The boss of Final Fantasy XIV was worried that the new dungeons were too difficult

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Since A Realm Reborn, the Final Fantasy XIV community has been arguing about whether dungeons are too difficult, too easy, or too boring. The dungeons in the new Dawntrail expansion also received rather negative feedback at the beginning. Now, says the boss, players think they are just right.

Why were the dungeons discussed? Every new expansion and (almost) every patch brings with it new dungeons that must be completed during the story quests. Since most of the new endgame content can only be tackled after completing the respective DLC or update story, these dungeons must also be doable.

This applies equally to hardcore raiders and casual players. Finding the right level of difficulty here is not easy.

But with the new expansion Dawntrail, the development team seems to have hit a nerve.

Final Fantasy XIV: Launch trailer for Dawntrail sets the mood for the adventure in Tural

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That’s exactly what makes it fun

How do players see it in Dawntrail? Director and producer Naoki Yoshida spoke about the difficulty level of the latest dungeons in a Famitsu interview. At the beginning of the meeting with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the founding father of Final Fantasy, they talked about the dungeons.

Yoshida says that there were initially some voices saying that the new content was too difficult for casual players. But they have calmed down a lot since then. At the same time, there is also a lot of positive feedback:

[..] In Japan, but also internationally, there was a lot of feedback like: This is exactly how it’s fun. So I think we’ll keep doing it like this for now.

Naoki Yoshida in an interview with Famitsu, 04.09.2024 … but still has room for improvement

What are players saying on reddit? In a post, the players discussed Yoshida’s statement. Overall, the commentators are happy with the current situation – as Naoki Yoshida also says in the interview. Here are a few opinions:

  • For the most part, the Dawntrail dungeons are as good as they have been in years. – KnifingGrimace via Reddit
  • Big agree. Personally I think the only stinker is the 99 dungeon. – sekretguy777 via Reddit
  • Casual difficulty is good at the moment. – CaviarMeths via Reddit

    • However, the commentators still have a few comments:

  • The only thing I wish is that there were more mechanics during the wall-to-wall pulls. It gets extremely tiring doing the exact same thing in every dungeon between bosses. – Defiant_Mercy via reddit
  • I do wish they would let us change the colors of the AoE markers though. Cactus Hollow is a nightmare if you’re colorblind; the ground is the same color as the AoE markers in many places. – LilyHex via reddit
  • […] I wish the dungeons weren’t designed as cinematic hallways. I long for something more than a corridor that looks pretty and is functionally identical to the 20 dungeons before and after. Ever since we got variant dungeons, I’ve been wishing for a similar design for all dungeons. – CaviarMeths via reddit

    • Presumably, the feedback from players will not fall on deaf ears. Naoki Yoshida sometimes listens to his community and communicates with players as transparently as he can. For example, he spoke out about the controversial changes to a new class during gamescom 2024.

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