Slightly Increase Crystal Tower Series Difficulty

[Aidorouge]

As I said earlier, I’m not asking for Extreme-level difficulty. I’m simply suggesting bringing alliance raids closer to their original difficulty when they were first released. That level of challenge was still far below Extreme trials and nowhere near something like Chaotic difficulty.

I don’t mean this in a negative way, but aside from Chaotic, 24-man alliance raids really aren’t that difficult. Most bosses only have three or four mechanics to learn. There’s a bit of pressure, but once you understand the mechanics and react properly, it’s very manageable.

If someone feels like they’re constantly being dragged across the finish line in that kind of content, it might just mean they need a bit more time to learn the mechanics and pay attention to what’s happening in the fight. Designing content around the idea that there should be almost no difficulty at all ends up making it boring for everyone else.

Also, the fact that alliance raids continue to pop regularly shows that players are still running them. And aside from the ARR and HW ones, most of the later alliance raids are already around the level of difficulty I’m talking about. If that difficulty were truly a major issue, the forums would likely be full of posts asking for them to be nerfed — which really isn’t the case.

So I think a small amount of challenge is reasonable, even in older content.

Learning the content doesn't work when most would rather not have you there for failing, or how learning the fights didn't make them any less of a slog to go through. Even if I never died again in an alliance raid I still wouldn't find any of them fun. Crystal Tower was tolerable because it was easy, but I wouldn't call it enjoyable either.

Most of those alliance raids that are popping is due to Crystal Tower though, because its mandatory, otherwise I imagine the queues would slow down if new players could just skip unlocking and doing it (which they should be able to, it's not that important).

Challenge is free to exist, as long as its optional, as I don't like getting dragged into harder fights where I'll just end up frustrated and hate being there until I get fed up and quit bothering with the content.

[AlliciaCapulet]

Challenge is free to exist, as long as it's optional, as I don't like getting dragged into harder fights where I'll just end up frustrated and hate being there until I get fed up and quit bothering with the content.

For me, it’s the complete opposite. A game with no challenge is what makes me lose interest and eventually stop playing. I believe the MSQ should include at least some level of challenge. It used to, back in ARR and the early expansions. That’s why I often complain about the current state of mandatory dungeons and story instances — they feel extremely easy and, frankly, boring.

If I were a new player today, and my first experience with the game was the current dungeon and MSQ difficulty, I’m not even sure I would buy the game after the free trial. I would probably stop early. Why? Because it would feel too easy and unengaging.

We clearly have different preferences. From what I understand, you prefer a very relaxed experience with little to no pressure, while I enjoy content that offers some level of challenge. Ideally, the design should land somewhere between those two perspectives. Right now, though, it leans far too much toward the “no challenge” side.

That creates another problem: MSQ and leveling dungeons should be where players learn how to play their jobs. With the current design, it’s no surprise that many players struggle when they first try Extreme trials. They’ve never really been asked to understand mechanics or optimize their role before that point. Then they get kicked from parties and become frustrated.

If the mandatory content at least taught players the basics of their jobs and mechanics, a lot of those issues would be reduced.

[GraceHorizon]

We clearly have different preferences. From what I understand, you prefer a very relaxed experience with little to no pressure, while I enjoy content that offers some level of challenge. Ideally, the design should land somewhere between those two perspectives. Right now, though, it leans far too much toward the “no challenge” side.

You know, this is why many games have difficulty settings: to accommodate different players’ preferences for level of challenge and appeal to a broader audience. It’s something conspicuously absent from FFXIV, and that the current structure of the duty roulette system makes harder to implement. (We already have a lot of different roulettes, multiplying that count by multiple difficulty levels would make it hard to fill them. But that doesn’t mean the idea is infeasible, just that it would also need a rework of how duties are grouped into roulettes.)

[Aidorouge]

For me, it’s the complete opposite. A game with no challenge is what makes me lose interest and eventually stop playing. I believe the MSQ should include at least some level of challenge. It used to, back in ARR and the early expansions. That’s why I often complain about the current state of mandatory dungeons and story instances — they feel extremely easy and, frankly, boring.

If I were a new player today, and my first experience with the game was the current dungeon and MSQ difficulty, I’m not even sure I would buy the game after the free trial. I would probably stop early. Why? Because it would feel too easy and unengaging.

We clearly have different preferences. From what I understand, you prefer a very relaxed experience with little to no pressure, while I enjoy content that offers some level of challenge. Ideally, the design should land somewhere between those two perspectives. Right now, though, it leans far too much toward the “no challenge” side.

That creates another problem: MSQ and leveling dungeons should be where players learn how to play their jobs. With the current design, it’s no surprise that many players struggle when they first try Extreme trials. They’ve never really been asked to understand mechanics or optimize their role before that point. Then they get kicked from parties and become frustrated.

If the mandatory content at least taught players the basics of their jobs and mechanics, a lot of those issues would be reduced.

