SE, love the fight design but tone down the instant deaths a touch?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raven2014

No it doesn't. A pure enrage check will become irrelevant as people get more geared. The body check is there to make sure the mechanic always remain relevant regardless of how geared you are

---

I'm not talking about fights when unsynced. I'm talking about fights during the release patch.



On release, enrage is useless when every mechanic is a body check.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I'm not talking about fights when unsynced.
.

---

Neither do I.

Quote:

---

I'm talking about fights during the release patch.

---

And by this ... are you talking about week 1? Or Month 1? Consider the life cycle of a savage tier is probably 3-4 months, I think it's even more relevant to what I said. Since the fights are tuned to be beaten in week 1, that means any simple enrage mechanic would become meaningless within one month MAX.

There are actually plenty example of this in the game: they are called Primal Extreme fight. Without hard body check mechanic, every savage fight will simply become another EX fight within a month.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raven2014

Neither do I.



And by this ... are you talking about week 1? Or Month 1? Consider the life cycle of a savage tier is probably 3-4 months, I think it's even more relevant to what I said. Since the fights are tuned to be beaten in week 1, that means any simple enrage mechanic would become meaningless within one month MAX.

There are actually plenty example of this in the game: they are called Primal Extreme fight. Without hard body check mechanic, every savage fight will simply become another EX fight within a month.

---

Do you do savage? My group is still progging p12s because we have a person who cannot grasp classical concepts. It's made progging the fight hell because wiping to that means we can't see any further mechanics. When we get by on luck, we wipe to the next mechanic because it's also a body check.



And enrage should be trivialize with gear. That's kind of the point. You have 1 body check mechanic, and then enrage.

E8S was far easier than p12s, and it had light rampant, but it was at the start. And then it was a while before the next real body check mechanic. But even then, most of those outside light rampant were recoverable.



Not so in p12s. It takes player skill out of the equation. Recovering from a wipe (and not just limping along to a clear) is harder than starting over. You remove any kind of player agency.



Also, not every group has the skill to do that even with gear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Do you do savage?

---

Yes? On 4 different char in fact.

Quote:

---

My group is still progging p12s because we have a person who cannot grasp classical concepts. It's made progging the fight hell because wiping to that means we can't see any further mechanics. When we get by on luck, we wipe to the next mechanic because it's also a body check.

---

I mean ... in a way I can relate, but I don't agree. I had raid with a lot of group/static at different level, and my clear time depend on it. The previous two tier I ran with some decent players, and we manage to clear the tier within just 4-5 weeks. Unfortunately I had to leave due to schedule. So this tier I ran with a super casual group. We manage to get to P12S in like week 3, and then spend the next 3 months wiping on P12S before our first clear. And guess what, I'm ok with it. We wiped for weeks on Classical concept, just to get to caloric and proceed to wipe on it for weeks again. And this is after spending almost a month itself wiping on the first chain in phase 1 because half the raid struggle with the tower/soak order. And it's also mostly due to one or two person.

I think the difference here is how your group and my group decided to take it. Mine never set a time limit or expectation, we know our level and just take thing on the chin. I think the benefit of running with casual is it's almost impossible for us to care enough to get frustrated about slow progress. At some point it sounded like half of us try to explain to this person how it works. It got to a point where our raid leader take it upon himself of solving both HIS and this person mech during caloric, so he will tell this person where to go. (To his credit, he finally learnt how to do it himself after ... 2 months). The other person who keep messing up Classical? Eventually the whole group just take up ourselves to watch if this person is near our proximity, and tell him where to go.

Hey, it's a group effort.

Quote:

---

And enrage should be trivialize with gear. That's kind of the point.

---

And that point is still relevant. A full 660 team will have lot more room for error comparing to a 640 team. But enrage was never a mechanic, it's a tolerance. Ultimately I support idea that for high-end ecounter, team should only get their clears once they have demonstrated full understanding of the fight. I don't support the idea of players allow to simply overgear and brutefor/bypass mechanic they never understood and still get the clear.

Like I sad, you have EX for that. Want to know how I know? Because that's my mentality in EX, I rarely care enough to try to understand the fight fully like a savage fight because I know I don't need to.

Quote:

---

Also, not every group has the skill to do that even with gear.

---

And have you ever thought just ... maybe then your group isn't meant to clear it? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here and I feel this probably gonna open another rabbit hole. Again, I can relate. I had cleared the prior Ultimate, but when my group tried DSR ... we got to Eyes and stuck there for like 3 months. Eventually we just decided "hey, this fight is beyond our skill level", and we quit and we're ok with it. At least I was Ok with it.

