotation the devs used for coming up with the potency balance values for the job, etc), SE threw out the baby, the bathwater, and most of the bathroom, and instead just said 'reduce the skill ceiling of the jobs, so it's easier for the learning player to reach the 'acceptable performance level' for their Job'. Issue is, they STILL don't tell the casual player HOW to get to that level, you STILL have to go on external sites like IcyVeins or The Balance to learn your rotation. So they haven't solved anything, and gave up a massive portion of the skill ceiling to achieve that 'nothing'.

Opposite experiences and bubbles i suppose haha, I remember the toxicity against casuals clear as day. Of course hardcore players have always been somewhat elitist, but the game-design during Heavensward favored this kind of behavior, which is not so much the case today.

Even back in ARR, casuals at least tried out the first two fights of a raid tier just for fun, but the focus on complexity, be it on job or encounter design, made Gordias and Midas a pain to play for casual audiences, hence Creator catering back to them more, making raiding more accessible (also, Gordias was also kinda shit altogether).

And then Diadem, which was supposed to be a more casual experience and the focus of the expansion, also shit the bed. For a good while, the only decent content you could really do casually in XIV were EXs and dungeons.

All in all I wanted to say that I agree with your overall point, but wanted to clarify that HW really was a rough time for the first 3 patches, and while I think casual content needs more opportunities for failure to keep being engaging and job design needs to be more interactive, I also think we shouldn't look back to HW for that.

Lets take these in turn:

- Hardcore Toxic players will always be toxic to players they deem to be 'substandard'. This has nothing to do with 'casual vs hardcore', you can very easily be a 'toxic casual'. Or a 'toxic low-skilled player' , Dunning-Kruger effect exists for this very reason. This is not a reason to reduce the complexity of the Jobs as far as SE did, however. A toxic player will be toxic, regardless of how easy/hard the Jobs are to play. SE could make SMN's rotation all auto-swap in the next 'optimal button' on one hotbar slot, akin to using the onebutton macro, and a toxic player would still find a way to tell the SMN they're playing wrong (for example, by saying 'why are you playing SMN when PCT exists', as seems to happen now occasionally). The TOS exists for this reason, to protect casual players from this toxicity. We didn't need to have SCH lose all of its DOTS going from SB to SHB to 'prevent toxicity', because I've seen plenty of toxicity regardless. In fact, I remember a SCH telling me that I was trolling by using SGE, because 'its less damage'. So I checked. It was SIXTY less DPS than SCH at the time (P8S, week 1 prog). So, SE's not solved the 'toxicity' issues, and in fact, with the constant shifting of potency into less and less buttons, the filler spell is now so vital to your damage output, that losing a single cast is far more punishing to the damage output than it used to be. In ARR, when we had... 4? DOTS to juggle as SCH (Bio, Bio2, Miasma, Shadowflare), Ruin's potency was 80. Broil is now 310. Every time you lose a Broil now due to needing to Succor, or Adlo, or because you are moving, you're losing 4 ARR Ruin casts. The 'reduced punishment factor' of the current design is literally skin deep, look below the surface for even a moment and you quickly realize that SE hasn't solved anything, they've just moved the problem, and slightly obscured it to make it look like they 'solved' it

- Yeh, and Creator was well received by the more casual side of the playerbase. But, they were still using the HW 'complicated rotations' that were apparently so divisive. So, maybe it wasn't the rotations that were the issue. Or, more accurately, it was most likely the combination of 'complex encounter', and 'complex job rotation', together, that made Gordias so unapproachable. But, as we've now seen, Encounter design can't necessarily carry a fight. Look at P7S, absolutely awful fight, 6 minutes of bugger all and then BOOM, Inviolate Purgation, everyone's dead. Strap in for 6 more minutes of bugger all, to get back to the prog point and try to see 'what just happened' again. On the flip side, I don't recall anyone complaining about the EX roulette being boring to do in HW, or SB, nearly as much as currently, and I think a lot of the reason for that, IS the Job rotations of the time. Even if you're a SCH fighting something as simple as... IDK, Mr Sloppy in Baelsar's Wall, yeh, maybe you're skilled enough to be able to handle it all with no GCD healing used. But you can still find some engagement in trying to keep your 4 different DOT timers juggled successfully

