Liquid Flame is an example of how overly easy things are.

Once again, "expert" only means they are currently the highest-item-level-required (and usually, locked-furthest-behind-MSQ) 4-man dungeons currently available, meaning they require the most effort to be able to access. It has nothing to do with the actual skill level required to complete them.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

You are free to complain about expert roulette as anyone is, but you are also free to receive responses from people who think that complaining about something that needs to encompass the skill levels of 100% of the population doing endgame, is stupid. It's a non-issue, because you are doing content that has to be of a certain degree of difficulty. What might be difficult for you is easy for someone else, what might be easy for you is difficult for someone else, etc.

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Only there is no difficulty here. You literally can ignore 99% of expert mechanics and be fine, even on 210 Ilvl.

Unless I'm a god Warrior, there's something wrong.

I love the new dungeons. They're fun. I run them multiple times a day with my alts as well as dealing with my relic obsession.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

it isn't powerfull heals that mean tanks can pull 20 mobs at once.

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It is powerful heals that allow you to ignore non-lethal mechanics, because the damage you took has no consequence. The healer won't run risk of going OOM because he has to heal the damage you took and he won't risk having to let the tank die because he's busy fixing your error either. He'll dip out of cleric stance, hit Essential Dignity/Lustrate/Tetra, maybe throw a HoT and then go back into cleric stance. The error is fixed in under 5 seconds with one or two casts at negligible mana cost. This trivializes any mechanic that isn't completely unforgiving and why all "hard" encounters rely on lots of insta-kill and wipe mechanics.

As for mass pulls - that one is a little bit more complicated because it's indeed a matter of incoming healing vs incoming damage, as the stream is continuous. So you "can" theoretically work with increasing the damage, reducing the mitigation or reducing the incoming healing.

Reducing the mitigation might be warranted to some degree, but it makes tanks feel less tanky and the mitigation tanks contributes far less to the effective HP than healing. If you heal a tank with 15000 HP that mitigates 50% of all incoming damage for 4000 HP, you have contributed 8000 effective HP to his health pool. In order to achieve the same effect, he would need to get 4000 HP via gear or mitigate 60% of all damage - except then the heal would be worth around 10k effective HP. And that's just a single heal here, not multiple. That's why 3-man runs without a tank can usually continue with little issues, whereas 3-man runs without a healer result in people dying, wipes and standstill.

The issue with upping the damage instead of nerfing the healing is that it only makes things more unforgiving - In the extreme case of powerful healers and powerful damage, a healer could heal to full every second and mobs could get you to 1% every second. Now that's stress-free gaming, right? We are already at the point where healers can crit you for over half your health in a single, spam-able spell. How hard do you want to make mobs hit to match that? At this point, the issue is healer power, not the incoming damage. It's not one bit surprising that despite their low mitigation, healers rank highest in PotD. They are also the only role that has a skill flat out disabled in PvP for balance sake. How much more obvious do things have to get? >_>

And here I thought I was the only one questioning balance decisions.

i rememebr back in 2.0 release that Amdapor Keep normal( the current end game dungeon that time) were very challenging esp in df lol

Honestly I think the problem is the way SE handled the itemization of the game and the way gear stats work. Problem is not that the monsters are too weak, but the fact that the player is way too strong with the stats + all of the HW skills on top of that. We have way too many ohshit cooldowns, way too much mitigation, too many tools to make the enemy weaker or vulnerable to multiple sources of damage at once. The fact I can do any dungeon in this game as a 100% cleric stance SCH says a lot.

SE could have savage mode dungeons on top of what they have now. Make it so mechanics must be followed or the party wipes. Offer some better rewards. I think this would be a good idea for people want a harder challenge.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

That's irrelevant to what my point is, my point is that if you really want a challenge, go do Savage. Expert roulette dungeons are there for the basic rotations/DPS, not for you to be 'challenged' to the bleeding edge of your class's damage/defense/healing. Also, pretty certain Liquid Flame has more mechanics than any boss of Void Ark, that's where it was overly easy...

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Regardless, someone can still goof on something easy despite being at raid level. This game is just learning how to work within a set of actions that never change, bosses don't react any different at any level in this game, they're going to only hit whoever is top of the enmity list, tank is going to turn it around, and everyone is going to dance around out of AoE or whatever other mechanic is present.

