Is EX/Savage content a battle or a dance number?

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead..."

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Erm... you're posting this as what you'd want from the content (as opposed to what you think it currently is), but I feel like this actually described the game's endgame content pretty well...

I think the issue might be that you've only tried OS1 and OS2, which are far from what this game's raiding has usually been in every way.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

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We are still talking about randomized mechanics right? Because as a general statement most encounters are chocked-full of dealing with mechanics not using the WASD keys. That being said if we are talking about randomized mechanics, the list I provided was in no way exhaustive.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead..."

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Is this not something that we already have lots of in like all of ff14 raid fights?

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead..."

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But this is how end game as a whole is handled in FFXIV, so now I am confused. What do you want changed then? So you do not want variety, you want more of what we already have? Is that what you are getting at? Hella confused.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but if I recall you did say that your ability as a healer should not be predicated by how well you can handle mechanics while performing your role or something along those lines. Then you sum up how FFXIV handles most end game content with the above quote. Sorry if I cannot help but be confused as to what you want, do you want more of what FFXIV already has or more variety and encounters that are simple number checks so to speak?

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead..."

Vs.

"It's just a jump to the left! And then a step to the riiiight. Put your hands on your hips. You bring your knees in tiiiight!"

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I realy don't know what point you're trying to make.

Skill in this game is a direct reflection of how well you can execute this "dance" while pushing your own numbers. What you said in the first quoted line literally happens in every single Savage fight in this game in the form of raid buster AOEs. Simply requiring people to be topped off all the time by making bosses do more/constant damage wouldn't be a good metric of difficult in playing a healer.

While I can agree that O1S and OS2 are not the most engaging fights, there is a huge step up in A3S, and in there mechanics have a bigger random factor. I can give you a few examples:

- Spellblade Holy tethers are completely random and require players to adjust their position accordingly (reactionary mech)
- Briar spots have two possible safe zones that you need to move to
- Mindjack is completely random (1 out of 4 options that you will need to adjust to)
- Spellblade Folio will put you in 1 out of 3 situations that will require you to go to a different spot
- Haste Spellblade picks between two mechanical combos
- Animal Farm pattern is random and will require players to adjust
- On the last phase she uses mechanics from previous phases at random, picking from Waltz/Folio or Briar/Earthly Dance, requiring quick reaction from the party

In my opinion this is one of the best designed fights in th game in terms of how fun it is to execute, despite still not being too high on the difficulty list - I'd definitely give it a shot before just assuming it's "mind numbingly boring". In the end though, if Savage isn't fun to you that is perfectly fine, I just can't seem to understand saying fights aren't difficult because they are a "dance".

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead..."

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We already have these in the game.

As for precasting heals/shielding, you should be doing that for every tankbuster in the game unless a tank is going to immunity through them. Again, not a new concept; it’s already present in the game in every Ex and Savage fight. There are already healing checks present that healers have to heal through or otherwise people below a certain threshold are dead (Dimensional Wave spam during Iron Giant/Ninjas; Neverwhere, which is nothing but a giant heals+DPS check to enrage). You should also be pre-casting heals/prepping shields for all raid-wide damage for as much mitigation and damage control as possible. If you aren’t doing this already, then you’re not doing your job as a healer, I’m sorry.

It sounds like you’re asking for more tankbusters and raid-wide damage, and less of any kind of gimmicky mechanics. Which, again, would just make the bosses Glorified Striking Dummies with excessive healing checks that don’t really take any skill to execute other than “Spam Cure III/Medica/Helios/Indom/ET+Succor”, and would grow extremely stale after a run or two. I like having to move around for and adjust for mechanics like the in Grand Crosses in V4S. Keeps me awake, at least, and it makes fights more interesting rather than standing still the entire time.

I am not a fan of bosses like Refurbisher in A9S where I could literally plant myself in a corner and stay there 90% of the fight. And while I would like for content in this game to have a better balance in a healer’s healing uptime and a healer’s DPS uptime (20% healing/80% DPSing is not balanced for me), I would prefer for it to accompany these gimmick mechanics that you dislike rather than be healer checks where I just stand in the same place the entire time. Making fights nothing more than healing checks with little to no movement would not make them “more difficult” or “more engaging”—it would do the opposite.

