yes, challenging bosses + teamwork = unparalleled fun
tl;dr: From what Iāve seen in videos and reviews, the game is way too easy.
This is actually something that concerns meā¦
Iāve read and seen videos that show that the game is easy.
I remember some years back, games would be harder, this would make player require to group and coordinate properly to be able to level in the most efficient ways. Like killing large groups of mobs at the same time.
Such task would usually require more than one person, making it an advance technique that involves other player. This (imo) is a great way to add social progression in the game mechanics progression.
To this, dungeons, bosses, special events and group quests, would be the next step.
I remember with a little nostalgia the āLetās go level?ā phases. Where ālevelingā was an activity you would do in games with other persons.
Today we do it through a linear quest progression, on our ownā¦ It worksā¦ Iāll give you that. I just think it would be more fun if we could do it easily with more persons. Finding a nice persons that just happens to be on the same quests and has finished the same quests we have, just doesnāt happen in practice.
Cheers!
Agreed. Whatever happened to wiping for days before someone finally figures out how to deal with a boss?! Hell, the fact that the bosses are easier than WoW bosses is concerningā¦That gameās like a step above Farmville now.
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I agree, the game seems very easy at the moment.
As long as the challenge doesnāt come from the item shopā¦
Definitely yes. More challenging + more rewards = more fun.
After Watching a lot of the cbt3 boss battles, they really need to.increase the movement speed and reaction time of normal mobs and esp.bosses.
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I dont know how betas usually goes but if I was in the developer position, toning down the monsters (but still testing their intended patterns to look for bugs) would be a logical step so as to not spoil the game for testers before the release and out of fairness for the customers not currently testing.(Seem they have done that by buffing the players instead.)
Personally Iām on the masochist side. Sure grind can get annoying, but itās a good drive for creativity. I was in awe of what some players came up with in ragnarok(sorry.)
I see boringness as necessary for GREAT moments of fun, rather than a game trying to stimulate all along the way and ending up a pretty flat experience.
(Edit: Forgive me for this post being a mess and kinda off topic, I have a concentration problem and was doing too many things while writing it and kinda forgot most of my points. I tried to trim to kinda relevant part)
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That last part really spoke to me. Something so simple, yet its something that is looked over alot.
The last time someone complained that the game is too easy is FF14 and it backfired. When they finally reached Titan HM (which is fucking hard) everybody whined and mourned that it is too difficult. People will never be satisfied. It is VERY easy to make make game contents difficult mind you; donāt give them ideas to make it so difficult that it requires cash item to pass (like a rezz scroll perhaps?).
I am fine with extremely difficult contents in a p2p server as you canāt really cater the difficulty based on the cash shop (since there is none) and every player in the server has the same chance on overcoming the difficulty. In a f2p environment itās extremely tempting for any game companies to make the game harder so that players spend. Since difficulty brings in profit they will also be LESS LIKELY to nerf the content difficulty once itās set (as long as it is not unbeatable). Please be very careful of what you wish for. Difficult contents are always guaranteed as it is a way f2p games get players to spend; a paid shortcut. You donāt have to request for it. It will come.
@soramaru
But the problem with FF14 isnāt the bosses, but the normal mobs. You need to go through quest after quest after quest doing the same (exactly the same) thing over and over, killing mobs that have 1 aoe skill and then just auto-attack you to death. The fun of a game is not only on the end-game, but on the journey to the end-game too.
@Bifrost
It would be logical so player can speed up, but how then do you test difficulty?
Iām a game dev myself, and this doesnāt sound like a good idea too me (or at least not as extreme as it would be here if it is the case). But then, each dev team has itās own valid ways of doing things.
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Difficulty is a tricky thing because it means different things to different players. So it helps to have different types of enemy/content engagement and to diversify leveling paths. Earlier games like NexusTK and Ragnarok Online are good examples of grindingāhigh end, high geared players could level solo to some degree, but for most of it you needed to get a party. You had to have the tank, damage and healer (and CC if you were lucky). There were weaker, lower xp mobs to level on if you couldnāt find a party or didnāt have the best gear around. This provided multiple paths to endgame.
Then thereās also the idea that some items in the game should genuinely be rare, and only a small percentage of players should have it. Some of these can be crafted items that are hard to get the materials for or boss drops or cards or whatever. Some are just fluff cosmetic items. Rarity creates engagement for those of us who like to have a sense of āearningā or achievement.
There should also be an element of social interplay for players outside of the leveling environment. Crafting is one aspect of this but a great example would be the elixer wars in NexusTK or WoE in RO or pet battles in WoW. A lot of games half ass this aspect. There needs to be something for the community to engage in that doesnāt have to do with downing bosses or grinding for hours to get that level banged out. Things that donāt require you to be maxed out in levels/stats/gear to engage with other players. Role Players often create their own events and can be a great aspect of the community for player generated fun but I enjoy seeing in game elements that encourage it organically. I did see a thread about there being a card mini game 
Iām looking forward to that.
Anyway, Iām going to stop here XD Iāve said too much already.
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I kinda gathered that they were not currently testing it for difficulty right now, with what we hear about resurrects and stats limits and a lot of classes still unreleased. My original point does not make much sense Iām gonna agree on that x.x
I feel like weāre missing a lot of elements still to gauge intended final difficulty. If they still have classes mechanics to release and test, I doubt the mobs are close to being finalized. Balance tweaks now would be pretty pointless I think with so much content still unreleased.
(Guess thatās what I really wanted to say from the start)
Oh I see! Agree with you on that.
tl;dr -> I worry that a too easy game will end breaking immersion like it is in other games.
On my end, my worry is with them failing to see the importance of making normal mobs also present a challenge, smaller than bosses of course, but a small and interesting challenge none the least. Present us with different behaviors and have us approach each new mob with care rather than with a āoh-more-trash-mobā feeling.
FF14 fails horribly on this making the journey to end-game long, boring and tedious. Normal mobs in FF14 are not mobs, to me they look like something makes you spend time.
In my humble opinion, mobs are meant to help you improve your skills as you learn the game, they are what should prepare you for end-game.
Take Zelda for example. On every dungeon you will see hints of what the boss is gonna be like, so you donāt just are put on front different type of monster, but also you are given information about the upcoming challenge.
Say you want to craft something on some game (havenāt played ToS so I canāt say if it works like that here), and for that you need to farm some material killing some monster and 2 monsters drop the item you need. I think it would be best if we could choose depending on something like āIāll kill X instead of Y, because they are easier to kill with current class/play styleā.
To me, bad mobs take me away from the experience and I end up not thinking about the game but something else, breaking immersion. And I think that the journey on a game is as important as itās end-game, and for that, immersion is key.
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#GAME is NOW difficult and people complain
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Hard isnāt the same a grindy. Iām talking AI hard, not grind āhardā.
Touching up the enemy AI and making them āsmarterā would be very nice. Especially on bosses and stronger mobs.
I noticed that the game was too easy watching the " streams "( i didnt get a key). People simply didnt die while playing this game.
What made the RO a great success was the high level challenge, where the player and their party ran frequent risks during level up and all die fighting bosses.
The fight with boss was bland, not fun, seemed too easy, too simple.
The game needs to be more challenging to keep players immersed .
Increase the level of difficulty should be a priority ( and when I say that, i dont mean grind forever , but more challenging enemies ).
I feel the game got a lot better in comparison to the seemingly weak enemies before. But they still need to fine-tune a lot to find the golden middleground.
I really agree with this oneā¦ without auto-attack, tanks would be useless.
Agree
20characterssss