So there’s been a TONNE of discussion about the battle content in Dawntrail. I saw many people not talking to casual players, so I went out to talk to some of the ‘casuals’ in my FFXIV community to see what they had to say about the Dawntrail content!
00:00 Introductions
04:28 MSQ Dungeons
08:14 Expert Dungeons
15:57 MSQ Trials + Extremes
21:24 Normal Raids
27:58 Additional Comments
32:11 Chat Questions
35:01 Solo-Instances
38:36 Communication & Community
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#ffxiv #ff14 #dawntrail
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Let me know your thoughts below!
I think it not too difficult or too hard but the way mechanics are changed ew is full of formulaic dung mechanics and it make the "eaiser" but dt last 2 dungs are to chaotic and make the dung run for the FIRST TIME feel horribly annjoying and nto fun that what pp lare complaing (as for expert and normal dungs it should be slightly difficutl but msq dungs are seen as bottom line as shoudl be first easy and enjoyable and clear cut mechanics should be the top priority over chaos. many ppl didnt like the change in dung mechanic style from ew many loved ew and wanted the dungs to stay the same and overtime if the dungs first clear become this annjoying as with the last 2 dung of the msq the game will start losing a ton of player in no time and in 2 to 3 expnation it will face it own so called"wow shadowlands" phase .
secondi like to say ppl confused what casual player and casual raider(semi casuals ) are 2 types of causal and 3 non causal player types:
a true casual or if you wanna trro w insults are them turbo casuald(not a thing but ok) they make about 60%/70%of the playerbase if we look at the stats of lucky bundo about how many ppl bother doing more difficult content beside msq dung ) are ppl who play for 3 reason they play for fun ,to relax and with layback aka causal mindset they are player WHO HATE AND DONT SEEK ANY CHALLANGING CONTENT AND ONLY DABLE IN THE MSQ AND NON DIFFICULT CONTENT beside ally raids(for reason that 24 ppl make it easier to not matter ) and they are the vast mayority by the fact that most ppl dont ever clear ext traiL(midcore content) or normal raids only about 40% have ever clear ew raids from all ew players .this are the ppl who love island santuary grinding gear , hunts,variant dungs(still debatable ),crafting(but that for all kind of players) and causal pvp matches or frontlines and they simple play to relax as they get joy and fun from that .they are often like most causal never talking about the game outside of it or on the forums so many think they are minority .
Then we have the semi causal not ppl who play for 3 reason they play the game for fun and to socialize and to play casually(not layback) they simple play at their own speed their content is normal raids,ally raids (some not all ) and expert dungs . they dabble in come challanging content and enjoy it but it not their focus (they are often mixed with the midcore and colletively make about 35%/25% of the playerbase ) they are often like most causal never talking about the game outside of it or on the forums so many think they are minority .
And last but not least is the MIDCORE the middle type of player they are players who exist in 2 types the ppl who play casual content hardcore or hardcore who play causal content . they are about 15 % of the playerbase thier content is ext trail,deep dungs,bozja and eureka . some so them will dable in savage causally not all but some ,they are (they are often mixed with the midcore player and make up about 35%/25% of the playerbase. they sometimes dabble in posting in comments yt or forumms or x they however dont focus on that .
then you have the semi hardcore and hardcore who are the polar opposite of casual they play for the challange and to have fun with competive mindset they make up about 5% of the main playerbase .their content is savage ,ultimates and crit savage dung.they are the loudest playerbase part and often complain and cry the loudsest and often think their opinion so fact and is good for ALL players .
overall this how most mmorpg community are made too .
The overwhelming majority seems to agree that the content isn't too hard. The entirety of the internet got one-guyed by one forum post further exaggerated and blown way out of proportion by all the streamer react andies (not targeting you here SarahJane your content is top tier forever).
Can we have the lalafell lifter back? At least that discourse was entertaining.