Honestly the only reason Savage is "difficult" is due to the frequency at which the mechanics happen and DPS checks, that in my opinion aren't things that should be classified as difficult in my book. It's like Souls/Bloodborne being hard because 80% of the bosses take up your entire screen and have bad camera.

Once you are able to adjust to the rate at which things happen in savage and can break the dps wall, you realize absolutely nothing in this game is challenging.

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Originally Posted by Phireblast

None and I mean absolutely none of his attacks are threatening. Even if you were in unupgraded 3.2 gear, you can easily survive all of his mechanics if you ignore them. In fact, the damage of all of his attacks are so pitiful, you'd be wasting your time and DPS actually doing the mechanics.

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That is because the dungeons are tuned for 215 to 225 and unupgraded 3.2 gear is 230. You are going in with 15 more ilevels than what the dungeon is tuned for.

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Originally Posted by Yudzster

i rememebr back in 2.0 release that Amdapor Keep normal( the current end game dungeon that time) were very challenging esp in df lol

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That was due to the majority of the player base being in i45 to i55 gear and working towards i70 gear in a dungeon tuned for i55 gear.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

I disagree. I see it more as the fact healers are too overpowered in their own primary function. But, we'll agree to disagree.

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On AST, I can pop synastry, pop my regens, time extend it all on tank and never heal again. Ever.

On SCH, I simply DPS 24/7.

On WHM, I occasionally pop a regen up and go back to dps.

Yeah, I'd say there's something up with how powerful healers are in late game dungeons. SCH and AST in particular.

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

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The difficulty in Savage is managing good damage, overcoming the healing requirements, and successfully defending against tankbusters and the like, while also dealing with mechanics that affect those previous requirements. Expert also does this, except, the outgoing damage is of a lower frequency because, guess what? Savage is tuned to i240+, while Expert is tuned to i210+. Forget the fact that it is 30 item levels below what we're at at the moment, but that it was the best gear available four patches ago. Attempting to "antagonize" the lack of difficulty in expert is like attempting to antagonize enrage timers in raids. They are there for specific reasons and they are there so everyone is at the exact same point of opportunity to progress.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

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There is a level difficulty, but at the point you are at, you have already experienced 60 levels of that class, so are you really going to expect an instant-wipe? This is just excusing having an easier time because of experience just so more 'dire' mechanics are added. There isn't a reason to though? So why are complaints coming in that the endgame dungeons that are meant to allow new, somewhat/partially inexperienced players to easily gear up, being too easy? That's right, because that covers more of the majority. Believe it or not, people who want EX roulette to be more difficult/more unforgiving are a minority.

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Originally Posted by FabricioRF

This game needs more Chariberts.

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And more Living Liquid.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

I disagree. I see it more as the fact healers are too overpowered in their own primary function. But, we'll agree to disagree.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Yeah, I'd say there's something up with how powerful healers are in late game dungeons. SCH and AST in particular.

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You can't really single out healers being the only ones "overpowered" in your opinion because tanks are also a factor (which you are somehow ignoring their part in it). In each encounter it is how much the healer heals versus how much damage the tank takes that makes up the unity of how long and how much a healer can DPS while the tank is tanking.

These dungeons are not tuned to be difficult. They are meant for any type of player to be able to complete and they tune them to lower than average item levels.

The newest Experts as of this post Xelphatol and Great Googly Moogly Hard are entry level i210.......i210? That is the best item level from the start of 3.0...The first Alexander raid (Gordias) dropped i210 gear; that's how long ago that item level was the best.

This is why you feel healers are overpowered...except that is just it, they aren't. Most healers and tanks are just way over geared for these dungeons because SE wants players to be able to catch up even if they did not play recently. They obviously want dungeons to be inclusive and try not to exclude too many players from accessing it. If you kept up with your gear from the previous content patch you would be i240 when they released these two new experts so you are already 30 item levels above the minimum that the dungeon is tuned for and the fact they generally don't seem to want to make dungeons too hard; again that is because they don't want to exclude players. They want it to be easily accessible and easily complete-able content.

So you aren't really overpowered you are just over geared and the dungeons are supposed to be easy level content.

I wish there was more difficulty but I understand why there isn't, but I get my difficulty fix from doing the savage raids. What would be cool is if they added some savage dungeons that we could tackle. PotD 150-200 was a good addition so far for difficult 4 man content.