Again, go do V3S and V4S, and then come back to this discussion. You don’t have an adequate grasp on Savage content to be able to speak on its current state, I’m sorry.
Though the fact that you find V3S “mind-numbingly boring” is mind-boggling to me—Hali may not be Cruise Chaser, but she can at least call herself “Savage”, unlike Alte Rolte and Catastrophe.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead..."

Vs.

"It's just a jump to the left! And then a step to the riiiight. Put your hands on your hips. You bring your knees in tiiiight!"

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I'm far from being a hardcore raider but I've been through an extreme primal or two to know that it's actually both, and likely intensifies moving forward. Sure, it might not necessarily come at you at the same time, but nor is it really one or the other. If you're focusing too much on the mechanics as a healer to not see the tank buster prepping then your tank's about to die a horrible death with the rest of the party following. It's that joggling your attention with increasingly difficult mechanics and checks that together makes it an extreme or a savage mode.
Allow me to bring an example from something that everyone laughs at when brought up in the context of end-game - Susano Ex. Every mechanic has its counter-strategy. It's probably also really scripted, I just hit panic mode too soon to notice that. But between the combination of mechanics (cloud + rocks + purple markers x.x) and the randomness of the clouds the closer you get to enrage, which only makes it all the harder to not hit enrage... I feel like you're either exaggerating things too much or completely missing the point of the game mode.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

I haven't run O3S, not because it looked too hard, but because it looked mind-numbingly boring.

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So let me get this straight:

You're complaining about content being trivial once you understand the movement mechanics, whilst seemingly refusing to do the content that actually throws damage and healer checks at you whilst also having movement mechanics (And an element of RNG to boot)?

Have you attempted/cleared Shinryu Ex yet? If not, why not. If so, what did you think of that?

In all honesty, if you're not even willing to try O3S/O4S then your point is completely null and void in my eyes, it's very well documented that SE completely dropped the ball on O1S' difficulty this tier, and O2S isn't much better.

I think a lot of the pushback is because OP has only done O1S and O2S and assumes he has a good idea of what savage raiding is. But he doesn't because those fights are really easy as others have said, and no that's not underselling them. I'd argue the opening fights of first coil were more challenging. Alte Roite could have appeared in normal mode and no one would have thought there was something amiss, and catastrophe feels like it could be one of the easier ex primals.

They're terrible, TERRIBLE representations of savage raiding so any opinion of raiding based on them comes off as extremely uninformed. Do a synced Imdugud (T10) or Melusine (T7). Take on Blaster and friends (A6S) to get an idea of what everyone else thinks of in regards to the opening acts of a raid tier are normally like. if you still don't like it that's fine, but at least you'd have a much better foundation on which to hold that opinion.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead..."

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This almost perfectly describes almaghests and allagan fields in o4s, library phase in o3s, and many, many parts of ultimate coil.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

"Okay, tankbuster coming in. I better precast a big heal, get a barrier on them. Alright...roomwide AoE, need to counter with AoE heal before the boss drops that special attack that causes a player to take <x> damage, where <x> is the amount they're currently under max HP. Anyone under half will be dead...

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That's exactly what endgame content in this game is though? I mean you said you liked A8N. Most of that fight and especially the last part of that fight is literally a "dance". Dodge and stack, shared tank buster, mega beam, super jump, frontal lasers, generic raid aoe. The intermission is just drop circle aoes, stack for twin buster, run away from center + do up/down panel + dodge mega beam. I mean the only difference is that it is less punishing but if you turn one shot mechanics into slap on the wrist mechanics they will probably be mostly ignored and healed through, lowering the difficulty of the fight.

"Local finds out they're playing a video game, results are shocking"

Like, seriously? Pattern memorisation has been a part of games since... pretty much ever? Like when you're playing Mega Man 2 do you complain because you need to dodge Air Man's attacks and only way to do that is to know what they do beforehand?
If you want a battle with no mechanics there's always Stone Sky Sea, that might be more up your alley.

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Originally Posted by Ameela

"Local finds out they're playing a video game, results are shocking"

Like, seriously? Pattern memorisation has been a part of games since... pretty much ever? Like when you're playing Mega Man 2 do you complain because you need to dodge Air Man's attacks and only way to do that is to know what they do beforehand?
If you want a battle with no mechanics there's always Stone Sky Sea, that might be more up your alley.

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"Someone disagrees, forum reply is snide and condencending. Arrogant response that ignores the point of the post outright. Shocking."