You won't hear me saying "oh this is too hard it should be made easier to I can clear it". And you know why? Because I know if the fight is adjusted to the level that my team can clear, it will also take away the challenge that other people would enjoy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I'm convinced that this is exactly what discourages many people from even attempting certain content. It could be quite stressful in the knowledge that a relatively insignificant error, or a slight amount of lag, or even someone simply having a bad day or a bad time on one mechanic could lead to your party wiping. Even worse if you, or your party - can't use any of your skills to recover from your mistake . Not everyone enjoys that.

---

I almost think the game would benefit from savage having a hard limit on resses, kinda like how wow has a cap of battle reses (depending on party size)
Don't put the limit in casual content, but giving savage a res limit would mean every mechanic doesn't *have* to oneshot you

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Have you actually done a lot of Savage? Shadowbringers had just as many, if not more, body checks or near guaranteed fail states.

Cloud of Darkness had PvP tiles, Shadow Dog's void circles were a guaranteed wipe if someone was dead, never mind how easy it was for void orbs to kill several people. Fatebreaker is basically a harder Themis. Is someone dead for partners? Better hope he doesn't pick a tank or healer. You weren't recovering third phase cycles if the healers go down. Finally, we get to Eternity/Gaia which have Lion Rampant, time warps and a litany of "do this correctly or die."

None of these fights were any more or less accessible for the general playerbase. Same goes for previous tiers or even expansions. Jumping back to Stormblood, we had the infamous Hello, World and Limit Cut from O12S alone.

The only real shocker this expansion in terms of difficulty is Pandæmonium because we usually don't have such a highly tuned fight as the second encounter. Frankly, I love they didn't hold back for once and only wish Themis had been more interesting.

Now I do think they could scale the back checks back somewhat but like Seebazy mentioned prior, it's damn near the only option they have to actually challenge players. Healers, and to a lesser extent, tanks have far too many tools nowadays.

Nevertheless, Savage hasn't been "easier" in prior expansions.

---

Yes I did all of shadowbringers (except first tier of shadowbringers) and all of the current tier. It absolutely was easier back then, with groups generally being able to do 6 hours in a week and still clearing near the end of the patch. It is physically impossible in the current savage tier to do only 6 hours and clear it reliably. There's too many points where one person can die and kill everyone compared to the original fights, and we don't have the broken stat system to keep these people alive. The devs went tighter on things and it shows a LOT. Multiple body checks per fight and a lot of hidden hard wipes involving mp management if too many rezzes are given out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Do you do savage? My group is still progging p12s because we have a person who cannot grasp classical concepts. It's made progging the fight hell because wiping to that means we can't see any further mechanics. When we get by on luck, we wipe to the next mechanic because it's also a body check.



And enrage should be trivialize with gear. That's kind of the point. You have 1 body check mechanic, and then enrage.

E8S was far easier than p12s, and it had light rampant, but it was at the start. And then it was a while before the next real body check mechanic. But even then, most of those outside light rampant were recoverable.



Not so in p12s. It takes player skill out of the equation. Recovering from a wipe (and not just limping along to a clear) is harder than starting over. You remove any kind of player agency.



Also, not every group has the skill to do that even with gear.

---

That issue with a single person breaking the entire group is the exact problem savage has and because the devs decided they would do the "well it worked the last two expansions so lets keep doing it" ramp it up in difficulty to make it last longer, without understanding the implications of instant death mechanics being used so heavily apparently, they made savage the final ultimate. So basically now everyone who has never been in ultimate has to DO ultimate for progression in a system that has a lot of road blocks already in place to slow that down, including reclearing every single prior fight. One of those fights already exceeds p8s (p10s) in body checks, so it involves not only reclearing old fights, but also dealing with another ultimate-lite type of fight in the middle of it.

The fights are designed fine if the kind of people who did savage were ALL the same people who do ultimates, but they aren't. Also I'm kind of ticked off because they did the absolute opposite of what people wanted in this entire expansion. Yoshi P. said they listened to hardcore players more but I feel like they ignored half the feedback then on the entire thing with endgame. People wanted the ability to have a step between the savage and normal mode, no one said they wanted savage to have more body checks and be more difficult to complete than all prior content before stat squish. Not only that, but they are slow as molasses to react to any kind of feedback. By the time they are going to react to THIS feedback, if at all, it's going to be patch 7.2 or 7.3 in Dawntrail. They have to be reactive in fixing issues of difficulty like this because we are at 6.5. If people didn't clear already they are going to be grinding all the way to potentially 7.0 launch.

