Is FFXIV's "Normal Mode" too easy?



While it is just my own opinion, what do you think about this topic?
Could we see a more taxing difficulty level in Endwalker, and would you embrace that? Let me know your thoughts about it, in the comment section !

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47 thoughts on “Is FFXIV's "Normal Mode" too easy?”

  1. I would say yes if not for the awful players I see sometimes.

    I'd personally like it to be a bit harder, but I'm afraid if it was made more difficult, those bad players would just make everything tedious and difficult to clear. If you were around for ARR, I think you might know what I'm talking about. It would be worse than that though, because with the huge influx of players, there are more that suck at the game than before.

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  2. On one hand I would like more difficult content, on the other the game fostered a large community of players with content they could enjoy even if they were bad at the game. Knowing you're the reason why an entire group is failing is the type of experience that scares people away. That pressure is toxic to some players. Even if no one judges them, they will feel bad and judged.

    Ff14 is the only mmo out there that allows their lowest denominator players to have a taste of everything. Without the stress of being bad. If it's at my expense, so be it. They make up the bulk of the community. Although the raiding population has definitely increased since ARR.

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  3. I actually think the difficulty as it stands in the game is pretty perfect. Normal is mainly easy because of the unlimited battle rezzes, but you can pretty easily die if you make too many mistakes so you can't just turn your brain off. Extreme is a step up, but is still quite manageable and not too bad to PUG. Savage goes even further with a solid challenge that you'll likely want to form a static for and then there's Ultimate for people who want a truly difficult challenge.

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  4. I think normal mode is fine. I have some medical issues and it effects my game play
    This mode is challenging to me.

    Maybe they need to create an even higher level of difficulty

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  5. Normal is too easy but i think if they increase it, people will whine and moan about it. To contrast that, i think everyone should be able to complete normal mode raids, with modest effort. I am fine with having the harder modes, i think thats how it should be.

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  6. Leave PUGgable content alone! Players like you have endless tiers of content for you, adding mechanics into Normal that REQUIRE planning and communication will kill it for the casuals you seem to want to deny ANY content that won't be a nightmsare to progress through.

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  7. No it’s not to problem to most ffxiv fans, new players might get bored but hey, there is other games, don’t come in trying to change the things that works for those that supported the game from the beginning. We like it just the way it is.

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  8. I always felt the dungeon thing even if they made a ultimate nightmare or savage version of the highest tier dungeon that can be done for extra tombstones or end game currency at least

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  9. i agree with you. i remember going blind on the delubrum reginae and was so panic by the difficulty lol. luckily there was a big vet hroth that seems to know what he was doing so i ended up following him every steps. the fight was hard i needed to take a break for a while. but after i did some homework and decided to give it a try again it was so easy… especially after i had to grind for relics. but i don’t have the guts to try the savage though. my point is the first time will always be difficult and challenging but after many many runs it can be boring and meaningless if there’s no satisfying reward. and the ilvl really carried us hard every patches.
    so now i kinda stuck between normal content being too easy, and extreme+ being too difficult (in an enjoyable level, i don’t like stressing too much). having something like min ilvl roulette sounds fun after watching asmon played that way.

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  10. I would like dungeons and trials to get progressively harder within each expansion. I think Shadowbringers did this with Amaurot and WoL being some of the hardest normal instances out there.

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  11. As a new player who caught up this January, I was so disappointed with how dull the ShB dungeons were. Compared to the Vault or Swallow's Compass, no dungeon in ShB impressed me mechanically. Now some were certainly prettier and lore wise very interesting, but nothing I would call impressive gameplay mechanics. The only positive thing I can say about ShB dungeons is that there was less bloat. With there being fewer dungeons, each has their own unique gearsets. No more having to worry about three dungeons with all the same gearsets.

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  12. I think we'll never get difficult dungeon content. The development team seem uninterested in them beyond their potential for set-piece delivery. Thankfully they've moved the development resources so we get cool middle grounds between normal and EX like the Bozja content.

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  13. I agree with a lot of people that it is the ilvl that makes content easy, for example everything about shadowbringers on release was tough, even the first dungeon but then everything toned down as we got better ilvls after reaching 80. Also with recent events having a lot of new players certainly makes it harder as they arent that high ilvl and/or dont know mechanics – just did world of darkness as roulette and we wiped at every single fight, my alliance had 5 sprouts I didnt explain mechanics until asked tho for spoilage avoidance, just said if you need help with something ask away.

