The Royal Menagerie

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Originally Posted by Keridwyn

Dont let it get to you. First group I was ever with explained nothing and tried to pin the failure of the whole group on me because I was a bad healer. Cleared it with my next group who chose to not stand in the bad and fell of the platform less. Just do the best you can do and do the mechanics as best you can and you will get through!

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If more people had this mentality, there would be more people with clears and less people posting on the forum complaining that the duty is impossible.

Zodiark (my server) is full to the brim with people who have cleared this duty, and are all running around in their new Ala Mhigan gear so it really can't be THAT difficult if the officially WORST server has a high population of clears. xD

Just need to step up your game to get a clear, do that and you'll get it....

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Originally Posted by Cirith

I didn't expect people to attack me for saying that the trial was too difficult. I still haven't found a group that has been able to get past it. I guess I might have to be attacked some more by others so they will feel superior to me so I can cancel my subscription to this game.

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Back in ARR, Steps of Faith was released as the final trial of the MSQ and was an absolute nightmare at first. A couple of weeks later after people figured out how to do the fight and the knowledge disseminated through the playerbase, it was significantly easier with any random group. This will likely be the same. Right now while the fight is not terribly difficult, there are a ton of places for an individual to screw up and the mechanics, which are especially numerous for a non-extreme trial, are not entirely consistent, so you need to learn each individual mechanic and deal with it rather than just making the same movements each fight. This is likely a bit difficult for people who are less experienced with this game or MMOs as a whole and will be something of a learning curve, but if people stick with it, they'll get it. The actual DPS and healing requirements are fairly low, so they can just focus on doing the mechanics correctly and making sure to kill the tail in phase 2, as that's the primary way of dealing damage to the boss.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

It's really not that bad, it's just new and people dont know how to beat it yet. Give it a month or 2 and it will be fairly easy, especially due to people starting to outgear it.

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So your asking casuals to wait up to two months to finish their MSQ?

Also, I'm already seeing people drop when this shows up.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

So your asking casuals to wait up to two months to finish their MSQ?

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Well, lots of casuals won't even be able to log in for their 1-2 hours of gameplay after work right now, so you could make an argument that it'd take them that long to even get there in the first place anyway.

Many of the AoEs in this fight are so big that they aren't easily dodged, unless you know the visual cues already and start moving before you even see the markers. This is an unfortunate trend the game seems to have been taking ever bosses like Calofisteri in Wiping City but has really proliferated in Dun Scaith.

I don't really see the point of even displaying AoE markers on the ground if they happen so quickly you can't really react to them.

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Final steps of faith hit hard and was about this challenging back in 3.3.

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I never had the problems with Final Steps, even in the DF, that many others claim to. The original Steps (pre-nerf), on the other hand, was definitely a lot like this one in that it was usually doomed to failure on the DF.

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Tbh, your personal opinion about difficulty of this fight is not relevant. I also do not think it is overly complicated, I did it with first half-decent group I got, but even half decent players are hard to come by these days.
What does matter is data from the game, and unfortunately, success level of this trial is abysmal at the moment which says to us that difficulty is indeed too high.

A lot of casuals are stuck behind this quest and I see that as a problem.

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This is really the bottom line, and because of this, we can rest assured it will get a nerf somehow. Not sure exactly how much they can alter about the mechanics (tbh the only real way of making it easier that I see making an actual difference would be preventing us from being able to ring-out, and that isn't something they've ever added to a fight with ring-outs). I'd say getting Echo at least is practically guaranteed, though.

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Lesson learned though, don't queue for Trial right now unless I have about two hours.

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You can also just lower your item level below 280 when you queue so that it doesn't give you this trial, which is something I imagine a lot of people (with the sufficient item level and progress) are doing.

I'm not sure how RM is but, I can say something about Steps.
All Steps was is READING WHAT THE NPC SAID. That was it.
People I guess didn't know what to do that so they dropped like flies.

And by now, especially with a lot of these veterans need to git gud
and try to work together as a team, and not sit there twiddling your thumbs if you're
lost. Get a PF going if you're that stuck. I just remember pre-nerf Steps it felt amazing to clear
a somewhat difficult piece that's not a raid. All it took was reading and player communications which people hate to
do in this game. Dunno why. Communicate and play as a team.

But if it's 'harder' than steps then yeah, it's getting a nerf lol. The blacklash was bad when they nerfed it...
but it helped us keep "The Wiping City" stay as is even with all the complainers.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Well, lots of casuals won't even be able to log in for their 1-2 hours of gameplay after work right now, so you could make an argument that it'd take them that long to even get there in the first place anyway.

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That is mostly a Balmung problem, most servers only have a queue of a few minutes tops.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

That is mostly a Balmung problem, most servers only have a queue of a few minutes tops.