As much as I'm tempted to pat you on your adorable little troll head, I suppose I should do what you seem unable or unwilling to...namely provide a polite and relevant reply.

Had you bothered to actually read my reply, you'd have seen the part where I said difficulty had nothing to do with it. There are two types of mechanics in these fights. Ones that are countered by using class skills and abilities, and ones that are countered through a specific set of movements. The latter are what I refer to as "dance steps", and it is those I don't find fun in large quantities. The former I quite enjoy.

As for Mega Man 2, that game was a joke compared to the original. Yes, those games had arbitrary pattern memorization. That blob boss was a pain in the ass. Didn't mean it was fun. And if I recall, those games came out what, 25 years ago? Forgive me for having hoped video games evolved in a quarter-century. Is FF XIV exactly like Ultima Online or Everquest 1? Of course not. Yet you make it sound like it's natural, even expected to have 25-year old mechanics in FF XIV. I'm guessing you think XIV should be on cartridge? It should be 8-bit? Side-scroller? Of course not. Now that I've blown your innane reply out of the water...

I'll stop here. If you couldn't be bothered to actually read my post, I doubt you've gotten this far. Fair warning, you get one reply from me as a freebee. Continue to be nasty and condesending and you'll get the same treatment I give all trolls...that being not wasting another word or minute on you.

Thanks. I needed a laugh, and your mix of arrogance and ignorance provoked a pretty healthy one! ^.^

Watching a video =/= Trying it out.

I used to think I could cheese through O3S after watching the video guide.

I was so wrong. Very, very wrong.

Now to reply to most everyone else, who have been polite in their replies. I apologize for the prior post. Sometimes you need to slap trolls down.

I'll try one last time to explain. There seems to be a disconnect. I'm not properly conveying what I specifically take issue with. A few people understand, and tried to clarify. For that I'm thankful.

First, to be crystal clear, this has nothing to do with difficulty. I'm not saying anything is too hard.

The issue is in feeling like I'm dancing more then fighting. It comes down to two kinds of mechanics. You have attacks like Twin Bolt, where you have damage that needs to mitigated, barriered and healed. This type of mechanic is countered by class abilities. These are the type I enjoy. The second type are mechanics that are countered solely by movement/positioning, such as Classical Elements. This type are the ones I refer to as dance steps. I feel there are far too many of the latter, making it feel more like a choreographed dance then a proper fight. And as such, it really doesn't feel fun.

I've said it before, and will say it again. This is my opinion. I am not asking for changes. I have said a number of times prior that I understand there are people that enjoy those dance step mechanics. I simply wanted to see what people thought. Some feel the same as I do, others don't. And that's alright. In the end, if Savage leans this hard on the dance mechanics, it simply means that content isn't for me.

What I still find interesting is the assertation that it is impossible to create challenging Savage content without the overabundance of dance step mechanics. I'm not disagreeing, for all I know that could be true. Maybe it's true that it's impossible to tune a battle hard enough otherwise, and that would be an interesting point to debate.

I honestly hope that helps. You don't have to agree, all I hope is that you at least understand where I am coming from.

I think the main reason that it is a big dance is for progression.

It is much easier to pin point a mistake and work on it than if it is on rng...in the end you would just work out the rng situations and counter those anyway eliminating the point of rng.

A dance becomes boring when things go on farm but in progression it is quite helpful especially on loong dances like v3s. A 11 min battle with rng mexhanics would do my head in.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

I've said it before, and will say it again. This is my opinion. I am not asking for changes. I have said a number of times prior that I understand there are people that enjoy those dance step mechanics. I simply wanted to see what people thought. Some feel the same as I do, others don't. And that's alright. In the end, if Savage leans this hard on the dance mechanics, it simply means that content isn't for me.

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You're getting the reaction you are because you're entirely basing your opinion on what are widely regarded as two of the weakest end game raid encounters seen in this game since launch. Imagine if I signed up to a motorbike forum claiming that 'I bought a Yamaha R125 and it left me thinking that all motorbikes are too slow, I watched youtube videos of R1s and R6s and it looked like more of the same so I won't bother with them.' I'd literally get eaten alive ;)

The core issue with your earlier wishes is that there's only so far you can go relying on shielding, cleansing and raw HPs requirements. A4S was a very static encounter, it was also very highly tuned, yet it's also commonly viewed as a pretty awful and boring encounter for the most part. Simply throwing damage and little else worked for early coil turns, but encounters would be pretty boring by this stage if they still relied on that approach.