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  14. I am fine with Normal Content because I already get my thrill doing all the carrying when the variety of people I get in DF and even my own friends who just don’t learn.

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  15. Personally I'd love the idea of extreme dungeons or savage dungeons. Cause that's currently the most mainstream content I find quite lacking in difficulty, or rather make them a bit more "dynamic". Having 3 bosses with trash in between where every boss has a buster and an aoe is just boring imo.

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  16. As pretty much a new player who has played a ton of other mmos i think the normal difficulty is fine and does a good job at teaching new players how to play natrually it also helps to unlearn alot of stuff from other mmos that kust dont work in ff14

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  17. My solution for dungeons:
    As others in the comment section have done as well I would propose a minimum I-Level Roulette.
    In this Roulette all lv. 80 Dungeons should be present and when doing this Roulette you should not get normal Loot but exchangable Loot like in Eden or other Raids.
    You can exchange them at a Vendor for dyeable version of Dungeon Gear (just more like a one to one exchange insted of needing e.g. 4 leg pieces for one actual piece of leg gear)
    I personally think there are enough ways to get better gear so I wouldn't make these Items better than non-dyeable versions. On the contrary: I would make them all the same I-Level so you can just choose the gear you want for Glamour..

    For Raids and Trials you can do similar things:
    On min I-Level you get a greater Amount of Rewards and an increased likelyhood of getting rare drops.
    And if we want to go one step further we could add a sort of "Enhanced Echo" which makes the Trial/Raid easier when turned on but decreases the amount of Loot/Chance of rare drops.

    I don't think there is an easy solution for Alliance Raids though. Adding other Versions as well as finding 23 other people who would run the Raid with min-I-Level seems unrealistic.

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  18. As much as I like the harder difficulties in the game, easy dungeons feel in a pretty good spot to me. The 60/70/80 dungeons are good examples of being able to turn off my brain and get it done without much bother. It's nice (for me personally) to have a low-focus group content option when I'm already drained from a higher-focus activity. Especially given that each dungeon tends to be run so often. That said, it would be fantastic to have a min ilvl matchmaking option, especially when doing normal-mode content for the first time. It's really exciting having some more challenge on a first run before being able to zone out and chill through it for the repetitive runs.

    Alliance raids, on the other hand, would be so cool with more challenge. I didn't play when Orbonne came out and the day 1 experience sounds amazing. I was hoping for similar with day 1 Nier raids, and Puppet's Bunker had some great stuff to kill off a lot of us at once on day 1, but it's mostly been a matter of the mechanic being new rather than requiring focus.

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  19. I agree with everything you say here, HOWEVER, more competitivity or difficulty only will make casual people feel like they MUST now everything and create toxicity (alas mythic WoW dungeons, I know you don't want that, it's just an example). I hate to say it, but I like it the way it is, normal raids/dungeons for casuals, savage and extreme content for more try harder people or for friends and FCs.
    I will add one more thing, it is true that I LOVE to do some of the best dungeons in higher difficulty because they are SO well designed 😀

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  20. I've played ffxiv since heavensward but I haven't finished ShB yet. I've thought that the normal mode raids that I have done are fine with the difficulty, but if they have been dialled down in this expac I think that is a shame. While normal mode raids should be easy enough that a pug group should be able to finish them, they need to still offer a challenge at the same time.

    The content I really like running is dungeons, and I'd be really happy if the dev team make a savage mode series of dungeons that are hard as nails. These savage mode dungeons would not even have to drop higher level gear (maybe normal ilvl raid gear) or just sweet glamour

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  21. I agree with you. Too many people are too light about the games problems. Let’s be real, the 4 player content in this game is a pushover and not exciting. Same as the normal mode raids. A little demand for proper play as a team is vital to a mmo. Hard modes for dungeons would be nice as well, with a new roulette.

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  22. I'm new to the game and normal raids are a fucking joke, you either get oneshot because of a BS mechanic or get bored to death once you either learn it or accept the fact that no matter what you do the raid will finish the raid and you'll get your upgrade coins…

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  23. I agree with spicing up dungeons, it would be nice to feel like a healer and not just a green dps 🙂 I'm not against dps-ing as a healer at all, but would like to actually heal a bit more in 4 man content, and even if you pull wall to wall.. as a whm you kind of use your Afflatus Solace / Asylum most of the time, then Holy/Glare.

