How difficult is too difficult? A look at Final Fantasy XIV's raiding
Raids should be difficult. They're end-game content, they encourage groups of people to actively communicating through voice chat and be on top of their games when engaging in them. However, raids have been a spot of contention among players for some time. How hard should raiding be? Should it be something worth the push and shove? Should it require breaking the game's mechanics down to min/maxing the stats in order to succeed? How hard is too hard?
I ask the last question because it's something that has occurred to me while talking about raiding difficulty last night. Final Fantasy XIV has always had hard fights as part of its gameplay experience, and they're generally fun. I have been playing for a long time, used to carry hard mode primals and never quite did the extreme mode primals, the largest reason being because I was lagging too much on mechanics that were rapidly becoming far too punishing when failed. Titan EX is a good example of this early on, where failing one mechanic meant that the group failed over time, as becoming "weakened" after rezzing was a "no-no" and people were getting kicked over it.
The Binding Coil of Bahamut has always been difficult too, but with proper coordination, has always been something that everyone can accomplish given time and practice. There's never been a moment where one feels like they're falling behind or messing up one mechanic slightly means that the entire group wipes...well, generally not, anyway. Final fights within the Coil Turns, as they were referred to, could lead to group wipes, but it was not so instantaneous as newer raids have felt. This becomes particularly clear when it comes to some things that were discussed concerning the raiding in FFXIV, which has taken a serious blow because of one big thing: Gordias (Savage difficulty).
Let me explain for people who aren't familiar with Final Fantasy XIV. In the new Heavensward expansion, there is a new primal introduced that is kept within a magic barrier to prevent it from becoming active and slipping through time and space to wreak havoc. This primal is Alexander, the Holy Artillery primal. Upon players first clearing the main story for Heavensward content, a quest becomes available whereby players may access one of the arms of the primal as the goblins force, the Illuminati, move to take control of Alexander and use him to wreak havoc.
This section is named Gordias, after what series of myths I'm not entirely sure, but that's what it's named. There are four sections to it normally, culminating in a fun fight that players can do no problem as long as everyone is willing to be somewhat on their game and pay attention. However, Gordias Savage is another story entirely.
There was something going around at the time from the vocal minority of the raiding group that the previous raids had been too easy. Even with the inclusion of the Binding Coil of Bahamut (Savage) when the second set of coil turns came around, there were still complaints. People wanted it harder, more "fulfilling" or something like that, and so in the game design, Yoshi and his team listened at first. They made Gordias Savage the hardest piece of content that has ever been created so far, or very nearly. Raid teams that were once fine with the previous coil reached this roadblock, which was now made mandatory for full completion and in-game rewards, and began falling apart. The raiding scene took a huge hit because the content was simply too difficult. People became incredibly frustrated, blame games were played, players had falling outs with each other and the game and players that didn't outright leave raiding altogether went to find other "hardcore" raiders to play with on the now overpopulated server "Gilgamesh", which severely undermined the raiding communities in almost all other servers.
I am on one such server, and the raiding community would have been torn to shreds entirely, were it not for the capability of having cross-server groups and statics. With this addition, the raiding community has been saved and is starting to flourish again, but let's think about why Gordias (Savage) was so bad.
First of all, the fights are long and very difficult...not just mechanically either. The mechanics for all of the fight are tough and require a great technical prowess in the game to complete, but there are also severe DPS checks. The numbers were collapsed down so tightly that even with gear that was nearing "best in slot" for classes, the requirements for perfection were insane. For the extreme level technical players, this was heaven. They got their difficulty, they got what they wanted out of the game. For most any other raider, this was a nightmare. It required perfect play and optimization outside of combat for one to even stand a chance, then one had to hope that the RNG gods for crits were on their side as well. This was not how the game should have been designed. One mistake, even outside of combat or because of improper gear, could lead to the downfall of the entire raid and there was no way to complete the battles once even a small number adjustment was made that put the raid too far down out of the absurd requirements.