If the player is too strong, then the bosses need more 1-shot mechanics (like the Meteor from Behemoth)

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Originally Posted by Felis

If the player is too strong, then the bosses need more 1-shot mechanics (like the Meteor from Behemoth)

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Wipe or win is bad for new players and bad for getting people to take them to things.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

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No one is expecting nor asking dungeons become the equivalent of Savage. We want them to not be brain dead easy. I can literally spam nothing but Impulse Drive and we'll still clear within twenty minutes. I flat out ignore the push back mechanic from the second boss in Xelaphtol. Why? It does negligible damage I can heal myself through, on Dragoon. The fact we're already pushing passed the majority of their "gimmicks" speaks to how absurdly easy "expert" dungeons are. Hell, Yoshi hilariously warned tanks to be careful. What happened on day one? Pull the entire room and aoe them all down. I'm far from an experienced tank and short of getting no heals whatsoever, I can pop one or two cooldowns, spam Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain and none of them will come close to killing me. The only pull that actually poses any challenge is if you try and grab everything before the Apanda fight in Gubal. That can be a little taxing on healers. Everything else; bosses included? Dead within two minutes.

So excuse your strawman. I'd prefer doing more than spam Heavy Thrust + Ring of Thorn + Doom Spike x3-5. There's a reason queue times for Expert have become increasingly longer. The devs didn't put the new Anima step on there without reason. People aren't doing dungeons because they're boring.

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Originally Posted by ckc22

Wipe or win is bad for new players and bad for getting people to take them to things.

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Actually no, its exactly the opposite, recently a raid designer from the wow team write about this in his blog i think and compare it to ff xiv and is also often talked in game design pannels. Its also pretty obvious

If you have mechanics all over your game which can be ignored/marginalized, that teaches the player A) That its not dangerous/they dont fear it b) they are educated to not take this mechanic seriously. If its kills you instant, you get punished and dont want it experince it again.


If a new player goes 99 % of the game (and we talking about level 60 content here) with that game design the new players position is extremly poor if they tackle any content that is beyond this difficulty

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

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I would love to see a Dragoon PURELY spamming Impulse Drive as their only damage in an Expert roulette dungeon and still clear in 20 minutes, in the average DF group. It's unlikely, and I get that you're being hyperbolic to prove your point, except, that works against your favor. If a person expects a high level of difficulty in content that is supposed to encompass skill levels of all players in the game, then you need to lower your expectations, sweetheart, because Expert is primarily there to allow people to cap tomestones in a relatively short amount of time (20 min x 5 days is enough to cap 450 tomes). If it's difficulty you want, EX Primals, Savage and PotD 101+ are there and not going anywhere.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

Go do Savage and stop complaining about "Expert" roulette.

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Yeah, everyone knows expert dungeons are not here to be fun! They are simply chores to do while watching Netflix.

Content is only supposed to be engaging and interesting in Savage raids. It is known.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

I would love to see a Dragoon PURELY spamming Impulse Drive as their only damage in an Expert roulette dungeon and still clear in 20 minutes, in the average DF group. It's unlikely, and I get that you're being hyperbolic to prove your point, except, that works against your favor. If a person expects a high level of difficulty in content that is supposed to encompass skill levels of all players in the game, then you need to lower your expectations, sweetheart, because Expert is primarily there to allow people to cap tomestones in a relatively short amount of time (20 min x 5 days is enough to cap 450 tomes). If it's difficulty you want, EX Primals, Savage and PotD 101+ are there and not going anywhere.

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This depends on their co-damage partner. I am fairly certain me DPSing solo with the healer/tank doing their part would clear in 20 minutes (as the usual run takes ~13-14 minutes). Then again you said average DF group.

There is a difference between wanting difficulty, and wanting content to be engaging and require effort. Experts currently barely require DPS to do rotations, tanks to hold agro nor healers to heal. I tank half the mobs in half my runs and I never drop below 50% of my HP. When I go on my SCH, I literally do not cast heals on spam pulls (Faerie does it 100%). It's absurdly easy to the point that it isn't fun. It's not that we want 'hard' content, we just want something to play.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

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Thank you for ignoring the, what? Like 5 posts I posted afterwards explaining my post? You sure are a class act Nancy Drew. :D

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Originally Posted by ErryK

Thank you for ignoring the, what? Like 5 posts I posted afterwards explaining my post? You sure are a class act Nancy Drew. :D

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Nancy Drew? You mean, like I solve mysteries? I don't get the insult, assuming you meant it as one.