And this is a problem because it cuts into doing anything else, like going for pvp seasonal rewards or grinding for mounts. They are literally harming the other content they have doing this difficulty spike.

TBH we need less instant death mechanics and more healer checks. Enable healers to actually perform their role sometimes and allow for mistakes that do not instantly amount in death. More random damage that needs to be healed please.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Averax

TBH we need less instant death mechanics and more healer checks. Enable healers to actually perform their role sometimes and allow for mistakes that do not instantly amount in death. More random damage that needs to be healed please.

---

Okay so this is basically observation, but the idea they went with on this expansion was to make the mitigation matter more, so they made this critical instead of optional for savage. The idea is that they'd have some mechanic that does a tank buster and unless the tank uses one or two mitigations, the total damage will be greater than the total HP the tank hypothetically will have. They can also do things like add multipliers to the damage so that not using a mitigation increases damage taken by 10-15% on top of the total damage it is supposed to deal.

To patch something like p12s to make it less of a final destination instant death match, they'd have to change it so that there is specifically one or two body checks. So basically, Limit cut would have to be the body check and everything else before it is just damage that can be healed through. Main reason for that is adjusting Super Chain would mean adjusting all the super chains so that they are in the same line of thinking. So then it puts more pressure on the party avoiding damage downs instead of being hard locked to earlier mechanics. Older savage raids people weren't getting death pinned to earlier mechanics, they were basically damage down pinned which meant people were learning the fights properly even if others were failing mechanics, because they could live longer and see more of the fight.

The above would probably make the fight far easier to complete and given where we are at in patch cycle, it shouldn't even matter to anyone who already cleared it. They'd probably just go back to farm gear some more since they'd have less RNG. Also might make the community a bit less dodgy and angry at one another for failing mechanics and killing everyone. What I'm learning from this expansion is that the development team and team leadership did not understand at all who was doing what content when designing endwalker end game. I've been spending my time watching half of the mid-core raiders quit savage before completing the final fights, and the other half trying to at least finish so they aren't feeling like they wasted their time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azlith

Regarding the actual topic though, I don't have any problems with the body checks in this expansions fights. Requiring everybody to do the mechanics correctly in a savage fights is kinda the whole point of savage isn't it?

---

The big problem is they've wormed their way into Extremes. Golbez is the worst offender, but as I noted in my list, hardly the ONLY offender.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Saraide

Meteors on zeromus is the complete opposite of a body check. You can sac strat this mechanic deliberatly or even just on the fly.

---

Didn't I say that? "a sorta body check, but it's more a positioning check". That is, not a body check. And I've praised the fight as one of, if not the best, Ex in this expansion. Precisely because it doesn't have a hard body check. The only issue there is if someone messes up, it wipes the entire party.

.

Anyway, I think people don't get how encounters are harder now than they used to be. People that do Ultimates find everything else easy, that's a given, but then there's the rest of the playerbase. Things people used to find hard in Savage fights are now trivial since people know how to solve that mechanic and have improved in terms of things like positioning and memorization. Encounters are absolutely harder now. But because those players have gotten better, they see them as equal or easier. The problem is, the people who haven't done that now have to leap a giant chasm of difficulty to get their foot in the door, or they can clear the easier fights (P1S) but get walled (P3S). And because the good players who have gotten better aren't able to realize that's what is happening, they insist everyone else is just bad, when their own younger self 5 years ago would be having difficulty with the current stuff.

And again, the big problem is that these same mechanics are creeping into Extremes, which had been midcore content (and in EW, the only midcore content because there was no Exploration Zone/raids for them), making the gulf bigger.

But the solution proposed by the high end people is to just make casual content harder, with the assumption that will make better players, instead of realizing that mechanics are just far harder now and we need to break up high-end encounters into multiple difficulty tiers to make a more gradual ramp difficulty curve. Savages are now Ultimates. Ultimates are now Ultimates+. Half the Extremes are now Savages. But these things aren't marked that way, leading to confusion, frustration, and an increase in people just not wanting to bother with the content.

Body checks didn't 'worm their way into Extremes', they've been there in some form since Thornmarch and Striking Tree Extreme at least.

They just deliberately tried to make them less punishing since Sephirot (the actual term the developers themselves used is "long-rope jumping" -- if someone else trips, it trips everyone).

