The paradoxical nature of FFXIV's content difficulty

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[@Longlius]

There's basically two flavors of FF14 difficulty right now - "Content where you can never die" and "content where one person messing up means everyone dies." That's a bit of oversimplification, but I think the devs legitimately don't understand how to make midcore content.

[@lambdafish291]

The problem is that they do know how to do it. Bozja and eureka are forms of content that require thought and decision making (and plenty of deaths along the way), but aren't "if one person dies you lose". What the game requires is content where dying isn't instant, but the player needs agency in their decisions.

[@DefensiveBalloons]

I think contents like blue carnival are the perfect midcore contents...sadly is just a really small content. Like the Goldor fight felt like it have the perfect midcore difficulty. Because it punish you for messing up(You die), but also it's not savage difficulty or make you rely on others to survived(Actually the worst part of Extreme and Savage). Not forgetting 1-100 deep dungeon solo run that is also a good midcore content...not counting 1-200, because is really hard, requires rng, many hours and your sanity. So I believe more hard solo contents is the way to go for midcore players. Like something like a harder Variant dungeons intended for solo players.

[@tylercafe1260]

That's not an oversimplification. That's legitimately how it's designed. Unless people already cleared it and a chunk of the party has BiS there's no way you're recovering from any mistakes.

[@juicytin14]

As much as I would like 7.0 to shake things up, I think Square know that they can basically do the same release formula they've done since Heavensward and the game will print money. While it will be more interesting to shake things up, I don't think they will want to take the risk to change it up significantly and risk upsetting the core player base (who already whinge about every little thing).

[@chinami_xiv]

That’s the unfortunate issue. Veteran players are looking for new systems and square does the same stuff every expansion and then the veterans just quit. I think at a certain point you have to just bite the bullet once and just go with it

[@24hr-Gaming]

Sort of? In Shadowbringers people were excited for next expansion. Right now most I know people plan to retire after they're done with Savage, maybe try one Ultimate, then only come back if 7.0 is good. People are very tired of the current progression system.

[@skcansMachine]

​@@24hr-GamingIt's still a small minority that want a shake up. I consider myself to be hardcore and personally don't care too much about the current content cycle. Savage and ultimate is enough to keep me subbed and playing. It could be better but it's not a big deal as I have plenty of other things to do outside of this game to keep me entertained. Would be nice if I could just main this 1 game for the rest of my life but life is too small to be in that mindset.

[@JJStylies]

Frankly, I'm not so upset with them sticking to a formula if they can keep up the current amount of variation in fighting and mechanics for savage/extremes/ultimates specifically, and the story - we'll just have to see. What I truly hope for, and what I hope the graphical update in 7.0 is a sign of, is them making significant upgrades to the entire game's backend. graphics, netcode, infrastructure, etc... it should all get updated to a point of good workability for the sake of keeping the game running. potentially, that's where their focus is and it will take away somewhat from the current game. I also think it's possible they will hesitate to do things like that because people will complain exactly like this, and rightfully so.

[@coolyeh1017]

​@@JJStyliesunfortunately a graphical overall is much easier than an infrastructure or netcode change, though a graphical update is still a huge undertaking. For graphics if your engine has the capability and in FFXIV's case it does (FFXVI is FFXIV's and my god the Eikon fights) then you can do it. However, for netcode and internet infrastructure, outside of more servers to let more people play they are sort of out of luck due to the engine itself.

[@AdrianRodriguez-zs1lo]

As a newcomer to ff14 i gotta agree. There is a lot of stuff completely unknown when trying out stuff like extremes too. Basic stuff like terms and party finder expectations are super new to me, but there hasnt been a clear transition into that type of environment.

[@feeblemind]

if you're new you're never even gonna get to try savage content fuck even extremes until you catch up no one does the old content.

[@Raya.T]

@@feeblemind i see groups for min-ilvl, no echo, old content all the time in Light datacenter.

[@attaxiaffxi7033]

Reducing the job difficulty and offsetting it with the fight difficulty was likely intended to help new players get into it. The thinking is that if the skill ceiling is low the game becomes more accessible, because both new players and veterans will reach the skill ceiling comfortably and both categories will lack experience in new content, giving them a more equal footing (though ofc mechanic patterns/telegraphs that re-occur remain as an advantage for the veterans). One of the problems with this is that it will end up making more casual content way more boring, when the job skill ceilings were more difficult there was a payoff and enjoyment doing casual content. I used to be in the midcore demographic, I would do most extremes and occasionally did tip my toes in savage when I wanted more. Now I'm definitely in that casual bracket, leveling the jobs and then unsubbing, there is no longer a stepping stone to savage, the extremes are tuned too high for me to be enticed and there is no payoff for doing casual content. I don't envy the devs of MMOs because these are extremely difficult problems to solve. I'll stick to single player games.

[@maerto]

I feel the exact same way.

[@UCKnight69]

"The story is good" and "catgirls" attract new players attention over the gameplay. That's the problem for non-JP regions. Also some new players will touch on those harder contents blindly with zero knowledge of those unwritten rules of end game contents. Not all newcomers have a thought of searching for guides. Not all newcomers know these established raiders and streamers. Not all of them have discord or reddit. Of course they'll miss out on the fundamentals. Meanwhile in Mana they encourage new players to clear savage with game8 as their guide. That sounds casual to them. Anyway I just want a eureka/bozja equivalent for EW. Something punishing for non-raiders. Let them panic in massive AOEs and get the taste of a typical fashion in FF which is get OHKO

[@loololollool]

Even in JP regions, there's a reason why the entire Mana DC server is still congested now and non-Japanese speaking players have to go all AMOGUS imposter to stealth raid there It's just plain easier to actually "start" to play the game even as a beginner, even during content droughts like these In comparison the other DCs are "you haven't memorized the guide from start to finish on a fresh prog? " {Thank you, but I must now take my leave} then vote abandon after 3 pulls Not that Mana doesn't have those parties, but at the very least it won't take you 3 hours to fill a party

[@lootmaster1337]

Always love to go from p12s where every mechanic oneshots me and the tankbuster needs 2+ mits to dungeons where i can't die if i press my one mitigation button on cooldown

[@kohlicoide2258]

Or you use all Mitigation and gives the healer a "Why the hell im even in the group?!" Feeling. Because they only Spam there one Button Rota, imo Healers suffers as most from this difficulty gap, there is literally a jump from 1 Button Rota and maybe 2 different heals that you need to let the group alive to "When you are not able to manage all your Utility the group will be obliterated!!!" And tbh.. im not a healer Main ,but play healer in casual was in WoW more funny then in FF14, when you dont have the rare cases of overgeard players how steamroll the content

[@attaxiaffxi7033]

@@kohlicoide2258 Agree. I used to love healer in 3.0 and 4.0 but now it doesn't feel like a healer at all. Just the most boring possible DPS that can heal.

[@chrisanderson7820]

There's gonna be a million opinions on what equals mid-core but to me it's making more dungeons and trials that are half way between EW normal mode trials and Extreme. A bunch of randos can jump in, they might have a wipe or three but can finish the content without raging, also something where the wiping doesn't mean "start again from the beginning". I was a monster hardcore raider in previous MMOs but no longer have the reflexes/patience/energy for FF14s savage/ultimate scene I need something in between. Variant/Criterion missed the mark, it was more of the braindead-learning cliff-punishing terror like Arthars talks about.

[@Castersvarog]

Heck ARR had this in the form of Odin, it’s tougher then the Hard mode fights but it’s easier then the Extremes because the mechanics are simpler in comparison. There should be more of that

[@no00ob]

​@@Castersvarogthats why they should bring (hard) as a label back and make it a difficulty in between normal and extreme.

