Hello!
I’m not a forum poster, but this seems to be where the discussion is unfolding regarding the difficulty of Duty Finder content in Dawntrail.
While I agree with the sentiment that I vastly prefer DT’s encounter design over ShB and EW, I’ve noticed a fundamental miscommunication happening between players who started in ARR-SB and players who started in ShB-EW.
People have been asking a fair question:
This isn't to say new players are inherently bad! I am friends with several who are better than me! But those players chose to learn, because the game never convincingly forced them to learn when scaling adjustments and maximum iL sync completely undid 99% of encounter design. It’s only getting wonkier as expanding Healer & Tank cooldowns can cover even more severe mistakes.
This is observable in real time as EW content melts, especially the alliance raids.
So I understand why players complaining about the difficulty of Dawntrail are getting heat. As someone who was healing A1N-A4N on the hot mess of launch AST, I cannot conceive of the Arcadion as difficult at all. I have 100% been engaging in some "get off my lawn" behavior this week.
But when I got A4N in a roulette yesterday, having forgotten every single mechanic? I didn't need to do a single one. A few panic Helios casts were enough to fix any mistake.
As I queue for ARR, HW, and SB content with this in mind, and it's becoming obvious what the problem is. The new content isn't becoming too hard! It's old becoming unrecognizably easy due to iL sync and other scaling changes.
Blaming newer players frustrated with DT fights just isn't being honest about the fact the game they played is completely different from the one we played when older content launched. If you're incredulous at newer players not being able to handle DT's difficulty, I recommend you queue up for some Duty Finder content that you found memorably challenging on release. How does it feel now? That feeling is all someone who began playing in 2021 knows.
tl;dr I think Dawntrail is so much fun! I hope they keep making fights more meaningfully challenging. But I hope we can also start asking the development team to reconsider the pacing & scaling of older content. In it's current state, it feels like we've been denying new players the engaging experience the old players won't shut up about.
Continue reading...
I’m not a forum poster, but this seems to be where the discussion is unfolding regarding the difficulty of Duty Finder content in Dawntrail.
While I agree with the sentiment that I vastly prefer DT’s encounter design over ShB and EW, I’ve noticed a fundamental miscommunication happening between players who started in ARR-SB and players who started in ShB-EW.
People have been asking a fair question:
After discussing with several friends and taking notes during my own roulettes, I'm reaching the conclusion that players who began playing in ShB-EW didn’t actually have to learn any mechanics in order to clear more demanding ARR-SB content.
This isn't to say new players are inherently bad! I am friends with several who are better than me! But those players chose to learn, because the game never convincingly forced them to learn when scaling adjustments and maximum iL sync completely undid 99% of encounter design. It’s only getting wonkier as expanding Healer & Tank cooldowns can cover even more severe mistakes.
This is observable in real time as EW content melts, especially the alliance raids.
So I understand why players complaining about the difficulty of Dawntrail are getting heat. As someone who was healing A1N-A4N on the hot mess of launch AST, I cannot conceive of the Arcadion as difficult at all. I have 100% been engaging in some "get off my lawn" behavior this week.
But when I got A4N in a roulette yesterday, having forgotten every single mechanic? I didn't need to do a single one. A few panic Helios casts were enough to fix any mistake.
As I queue for ARR, HW, and SB content with this in mind, and it's becoming obvious what the problem is. The new content isn't becoming too hard! It's old becoming unrecognizably easy due to iL sync and other scaling changes.
Blaming newer players frustrated with DT fights just isn't being honest about the fact the game they played is completely different from the one we played when older content launched. If you're incredulous at newer players not being able to handle DT's difficulty, I recommend you queue up for some Duty Finder content that you found memorably challenging on release. How does it feel now? That feeling is all someone who began playing in 2021 knows.
tl;dr I think Dawntrail is so much fun! I hope they keep making fights more meaningfully challenging. But I hope we can also start asking the development team to reconsider the pacing & scaling of older content. In it's current state, it feels like we've been denying new players the engaging experience the old players won't shut up about.
Continue reading...