I think the result is that they've kind of run out of ways to make the extremes feel different and that's why we're seeing a return of old fight design like more faced paced movement in Barb, Body checks in Golbez and phases based on %HP in the recent one.

Extremes are in no way now Savages. The hardest extreme trials have ever been was 3.1 thru 3.3, Thordan, Sephirot, Nidghogg, with honorable mention to Shinryu in 4.1. They've actually been made significantly easier overall starting with 3.4 and that was their stated goal. If anything, they're more casual today than their inception, as they were originally envisioned to be a difficulty beyond the original 3 'hard mode' trials, which is closer to what extremes are today if it weren't for the ridiculous amount of ilvl and action potency we have on top. Fights that will kill you and require some strategy and attempts to succeed, but easy to farm if you know what you're doing.

Original extremes were somewhere between t2 and t4 in difficulty, that is, a floor 1 and 2 of a savage when compared to today. In fact, their reward structure was also originally weekly instead of 'beat me 5 times for a weapon' or 50 times for a guaranteed mount.

I think this reward structure reflects the fact that their intended purpose has shifted to be more casual, only really there because of tradition and so people can get a shiny mount rather than being a fight for the battle designer's creativity's sake.

I think the worst outcome of this is that they've stopped being a bridge for the difficulty gap between normal and savage. Barring relatively easy first floor fights like o1s and e1s, the gap is a bit large now and I imagine it's daunting for someone interested in taking the plunge.

But there's also only so many ways they can make fights harder now, because you can't lose aggro, you can't misposition a boss, you can't attack the wrong target, you can't run out of TP and barely can run out of MP, you have tanks and dps that can heal the party, you can't miss a boss tell, you don't have to dispel anything, you can ignore every knockback, you never have your hp or defense reduced from death and you're never out of healing range.

Maybe all they can do is super complicated arbitrary bullshit like limit cuts and overlapping Aoes that all resolve at once leaving only the one safe spot, and that IS too hard compared with what made fights challenging before. If that's the case, then my sympathies, that's the game that we have now because all the RPG elements have been relegated to social Role Play, and more and more action and recognition elements are crammed and stacked into the battle content to compensate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

But the solution proposed by the high end people is to just make casual content harder, with the assumption that will make better players, instead of realizing that mechanics are just far harder now and we need to break up high-end encounters into multiple difficulty tiers to make a more gradual ramp difficulty curve. Savages are now Ultimates. Ultimates are now Ultimates+. Half the Extremes are now Savages. But these things aren't marked that way, leading to confusion, frustration, and an increase in people just not wanting to bother with the content.

---

That's not what hardcore people are saying at all or even midcore people. The issue most have is that they do not have enough content that actually matters to the player. Be it not enough rewards or the only path to rewards is through a single outlet, the game has an issue in endwalker where there is a lack of fulfillment from doing things. And then with some rewards like savage feeling like the 120+ hours of fighting just doesn't give enough either, it's hard to blame them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

But the solution proposed by the high end people is to just make casual content harder, with the assumption that will make better players, instead of realizing that mechanics are just far harder now and we need to break up high-end encounters into multiple difficulty tiers to make a more gradual ramp difficulty curve.

---

Ah yes, Ren saying Ren things.

Lets break this down step by step:

The high end take is just to make content harder?

Uh, not really? The properly fleshed out takes specifically covering difficulty that I see are focused on correcting this games absolutely broken difficulty progression as you level. I've discussed it repeatedly over the years, Connor covered in a thread on the healer boards just recently and many more have pointed this out. So no, it's not 'just making content harder'. It's about making the game's difficulty make sense.

with the assumption that will make better players

Is it an assumption? I'd argue that we actually have prior history that clearly and demonstrably proves that a properly handled difficulty curve coupled with using earlier fights as a training ground to prepare players for what was to come works wonders. And that prior history is ARR's 2.0 launch lineup. Remember when dungeons taught you HM primal mechanics, demonstrated the importance of actually doing mechanics and even had a variety of enrages on offer? Remember when the following HM primals prepared you for Coil by teaching you the quirks and gimmicks you'd need to understand?

I do at least agree that there's a huge gulf between casual content such as 24 mans and Savage and it's very fair to say that Extremes do an awful job of plugging it as is. But to downplay the suggestions of high end players as 'lol just make stuff harder' is downright disrespectful and shows a lack of understanding of the game on your part TBH.