[@Luna________]

They just build a huge game with a ton of systems that aren't super flexible and i think it's coming to a point where it limits what they can really do without doing MASSIVE changes

[@randomaether]

tbh ffxiv is the retirement home of the fighting game comunity, I have met a lot of people in random local tournaments that play this game in the back burner

[@ikeaira8701]

so fuckin' true lmao I never realized that until now xD There's A LOT of peeps from the fighting community on XIV hahaha

[@Gillian_FFXIV]

TRUEEEE!! 😂😂😂 I’m one of them too, but this comment got me GOOD with a nice laugh right before bed with how accurate it is since I used to play fighters non stop 8+ hours a day and travel to tournaments back in the day lmaooo

[@FrazzleCat]

Hah I've noticed this. I used to be pretty hardcore into Street Fighter and midcore into Tekken and some other fighters. I bumped into another previous FGC member and that was an unexpected long chat.

[@KiddDaPhoenix]

I wanna meet more fellow FGC people tbh. Don't really know many, but I sure am here.

[@BongSwansong]

Ive been playing xiv off and on for the last nine years. I love the game and is in the top 5 for favorite ff games But i cannot deny they found a formula and have been working to shave off meaningful content over the years to i assume make developing content for the game fast and easy. As a result the final product that is content is only so much or of sub par quality. Luckily this last set of raids have been super fun and quality. I only wish there was other things i could do of that same quality design.

[@xxmapleprosxx]

That last part is some grade A copium

[@villaniousmustache4898]

Pretty sure he was making fun of the fan base that put yoshit p on a pedestal

[@VeralionRawr]

Why are Piety and Tenacity still in the game? If nothing else, I want stats and gear completely redesigned. It's worst in genre by MILES.

[@ragnorak5095]

7.0 will be a single player game, all MSQ, Trial and raids with be designed with NPC trust been able to do them.

[@MrLyramion]

Tried to get my nonraiding friends into Criterion. We had a lot of fun but... the content is gear dependant with Savage ilevels giving a huge advantage. So if you are a casual you have to play really well and without deaths to clear. If you are a hardcore raider you roflstomp the DPS check even with 2 deaths.

[@MrMiQT]

The first Criterion is also harder than all EW extremes and some Savage. The difficulty of Criterion has been an unspoken death nail in that content

[@richardwicker8456]

There's also the fact that the rewards for criterion are awful so there's little incentive to want to work through the difficulty in the first place.

[@potato61192]

I sorta agree. As a casual player myself, theres not a good way to transition to Savage. So I mostly just end up enjoying the casual experience nd look for the midcore experience somewhere else (currently trying WoW again). Nowadays I feel both will compliment each other. I can hve my chill casual exp in FF14 while hving a more midcore exp with WoW.

[@glimoreganajai2206]

u literally watch guide and prepare to get wiped for week straight, its not so bad really, especially after week 1 (first progs before any guide exist are hard sure, whatever happens after is not, u just watch video and repeat what u just saw step after step)

[@potato61192]

@@glimoreganajai2206 in a way thats true but following the video is not always as easy as ot seems for non experienced ppl. To put raid difficulty into perspective in comparison to WoW. Mythic Raid = Savage Raid generally. LFR Raid = Normal Raid. FF14 doesnt hve a normal/heroic counterpart. Sure Extreme exists but thats only 1 generally unrelated boss per tier.

[@junneshi3833]

its crazy how the game does an awful job at making people interested in trying anything above normal, its not only about the lack of bridge content itself but the whole mentality it causes players to have. All the handholding on normal mode to assure its clearable by anyone just makes players that are on the verge to evolve their skills to never evolve at all and on their heads they think they cant make the jump, while on reality they could but are afraid to upset others Believe me, you can get at the very least an extreme down with guides if you really put your thoughts into it. This tier was my first time doing savage at all when I used to think I couldn't do as well, I cleared some of the extremes right before 6.4 too as prep and it was a great feeling

[@578t7645uyb5]

For me the midcore gameplay was always Eureka and Bozja, but now there's nothing like that in 6.0... it really sucks

[@pyrrhos8175]

I'll also throw in Unreal/EX trials, it's just most unsync the EXs for mount farms when they can. Savage is the hardcore barrier then beyond that niche content like Criterion, Ultimate and BLU

[@OldManInternet]

I agree with the gap between casual and hardcore content. The hardest part of Savage raiding in this game is finding 7 other people that can actually play the game that you also like spending hours with at a time with. It would be nice if there was content to kind of help people improve at the game, but as it stands now people can either do Savage, or they can't, and there's not a lot of good content to help people actually get better on. Most stuff is so piss easy that a mediocre player is hard pressed to really improve when the normal fights basically clear themselves. And obviously you can do PF with pugs, but at that point I would personally rather just play a single player game. I know some people like PF, but to me it's kind of defeating the purpose of playing a social game if your only way to do hard content if to jump into a group with a bunch of strangers rather than a group of friends.

[@vaan_]

If you don't raid, this expansion might actually be the worst so far. It desperately needs battle content that fits between "well oiled 8 player machine" and "spam 1 button and eat all mechs and still clear" content. So far we've had deep dungeon and variant... in almost 2 years of expansion. Bravo.

[@vaan_]

I've been in a few LS and FC discords as a helper and they were bursting with activity in 6.0. I tried helping with content like P1S and most already couldn't handle it due to how spoiled they got with Zodiark EX. Only a couple players actually progged through the tier. 6.1 comes out and there's a resurgence of players, they do the alliance raid and try Endsinger. And then they all quit, and none of them have been back, because there's absolutely nothing for them to do. The last message sent in some of these discords is almost 6 months old. Some are even just watching the story on youtube and don't even play anymore. The game has become a pyramid scheme where they funnel veterans into filling queues so new players can go through the story, either with tomes or mogtomes or memories of the dying or whatever they want to use to manipulate the playerbase. By the time the disgruntled vets quit, there's a new batch of guillible idiots to take their place. I know for sure that if I didn't raid I'd have dumped XIV a long time ago.

[@RandomFlask175]

Yeah this is my least favourite expansion in a while because of this, not having any Eureka/Bozja style content really sucks, there's nothing to really sink my teeth into

[@peachy7776]

fucking eureka and bozja fit that inbetween section, and what did they do? get rid of it. i dont understand man

[@Crowens]

I think it's safe to say you were right. Even if you raid it's not a guarantee you enjoy it, every raider is built different and while some people only raid and can be sustained on the prog and reclears others stop after their goals or want more to do outside of the weekly meetup

[@kamayell9078]

~2years ff14 newcomer, Im mainly from wow As a wow 85% difficutly enjoyer (hc raids, 1-2 mythic boss kills, Keystone-Hero, 2100+ PvP) ff14 was really strange in this regard, my idiot friend struggled af with extreme Trials.. while I was getting depression in Savage and also only killed 1 boss in the newest raid Tier But it didnt take long, till we got bored and that was kinda sad, you know you can feel the potential I've heard something that Xeno said, was something like ff14 doesnt have enough content to keep the players busy (why not both, criterian dungeon and bozja or something)

[@Gamerszo]

Its not a retirement home, its just there isn`t a different MMORPG where we can invest our time in our busy schedule. If a different MMORPG came out which was far above the other ones then yeah the decision to move would be easy but right now no MMORPG is leagues ahead of the other.

[@coolyeh1017]

Are there any other MMOs released within the past five years that manage to hold its userbase? I know among most conversations FFXIV, GW2, ESO, RuneScape, and the big daddy WoW are long lasting desire fumbles here and there. I remember MMOs releasing like Lost Ark, New World, PSO2 (and PSO2NG), and a few other Asian MMOs (i.e. Tower of Fantasy) but they seem to have flopped hard. I think there is Blue Protocol but it is getting hit hard by Amazon censorship and Ashes of Creation but that game is still in development for four or five years now.

