Here we go again

[RagAndBoneLady]

They fail their compassion and perspective check over and over. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[AlienDiplomat]

As many people in this thread already mentioned, if DSS is too difficult to do solo, maybe you can open up a PF explaining the situation and people can help you out with it. (I'm on Chaos EU, but I'd offer my help aswell!)
Players will be able to help you much more than the NPCs do, and a lot of the players are fairly understanding and will stick around after wipes (unlike other communities)

I guess this is the MMO part of the game, ask for help from other players and good luck with the Meso Terminal run!

While I can appreciate the sentiment, I fear this is missing a huge fundamental problem with this shift in design philosophy.

There is only so much you can lean on the "people will help you " argument to cover the fact that making content that was formerly accessible prohibitively difficult to appease a minority feels like a betrayal/bait and switch.

If FFXIV would just invest into the game enough to have multiple difficulty tiers for dungeons in the roulette like literally every other MMO, this wouldn't be an issue. But they don't. They skimp. Therein lies the problem.

Any time you have a sudden shift in playstyle people who formerly enjoyed that playstyle are going to take notice. In such a scenario, people OK with the change saying "but we will help you with the stuff you no longer enjoy that you used to so you can get through it" is cold comfort. Who wants to pay a sub to have people help them suffer through stuff they used to repeatedly enjoy, just so they can never do it again? Is that not getting less for the same price? Can we really not see why that doesn't sit well?

While pre-Dawntrail MSQ dungeons sometimes introduced nuanced mechanics you had to learn/pay attention to, they were not nearly as prohibitive as the new design philosophy shift. This is not some conspiracy theory either. YoshiP has even mentioned this change towards higher difficulty in live letters, and sited From Software games as inspiration.

The fact they can't be asked to invest the bare minimum necessary to add difficulty tiers to roulettes to avoid leaving huge swaths of players behind is absolutely a loss for the game and the fan base. But so long as the minority of vocal elitists and streamers are satisfied I guess we don't need the revenue from the other 80+%.

[Supersnow845]

I think saying “who cares about the casual players when the elitists and streamers are happy” isn’t fair here because to many people this isn’t “sacrificing casuals for the high end playerbase” this is (in the nicest way possible I’m not trying to be mean I just don’t know how else to phrase it) “cutting the very bottom end dead weight to improve casual content for the engaged casual”

Outside of the forums the overwhelming opinion is that DT’s battle content (if absolutely nothing else) is really good

Trying to “link” this to dissatisfaction with something like forked doesn’t really work because there is a difference between forked actually completely unbalancing the way OC works and feeling like a dungeon is slightly too hard

[Hanzz96]

Seriously if you guys think a story dungeon is too difficult at level 100 and don't want challenges because you faced IRL challenges or whatever then MMO's aren't for you.

You guys yap about difficulty options but even WOW's easiest modes Normal dungeons, heroic and mythic 0 are as hard or usually harder than FFXIV story dungeons. No MMO has an "I win" invincible mode.

Second life, stardew Valley and Animal Crossing are right there. Enough of the game is homogenised and butchered because casuals are afraid to die in a video game

[RagAndBoneLady]

Ohh, yeah. That's totally why "dead and dragged along and you like it mode" isn't cutting it.

[Gwenkatsu]

I for one didn't understand the first and the last boss of the dungeon. Died to the second, but at least learned something from it.
But that moment when the first boss went "now you no longer understand my mechanics" when I did not understand them anyway - hilarious

As hilarious as the "dungeons are hard, deal with it" crowd, which always needs to call others names instead of simply making their point. Makes you really wonder why it's always the unpleasant personalities that want harder content.

[EusisLandale]

I for one didn't understand the first and the last boss of the dungeon.

First one drops a layout of two large and two small circles, along with a knockback aoe. A timer will tick down over one type or the other, then the other after it goes off. It also always alternates, so if knockback was first then next time it's the circles, and so on.
Once the crazy gas starts kicking in you get 2-3 seconds to look at the layout before all the circles go massive and the knockback doubles. The timer still goes over whatever's going to go off first, just strobing instead of counting down, so you can still plan out where you need to be.

Last boss you don't want to be hanging out with the memories of dead people how they died, that's how you die. First type is a cross beam over them, leading to the usual alternating crossed grid type attack. Second type is a circle aoe, massive on the crowds small on the loners, along with a standard "kills you if you're in it, but hug it to not fall to your death" knockback. Third type is two crowds running from a pair of sweeping beams.

[Mawlzy]

Seriously if you guys think a story dungeon is too difficult at level 100 and don't want challenges because you faced IRL challenges or whatever then MMO's aren't for you.

You guys yap about difficulty options but even WOW's easiest modes Normal dungeons, heroic and mythic 0 are as hard or usually harder than FFXIV story dungeons. No MMO has an "I win" invincible mode.

Second life, stardew Valley and Animal Crossing are right there. Enough of the game is homogenised and butchered because casuals are afraid to die in a video game

Constantly repeating this debunked myth doesn't magically make it true.

[Gugnir]

I am old. I've been playing since 1.0. But like all dragons, we become stronger with age.

[Valence]

My problem isn't the difficulty increase, but that they increase it in all the wrong places.