- Diadem being hot garbage has nothing to do with the Job design. The removal of 3 DOTs from SCH would not have magically made Diadem more fun to play as a SCH, for example. You're right, that at one point, the endgame was massively lacking (Gordias too hard, Thordan EX was too unapproachable to be a viable 'catchup' method). But that's my point. Look at the 'Sources of Complexity' ratio again, we have Encounter:Job as the two main sources of complexity. If the endgame is lacking in content, then everyone's doing casual content by default, such as EX roulettes. There's no avenue for Encounter to be the source of complexity in that level of content (else it'd gatekeep less skilled players out of being able to get tehir weekly tomestones), to keep the 'hardcore' players engaged in such a patch. So, the Job complexity, which is theoretically optional (you don't have to juggle all 4 DOTs as a HW SCH, and if someone tells you that you do, you can report them via TOS) helps to carry the content, regardless of how complex (or not) the fight is. Now we have the reverse, the Job complexity isn't enough to carry certain pieces of content.

- Yeh, the first 2 patches (HW itself, and 3.1) were shaky, but from what I hear, Midas was a step in the right direction in terms of difficulty, and Creator was so well received it's been the difficulty template for Savage ever since. But here's the question: If Creator was so well received in 3.4, a whole year before SB came out... Why was SE not able to recognise that, and pivot their design direction going into SB? Were they unable to see 'oh maybe the problem was we overcooked the Encounter side of the ratio, now that we toned that down, people are loving it. So, maybe we don't need to adjust the Jobs quite as hard as we originally planned'? It seems like they're locked into a certain design pipeline literally months in advance, and anything that comes up has no effect on the plans. People could have told SE, from the SB Beta/JobActionTrailer/Media Tour (and they did) that the WHM Lily system would flop, but SE insisted on barrelling ahead with it. Surprise, it was a flop, but it remained a flop for TWO YEARS. They just couldn't pivot in response to the feedback that 'WHM kinda bad' for whatever reason.


Feels like they have an idea they want to do, and they stick to it regardless of what challenges the idea's feasibility. Seraphism's VFX are so 'not-SCH-identity' that even JP was asking about it (and got told 'yeh but crazy changes like this are good sometimes right?' by YP), WHM's 'Pure Healer' identity in SB being such a catastrophe for its place in the PF that SE... lobotomized the other two healers down to WHM's level (and only relented on Energy Drain after even JP complained about it), all the tanks lost their 'maintain aggro vs maximise no-tankstance uptime' minigame and had it replaced with... nothing, leading to them feeling like 'melee DPS but you do 50% less damage', AST cards are probably going to be the subject of much arguing going into 8.0, Viper getting changed a couple weeks after release in response to... feedback we can't see as players, because it was internal I guess? And of course, PCT is still ridiculous in any fight with downtime (to the point of trivializing even the most endgame of content in terms of damage checks), and has yet to receive adjustments (though maybe 7.2 will do something about it).

[Bonoki]

Opposite experiences and bubbles i suppose haha, I remember the toxicity against casuals clear as day. Of course hardcore players have always been somewhat elitist, but the game-design during Heavensward favored this kind of behavior, which is not so much the case today. I was mostly midcore/casual during HW (Only cleared up to A2, then carried on A6, then A11), and playing on EU, so maybe different expositions to people.

It was just one static, but during Gordias, I was in a group where the raid lead tracked every wipe you caused. If you hit 10 in one night, you were out. I haven’t seen a static do that since. I don’t think them doing that was a HW-specific problem, but it certainly didn’t help either.