[@hyperionnova2854]

… Dragonflight?

[@coolyeh1017]

@@hyperionnova2854 if you are listening to the KZbin sphere of MMO Dragonflight has it own set of problem. Ironically, some players and KZbinrs are complaining about the lack of content too though are much happier than in Shadowlands.

[@Zantetsudex]

@@hyperionnova2854 Dragonflight didn't fix the fundamental issue with WoW that it does the opposite FFXIV is doing by solely catering to people who want to run the same set of dungeons forever with a marginal increase in difficulty. Heaven forbid you fall behind too, cause no pick-up group will want you.

[@FrazzleCat]

YoshiP's turning it into a single player game for a reason. XIV's going into maintenance mode and the only people who don't realize it yet are the hardcore fans. It won't be long before it's essentially a single player JRPG with a subscription that also has optional multiplayer components. I've been playing off-and-on since 1.0 and I've already told people that although we'll obviously see a swell for 7.0, I expect that the drop-off from that is going to be way more than CBU3 ever expected and I wouldn't be surprised to see server merges come ~7.5 or so.

[@FrazzleCat]

Addendum: In the past I used to speculate that the steady cutting back of content and quality was due to them working on another MMO behind the scenes, but we have since learned that what they were working on was FF16.

[@villaniousmustache4898]

@@FrazzleCat and they are fuming it didn't do so well. 10 years of work for only 10 million in revenue is not enough to justify a new game. It's becoming another square soft situation and with FFXIV losing massive amounts of subs to wow, I ain't shocked I've been seeing people leave the game

[@DawnAfternoon]

​@@villaniousmustache489810 million in revenue? What? 3m x 70$ = 210m in dollars, and that's not counting the exclusivity money and additional profit from deluxe/collector edition. Where did you get the 10m figure from?

[@Rataldo20]

this expansion is really missing an eureka or bozja :(. back then whenever i finished the raids or ultimates i could just go there and spend some time. build some relics grind something. i actually had a lot of fun grinding for relics on bozja back on the day. or just doing the content that was there. which was actually really fun to do.

[@TheSorahh]

Relic weapon grinding had to be the most braindead awful activity that I've ever done, esp Bozja

[@nasch3391]

Pre eureka/bozja relic were the best

[@CrosbyNu]

@@TheSorahh same for me as well, but i mean, look at runescape. that game is 99 percent grind and people still play. people like grinding, ig

[@vasilias7987]

How we determine midcore exactly? I personally think i am casual because i only max my weekly tomestone and try to clear raid everynight but perhaps i am already in midcore level?

[@Crozo_]

As a full casual that occasionally does an extreme, I'd love to see something like unreal difficulty come to raids. It's not that I probably couldn't learn the new savage, it's that I don't want to commit my limited amount of time to F-tier attempting to parse 24/7 in party finder, wiping over and over because they want to use that as proof for a static. Also, casual player were done dirty in Endwalker. Relic weapon grinds became some of the best repeatable community content in Eureka and Bozja. But instead, we got... tomestone grind? Also it's locked behind a questline that almost every casual player has already done because it's fun and silly. What else do we have? Criterion dungeon with 12 paths different paths which recycles bosses... unique content length, 1:30, extended to 5-ish if you want the full story. There was a savage fight that would probably have been fairly accessible but it didn't have any good rewards so why bother if you're not used to learning fights. This gap that you speak of is literally just the missing relic weapon zone that we had in stormblood and shadowbringers No one wants to grind tomestones. It makes it feel like it's just another place to dump poetics in once 7.0 comes around.

[@ChipotleKanetsu]

If only they made Criterion have currency to buy Relics.

[@kohlicoide2258]

@@ChipotleKanetsu Make the criterion dungeons part of the relic weapons would be so much better, but no, now are Player forced to make Hildibrand for the Relic Weapon and one of strongest point of the storyline "You dont need to play the questline if you dont enjoy that kind of Humor you can just ignore it!" Are now gone.. at least you can skip the cutscenes to spare some time.

[@ChipotleKanetsu]

@@kohlicoide2258 The funny thing is, I finished Hildibrand back in stormblood and the best part about it was it wasn’t forced on anyone.

[@kohlicoide2258]

@@ChipotleKanetsu Yeah.. tbh the whole choice about Hildebrand and Relic feels so random, almost like in the next AddOn you have to play Mahjong for the Relic Weapon etc you know what i mean. I mean the whole criterion dungeons where be perfect like "Hey! We find some plans for some old powerfull weapons! Lets built it!" The ShB Backstory for the Relict Weapon goes that way

[@leighg9o]

​@@ChipotleKanetsui skipped these quests. Just dumb writing tbh.

[@HarumiYu]

I think in NA at least, if a game can grab that much Second Life players and IMVU shit to play, and spend money, they already have a pretty clear idea of where they want to go to have their sweet money printed: MSQ and Turbo Casual, and Yoshi P is employed in a company, SE knows FFXIV prints money, so they have heavy eyes on the product, just like Yoshi P said on PAX, as much as he like the game, there is a company behind and he can't do everything he wants, it isn't ARR anymore.

[@user-xl5kd6il6c]

The jobs have been too watered down and boring af I miss HW, and it's been 7 years since then. It's just sad

[@zackaerith1872]

Bozja is the best community content they ever come out of. A place where people would help each other. No language barriers. And No one cares so much because you have tons of people to cover many mistakes. Savage and higher content is a cut throat content at times. It’s just a game, but you need to give it your all, so much so it becomes a part time job. You did too many mistakes for whatever reason you get “fired”. Some need more time to learn but everyone’s goal is to clear fast and it became a conflicted situation. You even need to build your “resume” or meet great bunch of people in static to help and it’s luck base. Everyone has their reason to play games and like what the video suggests Yoshi P has to ramp up on mid core content. I love FF in general and FF14 is their cash cows. I hope it goes on good for another decade.

[@richardwicker8456]

I agree about Bozja and would really like to see another field operation zone like Bozja and Eureka for 7.0.

[@omensoffate]

Eureka is better but yea every expansions needs that

[@nodot17]

As long as its not tied to relic Relic grinding made me loathe bozja and I haven't been back since even tho I want that penelo armor

[@Mann42]

As a player that started 3 months before Endwalker, I agree with this. I have run the first two savage tiers (P1S through P8S) and am working through the current one, but the jump from the story content and even EXs to Savage is massive, and as someone who doesn't have years playing and learning different jobs, I constantly feel like I'm still trying to catch up understanding the nuances of my class, let alone my role and heaven forbid what all the other roles are doing. It feels overwhelming enough that it becomes discouraging. The gatekeeping in PF also becomes noticeable; newer players simply don't pick up on mechanics as fast as older ones, especially since many of the current savage mechanics are remixes of savage mechanics from older tiers. You'll join a first time prog party and find people leaving after 3 pulls because it becomes apparent some people are new to the mechanics and old school players just don't want to deal with it. I feel I'm a relatively quick learner but still find some mechanics absolutely confusing until I beat my head against them for a couple hours. I'm fortunate to have met some great people whom I am able to raid with and have patience for my learning curve, but I often feel like I'm just holding everyone back, which is even more discouraging than just failing to begin with. As it is now though, it's Story content -> small hill up to Alliance raids -> another small hill to EXs and Criterions -> a big ass cliff to savage -> big ass cliff to Ultimates. Part of the problem with that is that the EXs and Criterions give no meaningful progression towards savage, as there's often no mechanic overlap and the rewards are minimal to non-existent. It would be nice for them to figure out how to smooth the curve a bit by beefing up EX and Criterion as mid tier content, have more of them give them better rewards so that newer players can use them to gear up for a couple weeks, start the savage tier a couple weeks late but give them a more wiggle room in savage by crutching on gear a bit more.