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I have had an alt on Cerberus - over 3k queue, took well over 2 hours to get in.
Right now on Omega it's 2k queue - Over an hour to get in.
And that's just my own experiences. You can find more in other threads, ranging between 15 minutes and an hour.

I'm not inclined to believe it's mostly a Balmung problem at this point. I don't even want to know how primetime Balmung queues look like truth be told - I'm happy logging in at, like, 14.00 GMT + 1 and having no queue at all until the evening when the 'muricans wake up.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

You can also just lower your item level below 280 when you queue so that it doesn't give you this trial, which is something I imagine a lot of people (with the sufficient item level and progress) are doing.

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Nah, I would rather help folks get the clear than dodge it. It was poor planning on my part to hop in, I still had HW roulette time on the brain.

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I'm not sure how RM is but, I can say something about Steps.
All Steps was is READING WHAT THE NPC SAID. That was it.
People I guess didn't know what to do that so they dropped like flies.

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In fairness, expecting people to read and digest things in the middle of an intense fight (messages that are not on your screen for very long, for that matter) is a little unreasonable. How often have you had someone completely fail to read/react to a mid-battle tactics message that you typed in the chat log?

I know I'm guilty of it too, particularly as a healer; when in battle my eyes are glued to the party list and usually not looking down at the chat at all.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

In fairness, expecting people to read and digest things in the middle of an intense fight (messages that are not on your screen for very long, for that matter) is a little unreasonable. How often have you had someone completely fail to read/react to a mid-battle tactics message that you typed in the chat log?

I know I'm guilty of it too, particularly as a healer; when in battle my eyes are glued to the party list and usually not looking down at the chat at all.

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Well, the NPC chat was literally in your face.
https://acflory.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/snares.jpg
IIRC, Healing wasn't needed as much, so one healer could run to snares or the
balista thing with a DPS doing the other side. So more so of reading the NPC text
more than typing.

It's easy to point that out in a screenshot like that when it's right in front of you already, but imagine this now from the perspective of some DPS currently underneath Vishap (taking aside the fact for the moment that it's generally best to let the people on cannons, assuming you have them, get the snares anyway). They probably have a crapton of other adds all around them as well, AoEs to dodge; probably a lot of action in the immediate vicinity going on. Even if they still notice the message, they're probably going to have no clue where these snares are and not find them until it's too late to make any difference.

At any rate, I miss mid-battle messages all the time, especially the ones that are only on the screen for a couple seconds.

Very hype for Minstrel's Ballad: Spoiler's Fury.

I felt like it was challenging as a newcomer the same way Shinryu's fight was in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

In fairness, expecting people to read and digest things in the middle of an intense fight (messages that are not on your screen for very long, for that matter) is a little unreasonable. How often have you had someone completely fail to read/react to a mid-battle tactics message that you typed in the chat log?

I know I'm guilty of it too, particularly as a healer; when in battle my eyes are glued to the party list and usually not looking down at the chat at all.

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Well, some people should use filters. I mean, is it really necessary to see all your incoming and outgoing damage in your log? Use the Battle Tab for that.

I finished my MSQ yesterday, and i have to say - this fight was awesome.
The people that have to go throught it mostly aren't.
I qued via DF and had a full firsttimer group.
We tried approx. 4 times, where we got him down to 40% at most, before someone started vote abandon. Coincedentially, it was the one who kept dying to every major aoe / mechanic. We denied it, he left.
We got a new dps, did another try, had him down to 10%.
Last try, we killed him with 2 minutes on the timer remaining.

The fight itself is absolutely awesome. I loved it!
What i absolutely didn't like were people dying to the wave after 10 seconds into the fight, despite it beeing the 5th try.
Or Healers not reacting to Akh Mon despite the group beeing full hp.
Or people not realizing the Tail will destroy plats sooner or later.
Or...

I can really see people beeing stuck in this fight for a long time. There are just too many that think AOE attacks are meant to be healed of. Dodging? No need. Moving? No need.
I am afraid of how bad its going to be nerfed in the future. I do however feel like the Pld is perfect for this kind of encounter. Our lvl 70 Skill works pefectly fine with the Ultimate he does every now and then, except for the people that dont know what the skill does....
I also really advise people to use the Tank LB after the Add Phase.

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Originally Posted by Rasylia

I finished my MSQ yesterday, and i have to say - this fight was awesome.
The people that have to go throught it mostly aren't.
I qued via DF and had a full firsttimer group.
We tried approx. 4 times, where we got him down to 40% at most, before someone started vote abandon. Coincedentially, it was the one who kept dying to every major aoe / mechanic. We denied it, he left.
We got a new dps, did another try, had him down to 10%.
Last try, we killed him with 2 minutes on the timer remaining.