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  24. Back in 2013 when I first played, every dungeon involved a team conversation about mechanics and positioning. I mostly wish dungeons were more than just corridors between bosses though… After ARR there's never more than one direction to go and there's never any puzzles/exploration to them.

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  25. The short answer is yes, but I think that's by design. The game is meant to appeal to a wide audience with a wide skill range and content difficulty scales with that. Its good game design.

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  26. Once I learn the mechanic I am all about a more difficult level. I do not need what WoW does with afflictions but I am all about the boss having more health and maybe one more mechanic you need to learn. I do not want time limits to determine my gear.

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  27. I'm very happy with Normal difficulty being where it is now, for two reasons.

    1) I was in a group just yesterday that wiped THREE TIMES in The Chrysalis. And while I was explaining the mechanics to new players; everyone voted to abandon the duty, and the motion passed. It was a pretty miserable experience.

    2) I'm not a hardcore player by any means; I don't even do Extremes really. But even on Normal mode, I find a lot of the content challenging. It's funny that you mentioned the Nier raids being easier, because I find them extremely overwhelming compared to the previous ones, though maybe it's just because I'm still new to them.

    And even though I've gotten carried through some Eden raids, it doesn't feel satisfying to get carried. I don't feel like I've 'beaten' content, until I really understand the mechanics so that I can carry it out perfectly or near-perfectly; and that still takes several more tries, even on Normal.

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  28. Nah, it would make roulettes hell for both parties. And probably would just increase toxicity.

    Most people doing their daily roulettes want a one and done. And for people doing story content, you really don't want to frustrate them. You would start to get more of the WOW stuff of people getting mad because the new guy hasn't watched a guide and will probably add 10 or 20 mins on to the trail or dungeon.

    I think they have a good balance, especially as we are starting to see raid content become mandatory(crystal tower). I would like if they look at item scaling a bit more, but I am OK as is.

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  29. I think the lvl80 dungeon are too easy and boing compared to Stormblood 70 dungeons and SHB leveling dungeons. SHB leveling dungeons have a few spicy pulls or mobs that you need to silence but 80 dungeons you can just brain dead wall2wall with no thought and barely any healing required. Stormblood has some mobs in dungeons basically doing Tank buster amount of dmg and you really had to pace your CDs or consider your healer ability which made dungeons more fun imo.

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  30. Normal mode is absolutely fine. It's perfect for casual gamers who PUG all the time and cruise to end game with just poetics gear, wiping only here and there, and really just enjoy the story and company of others… It's the whole reason we have extreme and savage content. This isn't even a concern.

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  31. The answer to "Is normal mode too easy" is to think of those times when you go into "Great Gubal Library" or "Aurum Vale" or the Titania Trial with a group of sprouts. How often do you expect to wipe on the normal mode of these fights with a bunch of sprouts? I expect to wipe at least once for all of them, it's just how it is. To me, that means the normal modes are balanced fine

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  32. 4 man HARD Activities are interesting, but if it ll require me to use PLD Bubble every time and using cover/Intervention to save ppl from certain death, because they failed a mechanic, is beyond me. HW Hard dungeons is cool IMO, they change tactics, and even the DNG itself, but they don't make you sweat for every single hit you/your party take. Even if these should exist, it should be in Party Finder only. And yeah, with some rewards, be it Gil or smth Glamour/Shiny/Just look cool.

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  33. The fact that NM content has no hard enrages already makes it loads easier to clear. However, NM content that can be difficult to clear has another kind of enrage, the rage-quit from those who lack the patience and/or time for the newer players to pick up the mechs.

    This is not official, but I feel the devs actually increased difficulty in NM content until the frequency of rage quits went up, and I can name the two things that did this: Cid, and Starboard/Larboard. That is not to say that these are the most difficult bosses in the NM difficulty, but these were two of the biggest struggles I have personally had to deal with be it myself screwing up, or other players.

    All that said, I just got out NM Umbra, and while we cleared it without wiping, we were in that fight for around 20-25 minutes, and just tons of death. If this fight had any kind of enrage, we would not have been able to clear it. So long as encounters like this happen (and the devs know when they do), difficulty in NM will never go back to what it was in HW and SB.

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