Player Drop Off and Accessibility/Diffculty

[Myotis]

My problem with savage isn't the "difficulty", it's just a memory game at the end of the day, my issue is that it's just a memory game - there is no skill expression, the mandatory damage is carefully calibrated to not kill you as long as the right buttons are pressed and the fail damage causes a wipe then and there, no room for healers to save the run, no room for tanks to do anything to save the run, no room for good dps players to beat the dps check anyway just "you slipped up, back to the start." From what I'm told Ultimate is the same but longer.

In terms of dungeon and trial content, I feel like partywide damage should be twice as high and thrice as often, that'd give healers an actual purpose to exist, tank busters too should be at least 50% stronger, if not 100%. Mitigate or die, also get healed or die and yeah, if tanks die on account of healers not doing their jobs then I'll be the first to complain with them about those healers not doing their jobs.

I felt that closest to something actually fun was a fight with valigarmanda - so each game have those patterns for circle and squares however not each one of them does punish the 8 players with restarts so often.

I wish the XIV was more skill oriented than boring memory games over and over till we all puke from them.

[Devotions]

I am a "casual" player. I like housing, and crafting, but I also can skillfully complete all the "normal" difficulty content. I've played off and on since ARR, but have been consistently subbed since SHB-ish.

Yesterday I decided to let my sub lapse, and my houses demo. (FC and personal, on a few different worlds, mostly dynamis where they aren't in short supply. Not that supply is an issue now, with my home world having over 400 empty homes as we speak.) Not because I "can't" do the content, but because I realized doing it isn't FUN. I play games to relax and unwind, but fast paced "gotcha" mechs aren't that. FFXIV was made and billed as an MMORPG, not an action game, and so I think a lot of us who came for an MMORPG experience are sort of losing interest. My class fantasy is being killed off, as we no longer have class quests to explain our new moves, and the fast-paced nature of the fights no longer feel like the game I signed up for.

We can call for accessibility, which is desperately needed, but let's also just admit that this game no longer appeals to the crowd that it was made for. FF as a series seems to be embracing a more "action rpg" feel, and its core playerbase will also change as a result. I'm sad to leave, but if I'm not having fun, why stay?

[Kandraxx]

Why even bother with raiding in a game that is infested with hacks and cheats. Like just go do some CEs in OC and it becomes obvious how many cheaters there actually are that all react to a mechanic way before it even becomes clear because <....> paints it on the screen instantly. I've also done an EO clear where one of the guys was clearly using <....> cause he knew exactly which mobs he can bypass by a pixel and also reacted to mechanics before the tell. These people don't even try to pretend and conceal their plugin use anymore because they perfectly know nothing will happen.

So, if people cheat in lol content what are they doing in "high tier" content?

This game is a fucking joke and I just wait for them to somehow fuck up deep dungeons specifically PotD solo as well so the only thing in this game which has an ounce of prestige is gone as well.

[Myotis]

Why even bother with raiding in a game that is infested with hacks and cheats. Like just go do some CEs in OC and it becomes obvious how many cheaters there actually are that all react to a mechanic before it even becomes clear because <....> paints it on the screen instantly. I've also done an EO clear where one of the guys was clearly using <....> cause he knew exactly which mobs he can bypass by a pixel and also reacted to mechanics before the tell.

So, if people cheat in lol content what are they doing in "high tier" content?

This game is a fucking joke and I just wait for them to somehow fuck up deep dungeons specifically PotD solo as well so the only thing in this game which has an ounce of prestige is gone as well.

cheating is unavoidable even with kernel access anticheats fail - example battlefield 6 to stop that and rise of the black market for skips it's only to increase accesability and rise the clear rate to 40%.
The game is for it's people..

[Yeonhee]

There is a player base in this game that likes to do stuff at max level and ins't doing the latest difficulty dungeon ... they enjoy housing, glam and a myriad of other things, which has been the attraction of ffxiv in the first place ... and this for a long time has been the draw of the game for many players, including older players, disabled players, those who may play for themselves, with their children, or even grandchildren in some cases. They happily made their way through the MSQ, making mistakes and learning, not burdening other players with their lack of speed and reactions, and making their way via duty support to end game.

However, come DT and things changed.. The speed with which aoe's are chucked out is ridiculous for some players except almost professional players. Yes, we can work out our mistakes, yes, we can move when need, but not at that speed. Not as an older/disabled player.

I think that it's not only the lack of content, diffuculty of content or whatever ... I think alot of older and/or disabled players that enjoyed the game and invested a lot of money through subs and/or online store purchases, have now decided it all too much and cancelled their subs. They cannnot progress any further, especially if, as Yoshi has said, it will get even more difficult.

I know my post is coming from only one part of the fandom, but I also know that many other parts are unhappy, so what should they do ... or will they go down the Blizz route and not listen to anyone?

I'm all for some accessibility settings like disabling some of the bosses VFX of making clearer colors. But reducing the already quite easy difficulty even more and making the majority of the content boring for everyone just so a small minority can clear it easier isn't an healthy way forward.