Remember this thread down the line, a savage fight turn 4 will be released with no body checks and week 1 groups will clear it in 3 pulls because of it..... why? Because people have asked for it. Completely taking away the enjoyment of players who desire to be challenged. It's okay if you can't clear a challenged fight, if week 1 clear in 2 days and you still hitting wall 5 months later with all mechanics already figured out...have you thought that maybe...just maybe your group is not skill enough to clear? And I'd you think you are than finding a group to your skill level maybe the best option.

I mean it goes a little off topic, but before Shadowbringers end game was actually extremely niche content. Gear level didn't matter at all to the vast majority of people and I'm not even talking patch players as people generally favored glamour over gear score. When shadowbringers came out endgame hardmode content got popular because of the broken stat system and job overhaul making savage more accessible, so a lot of people ended up doing that content alongside the other content that normally existed at the time like foundation and bazja. The problem they got now is they amped the difficulty back up, people were used to being able to generally get max iLvL gear now in the mainstream, and now they've increased the commitment needed to do that, cannibalizing the other content because higher iLvL gear is objectively better than optional glamour items. The only thing that can sort of match it is time exclusive items like the pvp armor and mounts.

FFXIV is drinking some really bad coolaid going that direction because that is how just about every other MMO ended up going into the gutter. It's better to have an end where people can step away and return, then to keep people stuck in an endless grind and become bitter and discontent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ValkyrieL

<snip>

---

Spicy take that's more on topic with the thread overall:

Progging Savage with a bang average midcore group that's all on side and in it for the fun is the best entertainment and is way more enjoyable than a sweaty spreadsheet enjoyer team that's going to optimise the fun out of the fight in a matter of a weeks or an ailing team that's getting finger pointy and angry over fails.

It's not a race for the overwhelming majority of us. The gear is going to go in the bin in a matter of months anyway so who really cares if you clear it week 2, month 2 or whatever. Learn to channel your inner schadenfreude and see the funny side in your cohorts going pop. Raiding will be all the better for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ValkyrieL

Remember this thread down the line, a savage fight turn 4 will be released with no body checks and week 1 groups will clear it in 3 pulls because of it..... why? Because people have asked for it. Completely taking away the enjoyment of players who desire to be challenged. It's okay if you can't clear a challenged fight, if week 1 clear in 2 days and you still hitting wall 5 months later with all mechanics already figured out...have you thought that maybe...just maybe your group is not skill enough to clear? And I'd you think you are than finding a group to your skill level maybe the best option.

---

Do body checks really add that much more challenge to a fight? No. They are just insta fails. Also, the vast majority of savage players don't give a crap about the WF race. I don't think I've ever watched one, and I've been doing savage since 2013. WF is over in a day anyway with Savage. Who cares? Put the body check mess in ultimate. Make every mechanic in ultimate a body check and prolong WF for weeks.



I don't mind challenging fights. But those fights need to be fun. I don't find P12S fun.


My group is usually a 2-3 month prog from start to finish of a tier. We're not hardcore raiders. We go 3 sessions a week for 2 and a half hours each. I've had no issues clearing fights in that time frame until this tier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ValkyrieL

Remember this thread down the line, a savage fight turn 4 will be released with no body checks and week 1 groups will clear it in 3 pulls because of it..... why? Because people have asked for it. Completely taking away the enjoyment of players who desire to be challenged. It's okay if you can't clear a challenged fight, if week 1 clear in 2 days and you still hitting wall 5 months later with all mechanics already figured out...have you thought that maybe...just maybe your group is not skill enough to clear? And I'd you think you are than finding a group to your skill level maybe the best option.

---

So an objectively better reality. A reality where everyone can get max iLvL and then people can choose what content they do instead of being stuck on a one path track linear grind mill to get max iLvL and BiS? I... want that so bad...

The concept of having hard content is great. Making the best item level progression path linked to specifically that kind of content is not. From a business standpoint I can see someone maybe thinking this is like an arcade scenario where keeping someone from completing the game nets more profit, so they build the levels to be extremely hard and require multiple lives, but it isn't justified with how this game has been designed and has a subscription model.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Absimiliard

I think I'd rather see an increase in mechanic failure = instant death. Vuln stacks are worthless. All they really did was make things more forgiving.

---

Not syaing YOU but i wonder how many people claiming it is easy are also using addons to help them make the fights easier??? I mean lets not lie to ourselves there are probably a fair share of people claiming the fight is easy but also seriously struggle on fights patch day because addons aren't there to help them thus making the fights easier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Do body checks really add that much more challenge to a fight? No. They are just insta fails. .