This was done to make the hardest challenge possible and appease the vocal minority that spoke out that the content was too easy. The next set of challenges, however, only took one part of the problem out and made the other problem worse. Midas was the next set of raids and their savage counterpart, along with the extreme mode primal that came out around the same time, were both cruel for one large reason. Both of them punished mistakes on any single player so severely that one player making one mistake could wipe the entire raid. All it took was one player to misjudge their position, get themselves killed or whatever, and the next mechanic that required all players to be up and in their positions would wipe the entire raid. Very little could be done to salvage these situations and when those were attempted, not enough DPS was being done to push the DPS check that was inevitable on all of these bosses.
I have not yet played much of the brand new content but I am going to wager that it is better thanks to much of the backlash from the player base being received and taken into consideration by the developers. The difficulty extreme was a bad move overall, because there is such a thing as making a game too difficult. Even a game like Dark Souls understands this and while it doesn't pull punches, it also makes sure that players can find ways to enjoy the game by learning its complex system. It punishes mistakes, but this is a game that is designed with one player in mind, perhaps more than one player when PvP or friends come around, but it is primarily a one-player experience. No one has to rely on anyone but themselves most of the time to get through the incredibly difficult situations that Dark Souls presents, so that terrible feeling of failure when someone makes a huge mistake goes away. That is not the case with Final Fantasy XIV, where getting eight players to cooperate with each other and not get mad at each other because the content is too hard for someone and not hard enough for someone else in some instances gets carried away.
This is a bit of a ranty section here, but I think I've made my point: too difficult simply is no longer fun to play. I've had 100+ wipes on Sephirot EX, the primal that I was talking about earlier, because I would make a mistake now and again (we're all human) or, far more often, someone else would make a positioning error or forget what they were supposed to do. Having team chat didn't even help stop these mistakes, making matters even worse.
That's my bout of ranting about this, however, and I feel I've made my point stand. I would say that difficult is something that needs to be in these games, as it gives players a sense of accomplishment. But there is a fine line to be taken into consideration and polishing something to make it fun is not the same process as polishing something to make it as difficult as possible without making it impossible. I hope that Stormblood largely takes this into consideration and creates a game that is just as fun as I would love it to be, not something so brutally difficult that it is impossible.
I ask the last question because it's something that has occurred to me while talking about raiding difficulty last night. Final Fantasy XIV has always had hard fights as part of its gameplay experience, and they're generally fun. I have been playing for a long time, used to carry hard mode primals and never quite did the extreme mode primals, the largest reason being because I was lagging too much on mechanics that were rapidly becoming far too punishing when failed. Titan EX is a good example of this early on, where failing one mechanic meant that the group failed over time, as becoming "weakened" after rezzing was a "no-no" and people were getting kicked over it.
The Binding Coil of Bahamut has always been difficult too, but with proper coordination, has always been something that everyone can accomplish given time and practice. There's never been a moment where one feels like they're falling behind or messing up one mechanic slightly means that the entire group wipes...well, generally not, anyway. Final fights within the Coil Turns, as they were referred to, could lead to group wipes, but it was not so instantaneous as newer raids have felt. This becomes particularly clear when it comes to some things that were discussed concerning the raiding in FFXIV, which has taken a serious blow because of one big thing: Gordias (Savage difficulty).
Let me explain for people who aren't familiar with Final Fantasy XIV. In the new Heavensward expansion, there is a new primal introduced that is kept within a magic barrier to prevent it from becoming active and slipping through time and space to wreak havoc. This primal is Alexander, the Holy Artillery primal. Upon players first clearing the main story for Heavensward content, a quest becomes available whereby players may access one of the arms of the primal as the goblins force, the Illuminati, move to take control of Alexander and use him to wreak havoc.
This section is named Gordias, after what series of myths I'm not entirely sure, but that's what it's named. There are four sections to it normally, culminating in a fun fight that players can do no problem as long as everyone is willing to be somewhat on their game and pay attention. However, Gordias Savage is another story entirely.