[@Lamorakc]

I get what you mean but the EX fights do definitely introduce a lot of mechanics used in savages and gives you an opportunity to get used to resolving mechanics more comfortably.

[@Mann42]

@@Lamorakc In a general sense they do, but I mean it would be nice if the EXs that are released before a savage had similar mechanics to the savages that release, so that players have some practice with them before the savage comes out. As I'm working on P11, members of my static keep referring to old Eden raid mechanics that I never did and I'm like, damn, I wish there was a convenient way to go do those for practice, but trying to get a group together for those is harder than just getting a group for P11. I simply don't have the foundation that those older players do, and the intermediate content (EX and Criterions) don't directly help, only indirectly by helping you flex your more general comprehension and reflexes.

[@24hr-Gaming]

The gap between Savage and Ultimate is not that big because the level 70 and level 80 ultimates become easier over time. It's still a learning curve, but if you can clear turn 4 of a savage tier while it's on content, you can clear uwu and ucobb.

[@24hr-Gaming]

​@@Mann42The fight they're referring to is e11s and e11s is much harder than p11s. P11S all the mechanics can be resolved by the tank pointing the boss either north or at light cleave and parties staying east and west to resolve the mechanic. E11S, the boss will point at a random player and you have to resolve the mechanic relative to where the boss is pointing. P11S the "hard" mechanics are letter of the law and light and dark, but E11S had 3-4 difficult mechanics. You don't need e11s knowledge to resolve p11s. Just remember how to resolve the mechanics fron east and west if you're not the tank.

[@Mann42]

@@24hr-Gaming Yeah, I've already cleared P11S; oddly the only hard parts of Letter of the Law for me was not moving too fast to the next mechanic. Light and Dark was probably the hardest for me, but once you get the positioning down it clicks pretty quick. My point was really that new players don't have a lot of the same foundational experience the older players do, and the game doesn't have enough mid-core content to help build that foundation and allow new players to catch up, which is what Arthars was implying as well. There's a cliff there, and old time players don't really see it because they have half a decade of experience, and while I've been able to climb it, it doesn't make it any less intimidating or steep, and the current mid-tier content does not help you climb it at all.

[@Theatricbandit]

This is something I've thought for awhile, having been with the game since 3.0, as someone who dabbles with extremes and doesn't really care for savage, I would say as it stands at this current moment, FF14 has a great story with great characters, with very mid gameplay. I don't think it's bad, but it will get progressively worse if things continue as they are.

[@villaniousmustache4898]

Same start. I just quit cuz I haven't seen it this dreadfully boring ever

[@junneshi3833]

Isn't funny how the table turns? when we had that huge wow exodus and the game reputation was dragged to the mud, when people mocked their players for repeating that "the next expansion will be better" and in general there was a lot of this mentality that "14 was just better"... now we are going through a similar phase. What I mean to say is: be humble and don't expect you will be the top all the time One thing that some FF14 players love to do when someone starts this game is showing them that documentary about how 1.0 was bad and how they managed to revive the game but they themselves completely missed what the video message was. Square Enix was overconfident on FF11 success and launched a shit sucessor, which led them to a deserved backlash and they had to go back to drawing board while taking inspiration of other mmo Now fast forward to 2023 and they are being overconfident *yet again* but don't get called out exactly because people love the story and put it on a pedestal. Story can only lead you so far and the hyperfocus on it made the rest stagnate. I don't think it was worth making this game so approachable by single players if they cant keep up on the actual mmo aspects as well, this aint lasting 10 years like this lmao unless their definition of "lasting" is getting a new sprout to replace each endgame player that drops along the line xD I really hope devs can listen to proper feedback while they still can do something about it because if this game starts to actually fall, the drop will hurt much more than 1.0

[@notsure9466]

Bingo. Also the dev's choose to be in their own echo chambers. The subs would have to drop hard for them to pull there head out of their asses. How endwalker has been and there ghosting from the lodestone forums and the public is just a sign shit isn't going to be addressed. I bet they could make the game complete dogshit and the casual playerbase would find a reason on why its better.

[@kohlicoide2258]

Tbh there is also a behavior that i rly like in WoW, they dont hold their critics back, its almost common in WoW to say what is atm bad at the game, sure some people would say they have addiction for keep playing but i think more there it is more accepted to talk open about what people dont like, sure there are always some Fans.. but i understand why some of my WoW Friends says they dont want to play FF14 because this cult like behavior scares then, just say something like "The Story is bad." "Shadowbringers ruined the game." and see how some Fanatics flame you to the ground, the FF14 should stop to treat the Devs like gods just because they had their moments to shine and even yoshi p should be critized when he makes mistake

[@junneshi3833]

@@kohlicoide2258 its because the story about gods tempering their followers crossed to irl and now the players are tempered by devs 😂 These people are so overprotective about criticism towards the game, unreal. I think it's a reflect about how soft the community is about anything that isn't straight up positive, we cant type anything out of the norm in chat with danger of being reported so we live on this passive-aggressive atmosphere that sometimes is more toxic than an actual insult, because the positivity is so fake

[@kohlicoide2258]

@@junneshi3833 Yeah tbh.. i hate this, i have less problems with the usual Internet toxicity "learn 2 play noob!" that this fake friendly in FF14, reminds me of one cause where a player wont to blame me for my "toxic behaviour" just because i say a DRK Player after a Titania Normal kill, he should use his TBN to mitigate the Tankbuster. (The DRK himself was thankfull for the help but damn.. this guy almost goes nuclear) and sure.. many people say "They are so friendly in FF14!" but often its more circle jerking how great their game is.. just critic something and say that something is NOT good and you see how friendly they really are.. because fanatics are always friendly when you have the same opinion

[@junneshi3833]

@@kohlicoide2258 it's a vicious cycle: the game becomes easier so casuals can pickup better >>> casuals still don't learn anything because the game never required them to do so >>> the other players have to say something to these casual players so they can start doing things correctly >>> people will say you are mean for calling out someone and starts drama >>> devs then makes game even easier to avoid any friction on players not doing something correctly instead of incentives for them to learn Days ago I was healing a dungeon and called out the tank for not mitigating and he got offended and disconnected lmao (couldn't even leave by himself, we had to wait the loot timer before we could kick and replace) then one of the DPS said I was mean for saying "I don't need this dungeon to be more of a hassle than it's already being" ... imagine if I was actually trying to be rude

[@aysils]

I agree, I think we need more stuff that is in between casual and hardcore. I don't have the time or the desire to do savage anymore and that just cuts the content in FF14. In Shb at least I had Bozja to sink and more time into.

[@limyuxuan1272]

Wait, I thought Extreme raids are the mid-core ? The gap / bridge to savage raids which in turn serves as the bridge to Ultimate ?

[@Longlius]

Extreme is supposed to be midcore but these days most of it just feels like savage-lite - same unforgiving mechanical complexity as savage but the DPS check is low so it feels easier. The problem fundamentally is that they've shifted all the difficulty from the jobs themselves into the mechanics and the only way you can get good at mechanics is just by running literally everything until you innately understand how to resolve FFXIV-style mechanics. And this is mostly fine for veteran raiders because they've played everything up until this point. But if you're trying to get into endgame for the first time, you're going to be completely lost by mechanics and struggle to understand how to resolve them fast enough to not frustrate your fellow party members. IMO extreme should be balanced the opposite of how it is now - easier mechanics but more punishing DPS and heal checks so you have to be good at your job to complete it but not necessarily a mechanical whiz.