---

And does insta fail make it harder to reach the end? Yes. So it means it does add to the challenge and difficulty of the fight.

Like ... look, you can say you don't like it, you can say you don't think it's a good way to add more challenge to the fight. But to say it doesn't really add much to a fight is a such a backward and silly take. I don't know why people feel they need to make these weird illogical take to make the point, you don't need to. If anything, I dare say instant fail is probably one of the MAIN things that separate the difficulty between content. 24men, EX, savage, Ultimate all have stuffs that can kill you, the difference is how much allowance you have in the recovery process, which simply tighter as you go to the higher difficulty.


Do you know why some people are saying we're seeing Ultimate level mechanic in Savage? Because the majority of the mechanic in Ultimate isn't that much harder or complex than a savage fight, if you only look at them one at a time. Do you know what is the most difficult thing about Ultimate raiding? It's about not failing a mechanic that will wipe you 8, 9, 10 minutes in a 15 minutes fight. Seriously, if you took away all the instant fail from savage or even ultimate and make them all recoverable, they will simply become just a longer EX. I think that would take away one of the main attraction of those contents ... you know, the challenge?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I don't mind challenging fights. But those fights need to be fun. I don't find P12S fun.

---

On the other hand I find this is the best raid tier that I've ever had in the game. I find it insanely fun and would hope to welcome more in the future.

Zeromos has been described as the worst EX ever released by few content creators, it's a complete joke, and you seem to praise as the best....it just show the level of skill you want the game to be, and tbh is absolutely terrible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ValkyrieL

Zeromos has been described as the worst EX ever released by few content creators, it's a complete joke, and you seem to praise as the best....it just show the level of skill you want the game to be, and tbh is absolutely terrible.

---

Who is? All the 6.x fights have sucked. The only good ex fights this expansion were hydaelyn and endsinger.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reimmi

I almost think the game would benefit from savage having a hard limit on resses, kinda like how wow has a cap of battle reses (depending on party size)
Don't put the limit in casual content, but giving savage a res limit would mean every mechanic doesn't *have* to oneshot you

---

How about we make rezzing instant and free but with a 1 minute CD? Would make things more strategic and as such, reduce the need for so many instant I’ll mechanics due to limited rezzes. In addition to this, upgrade the healer LBs to Rez a limited number of people outside of the CD. LB1 rezzes 2 people (healers, then tanks then dps if more than two dead), LB2 rezzes 4 and LB3 remains the same. Would need to grant the casting healer higher survivability due to the limited rezzes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

Learn to channel your inner schadenfreude and see the funny side in your cohorts going pop. Raiding will be all the better for it.

---

When Styx goes bad on 11s and we start getting popped one by one, someone on our team hits the Taco Bell gong each time. When you can laugh about it and enjoy having fun while wiping, it really does help keep the energy to keep at it up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Who is? All the 6.x fights have sucked. The only good ex fights this expansion were hydaelyn and endsinger.

---

... Wow. That's a hard disagree. Endsinger is among the most disappointing EXs in the game for me. She does practically nothing and actually has less going on than her normal mode version. Meanwhile, I'd say Barbie is one of the best fights in the game. One of the rare fast paced encounters they've done with something of an actual heal check, albeit mildly so. Golbez is good too even if Gale 2 is annoying. Personally, I like Zodiark but can't deny he's pretty much a target dummy. Rubicante is okay at best while Zeromus would be fine without the sac strat nonsense.

To each their own, I suppose. For me, they're a huge step up from the likes of Ruby and Emerald weapon which I found downright awful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

... Wow. That's a hard disagree. Endsinger is among the most disappointing EXs in the game for me. She does practically nothing and actually has less going on than her normal mode version. Meanwhile, I'd say Barbie is one of the best fights in the game. One of the rare fast paced encounters they've done with something of an actual heal check, albeit mildly so. Golbez is good too even if Gale 2 is annoying. Personally, I like Zodiark but can't deny he's pretty much a target dummy. Rubicante is okay at best while Zeromus would be fine without the sac strat nonsense.

To each their own, I suppose. For me, they're a huge step up from the likes of Ruby and Emerald weapon which I found downright awful.

---

I just found Barb annoying with her mechanics, as a melee. Not fun at all. I didn't care for Rubicante because puzzle mechanics are dumb in fights. Golbez was annoying as hell with the wall attack.