The fight itself is absolutely awesome. I loved it!
What i absolutely didn't like were people dying to the wave after 10 seconds into the fight, despite it beeing the 5th try.
Or Healers not reacting to Akh Mon despite the group beeing full hp.
Or people not realizing the Tail will destroy plats sooner or later.
Or...

I can really see people beeing stuck in this fight for a long time. There are just too many that think AOE attacks are meant to be healed of. Dodging? No need. Moving? No need.
I am afraid of how bad its going to be nerfed in the future. I do however feel like the Pld is perfect for this kind of encounter. Our lvl 70 Skill works pefectly fine with the Ultimate he does every now and then, except for the people that dont know what the skill does....
I also really advise people to use the Tank LB after the Add Phase.

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It's because most of people are lazy, they just keep rushing their instances to get the tomestones, and since the game is relatively easy, it's no-brain. Why should you bother avoiding an AOE if it barely hurts ? Not a surprise that healers want to DPS because they are bored, for instance. The whole game should be more challenging so that people stop watching Game of Thrones or whatever while doing their dungeons... so when people arrive in a little challenging instance and they keep playing the same way, oh la la, it's too difficult, they vote for abandon...

SE really needs to make a game more challenging in a way people must focus and do their job, it's their job to educate their players since they made the game the opposite way...

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Originally Posted by Tinibou

stuff

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I do agree with most of what you've said.
Also, the simple fact that healer neglet the healing part to dps more tells enough about the whole 'Healer have to Dps'-Discussion.
Good Healer can DPS besides their healing.
Bad Healer can't.
Forcing Bad Healers to DPS results in Healing beeing negleted. And we see again and again how this ends up. But beware, then people come up with "at least they tried"-arguements...

Akh Mon has a 2-3 second cast time iirc, and none of the 2 healers beeing able do see it, identify it, and prepare for it, despite the whole group beeing at max health is just bad.
But hey, at least they tried to dps. The maintank died. The offtank died. We wiped. But hey, at least they dps'd.

I'm surprised at how many people give positive feedback on this, it's great.
If you liked this fight, maybe you should consider going into extreme primals or savage raids this time xD. Damage a bit higher, reaction times a bit lower, but mechanic wise this fight reminded me a lot of coil back in the days ;)

And please SE, please, do not change anything about this fight, it's awesome as it is and it's totally ok that it's not faceroll easy to clear.

Nerfing this fight would be a large wad of spit in the boss' face. The story spends a lot of time building him up, even pitting us against him hopelessly twice, and Royal Menagerie was a beautiful crescendo in that arc.

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Or Healers not reacting to Akh Mon despite the group beeing full hp.

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They should only have to react to the first one the others can be dodged.

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Originally Posted by Namixx

What does matter is data from the game, and unfortunately, success level of this trial is abysmal at the moment which says to us that difficulty is indeed too high.

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Lol, can you please provide me such "data"? Because we're almost a week and a couple of days since Early Access begun, lots of people were stuck in Raubahn, then long queues. I'm sure a "casual", as you people define them, wouldn't get there that fast. I'm *almost* sure there's no data to back that up yet.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

They should only have to react to the first one the others can be dodged.

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Oh, that's news to me. Thanks for pointing it out!

Got it on first clear. Left 1 paladin and healer to save the day. I die at 03% Of boss health. Mechanic and doing my rotation is fun.

It wasn't a hard fight but took me 10 wipes or so because the other 7 members didn't really get the hang of it after 5 wipes or so. The mechanics are easy and it is just big big damage. EX will be a nightmare and that i'm sure of. Please don't nerf the normal version because it was a really cool fight and amazing finale for Stormblood's conclusion.

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Originally Posted by IllyriaKnotfred

Welcome to MMOs. Enjoy your stay? You must be new here.

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You must be new to FFXIV. Enjoy your stay kiddo.

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Well, some people should use filters. I mean, is it really necessary to see all your incoming and outgoing damage in your log? Use the Battle Tab for that.

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Don't think that's usually the problem that people have, because as you said, a Battle tab exists, and people probably don't just stay on that all the time.

The problem is the on-screen NPC messages that are only there for a couple seconds usually, and the fact that combat is often too engrossing (and occasionally, reliant on twitch reaction speed for dodging mechanics) for people to be looking at their chat windows mid-battle.

Got my clear today, after one failed attempt yesterday. My opinion?