Secondly, vertical gear progression plays a big part in this too. You're coming at O2S at ~20-30 iLvls above what we had when the content hit, so yes, it's no surprise that the healing and DPS requirements seem so lenient. Is now a good time for me to remind you about that glorious Min iLvl button? If you want a proper old fashioned slugfest that's actually surprisingly challenging, try Min iLvl Titan HM and get back to me. It's gloriously enjoyable for a singular encounter but building a tier around that simply wouldn't work.

Pps you missed my earlier question. Have you done ShinryuEX yet? If not, why not? Or if so, what did you think of it?

Ta!

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

You're getting the reaction you are because you're entirely basing your opinion on what are widely regarded as two of the weakest end game raid encounters seen in this game since launch. Imagine if I signed up to a motorbike forum claiming that I bought a Yamaha R125 and it left me thinking that all motorbikes are too slow, I watched youtube videos of R1s and R6s and it looked like more of the same so I won't bother with them. I'd literally get eaten alive ;)

The core issue with your earlier wishes is that there's only so far you can go relying on shielding, cleansing and raw HPs requirements. A4S was a very static encounter, it was also very highly tuned, yet it's also commonly viewed as a pretty awful and boring encounter for the most part. Simply throwing damage and little else worked for early coil turns, but encounters would be pretty boring by this stage if they still relied on that approach.

Secondly, vertical gear progression plays a big part in this too. You're coming at O2S at ~20-30 iLvls above what we had when the content hit, so yes, it's no surprise that the healing and DPS requirements seem so lenient. Is now a good time for me to remind you about that glorious Min iLvl button? If you want a proper old fashioned slugfest that's actually surprisingly challenging, try Min iLvl Titan HM and get back to me. It's gloriously enjoyable for a singular encounter but building a tier around that simply wouldn't work.

Pps you missed my earlier question. Have you done ShinryuEX yet? If not, why not? Or if so, what did you think of it?

Ta!

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Please see prior comment, repeated multiple times now, that states my views have nothing to do with difficulty! Consequently, how hard or easy O1S and O2S are, are irrelevent. How else can I spell this out? >.<

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Originally Posted by Xerek

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I understand, but this is the point that I'm coming from -you have to try O3S before you can really merit what you've been posting. Because to be honest, O3S has some of the things that you are asking for. You made a comment about a tankbuster - precasting a shield. The O3S boss does that in the first 30 seconds, and even if the MT mitigates the damage, it still hurts them. You need to keep him healed. Again, I say that while O3S is a dance, you also have to be on top of your game as a healer. You have to execute your job as a healer...rather, everyone has to do their jobs to clear this fight. The OT has to grab adds, the healers have to keep everyone pretty much topped and rezzed throughout the whole fight (especially during the last phase where both healers will likely burn their MP with necessary burst heals), and DPS have to stay alive while outputting as much damage as possible. O3S is probably the kind of fight you have been asking for - well, minus the dance steps that you have to execute at the same time, but there is not a single point in this fight where you aren't healing, DPSing, rezzing, or applying dots.

All I suggest is that you actually try O3S first. Not a half-assed try either. Learn the fight for a couple days, give it a legitimate shot. Then post back here again. If your argument stays the same...well, at least you tried it and you have some merit in your argument. That's all I'm just trying to convey.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

Please see prior comment, repeated multiple times now, that states my views have nothing to do with difficulty! Consequently, how hard or easy O1S and O2S are, are irrelevent. How else can I spell this out? >.<

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Have you done ShinryuEX yet? Stop ducking the question

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

The core issue with your earlier wishes is that there's only so far you can go relying on shielding, cleansing and raw HPs requirements. A4S was a very static encounter, it was also very highly tuned, yet it's also commonly viewed as a pretty awful and boring encounter for the most part. Simply throwing damage and little else worked for early coil turns, but encounters would be pretty boring by this stage if they still relied on that approach.

Secondly, vertical gear progression plays a big part in this too. You're coming at O2S at ~20-30 iLvls above what we had when the content hit, so yes, it's no surprise that the healing and DPS requirements seem so lenient. Is now a good time for me to remind you about that glorious Min iLvl button? If you want a proper old fashioned slugfest that's actually surprisingly challenging, try Min iLvl Titan HM and get back to me. It's gloriously enjoyable for a singular encounter but building a tier around that simply wouldn't work.