My favorite EX fights were from Heavensward. Really the only raid tier I've enjoyed since Coil was Sigmascape. 5.x had a few good fights but a lot of annoying ones too. This one has been almost all misses for me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ValkyrieL

Zeromos has been described as the worst EX ever released by few content creators, it's a complete joke, and you seem to praise as the best....it just show the level of skill you want the game to be, and tbh is absolutely terrible.

---

Okay, so this is where the reality HAS to get slammed into the ground here. This game is a tab target MMO with a simple rotation combat system that is designed to get the most people possible to play. It is by design meant to be easy for the sake of repetition, since that is how people get anything in this game. If someone wants a mount, they got to go kill a boss 50 times and wait for the next patch. If someone wants to get a full set of raid gear, they got to go kill the savage bosses multiple times to get all the books and coffers.

You are absolutely right that there should be hard content, but hard content is not something that people want to go repeat continuously. Reclearing the latest Ultimate even after a group has cleared it once is an exhausting experience for everyone and anybody who does ultimates can attest to that. On top of which, the true difference between unoptimized 660 gear and BiS 660 gear is minimal. There's almost no reason for there to be a non-bis set at the same iLvL.

If they made Savage easy enough that the top 25% of the player pop are doing it, and this tier was as easy to do as the first tier of the expansion, it would make little to no difference to the game at large. They did it only because they believe they had to in order to retain subs during a patch slump and that is about it, but people are burning out from this stupid death fiesta because instant death fights where one person wipes the group because they didn't stand in the exact right place, is the opposite definition of repeatable content. Barbaricia and Papa Golbez were the least repeatable of the fights and also the most exhausting, despite them being fun for some people, because they had elements where the group would just flat out die.

However, when doing a fight without such effects, suddenly it becomes boring and too easy. It's almost like someone designed themselves into a hole because they over did streamlining of jobs and now the only thing left the designers can do to feign a challenge is to instantly wipe the group if one of your 7 buddies is having a headache, or gets a phone call, or someone distracts them for two seconds.

These fights are designed to simultaneously punish not knowing the mechanic, and also punish becoming tired and bored of the phase with the mechanic because the group gets constantly hitched there even when they are working on later mechanics.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

Barbaricia and Papa Golbez were the least repeatable of the fights and also the most exhausting, despite them being fun for some people, because they had elements where the group would just flat out die.

However, when doing a fight without such effects, suddenly it becomes boring and too easy. It's almost like someone designed themselves into a hole because they over did streamlining of jobs and now the only thing left the designers can do to feign a challenge is to instantly wipe the group if one of your 7 buddies is having a headache, or gets a phone call, or someone distracts them for two seconds.

These fights are designed to simultaneously punish not knowing the mechanic, and also punish becoming tired and bored of the phase with the mechanic because the group gets constantly hitched there even when they are working on later mechanics.

---

Well said.
They were fun, especially Barbaricia, but all that "oh too bad your party is dead now" stuff... Like sure if you dont manage 4 ppl to stack or the tankbuster cleaves the party, thats on you. But so much stuff lately felt sooo punishing. And lets be honest, it always snowballs. People get nervous, make more mistakes and its over...

Like Zeromus Meteors suck, but they are doable. Easily that is. But there was no need to nuke the party on every mistake - just kill the guy who messed up, maybe ppl close to him but not that stupid "BOOM you wipe".
I love the part after the meteors, where you get the double tank busters, stack + 2 non stack aoe - thats nice can be saved from small mistakes.

And dont get me started on Golbez... I just hate all mechanics that demand everyone to be alive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

Well said.
They were fun, especially Barbaricia, but all that "oh too bad your party is dead now" stuff... Like sure if you dont manage 4 ppl to stack or the tankbuster cleaves the party, thats on you. But so much stuff lately felt sooo punishing. And lets be honest, it always snowballs. People get nervous, make more mistakes and its over...

Like Zeromus Meteors suck, but they are doable. Easily that is. But there was no need to nuke the party on every mistake - just kill the guy who messed up, maybe ppl close to him but not that stupid "BOOM you wipe".
I love the part after the meteors, where you get the double tank busters, stack + 2 non stack aoe - thats nice can be saved from small mistakes.

And dont get me started on Golbez... I just hate all mechanics that demand everyone to be alive.

---

Yeah and that is why I'm personally angry at the statement that Yoshi P. stated, because what he said seems completely inaccurate in terms of a universal agreement on job streamlining and simplification. There had to be some translation error or he didn't get the right feedback. What I wanted, and I am not saying that this is universal, was to move away from complex rotations to make room for more optional skills that are situational. Things like the ranged dps's binding attack, melee stuns, and slowing enemy movement are all ways that help differentiate how a job tackles a situation. They took away all of those and now everyone is either reducing damage, or increasing defense. There is no movement snaring or anything that could make the fights organic and everything is 100% uptime or bust.