Yo this expansion turned me from a struckly casual player only really interested in some slight RP into a battle-hungry maniac who wants more lol. I think the difficulty was pretty fine-tuned enough to keep me on my toes and engaged without overly-punishing not knowing how certain mechanics work especially since I always do my first run through dungeons with trust where death meant starting a fight over. So if I found that fair despite my many fails and the fact that I'm pretty impatient then I don't think its that bad imo. Harder content used to feel like night and day compared to casual stuff but I felt like I was given just enough of a push to see how'd I perform in harder content and…. I had a pretty good time!
I immediately went to start prog on the two extremes available, got all the gear I possibly can from them and now I've finally cleared my first savage with a group I joined not too long ago. Nature is healing fr.
Who'd da thought that lvl 100 content would be harder than lower level content even if on a casual level? That's normal progression for a game 101 guys
I like the difference in experience between Sash, Lin, Dom and Wrenn. Former casual, story player since 2014, and a true casuals who haven't been around for HW or StB.
I'd most definitely consider myself an casual too I started playing in late 2020 and I enjoyed the game but I didn't get past arr for some reason but then years later I had to make an whole different toon on an different data center and Made it all the way Up to current msq and now waiting for the patch msq to come out but as someone who loves challengeing content I came from another MMO called The Elder Scrolls Online I can say the content is not too too hard But you def can't fall alsleep during the dungeons too I can say I can't wait untill Im able to do all the challenging content with people In the Fc and I agree with some people in the video the community is one of the best and one of the most wholesomeness and kindness community in gaming also amazing video sarah! :C But yea as this is my first time playing content on release I 100% enjoyed it it was an blast!
Having problems with the new dungeons ? top tip: use trust and right click the cute lala and mark them 1, then stick like glue to her when possible.
I noticed the difficulty halfway in MSQ. The gear certainly helps. I do think I'm going down in DT more than the other content. I can see how others get overwhelmed as well. I would call DT not impossible for people who don't do raid groups yet I would also say this is hard as they could get without losing people.
Well there are casuals and then there are turbo casuals, "insert we are not the same person meme". Casuals are just people that have lower commitment due to one reason or another (time, effort etc.) but turbo casuals are people that want to get everything on a silver platter and are entitled to the point they wouldnt care if their complaints would impact others. I'd say put in more difficulty settings for those that need/want it so everyone is happy tbh.
Dunno if bro can really say he's a casual if he's cleared an ultimate 😅
I am playing since ARR , expert dungeon and trial was way harder than anything we have right now something like msq Garuda was a wall or some boss in dungeon real dps check like the Demon wall in amdapor
I’m a casual and it’s felt amazing to have to challenge myself this expansion and realise I’m not as bad as I thought
Been playing since 2.0 myself. I used to play a decent amount. But then i started playing expansion release then quitting till next expansion. I have done a savage or 2 and tend to jump right into expert trials and complete them with little issue. Yes we have some wipes but the content is new so its expected. Dawntrail was pretty easy even after not playing since ew release lol i feel the small amount of people complaining dont play video games all that much or just play casual farming games. Genuinely think they should "get good". Youre level 100 and 5 expansions into the game. Bloody act like it lol theyre so afraid of failure and its dumb.
Ur content is great. Keep at it. Just stay ff14 ty
When I think casual players I think people who have never touched current optional content. People who only play for the story and have never touched a side dungeon and have never played even a normal current raid.
I would love to hear how the people who only ever play story msq feel about how the story msq difficulty has increased, as thats who it effects the most.
Honestly, I think the only reason that (some) people seem to think that the content is more challenging is because Shadowbringers and Endwalker seemingly went out of their way to make the normal content extremely braindead. I would consider myself to be a fairly casual player but I have played the game since 2.x and the game has changed and evolved so much over these past 10+ years that I feel like people either weren't here for the earlier expansions to know how they were upon release or if they WERE here since then they've simply forgotten what it used to be like to try and clear even simple combat.