There was something going around at the time from the vocal minority of the raiding group that the previous raids had been too easy. Even with the inclusion of the Binding Coil of Bahamut (Savage) when the second set of coil turns came around, there were still complaints. People wanted it harder, more "fulfilling" or something like that, and so in the game design, Yoshi and his team listened at first. They made Gordias Savage the hardest piece of content that has ever been created so far, or very nearly. Raid teams that were once fine with the previous coil reached this roadblock, which was now made mandatory for full completion and in-game rewards, and began falling apart. The raiding scene took a huge hit because the content was simply too difficult. People became incredibly frustrated, blame games were played, players had falling outs with each other and the game and players that didn't outright leave raiding altogether went to find other "hardcore" raiders to play with on the now overpopulated server "Gilgamesh", which severely undermined the raiding communities in almost all other servers.
I am on one such server, and the raiding community would have been torn to shreds entirely, were it not for the capability of having cross-server groups and statics. With this addition, the raiding community has been saved and is starting to flourish again, but let's think about why Gordias (Savage) was so bad.
First of all, the fights are long and very difficult...not just mechanically either. The mechanics for all of the fight are tough and require a great technical prowess in the game to complete, but there are also severe DPS checks. The numbers were collapsed down so tightly that even with gear that was nearing "best in slot" for classes, the requirements for perfection were insane. For the extreme level technical players, this was heaven. They got their difficulty, they got what they wanted out of the game. For most any other raider, this was a nightmare. It required perfect play and optimization outside of combat for one to even stand a chance, then one had to hope that the RNG gods for crits were on their side as well. This was not how the game should have been designed. One mistake, even outside of combat or because of improper gear, could lead to the downfall of the entire raid and there was no way to complete the battles once even a small number adjustment was made that put the raid too far down out of the absurd requirements.
This was done to make the hardest challenge possible and appease the vocal minority that spoke out that the content was too easy. The next set of challenges, however, only took one part of the problem out and made the other problem worse. Midas was the next set of raids and their savage counterpart, along with the extreme mode primal that came out around the same time, were both cruel for one large reason. Both of them punished mistakes on any single player so severely that one player making one mistake could wipe the entire raid. All it took was one player to misjudge their position, get themselves killed or whatever, and the next mechanic that required all players to be up and in their positions would wipe the entire raid. Very little could be done to salvage these situations and when those were attempted, not enough DPS was being done to push the DPS check that was inevitable on all of these bosses.
I have not yet played much of the brand new content but I am going to wager that it is better thanks to much of the backlash from the player base being received and taken into consideration by the developers. The difficulty extreme was a bad move overall, because there is such a thing as making a game too difficult. Even a game like Dark Souls understands this and while it doesn't pull punches, it also makes sure that players can find ways to enjoy the game by learning its complex system. It punishes mistakes, but this is a game that is designed with one player in mind, perhaps more than one player when PvP or friends come around, but it is primarily a one-player experience. No one has to rely on anyone but themselves most of the time to get through the incredibly difficult situations that Dark Souls presents, so that terrible feeling of failure when someone makes a huge mistake goes away. That is not the case with Final Fantasy XIV, where getting eight players to cooperate with each other and not get mad at each other because the content is too hard for someone and not hard enough for someone else in some instances gets carried away.
This is a bit of a ranty section here, but I think I've made my point: too difficult simply is no longer fun to play. I've had 100+ wipes on Sephirot EX, the primal that I was talking about earlier, because I would make a mistake now and again (we're all human) or, far more often, someone else would make a positioning error or forget what they were supposed to do. Having team chat didn't even help stop these mistakes, making matters even worse.
That's my bout of ranting about this, however, and I feel I've made my point stand. I would say that difficult is something that needs to be in these games, as it gives players a sense of accomplishment. But there is a fine line to be taken into consideration and polishing something to make it fun is not the same process as polishing something to make it as difficult as possible without making it impossible. I hope that Stormblood largely takes this into consideration and creates a game that is just as fun as I would love it to be, not something so brutally difficult that it is impossible.
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