Is Endwalkers alliance raid too easy?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

No. It was just about right.

If anything, it was probably a little too hard and/or too visually busy. It's annoying when you have to turn off spell effects to even see tells.

But for general community content (e.g. not Extreme/Savage/Ultimates), it was the right difficulty. It was certainly not "too easy", no.

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This has to be bait. Thaleia is one of the easiest raids they've ever done and it is sad. MSQ mandatory trial fights are harder! Literally the only 24 man raids easier than Thaleia are ST and VA. Lota and wod are both harder! I am not expecting Extreme levels of difficulty here but the should be around SB or SHB alliance raids in difficulty and not tripping and falling down the stairs all the way back down to easier than ARR raids.

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Originally Posted by Arkdra

This has to be bait. Thaleia is one of the easiest raids they've ever done and it is sad. MSQ mandatory trial fights are harder! Literally the only 24 man raids easier than Thaleia are ST and VA. Lota and wod are both harder! I am not expecting Extreme levels of difficulty here but the should be around SB or SHB alliance raids in difficulty and not tripping and falling down the stairs all the way back down to easier than ARR raids.

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No.

Do you genuinely not think people can disagree with you?

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Agree to disagree. The Myth raid bosses didn't feel like Alliance Raid bosses at all. I'm sure most of us aren't even asking for Extreme/Savage/Ultimate difficulty, but something that... actually feels like a raid (it's kinda sad Labyrinth of the Ancients and World of Darkness are more raid-like than the Myths of the Realm raids. Heck, some dungeon bosses have more "raid-like" mechanics than most Myth bosses). It's why some of us bring up Ivalice a lot, because that was "just about right" difficulty. They weren't hard, but they also weren't complete pushovers.

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That's a more open topic.

You don't mean difficulty, you mean mechanics? Stuff like Cerberus requiring some people to go into his belly or Agrius having people pick up the swords to kill the tainted spirits or free people from the stasis blocks? Or like the phase in Red Girl where you go into the virus with the little white/black arrow hacking things?

Those things are interesting but not "difficult/hard". The difficult would still be about right, but what that would be is arguing about more non-combat mechanics (things that aren't directly "don't stand in bad" and "damage boss", that is). Is that what you mean?

Cause you then say "weren't complete pushovers", so I'm not clear if you mean mechanics or difficulty (or perceived difficulty). I'm fine with agreeing to disagree, but I'm not sure if we're disagreeing here or if we're just talking about two completely different things.

I do like stuff where you get the parties to separate and complete different objectives (and no, not the "add phase" things that cordon into three shielded areas where people have to ad hock run to the three to fight the add in it, which often have people from different parties going everywhere anyway), but stuff like Cerberus (sorta). Though they honestly don't do that very often at all. That one Puppet's Bunker fight with the three flight armors was kind of that way and honestly one of the more fun 24 man fights imo because of it. It actually utilized the fact there are 3x 8 man parties in the raid.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I have some runs that go smoothly and some that are disasters. That means it's tuned perfectly.

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Pretty much agree.

Idk but I wouldn’t say it felt disappointing to me. I mean, it’s not super difficult or anything, but I wouldn’t say it’s the easiest raid in the whole game. I don’t think alliance raids were supposed to be ‘difficult’, they always seemed ‘normal’ to me, like the same difficulty as an msq trial or normal-version raid, so I didn’t really expect any more difficulty than what we got.

There were a couple mechanics that got me on first time for this one, but it wasn’t even solving them mechanically that was the problem, it was that I forgot to turn or spell effects so I could barely see anything lol. It feels like the ‘sensory overload visual diarrhoea’ thing has gotten way out of hand with the alliance raid, in my opinion lol

Mechanics + being more to the point (also their health seems to be tuned to i625 and not... i640-650. i650 preferably since that's the ilevel of the gear they drop). As I've mentioned multiple times, the Myth bosses spend a long time in tutorial mode, which is a big issues if you + everyone else is not new to the raid. It's like playing a new Pokemon game for the first time, but NPC's still insist/force you learn how to catch a Pokemon.

Take Thaliak for example. In the first minute he's only done: an AoE, a cast for his Tsunami clone and then nothing but auto-attacks for 20 seconds until the (very weak) knockback concludes, to which he then does a stack. Mustadio in the first minute has done: an AoE, tank buster, left/right, right/left and then Maintenance.