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Note the bolded bits there.

You want challenges that revolve around healer specific abilities rather than choreographed movement right? In my eyes, that's healing checks, shielding checks and cleansing. Both O1S and O2S have these (healing and shielding at least!), they are just tuned very low as you yourself (and pretty much the entire raiding community) stated from the get go. The bolded bits are where I've pointed out the very answer and perhaps even solution to your dilemma yet you choose to brush it off? I'd say we are very unlikely to see another raw healing/shielding encounter like Titan HM or T1 (Seriously, go try it at min iLvl) because thanks to the way this game is currently balanced, it'll either be far too easy and eaten alive even faster than O1S, or be an overtuned mathematical roadblock. There really is no in between with the way healers are setup at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Read the entire comment?

And have you done ShinryuEX yet? Stop ducking the question

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You duck my post, then call me out on ducking your question. Certain level of chutzpuh there, but hey. I've gotten to Phase 2 on Shinny-Ex. And though it's tougher then O1S and O2S, I actually enjoy it a bit more. Far more of the mechanics are countered by abilities then dance steps. And that is, as I've noted repeatedly, the issue I have with Savage.

As for a different reply, plain and simple, are you telling me there are signifigantly fewer dance-step mechanics in O3S then in the two prior? If not, I don't have to play it to know it won't be fun (for me). Why should I waste my time learning dance steps if I already know I hate dancing?

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Originally Posted by Xerek

The issue is in feeling like I'm dancing more then fighting. It comes down to two kinds of mechanics. You have attacks like Twin Bolt, where you have damage that needs to mitigated, barriered and healed. This type of mechanic is countered by class abilities. These are the type I enjoy. The second type are mechanics that are countered solely by movement/positioning, such as Classical Elements. This type are the ones I refer to as dance steps. I feel there are far too many of the latter, making it feel more like a choreographed dance then a proper fight. And as such, it really doesn't feel fun.

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Pardon me for condensing, but since I get you I will try:

TLDR: OP feels there are too many (or at least too frequently recurring) role agnostic mechanics. For his own personal enjoyment, he wishes there were less of these but understands that the masses prefer these.

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Originally Posted by Hruodig

This almost perfectly describes almaghests and allagan fields in o4s, library phase in o3s, and many, many parts of ultimate coil.

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I would almost want to say White Hole as well. Although the challenge of White Hole's healing check is often that people have been moving around to avoid Black Holes/get back into healing range and could be considered a "dance"; though the challenge of the heal check there is making sure everybody has the regens needed to survive several gcds of no heals in which they'll take a Fire III doing ~50% of their HP pool, followed by a stack mechanic, then getting everybody topped up to avoid anyone instantly dying or being paralyzed.

I can't really think of any game in which the fight isn't a dance of some stripe offhand. Maybe provide some examples of games / fights that have combat mechanics you do like?

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Originally Posted by Xerek

Please see prior comment, repeated multiple times now, that states my views have nothing to do with difficulty! Consequently, how hard or easy O1S and O2S are, are irrelevent. How else can I spell this out? >.<

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You know this whole topic you posted you have been 100% close minded to anyone who points out possible flaws in your point of view and also close minded to anything that doesn't fit in exactly with your point of view.

People have time and time again pointed out that you are basing your entire opinion of Savage only on half the turns, and that your perspective is skewed due to only trying these fights after everyone is mostly over geared for them. This is technically kind of flawed since you didn't even try the turns that get substantially more difficult. In general if difficulty goes up then healing difficulty and necessity also goes up and you keep saying you want to use your healing skills more right?

Difficulty does matter if you are talking about savage as a whole and when you speak of wanting to utilize your healing skills well the difficulty of the fight is in direct relation to how hard you have to heal as well. Also Sebazy mentioned item level which I also mentioned pages ago because you are looking for more of a challenge for your "healing skills", but you are over geared for O1S and O2S.

Remember how I mentioned that O2S at minimum item level when I did it at release of it Gravitational Wave would one shot people even if they had full HP? You needed healer shields and mitigation, you needed quick healing due to multiple Gravitational Waves in succession.

