I want to preface this by saying that when I talk about the game upsetting me, unless I say otherwise, I'm just talking about a me issue, not trying to point out an issue with the game or anything. I deal with a lot of anger issues, most of which are expressed by turning them inwards on myself, and it can make games an upsetting experience sometimes when I'm struggling, especially when it's in front of other people like in FFXIV. However, I recognize this is something that's just an issue for me to work on, and I've been doing so, rather than turning my anger towards the game as an easy out, which I think a lot of the folks complaining have been failing to do.
The discourse around the difficulty difficulty is weird for me as someone who can both reliably do a fair bit of harder content and has gotten pretty good at the game overall, while still managing to struggle a lot on content that's new to me. (Or if I'm just having an off day!) I think the difficulty in dawntrail has been great, it's offered a lot of interesting challenges at all levels, and I'm very happy about that! But also, going through I got frustrated quite a lot when particular bits of content ended up curbstomping me. Particularly the new raids. I did them on launch day when pretty much everyone was new, and all the fights kicked my ass. Fight three in particular, I'm pretty sure I spent over half the fight dead, and I left feeling discouraged and just kind of ashamed of myself. Struggling that hard is not a fun time, not just because it's annoying to die, but because having to spend so long not playing the game while watching the people around you keep on doing so feels so damn disheartening. Yet, I really don't think it was an issue with the fight. It had a lot of interesting mechanics that were taught well, and I simply could not execute them well while learning them. It was a shitty experience for me, but I still thought it was a cool fight!
But, although I fully get why a lot of people might've had a frustrating time with dawntrail, it's even more frustrating seeing people not doing any self-reflection afterwards. I don't wanna say they're wrong for being upset, in fact, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be upset! Too many people just come to the conclusion that for them to be feeling that, either there's something wrong with the game, or something wrong with them. Any game with challenge at the centre is going to cause some level of frustration. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and it really depends on both the game, and the person. I'm a firm believer that in games and art in general, deliberately instilling emotions that aren't positive or particularly palatable can lead to a more meaningful experience overall. That element of friction adds a lot to the overall experience, even if it isn't in a way that you can immediately enjoy. That isn't a problem with the experience itself! And the other conclusion isn't any better either. I get the urge to blame yourself - I fall into that a lot - but it isn't fair to your peers either, talking about how you're so awful at the game, in earshot of people you've still managed to do better than at something. How do you think that makes them feel? ...That is still something I'm working to get better about, but realizing it was the other side of the coin to "this game is so badly designed for being so hard!" was kind of eye-opening.
At this point I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but I hope it provided an interesting and useful perspective at least. I guess if there's one big thing I wanna say with this post is that I just hope more people will be willing to accept and sit with frustration. Failure isn't fun most of the time, I get that. But there's also nothing wrong with it either, and even less wrong with being upset by it. There's no good to come from lashing out about it, whether it be at others, at the game, or even at yourself.
submitted by /u/DozingX
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The discourse around the difficulty difficulty is weird for me as someone who can both reliably do a fair bit of harder content and has gotten pretty good at the game overall, while still managing to struggle a lot on content that's new to me. (Or if I'm just having an off day!) I think the difficulty in dawntrail has been great, it's offered a lot of interesting challenges at all levels, and I'm very happy about that! But also, going through I got frustrated quite a lot when particular bits of content ended up curbstomping me. Particularly the new raids. I did them on launch day when pretty much everyone was new, and all the fights kicked my ass. Fight three in particular, I'm pretty sure I spent over half the fight dead, and I left feeling discouraged and just kind of ashamed of myself. Struggling that hard is not a fun time, not just because it's annoying to die, but because having to spend so long not playing the game while watching the people around you keep on doing so feels so damn disheartening. Yet, I really don't think it was an issue with the fight. It had a lot of interesting mechanics that were taught well, and I simply could not execute them well while learning them. It was a shitty experience for me, but I still thought it was a cool fight!
But, although I fully get why a lot of people might've had a frustrating time with dawntrail, it's even more frustrating seeing people not doing any self-reflection afterwards. I don't wanna say they're wrong for being upset, in fact, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be upset! Too many people just come to the conclusion that for them to be feeling that, either there's something wrong with the game, or something wrong with them. Any game with challenge at the centre is going to cause some level of frustration. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and it really depends on both the game, and the person. I'm a firm believer that in games and art in general, deliberately instilling emotions that aren't positive or particularly palatable can lead to a more meaningful experience overall. That element of friction adds a lot to the overall experience, even if it isn't in a way that you can immediately enjoy. That isn't a problem with the experience itself! And the other conclusion isn't any better either. I get the urge to blame yourself - I fall into that a lot - but it isn't fair to your peers either, talking about how you're so awful at the game, in earshot of people you've still managed to do better than at something. How do you think that makes them feel? ...That is still something I'm working to get better about, but realizing it was the other side of the coin to "this game is so badly designed for being so hard!" was kind of eye-opening.
At this point I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but I hope it provided an interesting and useful perspective at least. I guess if there's one big thing I wanna say with this post is that I just hope more people will be willing to accept and sit with frustration. Failure isn't fun most of the time, I get that. But there's also nothing wrong with it either, and even less wrong with being upset by it. There's no good to come from lashing out about it, whether it be at others, at the game, or even at yourself.
submitted by /u/DozingX
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