Sure, DT is harder than EW which was a huge snoozefest but it's ridiculous to say that it's for "almost professional players". The normal's content difficulty is still quite easy. I know that's a quite unpopular opinion here but not all games has to be for everybody nor should they. If one finds DT's dungeon to be so hard that they can't manage to clear them, maybe it's time for that person to reconsider playing the game.

And telling people who don't want to fall asleep while playing to "just do savage/ultimate" is pretty ridiculous. Some people still want a baseline difficulty without having to throw themselves into the game high-end difficulty. Having only "inexistant" and "high-end" choices with nothing in-between isn't exactly a good way for combats.

Put the ''difficulty'' back into jobs.

That would be great but then you would have people still complaining that they now need to decently press buttons to clear content and that's still too hard for them because of age and/or disabilities.

[Mesarthim]

"The speed with which aoe's are chucked out is ridiculous for some players except almost professional players"

So the boss actually doing something other than standing around doing nothing but 3 autos in a row and saying hurr durr is for professionals now? Can't wait for 7.4's inevitable "this dungeon is too hard!" thread. You know it's coming and the cycle repeats.

[Jaltaer]

"The speed with which aoe's are chucked out is ridiculous for some players except almost professional players"

So the boss actually doing something other than standing around doing nothing but 3 autos in a row and saying hurr durr is for professionals now? Can't wait for 7.4's inevitable "this dungeon is too hard!" thread. You know it's coming and the cycle repeats.

Adding to this - in later/newer content, a lot of the time, if you can see the orange AOE marker, you're already too late to dodge. Most bosses and enemies have other tells and cues before their AOE goes off (using M7 as an example - Brute Abominator has an attack that can either be a point-blank or donut AOE. It's telegraphed beforehand by both the name on the castbar, as well as which of his weapons is glowing), the orange is pretty much there to let you know how far in/out you should be dodging, it's there as something you can remember for the next time the mechanic happens or you're in the fight. While I don't doubt that yes, there are people lazy enough to use plugins to solve mechanics for them, it's far more likely these hypothetical people being accused of cheating are simply paying attention and have learned the fight and its tells. Add that to the fact that pretty much every new fight is on a script these days, and it's not hard to preposition yourself for a good 80-90% of mechanics.

[Jeeqbit]

My take's been that MSQ dungeons shouldn't have been made faster or had telegraphs hidden until last minute

If telegraphs are hidden until the last second, then there was another telegraph in the environment that was not noticed. They wouldn't just give you a second to dodge. It's much more like 3-10 seconds but you're meant to observe the environment or "learn the fight" which mostly happens the same way every time.

The last boss of the Cenote dungeon's got some strangely strict positioning with the knockback mechanics

You need to be knocked back diagonally to have enough ground to remain on the platform. This is pretty obvious. It's why the blue circle is at a corner. Do not be inside the circle or it'll kill.

the second boss of the latest one catches quite a few players with the one move where a bunch of aoes go off one after another.

All telegraphed like 10 seconds before. Need to read the environmental clues so you can pre-position.

If you can't dodge fast, I suggest playing a tank because they can survive hits.

[ViinaS]

[...]

However, come DT and things changed.. The speed with which aoe's are chucked out is ridiculous for some players except almost professional players. Yes, we can work out our mistakes, yes, we can move when need, but not at that speed. [...]

Ho boy, another one of those.
No the speed is not ridiculous, no not only professionals can do mechanics,
no you can move at the required speed.

And you obviously do not work on your mistakes cause if you did all of this about DTs slightly faster telegraphs would be obsolete.
They have been almost exclusively regurtitating mechanics we have seen for years now.
Not Ultimate mechanics, not Savage mechanics, maybe a few easy EX mechanics here and there. But most of them are mechanics you should have seen in dungeons, ARs and other content before.

The dungeons are even designed to be doable with NPCs it's not the mechanics, its not the telegraphs.
It's you not reading or noticing the telegraphs.

Go in. Die. Do it again. Do the mechanic that killed you before. That's as basic as it gets for MMORPG Dungeons, cuz most of the time the mechanics you won't even really need to learn as almost everything nowadays is "dont stand there".

[NovaStella]

I've seen more people quit or fail to stick with this game because the difficulty is too low, not the other way around. I feel bad for you if this game really is too difficult, but right now we're at a point where a lot of people aren't having fun because it's too simple. There's a lot of content I just don't do because it's boring. I'll grind it out for the rewards, but as soon as I don't need it anymore I drop it. Which is, most of the content in the game right now. I like when games are entertaining, not when YouTube is entertaining because the game itself is too boring to hold my attention.

I wish we had a "story mode" for trusts, where it's almost impossible to die without really trying. Like, everything hits for very little damage, and mechanics are explained by NPCs in case you can't figure out the tells (as many have mentioned, it's not always the orange AoE on the ground). That way people that find the game hard can still do the MSQ, but without making the game bad for everyone else. Same thing for solo instances, make a "story mode" where you can't fail.

I think this way people who want to play without effort can have fun, and people who have fun through effort can also have fun.