This is a kind of difficulty I highly welcome. It tests you as a player, which imo is a really good thing in the MSQ. Skill checks like this shouldn't be exclusive to raids/Savage/Extreme Primals. I even lmao'd when I figured out that Tempered Will actually had a use in the fight, often it's just a dead cd. Tidal Wave? Tempered Will. Tornado? Tempered Will. If anything, with the way this trial is set up, it seperates the good from the bad, forcing the bad to actually git gud. Don't die and expect to get carried, you'll only cause the duty to fail if you do.

That said, I did have my few moments of screw-ups since the trial is quite stressful to me (never setting Sprint next to LB again, it's bad for tanks). People have been incredibly forgiving though, wanting the clear just as much as any other group. It really made me feel good and happy I decided to main a tank for the SB MSQ, it really pushed me to my limits even if tanking is really exhausting to me.

The OF actually had me pretty concerned about this fight, but after having cleared it, I found those concerns were completely unwarranted.

The group I had for Royal Menagerie ended up two-shotting, and several of the members were going in completely blind. Maybe my experience is the exception rather than the rule, but the fight itself really doesn't feel difficult at all, and the mechanics are mostly all old stuff. It seems relatively forgiving as well since we had a couple of deaths but were still able to clear pretty handily.

So yes, I am in concurrence with OP. This is a climactic and very epic-feeling fight, and to nerf it would really take away from that experience.

I am sorry but when lots of players are stuck at the final freaking boss of a Main Story Quest there is something wrong when people are beating the new EXs left and right. Also, I am going on almost 10hrs straight of trying to get a kill and it is becoming harder and harder to continue playing until it is nerfed since we don't get access to the 310 gear until after the MSQ is over.

Considering almost all of the dungeons and trials beforehand were a huge face roll and then this being a huge difficulty spike it would have been nice considering you have to go into party finder unless you have an active Free company on willing to dedicate to playing with you. If Square wanted to give a hard fight like this they should have made the other story line content leading up to it harder to ease players into it rather than dumping them into a difficulty spike that they are unprepared for, ESPECIALLY when you can pay for level 60 and PAY to get through heavensward story content now like a joke. Leave the hard stuff for the extreme fights where the casual players can opt out of fights like these I have had to abandon this fight ten times already because pick up groups do not know that the tanks need to stack up on certain things, and some people will walk right off the edges.

I would love to see this fight nerfed and I would love to do this fight on a much harder version than it actually is as an extreme with my free company. But when it is keeping me from unlocking end game content like the entryway into heavensward I just shake my head and remember how much of a phallus squareenix was in ff11. Example being when squareenix had a boss that took 18 hours to defeat and the first guild to defeat the boss beat it and it only dropped a useless crystal and the guild asked why and squareenix replied by releasing a boss that took even longer. In conclusion dick move squareenix dick move.

I tried to beat it for the first time yesterday, and we ended up disbanding (was a DF group). They were blaming the healers (me and another person) despite the fact that people were getting hit by mechanics and falling off the edges to their deaths constantly even after multiple wipes. This kept happening to one of the tanks, which just made everything more complicated. I thought the fight would be harder but the mechanics aren't that hard... Just have to pay attention. X__X Hopefully I get a better group tonight.

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Originally Posted by VictorNCroix

I would love to see this fight nerfed and I would love to do this fight on a much harder version than it actually is as an extreme with my free company.

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It's this kind of mentality that divides the community. SEs mission statement for Stormblood (source: Live Letter XXXVI) was to fill the gap between casual and core, and I feel that this fight achieves this. What you are proposing is to divide the casual and core communities again as they were in HW. The fight isn't hard, but it does give all players a stepping stone towards extreme primals, making the content feel more accessible and less daunting, generating a gradual difficulty curve. The game has sorely needed a fight like this, and nerfing it is an awful idea.

Pls keep the fight how It is. It's fun and that's how normal fights should go.

It was a very fitting fight to end the story. I loved every second of it! 3 wipes but we managed to kill it. :D

I mostly enjoyed the fight. My only issues is for a story fight its tuned just slightly too hard. But more importantly its just really long. The second phase is such a long fight, and wiping there is so demoralizing since you have to start all over again. Even if they made it that you start from phase 2 (similar to how in Dun Scaith you start there on Diablos after you beat the gate) that would go a long way to helping the fight.

Actually this fight is just hard for the healers, dodging AoEs isn't a new mechanic

Loved everything about this fight. It's only daunting until you learn the mechanics, then it's just business as usual. Shouldn't be nerfed at all. Was rewarding.

I finished this fight last night. Props to co-healer from Behemoth. I wanted to apologize for dying so much because I'm such a slow learner.

"I don't want to imagine what EX looks like"

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Originally Posted by TheTomberry

Actually this fight is just hard for the healers, dodging AoEs isn't a new mechanic

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Healing isn't a new mechanic either.