Sure, maybe these don't all work in savage, but they certainly work in every other type of content that they sacrificed for the sake of what they have now. I stuck around, tried out the expansion for multiple patches, and I have been patient beyond human limits with this entire thing. But the lack of responsiveness, the implied statement they are not going to change course (meaning we are stuck with this next expansion most likely), was not what I expected out of the fanfest.

My favorite extreme fights this expansion were EX1, The Voidcast Daiz and The Abyssal Fracture. EX2 was alright. Barb and Rubi were good mechanically, but I think the aesthetic just put me off. I almost forgot EX3, which I think was really good, but the fact I keep forgetting it exists despite having farmed all the totems might say something about it. It was very approachable to teach a party through it though, which I liked.

All I ever want for fights is for them to just not be what the normal modes are, where nothing matters and everything is too lenient. I want reprisals and raid-wide mitigation to matter. I want personal mitigation to matter. I want the mechanics to not go easy ie. swipe one side but then not the other. Extremes such as the 3 I mentioned strike the right balance for me but also make it realistic to take a party from fresh prog to a clear the same day, which is not so common with Savage for example. This is why they strike the right balance for PF.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

My favorite extreme fights this expansion were EX1, The Voidcast Daiz and The Abyssal Fracture. EX2 was alright. Barb and Rubi were good mechanically, but I think the aesthetic just put me off. I almost forgot EX3, which I think was really good, but the fact I keep forgetting it exists despite having farmed all the totems might say something about it. It was very approachable to teach a party through it though, which I liked.

All I ever want for fights is for them to just not be what the normal modes are, where nothing matters and everything is too lenient. I want reprisals and raid-wide mitigation to matter. I want personal mitigation to matter. I want the mechanics to not go easy ie. swipe one side but then not the other. Extremes such as the 3 I mentioned strike the right balance for me but also make it realistic to take a party from fresh prog to a clear the same day, which is not so common with Savage for example. This is why they strike the right balance for PF.

---

We will see what happens next expansion. When Endwalker started things were not as easy as they are now, and there is a problem with the kind of game FFXIV is where once that first .0 launch patch passes, content gets easier and easier due to the world and everything staying at the .0 scaling, while everything after might go up in scaling, but generally ends up being easier anyway. It also ends up in a weird scenario where patches that introduce a new savage tier tend to have the hardest EX fights, because no one can outgear the EX fight severely over the baseline. The EX fight that follows is always out scaled, so it ends up being far easier. Savage has this thing where the first two savage fights are scaled for the patch that the savage launches under, and the last two are scaled for the patch that comes after the launch of the tier OR if the players grind the first two to leapfrog that patch. Technically, pentameld doesn't leapfrog as much as puts someone at the baseline needed to complete all tiers of the savage if they really pushed hard.

The issue savage has is that the content grows stale very quickly and it doesn't feel good to prog after the followup major patch on the current tier. That and as stated earlier, it is sort of turned into the only viable way to get a meaningful reward due to gear level being objectively better than any other option.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

Sure, maybe these don't all work in savage, but they certainly work in every other type of content that they sacrificed for the sake of what they have now. I stuck around, tried out the expansion for multiple patches, and I have been patient beyond human limits with this entire thing.

---

My main problem is, it already sucks if stuff is optimized for Savage... just like with gear its always the choke point for everything. We lost so much fun stuff for optimization and steamlining...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

My main problem is, it already sucks if stuff is optimized for Savage... just like with gear its always the choke point for everything. We lost so much fun stuff for optimization and steamlining...

---

That and there should be a difference between what kind of punishment mechanics there are in savage vs ultimate. Savage is not a dumping ground for someone's incomplete ultimate fight design that they couldn't fit in for production time reasons, and that is exactly what p12s feels like alongside p10s. Put p10s + p12s together into a single coherent fight, and you'd have an ultimate assuming the item level gets scaled to the minimum. That's also why some people are able to get through the fight so much easier than others. If someone has done prior ultimates this expansion they are going to be a bit more used to this kind of thing as being normal. But for someone who has only done savage and ex for the past expansion and this one, it is basically a wall. Like 90% of getting through p12s is everything past the limit cut portion because someone has to get through all the other parts including the limit cut.