SE could have made the first minute more interesting if the stack marker happened during the Tsunami cast + threw in the water orbs into the first one rather than save it for the second one. Better yet, the fights could have started them in their "serious phase" and skip the tutorial parts of their fights entirely. There are good ideas in these raids, but they're locked behind forced tutorials + being scared of making tricky puzzle mechanics (you'd think Thaliak would have more going on during his triangle mechanic. Imagine if we saw MATH MODE return).

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Originally Posted by Renathras

No. It was just about right.

If anything, it was probably a little too hard and/or too visually busy. It's annoying when you have to turn off spell effects to even see tells.

But for general community content (e.g. not Extreme/Savage/Ultimates), it was the right difficulty. It was certainly not "too easy", no.

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Similar to my take, especially going in blind.

For me, it's not about the difficulty. Not even if an alliance wipes x times. The Myths of the Realms raids are flashy, colorful and very beautiful. It's a great theme park you can just faceroll.

But personally, alliance raids lack some core lately. They used to have way more group mechanics, locked rooms & adds that need to be dealt with separately. Currently, the newest iteration of the raid, is basically just a dodge-mini game. A flashy one. You can die as many times as you like, but your group will carry you. All you need to do is dodge and brain afk your dps rotation.

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Originally Posted by xbahax92

But personally, alliance raids lack some core lately. They used to have way more group mechanics, locked rooms & adds that need to be dealt with separately.

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That is a big factor of what has actually changed. They don't seem to want to do group mechanics in casual content anymore, because it results in the trouble people had with Thunder God, or all the casual tanks that didn't know adds tether or which add they were supposed to get. Everything seems to be personal responsibility now, which I don't necessarily have a problem with, but I also don't think it was a problem.

If people wipe to Thunder God and have to abandon, that's okay. It's okay if you can't succeed 100% of the time.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Why is Llymlaen having to show us how in/out or left/right mechanics work? We're level 90 yet several of the mechanics seemingly act as though players are seeing them for the first time. Nophica back in Europhsyne takes a whole 5 minutes before she does a simple tank buster.

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Imo thats the nice side effect of having everything optional... thats why imo all content should be mandatory. Everything is treated like its still tutorial lol

Endwalker raids were way too easy, im not sure i even recall one fullwipe besides Nald'thal...

Going in blind, I think the fights could have been a smidge faster paced — for example, by shortening a lot of the cast bars and wind-ups by a GCD or two.

In terms of mechanics, I'm idly wondering if something could have been designed around different characters (players) having different patron deities. That could have broken up the 24 vs. boss/trash encounters in a new way.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Going in blind, I think the fights could have been a smidge faster paced — for example, by shortening a lot of the cast bars and wind-ups by a GCD or two.

In terms of mechanics, I'm idly wondering if something could have been designed around different characters (players) having different patron deities. That could have broken up the 24 vs. boss/trash encounters in a new way.

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Right? On the final boss I was sure we would of had to do something with the sign of our god/goddess.. I was looking around for mine.. but sadly it never happened..

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

If people wipe to Thunder God and have to abandon, that's okay. It's okay if you can't succeed 100% of the time.

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This is what bothers me with the direction XIV has taken. The dev team seems determined to make casual content one giant participation ribbon. It's okay if we don't immediately succeed just by existing. In fact, that's what makes even easy content fun. Having the game all but hand you a win just robs any sense of engagement. At least for me.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

If anything, it was probably a little too hard and/or too visually busy. It's annoying when you have to turn off spell effects to even see tells.

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I have to agree here. A lot of the time I could barely see the boss so watching the boss for potential hints for mechanics wasn't possible. Sometimes even AOE couldn't be clearly seen. And I think one shouldn't have to turn off effects just in order to be able to play properly.

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Originally Posted by ACE135

I have to agree here. A lot of the time I could barely see the boss so watching the boss for potential hints for mechanics wasn't possible. Sometimes even AOE couldn't be clearly seen. And I think one shouldn't have to turn off effects just in order to be able to play properly.

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We'll see if the graphics update will fix the visual problems or not (my guess is not).

As a general rule, I always have spell effects turned off. But I've also been pretty involved in hunts where there's far too many people to have all effects on.

It lacks some interesting mechanics, the final boss is disappointing, and particular bosses (like Oschon) are really weak. It is mixed bag.

There really ought to be a setting to tone down the visual effects of other player's attacks without turning them completely off (and while preserving the visuals of all beneficial skills). Even if the boss's model itself had zero tells, it'd still be nice to be able to see the boss and players doing something other than flailing sticks around for no apparent reason.