For example, back in the day on melee jobs if you didn't hit your positionals then you simply missed the attack. It was crazy. Also, healers used to have to switch from healing and DPS modes back and forth during fights as their healing was greatly nerfed in one mode while their DPS was greatly nerfed in the other. There was a significant cooldown in between making this switch, as well, so you needed to know beforehand how long you could stay in DPS mode or people would just drop like flies. Tanking also used to be way more difficult as their attacks didn't generate a ton of threat like they do now and similar to healers they had two stances to switch between where they could do more DPS but not generate threat or stay in tank stance and generate more threat but do way less DPS. Gladiator/Paladin had it the worst as they only had flash to generate AOE threat with no AOE abilities until circle of scorn so holding threat on multiple enemies at once was incredibly challenging. Everyone used to also need to actively manage their threat levels and it was not uncommon for people in dungeons to die simply because adds started running free. Oh, and the biggie being that we used to have technical points or TP which melee and tanks needed to execute their weaponskills but that was completely used up if you used sprint!
My point with all of this is that the game itself used to be way more difficult to play regardless of the difficulty of the content itself. As for the content, SE got crapped on by the community for their raid design in early Heavensward and so going into Stormblood they kind of brought things to a difficulty that most people seemed to be comfortably able to do. The problem is that the jobs continued to get easier and easier to play with them removing more and more positionals, giving you abilities to nullify the need to even do positionals, and creating hitboxes the size of the entire arena so melee have no reason NOT to get uptime. This design philosophy continued from Shadowbringers into Endwalker which is when a MASSIVE amount of new players came to the game so to many people the regular content in the game was just something you could turn your brain off and do without thinking. SE is finally trying to turn this around by introducing content that at least makes you need to actively pay attention in content until you've got everything completely memorized and while the difficulty isn't anything we've not seen in the distant past the problem is that they've gone 2 expansions training players to expect super easy content for normal modes. SE, of course, had to know that this new bit of spiciness added to the content would likely be a shock for some players which is why they intentionally DIDN'T change the gameplay a ton from what we've seen in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Savage comes out tomorrow so we'll know more once we see those fights but considering that people are actively talking about the difficulty of NORMAL CONTENT for the first time since maybe Heavensward then it was likely a good idea that they did indeed hold off on making sweeping job changes at the same time.
I am really glad you did this, SJ.
Long post incoming, Sorry.
Hearing the opinions of these wonderful individuals about DT is refreshing. The perspectives they have on the content vs those that are in high content is definitely eye opening. DT content is challenging but it is not impossible. Lin talking about doing a particular part of the MSQ as a healer and taking 30min means that it is possible!
It's really heartwarming to hear from Lin about me fighting Galool Ja Ja, though. I was still learning Viper through that fight as well. The mechanics in that fight were challenging enough to make me want to do better and the music that went with it was just the best part. So far, the only places I have trouble are THAT Expert Dungeon and EX2 (Donuts and skittles always gets me).
I have also been playing this game for about a year and got into savage raiding in Oct last year. Savage is quite the step up from the dungeons and DT dungeons have been a breathe of fresh air compared to EW dungeons. EW dungeons were very much move in, move out, spread and stack. Not a lot of variety in their mechanics. Only the later Trials and their extreme versions had interesting things going on.
Near the end of EW, I had the privilege to work with Gerald and Theovatch on doing the Eden Raids as savage with downscaled gear (No accessories and beginner EW gear). It was a lot of fun but it taught me a lot about how to identify different mechanics that are going on within the fight. Protean spreads, clockspots and more that most high end raiders will understand, but for the casuals it would be "What the hell does that mean?".
My favourite Dungeons from DT so far have been 95, 97 and 100 from the MSQ. All have unique mechanics in them. Second boss in the 97 dungeon is murder on casters but it presents that awesome challenge.
I am also an ex-WoW player so MMOs arent new to me but I still have moments that frustrate me (Looking at you Expert dungeon. Please stop dropping things on my "head").
Again, thank you for putting this together, SJ.
Pretty sure like 70% of the playerbase is casual. The content isn’t hard. Its fun and I love all the movement involved. Feelsbadman for BlackMages though.
only the expert dungeons have been causing more wipes than normal sometimes.
but its expert. so i love it.