[@Redcritxx]

i feel like 7.0 will be the same old shit endwalker reviews were amazing they need a shadowlands level disaster expansion for things to change tbh

[@coolyeh1017]

Which is unlikely to happen. Like ShB and EW are some of the highest rated FF games in the past decade, yes I am including XVI.

[@ookazzii]

imo EW is the worst xpac as i dont do ult besides ucob. nothing to do and relic is turned into tome weapon.. i hope 7.0 has big changes but i also think there's a very high chance they will make every job into braindead SMN and have more useless side content that isn't worth doing. (island)

[@Ephremjlm1]

Bro you mostly nailed it. As someone who used to be considered a casual (now midcore) this is what made me quit ffxiv. The only part I disagree with is that I think the only pieces of midcore content left are eureka, bozja, blue mage, and pvp. It seems like all endwalker has been is the ULTRA casual content and Savage.

[@gLobbZ]

They have a formula and Yoshi P will not deviate, this game will have the same release schedule and lack of content problem until it inevitably shuts down. He doesn't want you to play xiv outside of new patches. There will never be more or less content than what they release each patch. Believing anything else, is setting yourself up for disappointment. There's never going to be the ability to play multiple jobs at a high lvl and the only way to get gear will be through raiding with no other avenues. Yoshi P and co. slowly killing the game without even realizing it.

[@armaniedoizin]

Go outside :)

[@arlissven1555]

I am a newcomer, around 2 weeks into the game an i usually watch my veteran player friends do savage all day and "holy sh*t its so complicated" So far im only learning 1 job per role and doing quite well, i would like to try end game raids after im ready

[@c_huvaknunh9138]

I really want to believe that FFXIV will come back to a better place, but I know it won't. FFXIV has been catering to more and more casual players since Stormblood to increase the new player subscribers over the veterans that have been here since ARR/1.0. Unless Yoshida-San addresses the gearing/equipment progression, longer midcore content and fully tested hardcore content, the peak of FFXIV was Shadowbringers and will never reach that peak again.

[@luiz8755]

You are here since 1.0?

[@c_huvaknunh9138]

@@luiz8755 no, came in and tried the 2.0 beta on the PS3, then officially subscribed in 2.15-2.2.

[@luiz8755]

@@c_huvaknunh9138 I think we hardly will reach the same peak of Shadowbringers because the context were really specific (pandemics, wow refugees...). I see mostly of veterans from 1.0/2.0 more satisfied than disappointed. I started at the end of stormblood tho. I wish we had some things different too but i still log in daily.

[@Rokien_]

Remember when I wanted a different game and everyone thought I was a troll?

[@novavimj5148]

0:08 I'd like to confess my sin: I also play DNC, BRD in savage, ultimate but don't know how to play MCH 🤣🤣🤣

[@in2it85]

*A Big Meal for all Casual players who come and go with every Patch.* *Small Breadcrumbs for all the Raiders, who play every day to try to get a meaningless Parse.* *FFXIV is turning more and more into a Single-player game for MMORPG-Tourists.*

[@TGameDev]

Would slightly disagree with this by saying you need to know how to play at least "two" of the jobs in that role, though all is preferred. Personally I know how to play all 19 at a blue+ level, but am best at tanks then melee's.

[@zeeder7975]

"Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every content like it's my last. Not the game. We talkin' 'bout story, man!" - Allen Iverson

[@anggasurbakti8269]

This situation is what makes me dislike yoshi-p talk about dlc for ffxvi. That game is done so now focus fully on ffxiv

[@notsure9466]

Alot of issues that are in 14 are in 16. They only focus on the story and everything else around the game is complete brain dead with a ton of filler.

[@nev2221]

They need to add more EX level content maybe if criterion actually gets gear thats slightly below savage tier like 655 to make it worth running. They could even do two ex trials an expansion like modify the unreal system to have it give gear.

[@SILVERONIN]

This game needs eureka style content to feel alive again. I lost the passion after 6.0.

[@MrCarlWax]

IMO the raids just aren't fun to do. Doesn't matter what role you are or anything, you just dance around on the square or circle platform while you press your super easy rotation. The slightest misstep kills the group. You either execute it flawlessly or lie dead on the floor. After 5k hours it killed my enjoyement of the game when I tried other MMOs again and remembered what a fun raids was. It sucks that they have designed the game like this but I can just hope they will do something better in the future. But considering it took them several years to reach this point, I really doubt anything meaningfull will happen

[@Raya.T]

honestly all they need to do is raise the extremes in difficulty in my opinion and it would become more equal.

[@VioletCatastrophe]

I don't really agree on the 'need to know all jobs in your role' point... but this game completely lacks a middle zone of difficulty. I think at this point, the only obvious solution is to do something like the following: Drop the difficulty of normal mode raids slightly, keeping them in line with casual content; create a difficulty between current normal raids and savage - have less punishing mechanics and actually present DPS checks, but have said DPS checks easier than extreme. This new mode, lets call it hard mode, can drop say... +5 ilvls from the story mode raid/crafted gear, feel more similar to savage, and give a stepping stone into EX content. Use savage dungeons as a midcore progression tier. Offer some right-side gear or something similar. Give it a reason for players to do both for the challenge and the gear. Introduce a new 8 man raid series alongside ex trials. Have it be balanced to range from easier than extremes, to a little harder than the first savage fight of a tier. Now, a player who wants to get into endgame can do the story mode raids. Then, dip their toes into the hard modes, or if that is too intimidating, they can do savage dungeons to experience content with tighter execution requirements and dps checks. Or maybe they try doing the new 8 man raid series to ease them in story mode raid difficulty up to ex difficulty up to early savage difficulty. At any time, they can flex around and mix it up. I feel current savage is a bit too tricky for most casual players to develop a sense of comfort and mastery. But a casual player could develop that sense in content more around normal raid/ex trial level, and build from there. We just don't have a good difficulty curve at all.

[@Blazingbeard]

Arthars would you rate extremes as midcore? As a casual I needed a few day party finder to beat my Exes. Loved it cause its doable as casual. Savage isnt for me. Would love more extreme dungeons and raids. And Yoshi P will abandon FF14 for FF17 the greatest MMO ever.

[@ChipotleKanetsu]

I think Yoshi P will stay true to his word. He only got 10 years before retirement.

[@Plasmacat1]

Everyone is mentioning Bozja here but I remember how people said it 3as boring like a week in and how lame it was lol. The audience doesn't know what it wants and the player base is too diluted for the devs to try anything risky so I don't think they'll change stuff

[@Longlius]

SE needs to grow a spine and stop listening to random whiners on the forums. Bozja was consistently some of the most popular content during ShB despite its massive amount of cut corners and Eureka still has a rabid community to this day. A small minority of the playerbase screamed and shat their pants over Bozja and SE took that personally so now we're doomed to criterion dungeons forever.

[@Plasmacat1]

@@Longlius Squenix is known to overcorrection in all of their games. Especially FF

[@melissas4874]

There are a lot of mid-core players. The problem is that they suffer from the same disease mid WoW raiders suffer from - they raid therefore they must be a hardcore player (in their brains). Because of this, they refuse to call themselves mid-core or play with anyone who would describe themselves mid-core even though it takes them a full patch cycle to clear content. I'm sorry, but if it takes you the entire patch to complete the harder content you are NOT a hardcore player. You are mid or casual - especially if you raid more than 2 night a week and can't complete the content early. And that is the other issue - in FF they define "hardcore", "casual", etc by hours played per week while in WoW and other games it is defined on how quickly you intend to clear the content. I'm sorry, but the WoW definition makes more sense from a capability mindset.

[@MementoMoriGrizzly]

For me, people who clear savage week 1 and the new ultimates are hardcore. People who do savage in pf or statics but clear week 2+ when there are videos and guides are midcore and the rest is garbage.