My gameplay experience was only viable up until now when I could use NPCs or solo unsync things, once the game started throwing content at me where I NEEDED other people to advance, it just kept getting worse. Crystal Tower was bad enough and I almost quit right then (same as many other new players did and still do back on Dynamis), then Susano came along, then Hades, and then the game finally reached peak frustration with Warrior of Light and I haven't felt enthused about doing the MSQ ever since (and that was months ago where I landed in Old Sharlayan and then just kinda... stopped trying to move forward). I don't want to be forced into another complicated fight where I have to bring other people along to make sure my dumbass succeeds, I don't want to be mocked/kicked for dying on "brain dead" content. I can not emphasize enough that I DO NOT WANT TO BE JUST CARRIED THROUGH MSQ CONTENT LIKE YOU KEEP SUGGESTING. I would rather not be bothered by other players again for MSQ progress the same way I avoid bothering them by staying out of their harder content, and even their roulettes now, because I can't keep up with Stormblood and Shadowbringers dungeons/trials/raids.

And I don't get where you think there's "no challenge" given how much Dawntrail increased the difficulty on "normal" content, or how there's hardcore content for days being pumped out in this expansion, to the point that Square-Enix doesn't even bother making anything for casuals anymore. If you're bored of normal content you have Extreme, Savage, Unreal, Ultimate, Chaotic to choose from. It could even be argued that things like Deep Dungeons, Field Operations, V&C Dungeons aren't made with casuals in mind either and are intended to be "midcore" content. You're welcome to ask Square-Enix to make hard mode versions of normal content and even the MSQ, but that shouldn't be the default setting otherwise you end up filtering out more players than you keep. Personally that's what happened to me, where the game kept getting harder but I'm not getting better so I'm "stuck" in the MSQ with no side content I can do in the meantime so I'm just meandering here while my subscription lapses again.

[AlliciaCapulet]

And I don't get where you think there's "no challenge"...

I’ll just say that the MSQ lasts for many hours in every expansion. I’ve criticized Dawntrail for several things, and the lack of challenge is one of them. After the events of Endwalker, I understand that they needed time to build a new story arc. However, the way it was handled made the experience very boring for me.

A few reasons for that:

1. We essentially ended up acting as the guardian of an annoying child, where a huge portion of the MSQ consisted of simply “talk to her” interactions.

2. When actual problems appeared in the story, our character often played only a secondary role in solving them. For example, something breaks during a ritual — we talk to someone who is already standing next to the object that needs repair, and our contribution ends up being something trivial like gathering a piece of wood before the story continues.

There are simply too many cutscenes with very little gameplay or interaction between them.

3. When fights do happen — especially the MSQ instances where you play another character or your own — they are almost always cleared on the first attempt. These instances even offer to lower the difficulty if you fail. I don’t see why the default difficulty couldn’t be a bit more challenging for the average player, even if some players fail and have to retry. They could easily include a setting at the start allowing players to choose an easier or harder version of the instance. That way the MSQ could still offer some challenge without blocking players who prefer a more relaxed experience.

Normal dungeon are also part of the MSQ experience, and again, even on the release day, they end up cleared most of the time without even a wipe. I'm not asking for an extreme level, and yes they increased the difficulty a little in DT, but we are still far from the difficulty level from ARR/HW/SB era dungeon.

As for the topic of this thread, people are asking to slightly increase the difficulty of a dungeon that currently requires almost no thought to complete. Many players already comment in alliance chat during roulettes with things like “not this braindead raid again.” That suggests the difficulty may indeed be too low.

We shouldn’t design everything around the possibility that one player might struggle, especially when the rest of the group is capable of clearing it.

And if Crystal Tower being mandatory is the real concern, SE could easily remove that requirement or offer an alternative through the Trust system for players who prefer to complete it alone. But that’s another point I find confusing — this is an MMORPG, not a single-player RPG. Playing with other players is part of the core experience.

[LeCorbeaux]

And if Crystal Tower being mandatory is the real concern, SE could easily remove that requirement or offer an alternative through the Trust system for players who prefer to complete it alone. But that’s another point I find confusing — this is an MMORPG, not a single-player RPG. Playing with other players is part of the core experience.

Personally, I'd like to do story content anything with other players if the story was written in a way which incorporate those other players, in a way which assumes I'm not a solo WoL but a party of friends, a special squadron of a GC, a FC detachment, or any other suitable group.

FFXIV's story is not, and so I'm soloing it as much as I can.

There's plenty of the game I do gladly and happily with other players - PvP, economic activity, and socialising chiefly among them.

[Moonlite]

If we are fixing 24 mans can we also fix Nier raids. Those bosses have way to much HP. Should any alliance raid take 45+mins without wipes or major batches of death?

[Daralii]

If we are fixing 24 mans can we also fix Nier raids. Those bosses have way to much HP. Should any alliance raid take 45+mins without wipes or major batches of death?

Puppets' Bunker is the only one that I still see take longer than 20-25 minutes, and that's purely from 2/3rds of the group not respecting the mechanics and having Brink of Death for the entire fight.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

As for NieR raids, honestly I think they should at least cut down the NPC RP sessions somewhat. Everything else are alright imho.

[S-r-ex]

I actually think we should just retune the CT series to reflect what they were like in ARR. No worries, they were easy back then too, bosses just didn't topple to a stiff breeze.