That said, I did literally skip 4 pages, as I didn't feel like reading it all. I read 1st post, your first post and your last post (that's it in this thread). Sorry for missing stuff.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

Thank you for ignoring the, what? Like 5 posts I posted afterwards explaining my post? You sure are a class act Nancy Drew. :D

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Personally, I think they should up the ante when it comes to expert, at least a little. A tank with an I160 weapon would struggle to hold hate. A healer with a. I160 weapon has to heal slightly more.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

I would love to see a Dragoon PURELY spamming Impulse Drive as their only damage in an Expert roulette dungeon and still clear in 20 minutes, in the average DF group. It's unlikely, and I get that you're being hyperbolic to prove your point, except, that works against your favor. If a person expects a high level of difficulty in content that is supposed to encompass skill levels of all players in the game, then you need to lower your expectations, sweetheart, because Expert is primarily there to allow people to cap tomestones in a relatively short amount of time (20 min x 5 days is enough to cap 450 tomes). If it's difficulty you want, EX Primals, Savage and PotD 101+ are there and not going anywhere.

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You would think that's hyperbolic, but I'll give an example. Friends and I ran Xelphatol yesterday while in Discord. One wasn't paying attention and forget to actually heal me (I was tanking), which promptly leads to my death. She decides to say fuck it and tanks an entire pull as a Scholar. A Scholar, Machinist and either Black Mage/Summoner killed like 6-8 things without dying. None of us are elite caliber players either. Only I've done Savage while the rest haven't even cleared Sophia EX, yet they didn't even need a tank.

That, in no way, should be remotely possible.

Stop assuming my position. No one is expecting high levels of difficulty. We're asking for actual difficulty. The scenario I described above demonstrates just how absurdly easy Xelphatol is. Wanting dungeons to make it so healers aren't spending more time in Cleric Stance than healing or so tanks can't pull trains until the game says "that's far enough" isn't demanding "high levels of difficulty." It's asking dungeons not be so easy, we're ignoring all the mechanics and force pulling.

It's no coincidence the current Anima step has you running Expert for Clusters. Dungeons aren't getting the queues they once were because they've become too easy, so the devs had to push us back into them. Yoshi even outright acknowledged people find their dungeons boring now.

Further proof that healers are unbalanced severely? ^

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Further proof that healers are OP? ^

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Scholar is, xD

But jokes aside, it isn't just healers or tanks being OP. You can achieve the same "nerf" by simply making things hit enough. PotD sort of does this actually. If you attempt to do big pulls, especially on higher floors. You're... gonna have a hard time. I was leveling Gladiator on floors 30-40 once and we triggered an increased spawn trap. Despite two healers, they were struggling to keep us all alive while I was struggling on aggro just due to the sheer heal and DPS said healers were trying to balance. Not having a tank stance didn't help any either. Still, it was... a lot of fun. We all had to work. Had our MCH not dicked off in another room, we probably would have survived it too. I'd like to see something similar for dungeons. Surprise big pulls, aggro breaks, a mob or two that needs to be targeted down ASAP. Basically, stuff that makes the group each have to pull their own weight and feel accomplished in doing so. That way, when we can do bigger pulls and survive later in the patch cycle's life or even have to wait until the following one, it feels like some form of progression. I couldn't tank ten mobs day one, now I can several months later. As it stands, dungeons are a joke the moment they launch, and just become a chore.

When it's better for Melee jobs to flat out ignore mechanics and just let the healer heal through everything. There's a problem.

PLD best healer in PotD! Clemency op, budget Raise! Totes the life. :o Not really related, but I adore playing PLD there simply because I can appreciate the versatility of my entire toolkit. XD

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Originally Posted by ErryK

Go do Savage and stop complaining about "Expert" roulette.

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because savage is hard? lol

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Originally Posted by DarkB

because savage is hard? lol

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For the people who complain about the expert stuff beeing to easy? Probably yes.

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Originally Posted by Miste

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How about this then. Make the story dungeons easy, and the optional dungeons a bit more difficult.
Say, if Xelphatol is 210ilv, then Gubal would be 230ilv. Most people playing casually can reach that and it would allow for a more challenging and fun experience.