[@coolyeh1017]

@@MementoMoriGrizzly I would say that week 2 clear is still pretty hardcore but not that WF or W1 hardcore. Midcore is sort of nebulously defined but I think 3-12 weeks is pretty midcore while 12+ is more casual. But the problem like OP said is that in FFXIV we tend to define the time to clear as what is midcore or hardcore, because you could play 10 hours and clear W1 or play 200 hours and still not clear the tier but the 200 would be "hardcore."

[@BETAsin]

Not really my experience, I found the base game super brain dead to play. But then when you’re done, the game suddenly throws you into the deep end with end game content. I think Arthar’s main point, is that the difficulty curve gets way too steep for someone who wants to be more than just an MSQ/RP Andy. Bringing back the in between tier is a step in the right direction.

[@keinchi]

I dont disagree but how would you define content for Midcore?

[@BongSwansong]

A piece of content that exists, consumes a decent amount of your time but lacks a lot of satisfaction that other content might offer. This is just my take though

[@atkascha]

For solo, deep dungeons, or Bozja solo battles (I forget what they're called). For groups, doing extremes (sync'd/min-item level). You don't need to gold parse to complete it. You can die at some mechanics and its recoverable. Challenging, but you're not going to pull your hair out over it if you die. Its less punishing. Savage isn't that bad unless you get something where if 1 person gets hit by 1 mechanic at the wrong time, it can wipe the whole party. It still doesn't require gold parsing, but it does require you to be mechanically super solid.

[@sourmyth]

Imo it's content that's not easy but not too hard either, bozja I felt fit this alright it had a decent grind, decent rewards with bosses that weren't afraid to throw in some almost extreme level mechanics. Delubrum reginae normal difficulty feels midcore as well as the 2 other raids. We just need something that engages our brain a bit more. The first variant dungeon bosses sort of done that but it doesn't have the replayability, once you grab the lore bits, glam and such, you're done, with not much reason to come back

[@Crowens]

@@sourmyth Dalriada and Bozja CEs were the closest we got, lot of fights in there that require you to learn how to read cues or figure out the snapshotting better to not die as well as fast decision making. Another zone with some harder content would be good for it but I really doubt they'd step it up from Bozja cause then people would complain about locking story or relic content behind harder content that you can't sleep through.

[@sourmyth]

@@Crowens true dat

[@Deesar_]

At what point would it be better if this game was a visual novel?

[@zealous404]

it won't even be good, the presentation of the story is decent at best lol

[@coolyeh1017]

@@zealous404agreed though the story is very strong, the presentation until around ShB when they started pushing the engine's limits (likely what started the graphical overall too) is very much dated and okay. The reasons why it is so strong is due to strong voice acting and direction, a great localization team, well-timed music from Soken and his team, and character writing from their team namely Ishikawa. That and FFXIV likely has the best story in the MMO sphere (which is a low bar).

[@benhavis2474]

in Shb it was, Dungeons and normal duties = casual, Bozja = Midcore, Savage and Ultimate= Hardcore, but now there is no Relic grind and its just normal duties (piss easy) and savage (very hard content)

[@BloodlustParadox]

Surely *screams* Aware

[@cjgparas3]

Duty extreme is needed.

[@glimoreganajai2206]

"hardcore raiding" can be described by that video kzbin.info/www/bejne/d6bXZGWmh5qDh6M Its not hard, its being prepared to try and error

[@diegomo1413]

The only thing that I would call midcore is extreme trials.

[@lockekappa500]

Exactly why I quit at the end of Stormblood. Less and less of the game was for me. And it felt like a new expansion would come out, I'd have a week of things to do, and then I'd run parse runs for 8 months.

[@potato61192]

Another question is, should FF14 try to compete with other MMOs for the Midcore? At the moment, FF14 has one of the strongest Casual content and as stated a majority of the playerbase is casual. There is some merit on focusing on that Niche (Casual Players which is also the biggest Niche) instead of trying to challenge the likes of say WoW which has tons of experience with Midcore/raids content while FF14 would basically have to start from close to scratch. From a product stand point, is having a good casual, midcore, and endgame experience better than having the best (or close to) casual experience at the expense of a mediocre experience ?

[@vaan_]

What best casual experience? MSQ is just a visual novel, dungeons are copy pasted and alliance raids have become insultingly easy. Do you remember how Nophica has 2 mechanics and the rest of the fight she's either afk or casting 15 second long raidwides? They've given up. Heavensward dungeon trash used to even cleave the tank and cast raidwides. As a tank you take less damage from level 90 dungeon bosses without using mit, than using mit against level 50 bosses. In GW2 all casual content is capable of killing the player if they're not paying attention, and somehow all that content remains populated years after being added. People need to stop simping for the company they're paying a product for.

[@villaniousmustache4898]

@@vaan_ speak more truth man

[@chrislee5268]

New doomium content bros

[@luiz8755]

Yep...youtube recently sucks. I find more equilibrate opinions even on the ffxiv's forum. Negativity sells.

[@undercoverspy123]

the worlds ending the worlds ending the worlds ending why arent you upset the worlds ending! (these people need to take a break)

[@legendairyproducts5042]

I think it's kind of valid to least know what the other jobs in your role do, but if you are playing a certian job I think you can get away with it. Mostly because some jobs in terms of balancing are just a lot better than others in their role. If I were to be playing MCH for example, which does more rDPS, and has the best utility amongst the other two jobs, and is (imo) the easiest phys ranged to play in the game. Similar arguments could be made for BLM/MNK but I do believe for support roles like Tank and Healer it's good to least know your other role jobs since that's has more use cases to switch.

[@polmao]

I really do hope 7.0 gets better. I was not a fan of any of the raid content from 5 - 12. Great music but the difficulty was ridiculous compared the previous expansions. Save all them constant body checks for ultimate. Wasnt even a point to rez in the latest cause as soon as someone dies it just snowballs from there. Also difficulty should rise as you go up. Not like what happened with P10 and P11. Those two should have been swapped.

[@villaniousmustache4898]

Played the game for 8 years everyday. Picked it up on July 15 2015 Loved every moment of hw-sb but I felt the slog the moment they wanted to write a good story. Shb was pretty great until the end when they pulled a kingdom hearts x Dragonball. That's when I was slowly having my doubts. It did start with the brain dead rotations at first but I didn't mind. I recently quit ff14 indefinitely on July 15 (lol) because the formula is really tiring and there's nothing to do; yes I cleared everything in the game minus top but that was just horribly made, not out of frustration. And solo dd tried but dc'd a lot because the netcode is horrible and the game couldn't find my internet. And ofc I got all the relics that weren't brain dead achievable (basically arr-sb relics) and I stopped doing bozja halfway during release. My achievement points are high AF too. I'll tell you that they have done a terrible job at keeping the consistent playerbase from sticking around. For those that believe going to play other games is the new mmo formula, go touch grass and don't play video games and spare us the idiocy. You cannot tell me that is acceptable in the mmo landscape. There's a reason why wow is getting subs again and FFXIV losing subs. Dude if you wanna leave or take an extended break, you can. You don't owe shit to yoshit p because he clearly doesn't care for his vets. Only the casuals who yearn to talk about weird things: another reason why you've seen so many people leave is the toxic positivity. Played 8 years but it's time to move on.

