My own personal feedback on Dawntrail (up till 7.45)

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Originally Posted by OlafQuintessa

I'm not sure about Pilgrim's. I was keen at first but then the first boss turns out to such a wall that you can't do it without a group, which guarantees the content will be mostly dead after a couple of months.

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I did it on a tank without a group using the death incense to take giant chunks of HP from the boss and to kill the adds, but it took several attempts and RNG on getting the incense. It also forces you to actually use burst on the adds as a backup plan. It was strange for the first boss to give a false impression of how difficult the first 50 floors are though.

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Originally Posted by OlafQuintessa

I'm not sure about Pilgrim's. I was keen at first but then the first boss turns out to such a wall that you can't do it without a group

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You don't need a light party. PT is trivial with two players, even AP grinding. I actually like the "wall" on 10. It doesn't give you false hope that the rest of the DD will be "as easy."

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I did it on a tank without a group using the death incense to take giant chunks of HP from the boss and to kill the adds, but it took several attempts and RNG on getting the incense. It also forces you to actually use burst on the adds as a backup plan. It was strange for the first boss to give a false impression of how difficult the first 50 floors are though.

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I see it as a reprieve. After a failed solo attempt, slogging through "easy" fights to finally get back to the more interesting and "difficult" fights, the "harder" boss on floor 10 is very welcome. It's also a good gauge if that job is the right fit for your solo attempts.

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Originally Posted by FarelTheGecko

I understand that RNG has a place in games, and it surely can work, but it still is a tool that can work correctly or badly.

There is a reason for why EX Trials give tokens where 99 of those can be exchanged for a mount directly.
There is a reason for why weapons coffers were added to several fights, in case a player's weapon of choice just simply doesn't drop.

If the odds of something occurring are so low, or the wait-times are that bad, then some means of guaranteed progression help.

In past expansions, the previous relic steps were nerfed quite quickly, while here it hasn't happened. Something which one may argue is justified since the roulette grind or crystal paste collection is simple enough and keeps the Duty Finder more lively. All fair, but the Demiatma step is certainly in a different league, and should be adjusted, because some people just gave up on it.

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I'm sure 100% SE will nerf the demiatma step 1 but not during the final patches of DT or probably the next few years too because it's current content for the DT relic and they've adjusted along with boosted the old Relic content alot since I went back and completed the HW relic and partially for the ARR one before I quit WHM.

Also, it's only a one-time grind for the demiatmas and that ideally ppl would farm as many possible inside OC for CE (20% drop rate) then go outside in DT zones for fates (10%) to complete the few missing ones later. However, if ppl have like 1-2 days of gameplay each week because of IRL obligations, I have to say that doing relic on patch will be a challenge overall because even after collecting the demiatmas you'd need to farm 1.5k math tomes for each of them then it will repeat for more grinding steps for the next 3 steps too.

TBH, I'd just say just that all MMO are built around grinding and RNG if ppl can't spend the time then I'd just go and buy the HQ crafted set or weapons since it will be fine for all new upcoming patches too and way less time consuming.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

You've more or less got the same opinion as everyone else. To add to The Occult Crescent part, one aspect I don't see brought up enough is the core gameplay loop.

For the casual player in Bozja, what do you do? Well, CEs and Fates right, oh but a Solo duel spawned, check that out, everyones cheering around it watching some guy blow up thats kinda fun, or if they succeed you get a buff that helps you progress the content. Neat! Back to CEs and Fates, oh Castrum spawned, now you got a mini alliance raid where you have to communicate with other players to maximize rewards. Its a very healthy mix of content with some socialization as well.

The casual gameplay loop in Occult Crescent is Fate, TP to spawn, Fate, TP to Spawn, Fate, TP to Spawn, CE, TP to Spawn on loop with 0 downtime. And thats it. They spawn so fast you don't really even get the opportunity to engage with anything else otherwise you just miss it. Not that theres much to engage with. It results in Occult Crescent feeling like a single player grindfest despite everyone else being there. Hell you're lucky if you can even resolve the pot/rabbit thing to find your chest and not miss a CE.

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YES THANK YOU! Not enough people talk about this and it why i think bozja is god tier and eureka is trash and oc is worse in some regards

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I did it on a tank without a group using the death incense to take giant chunks of HP from the boss and to kill the adds, but it took several attempts and RNG on getting the incense. It also forces you to actually use burst on the adds as a backup plan. It was strange for the first boss to give a false impression of how difficult the first 50 floors are though.

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I know what you're saying but "Doable" and "Accessible" are two different things, and I think the opening of PT suffers from being inaccessible if you don't have access to a group. Elden Ring did difficulty very well, because you could always go level up or get better somewhere else then try a boss again. No effort was wasted. For the first boss of PT you're back to square one after every attempt (and another 40 mins of getting back to the boss to have another go). I'm aware though that a lot of people do like content where a group is required (it is an MMO after all!). I wonder if at some point in the future they could give an echo or buff for older content so you can easily go into it without a group. What would that first boss be like if you get to it with +40 aetherpool for instance?

I love DT because it feels fresh.

There’s no Hydaelyn or Scions, so the story feels new with different NPCs. (Wut!)

The new zones are great—Shaaloani and the sci-fi Solution Nine stand out. I also really enjoy the raids, especially the lore and fight mechanics.

Lastly, the role quests in DT are the best they've done since their introduction in ShB.

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Originally Posted by OlafQuintessa

I know what you're saying but "Doable" and "Accessible" are two different things, and I think the opening of PT suffers from being inaccessible if you don't have access to a group. {Snip}. For the first boss of PT you're back to square one after every attempt (and another 40 mins of getting back to the boss to have another go).

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Welcome to soloing content the developers designed for 4 people. It isn't supposed to be a cakewalk and the wall at 10 is a nice, friendly reminder you're soloing group content. I'd rather have a brick wall at the beginning so players only waste 40mins than them designing the wall at a higher floor exponentially increasing that wasted time.

Edit: you do know soloing isn't really tested by them. Heck, solo for POTD wasn't achieved until the expac after it released with RDM's subsequent release, and until significant changes to the battle system, the completion rate was extremely low (less than 100 per job all of Stb, for example this was easily viewable with the rankings DDs have. You could see some peoples progress in the ranks. There were even a few jobs that couldn't solo and you could see the wall floor they had because many players had their highest floor there). Comparing to another game that designs for solo play in the content is different than " here's a solo challenge we really didn't test, have at it."