Sometimes I like to feel like a healer in dungeons, not a DPS that occasionally heals every 40 seconds or so.

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Originally Posted by DarkB

because savage is hard? lol

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http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...t/detail/1642/

?????????

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

How about this then. Make the story dungeons easy, and the optional dungeons a bit more difficult.
Say, if Xelphatol is 210ilv, then Gubal would be 230ilv. Most people playing casually can reach that and it would allow for a more challenging and fun experience.

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This would not work as it would destroy the expert roulette. Why would anyone run the harder dungeon when they could just run the easy one? I still stand by the notion that pharos sirius was never too hard, it was just avoided because it was much harder than the alternatives, so nobody bothered running it, and this would create the same problem.

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Originally Posted by DarkB

because savage is hard? lol

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It can be because you need to commit to it with your group. You haven't even completed it yet..... neither have I but I don't go around saying it isn't hard.

Next expert dgns should be fog of war rooms, where every room is completely dark until all 4 players get in one. It lights up to reveal some of the random ideas:
- kill all mobs at the same time room

- kill your shadow room

- the fall off the edge or in holes (zoning importance) room

-countdown trap switch room

Make the bosses normal but make it so that reaching them takes coordination and paying attention, since the dark rooms robs everyone the element of anticipation.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

This would not work as it would destroy the expert roulette. Why would anyone run the harder dungeon when they could just run the easy one? I still stand by the notion that pharos sirius was never too hard, it was just avoided because it was much harder than the alternatives, so nobody bothered running it, and this would create the same problem.

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And Weeping City further corroborates that theory. People complained for weeks is was too hard and needed a nerf. When the devs flat out said no, people sucked it up because if you wanted those rewards, you had to "git gud." The more content actually demands from players, the more likely they'll perform. Granted, you can only push so far. Gordias Savage being the example of "too far." Had Xelphatol and Gubal been ilvl 235-240, it puts them closer to the current gear levels without going overboard.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

And Weeping City further corroborates that theory. People complained for weeks is was too hard and needed a nerf. When the devs flat out said no, people sucked it up because if you wanted those rewards, you had to "git gud." The more content actually demands from players, the more likely they'll perform. Granted, you can only push so far. Gordias Savage being the example of "too far." Had Xelphatol and Gubal been ilvl 235-240, it puts them closer to the current gear levels without going overboard.

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Exactly. If you don't give players a mind numbingly easy alternative to standard content, the standard content becomes the new easy. The real problem is the devs lack of a spine when it comes to difficulty and reward distribution, and it is one of the things I hate most in this game.

I wish people weren't so derisive towards the topic. Personally I agree. You shouldn't make an encounter that's toothless on release at minimum gear levels.

That isn't to say the mechanics should be overly difficult, but they should be punishing. I think that's one of the main reasons I liked Weeping City so much. The mechanics aren't hard. They REALLY REALLY aren't, but if you don't do them, they'll mess you up in a heartbeat. That's what we should aim for in casual content imo.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

I wish people weren't so derisive towards the topic. Personally I agree. You shouldn't make an encounter that's toothless on release at minimum gear levels.

That isn't to say the mechanics should be overly difficult, but they should be punishing. I think that's one of the main reasons I liked Weeping City so much. The mechanics aren't hard. They REALLY REALLY aren't, but if you don't do them, they'll mess you up in a heartbeat. That's what we should aim for in casual content imo.

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Honestly, it doesn't even have to be hard - just engaging and interesting.

Problem is, dungeons in ex roulette are the #1 activity players tend to do at lvl 60 and they really need to be engaging, and/or challenging. If they're challenging you actually have to put some effort into beating them. If they're engaging, you have to think about how to beat them. As it is, they're neither, and so all dungeons are snoozefests at this point. At least back in the lvl 50 dungeon speedrun era you could make it fun by seeing just how much you could pull at one time and still survive.

What I'd really like is a return of Amdapor Keep difficulty again. It felt far worse back then because that, WP, CM and Prae were literally the only things you'd do that weren't primals or coil, but I really miss that feeling that maybe someone was going to miss a silence on the bees, get knocked off, or fck up on the final boss. Dungeons could really go a lot better if they weren't so damn toothless.

Admapor Keep was hard because all the gear we had were barely sufficient back then. As we got stronger gear, the dungeon became trivial like everything else. Nothing is going to stay difficult forever unless something has a butt ton of mechanics.