I just started playing a month ago. I'm half thru the msq for dawntrail as black Mage. I didn't notice any difficulty buff for dawntrail maybe cause every dungeon was new for me but it just felt like new stuff to learn getting through them fine having fun
It's not that it is hard now. It's that they stopped designing interactive cutscenes and actually put some effort into making video game boss fights. People just need to get used to having to play the game. There's already an Easy Mode in Trusts anyway for people who can't handle it. And there's no shame in that.
Think the part that got normal content to feel kind of boring during EW for me was just how formulaic it is. It's mostly just the same things we were already used to for years. DT, while still following that same baseline presents its fights just different enough to feel fresh and I love it for that. The game needs to encourage incremental growth and unfortunately, that means some people that are content with more of the same will get left behind. The best thing we as a community can do is encourage those players to just give things another shot.
Seems like the outcry is coming from people that treat this as a single player rpg and while the devs have labored to make that a legit way to experience most of the MSQ, this is an MMO. If you're having problems with a specific part of the game they should try asking for help, whether that's through a Free Company, a Linkshell or even the Party Finder. There's a lot of people subbed to this game that would like to help but they got to know you need it before they can do anything for you.
Damn I can’t even call myself a casual player anymore since I never completed an ultimate 🤧
The Rite of Succession MSQ story arc was the most difficult content the entire game has to offer.
Watching Wuk Lamat drag me out of bed and walk uphill a mile up to the fuckin' Dawnthrone just to tell me she likes peace was more difficult to get through than any Ultimate raid.
" inconsider myself a casual" does savages and extremes and ultimates .. like bezos considering himself as poor
Coasting through the game without any sense of challenge must be a boring experience. Much like level 1-90. A terrible, boring game being disguised by a decent story. Sadly DT is the reverse. Decent gameplay and challenge with a terrible story
i think the main issue here is the definition of casual. someone that not only plays the game but also follows a content creator for it, is quite invested. you can easily argue that this person can no longer be considered a casual. this reflects, at least to some degree, the amount of effort someone puts into ffxiv as a hobby. i have not played dawntrail yet, i don't even own it. haven't played ffxiv for 3 years and just started playing again a few days ago, so i can not comment on the difficulty of it.
12:56 "I enjoy dying"
I am an experienced raider, and sometimes, i just aint payin attention in casual content and die. It happens to everyone 😂
i mean… we are level 100 for a reason. by the end of the DT msq at least.
My take on the difficulty is that the casual content has definitely gotten harder – but I think it's a move in the right direction for the game personally. The dungeons and trials of this expac so far really felt to me like the devs were trying hard to innovate new mechanics and push already existing mechanics further than before! This made the content feel a lot more refreshing to tackle! I'm happy to deal with difficulty increases where the mechanics are more unique and interesting to learn!
I'm loving the content difficulty so far.
I'm a casual by strict definition – I'd be up for trying extremes or ultimates, but I've got a friend who sticks to me like glue and is absolutely terrible at the game, so I'm usually scaling down for him and just doing dungeons / normal raids. From my perspective, I definitely appreciated the difficulty jump in the casual content with DT as it was no longer something I could sleepwalk through, like earlier stuff… I think I died at least once or twice on every single new dungeon / raid on my first attempt. (Except the river and M1, which were bother super easy.)
Thing is, now that I've learned the fights, even that stuff is back to being very, very easy.
ALthough…. the friend I mentioned? He's been struggling mightily sometimes. I think his first attempt at M4 he must've gone down in the double digits…
I am a casual player and I am enjoying this current content. It is not so hard that you can’t get through it. They should keep the difficulty as is.
It’s not
I wish I had more friends to play with.
As a pretty big casual, i actually havent really noticed a huge difficulty spike. I even had less of a hard time with the new trials than some of the endwalker trials. The EX dungeons are indeed harder, and i think in the one, hitboxes on a certain boss are larger than they probably should be, but otherwise its been alright. I have noticed however an increase in community toxicity, especially regarding this issue.