[@durppool]

this was the best video arthas has ever produced, straight facts

[@3lit3gn0m3]

This happened in WoW in Cata for me. Entry-level raids became a lot harder than in WoTLK, and then we got LFR at the end which introduced the braindead version. Currently, WoW has 'mid-core' content, but the rest of its design makes me not care to play (raid trash, 3ish months total resets, poor class balancing even in PvE, etc....) while in FF14 I re-sub for new patches and...don't really do anything outside the new dungeons on easy-mode. Even then the raids are super easy but there's some mechanics where you're like "oh, was I supposed to know that ahead of time?" It's a peeve I have with a lot of games nowadays; it's like devs all thought "unfair mario is so fun; let's make our content like that!" I thought it was just me, but perhaps I'm talking about something different...(I paused at 2 mins in to say this.)

[@NarukamiPogOsho]

I feels like all of the manpower is being devoted to making the older content easier to get into, so there is zero content that I am interested in doing for this expansion.

[@coolyeh1017]

The copium I have is because they are spending a lot of resources future proofing the game like trusts for all the MSQ dungeons (and they are almost done), the graphical update (which would prob push it to mid-PS4 standards), and QoL changes they aren't spending on the midcore or exploratory content with the logic of well the old stuff is still there (which tbh is a selling point for newer players). We shall see what happens with 7.0 or 8.0. because their EW numbers are still higher than ShB numbers on average.

[@belld.s5276]

Just feels like the limitation of playing this style of MMO. It's more nuanced than this explanation but its not inaccurate. They have their formula so down to a science that players know what to expect, there is little wonder and the magic is dwindling. I heard a long time ago that Yoshi-P has thoughts about making another MMO, I would ask him to put that to the proof. He must sense that change is needed. FF14 is smooth sailing, I'm sure someone can take that off his hands, the formula is established. I think they should go for something new, something daring. If its a fuck up, whatever, at least they tried.

[@19eligio]

100% Agree on this

[@xbree_]

Uhh I raid and only play paladin lol but I have thought about learning war though. I see myself as a hardcore casual player. Definitely prefer ultimates and content like eureka to anything else.

[@cordeliacentauri1737]

This is already happening with the latest raid. Hardcore players got through the savage content, no problem. Midcore/casual raiders get gatelocked in P9S, P10S and quit. I play on JP and the first week of I saw 200+ PT set up for prog for P9S. The 2nd week this number fell WAY below 50 parties. This is a crazy drop off rate and whoever is designing this battles need to do a better job or just follow the formula in eden.

[@melvin3681]

Yeah, and being a non-Japanese speaker in a JP server does severely limit the parties I have access to, especially with the JP players being increasingly xenophobic. Having no repeatable content with decent difficulty in between tiers is also quite detrimental to skill growth as I got so lost after coming back to the game after clearing P5S-P7S few months ago. Will stay till 7.0 and see if the experience improves though.

[@vaan_]

This happened on EU too, sitting in PF for 2h to fill a p10s party on week 2 is insanity

[@powergi3996]

I'm a one trick MCH. Sue me. (Just kidding don't sue me..)

[@TmzOSGaming]

The curve of difficulty is strange as hell; even when you go to the insane levels of difficulty of a M+30 in WoW you have a more gradual curve of progress. In FFXIV you just jump from "boring one skill combo combat, moving left right" to "wtf is this number in my head, oh, someone just killed you with a protean... let's repeat it again for 20 hours". Classic mmos usually put you in some kind of good combat awareness since "lvl 1~10", but in FFXIV just after old HW+ AllyRaids and most extreme trials, so you will do tons of things with a low risk, and it is nearly 50% of the content (or more?). Usually dungeons are easy and the open world contents are a joke (exceptions are bozja and eureka, but well irrelevant for today). There are ways to solve the problem like unifying the party finder in regions (NA, EU, etc). All endgame fights are linear and could be tedious, you need players that really want to finish things to keep up (and it can be a nightmare on PF due to lack of players, role requirements, and prog points). The lack of rewards and incentive to do some content is bad too, and considering a big slice of casual players that prefer to dance in limsa instead of doing a hard raid, the things become even worse (and lots of those "legends" you see just bought their runs or even cheated hard). Sadly it's not a majority that REALLY does the endgame and good part of the really interested players rush the content on the first week (or the first days, lol), so after this doing something of this same mid-endgame becomes nearly impossible or very difficult gradually. Playing FFXIV is like filling a sticker book: the first page is almost completed, then something new is released, people do whatever they want and then wait the next "page" (basically a season game)... if you lost the stickers of the previous new page... well, good luck.

[@iq642]

ff14 is a single player game with MMO elements in it. Have that mentality going into ff14 and suddenly everything fits and makes sense

[@aresanu]

I wish they made it to where you have to clear a raid tier to move on to the next one.

[@Cfishies]

the fact that new people can't even do p10n tower mechanic right is concerning

[@hammsuke3981]

really? its just 6 towers, 2 are free

[@atkascha]

Every multiplayer FPS game is littered with aimbot cheaters. People complained that Elden Ring and Sekiro need "easy" mode. People say Zelda is too long. I think the amount of "hardcores", in any game, is something like 5% of each playerbase, unless its a competitive game like Street Fighter. Part of it is life. If you have kids under 13 years old, have a normal job, or other life responsibilities (say you're into motorcycles or dancing) your gaming time is already massively limited. Very few (the hardcores) will willingly spend their time off bashing their head against a keyboard dying to Harrowing Hell, again, and call it "fun". Square caters to the Casuals because that's who plays the game.

[@BaithNa]

I've only experienced a wipe once or twice. It's not that bad.

[@hammsuke3981]

Harrowing hell in normal is nothing, wipe from it once, you already get it

[@MementoMoriGrizzly]

@@atkascha Speak for yourself. I'm working fulltime + overtime and still have time to prog savage every day with my static. Bad players always use the excuse "but i have a life".

[@NotExplicable]

It needs hard mode before Savage

[@ArchieGamez]

EX isnt hard mode?

[@MrBigsmallguy]

@@ArchieGamezex fights are not the same bosses so it doesnt help people learn the fight mechanics and kill shots the same way

[@Crowens]

@@ArchieGamez only one fight per patch and it's a crapshoot whether you get a harder fight that forces you to learn mechanics like Barbie or Golbez or you get some stupid party mode shit like Zodiark, Baldicante, or Endsinger where you can fuck around more cause deaths aren't a big punishment or mechanics aren't that much harder than a normal or you can follow someone and ignore 90% of the fight. It's not the most reliable way of learning to deal with the harder aspects of the game.

[@lukapitkanen3333]

FFXIV just needs open zone content to its endgame. Something that you don’t need to queue or organize a party for. Bozja was pretty good. Now make that but two times better with more to explore and with some fun challenging boss encounters. I don’t like that they just dropped the ball and started making these variant/criterion dungeons. Dungeons are the most boring thing in the game gameplaywise imo.

[@nyanka06]

We didn't even get relic content, I doubt 7.0 will improve things really. Nowadays I just log in once a week to raid, only to eventually quit and wait for the next patch..

[@villaniousmustache4898]

Just quit indefinitely and save yourself the trouble

[@nyanka06]

@@villaniousmustache4898 Well, there are enough things and people I connect with the game + I'd always play it for the story :) And it's not bad having more space for other games in between patches. Just yea, I cry hard after relic content ikik

[@fredxu99]

I couldnt find the best word for it but paradoxical certainly fits the bill. The game is simultaneously too easy and too hard at the same time. I agree pretty much wholeheartedly with the video, something needs to change. I've already put the game away for now, only logging in to keep my freaking house from getting removed... but I barely play now. I find no joy in the current world of Savage raiding where perfection is expected, and I find no joy in being ubercasual, so this game isn't really a place for me anymore as a midcore player. Sucks because Shadowbringers was great and had a wonderful balance

[@CrosbyNu]

idk man, i always saw extremes and now criterion as current midcore

[@Kitty-we6il]

me just playing WHM hahaha im in danger

[@yatorenegade9524]

That’s literally why I stopped playing the game. There is not enough extreme trials and no content below savage where you have to be on schedule and put time in.

