FFXIV: Dawntrail Difficulty and the Casual Concern
Posted on November 15, 2024 by Aywren
Yesterday, I talked about my feelings surrounding the Dawntrail and 7.1 MSQ story. Today, I’m going to talk a little about my other concern with Dawntrail – the increased difficulty of the regular MSQ dungeon content.
Yep, I know, it’s another one of those topics that might get me side-eyes and told to “get gud.” But I’m going to lay it out here as a casual/midcore player, what I feel and what I’ve been seeing other people saying.
There’s no question that the content in MSQ dungeons has gone up a notch in difficulty. We were warned that this would be the case, and given my experience with the 7.1 dungeon, devs are staying on track with this difficulty level.
There seems to be different camps of players in FFXIV, just like in any MMO out there.
There’s folks who are here just to experience the story then to mostly chill and hang out doing other activities between patches. Those activities are likely social in nature – such as hosting or attending events, chatting with FC folks or in more social cities on the server, and basically just paying a sub to enjoy their time in the fantasy world of Eorzea.
Then there’s folks who are here for the content. They want to be challenged by things they run, and seem to crave intense mechanics and battle situations. They’re probably the people who grumble about getting Syrcus Tower in roulette even though it’s one of the fastest and easiest things to get.
From my understanding, the folks who want challenging content have made it known that dungeons and alliance raids have been boring and watered down for quite a while. So, the dev response is to increase the difficulty of all types of content, even the MSQ dungeons, which are required for story progression.
When this first came to light, there was a thread on the official forums that spoke out about this difficulty spike. However, almost all of the response to this – be it comments in the thread or on Twitch/YouTube, etc. – was negative. Granted, I don’t fully recall how the thread was written, but mostly, the feedback was akin to: “The dungeons are fun! The content is great! Expect wipes! Play better!”
Then, after that, people just kinda stopped talking about the difficulty curve.
Except, they didn’t really. They just did it in more private circles – such as a somber post on Mastodon, or a disheartened moment on BlueSky. I’ve seen this more times than I can count.
How someone failed and failed and failed a dungeon to the point they just stopped playing the story.
Or someone is too intimidated to even try a dungeon, and therefore, hasn’t finished Dawntrail yet… simply due to the difficulty of mechanics.
Also, I’m hearing a lot of casual/midcore folks looking at the dearth of casual content in 7.1, determining there’s very little of interest for them. Most of it is raids, in some form or another, and I’ve heard that the new FFXI raid is a wiper.
Now, I write this as someone who has finished Dawntrail twice. The first time, Syn and I ran all of the dungeons blind with pick up groups. The second time, I ran everything but the last dungeon and the final trial with Trusts – and surprisingly few wipes on solo.
Even though I can do this content, and have done this content, I don’t enjoy the difficulty level of the content. For example, I only ran Expert roulette when it was a full party of FC folks as I don’t feel confident enough to play with randoms. I haven’t run Expert in a while, though, simply because the dungeons are not fun for me, and I choose to get tomes in other, less stressful ways.
Now, some might say, “Hey, if you don’t like it, don’t do it!”
That would be fair except this stuff is blocking some folks from clearing the story at this point, and story is supposed to be one of the hooks for FFXIV. Trusts are not responsive enough to get you through by themselves. Often, they don’t move for mechanics until the last moment, and that means wipe-city for the player. Gone are the days where you could stand on your Trust healer, tag along with them, and know you’d be safe for mechanics.
I’m a little confused why they put so much effort into building up Trusts for the leveling experience of dungeons, offering a somewhat guided way to play content solo. S/E has taught the playerbase that solo is fine and achievable for many skill levels – heck, they even went out of their way to try and attract players by telling them they could do dungeon content on their own. And then, here comes Dawntrail, where the experience is turned up to 11, and Trusts aren’t going to save those players anymore.
So, what is it? Is story mode for everyone or not?
My concern is that the quiet group of casuals who just can’t get through the content will stop having fun (some already have). They might mention it on a social here or there, but they’re not forum users. They don’t engage in Reddit. And if they did speak up, people would tell them they’re wrong. Just learn to play better (which may not be something everyone can actually do for various reasons).
So, these people may quietly just start to vanish. These people who might be the social foundation of the game, who pay a sub to help keep the game you and I play going. They’ll wander off to find something that’s not going to frustrate them. Why pay a monthly fee for content you’ll never be able to see?
I don’t know about you, but it sure seems like FFXIV has a lot of competition now days – between WoW stepping up its own story and GW2 dropping an awesome housing system. I don’t know that S/E has the room to watch the quiet casuals fade off into nothing.
I know that writing this post isn’t going to change anything. In fact, I know that folks might not even agree with me when I say the MSQ dungeons are too challenging for the average individual now.
I just know what I see and hear from the small, quiet voices. I can't help but wonder at how many more are out there who just don't say anything at all. And it has been concerning.