[@ikeaira8701]

Truth

[@etaxo2059]

I played 14 since early Stormblood and was a casual turned into midcore and during late Shadowbringer start of Endwalker I wanted to raid content when it was fresh and all and slowly turn hardcore. Even tho I feel like FF14 is a great game for casuals it feels so boring for people that wanna pump in the hours and "grind" really. It is either go ahead level classes, oh thats done? Well do relics, oh thats done? Try something else that either is very hard (ultimate or maybe palace of the dead solo) or do something braindead (relic grinds etc). I get the aspect of saying we add weekly caps to avoid content being farmed dead so it still stays fresh and active for every kind of person that wants to play, but I truly think no weekly caps or an elevated one would make the so much better as the downtime feels so damn annoying and there is no point in playing the game unless you progging stuff. As stated in the video its either braindead or gigabrain content and with the fewer people among the gigabrain content its getting more and more difficult to find a group that fits all your needs aswell. The devs really need to work on progression and content to keep people hooked long-term. I havent played the game basically since the first tier of this expansion as it just felt so boring. A big point is also the entitlement and elitism in the community where people say you dont deserve good gear cause you didnt clear X content. There should be just more viable gear sets during a patch while being also obtainable either easier or harder with their own use and benefits.

[@KissesLoveKawaii]

Already decided that I'm not going to return to 7.0 unless drastic changes are made. This game is not fun anymore if you want to press buttons and kill things.

[@user-xl5kd6il6c]

Sub on expansion release, play for 3 months, and shelve it It's been like that for me since HW. The combat system just got too watered down to be exciting, it's just too simple

[@pandosham]

From seeing my friends who play it its a retirement home of people going "At least we're not WoW"

[@PiratePineapplez]

noone has ever asked me to play anything other thank monk in a year of playing

[@shakeweller]

They have to put extreme trials into roulettes and also include them as mandatory content into the story. Its not too much to ask imo and the general skill of the playerbase will increase over time

[@KazaarTV]

a brand new player doesnt join a group like that. arthars is looking at this from his bubble ^^

[@nasch3391]

Cannot do it in HW, every jobs actually different 😂unlike shb onward

[@StormierNik]

The combat definitely needs an upgrade. It's.. the most lackluster thing so far. The raid mechanics, design, all that, fantastic. But.. the PVP was really a wake up call for me. Everything there felt so much more impactful. Like i was actually doing something, and every job felt that much more unique. Is that the best PVP experience possible? No, it isnt, but the fact that the combat felt like it had superior substance from the PVE is.. it's disheartening. Wizard kinda summed up the raiding experience in his review too, that the combat is like washing dishes. And then combat at high level is washing dishes while an attack helicopter is shooting at you. It doesn't really get that much more engaging. It's just that now you have to deal with the fact that you can actually die. As opposed to... 90% of the rest of the game. Surely, having produced an extremely combat intensive game alongside the former developers of the Devil May Cry series, a highly combat focused franchise, surely Yoshi p will realize that FFXIV's combat has grown a bit lackluster.

[@dragonmares59110]

Been telling this to people in my FC for months and they don't understand me. Endwalkers has been a disaster when it comes to overral content. Relics are boring, there is no extra trials, no zones like eureka or bozja, criterion is useless for gearing, all jobs are becoming 1-2-3 + pushing glowy buttons, the devs have completly forgotten about mid tier content. Right now there is only baby difficulty dungeons or savage/ultimate, nothing in between.

[@Ubermunki3]

It's always been 123 push glowing button lol

[@UmbraWeiss]

This is why i gave a try to Guild Wars 2... the amount of time i died in only the open world content is just incredible... in FF14... i can do the raid, in the meantime i can get my water intake and eat while the fight is going on... is that stupid easy. FF14 devs think casual players are stupid and can't do shit... so they made everything stupid easy... raids are a joke, trials are a joke... FF14 is going downhill for a while now, people just don't want to admit it.. I played for 10years now, and i have a f ing long list of what is wrong with this game.... even the content we get lately is just trash... not because the ideas are bad, it's because they just half ass it in the game and that is...

[@vroomzoom4206]

@@UmbraWeiss gw2 is literally garbage lmao. It has nothing to do but grind for legendary weapons/armor and each piece takes months and isn't even a stat upgrade. Theres a reason that game is half dead.

[@user-xl5kd6il6c]

@@Ubermunki3 only since SB

[@UmbraWeiss]

@@vroomzoom4206 It was garbage... there is a lot of content in the game nowadays, and it's anything but dead. It has raids, dungeons, and a lot more to do... that game transformed a lot in the last 3-4 years. And gw2 legendarys is more for the stat changes, you are free to change the stats on those, and you need different builds for different contents in the game to run it optimally, that is the point to have legendarys not the stats... At least there is a point to it, not like in FF14 where relics are useless from the moment they came out... It's not a perfect game, but is not garbage how it used to be for sure, and it's nowhere close to be a dead game. You can go in any open world map and you will find 20-100+people who do the meta Open world things all day long... the only problem with it is how hard is to find people to do raids , but FF14 is nowhere easier on that front if i want to go in savage...

[@jeffbatista]

imo the current extremes are at the same level or maybe even harder of the first fights of savage tiers

[@Brandon-gz9nx]

Lol

[@24hr-Gaming]

That is just p9s and p1s being undertuned. Both of those fights are too easy for a first turn.

[@MementoMoriGrizzly]

The limit cut in p9s is harder than the entire golbez fight.

[@vaan_]

​@@24hr-Gaming dunno, I feel like the first floors being hard is an outlier Carbuncle and Cloud of Darkness were harder sure, maybe Ramuh if you had CL trolls, but P9S, P1S, E1S, O9S, O5S were all about the same difficulty (also lol Alte Roite)

[@pyrimidin]

Healer is essentially two roles too, you got regen healers and shielding healers. Both play significantly different. I still think you can only learn one class, its up to your static to make up for you though.

[@tideash]

I have been saying this for a long time, FF14 needs to have a difficulty between normal and extreme. Extreme is way too punishing compared to normal and it dosn't matter how many times you complete the normal mode of the fight, you wont ever learn extreme that way. They really need to implement a new difficulty where the fight uses every mechanic that is available in higher difficulties, but less lethal in every aspect and more telegraphed. That way you can be prepared to higher difficulty by learning mechanics while not wiping over and over until everyone learns where to stand. And to everyone who thinks that extreme is supposed to be the transition between casual and hardcore, let me just remind you all that not a single normal mode content even requires a tank switch in any way and higher difficulties uses them in a very punishing fashion. Its almost as if there is supposed to be a mode, where the switch needs to happen but it dosn't one shot the tanks who dont react fast enough. And this is just one example.

[@thebigandlazyguy246]

Exdeath normal in stormblood kinda did that. He put up the lightning debuff so while switching was not necessary if you rotated your cds effectively it was still beneficial. Ofc, nobody did it cause as soon as day two everyone and their mom overgeared the normal to the point the debuff may as well not have been there. Also, instead of making a whole new difficulty, im of the opinion to bring the difficulty of normal trials UP. Cause I guarantee you even if you add a new in between difficulty if there is no actual incentive to run it, nobody will run it. Make normal a bit harder instead.

[@rexxel8867]

SE need a new mmorpg FF with new gameplay

[@AZodiacCancer]

I know how to play all healers I just hate sch more than Lalas think they are gods.

[@yep8058]

Way too true and way too real. The problem is, people don't realize the truth because they haven't played the content enough. Therefore they barely say something negative and if there is nothing to complain, Yoshida won't change anything. The game will die because all people do is the story and ERPing in night clubs.