You keep going on and on about "difficulty isn't the problem", but it actually kind of is because when you over gear something healers need to do less and less healing which you said is part of your issue with it that you don't need to do enough healing IE: your favoured mechanics of role reaction instead of movement/placement. As everyone over gears a fight by a large margin it trivializes the mechanics you prefer: role countered ones.

This also makes sense when you figure you apparently like Shin EX even though it has quite a lot of "dance steps" as well, but the thing is no one is over geared by a large margin for Shin EX yet since it was released later in the tier so the healing uptime required is higher than O1S and O2S even for someone around i340.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

You duck my post, then call me out on ducking your question.

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I haven't ducked a thing thank you very much.

Re Shinryu, that's precisely what I wanted to hear TBH, thanks for finally getting there =P

The reason I ask is because as you state, O1S and O2S are very much memorisation checks, there's very little variation, you just need to know where to stand and what to click when <insert ability here> happens. By comparison, Shinryu is an awareness test in my eyes, the mechanics are actually pretty simple, but it rolls the dice and throws a bunch of them at you at once. Lots of variation, stuff comes at you from different angles and positions. It's a great encounter and has earned a spot alongside Thordan EX as one of my favourite primals to date.

O3S falls somewhere in between TBH. It's still a dance, you're not going to get away from that in Savage, but there's a lot more variance particularly in the later half of the encounter. Like Shinryu it also has some RNG that will potentially trap you if you're not alert enough. It's a good fun fight and I'd argue it's the best Omega turn this tier. Do I think you'd enjoy it more than Shinryu? Until the final phase, no probably not. But that last phase is worth it imho.

Several of you still don't understand the distinction. Thank you to those of you who do, and who have tried also to explain. I'm giving up, and backing out of this thread. I have done everything in my power to explain what I dislike, and it just isn't registering with some people. As soon as difficulty or iLvl is mentioned, I know they don't understand. And I've run out of ways to explain it. That aside, my first O1S clear was ten weeks ago, trust me, I wasn't in i330+ gear back then. My issue stems with an overabundance of mechanics that are not overcome through any class skill or ability.

I don't have to play O3S. The fight's scripted. If I were so inclined I could list every such mechanic in O3S complete with timestamps. You maintain I won't hate all of those mechanics because the rest is better? Sorry. I don't like tomato on my burger. I don't care how much better the next burger is, if there is a slice of the red on it, and I can clearly taste it, I am going to hate it.

But...I'm wasting my breath. Godspeed, and happy gaming.

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Originally Posted by Aramina

Pardon me for condensing, but since I get you I will try:

TLDR: OP feels there are too many (or at least too frequently recurring) role agnostic mechanics. For his own personal enjoyment, he wishes there were less of these but understands that the masses prefer these.

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That sums it up perfectly.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

Please see prior comment, repeated multiple times now, that states my views have nothing to do with difficulty! Consequently, how hard or easy O1S and O2S are, are irrelevent. How else can I spell this out? >.<

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What Sebazy is saying, is that you are trying to judge Savage as a whole by only doing the easiest two floors of Savage in the easiest tier that this game has ever seen; you’re trying to say that all of Savage is boring dance-offs based only off of your perspective of two fights that have no business calling themselves Savage (seriously, my first static was not the best and we still downed Alte Rolte in a couple hours; world firsts downed him on the first pull...he’s a joke). And that is why everyone keeps telling you to go do V3S and V4S (and not just watch a video), and then come back and have a discussion about the current state of Savage content.

If you still find Savage “boring” or not for you after doing V3S and V4S, then that’s fine. You’ll have a better ground to stand on for your arguments and opinions. But, as it stands right now, you don’t have much ground because V1S and V2S are a joke.

Remove the “dance steps” from Savage and they just become striking dummies; which is incredibly boring. You ask for more job/role specific mechanics (more tankbusters, more healing checks, the like), but you’re doing V1S (which is V1N with no walls and an extra 0 at the end of Alte Rolte’s HP) and V2S (where Catastrophe is only slightly different from his normal mode version...he tickles a bit harder). You haven’t stepped into V3S which is a major jump in everything compared to the first two, or V4S which is an extremely fun fight, and a lot of people’s favorite in this tier (I love Neo, to be honest). V3S and V4S have some of the things you appear to want (things along the lines of healing checks where you need to pre-cast shields/heals—things you should already be doing for all types of tankbusters and AOE damage, but V3S and V4S has more of it), but you’re unwilling to try them because you found V3S “mindnumbingly boring” based on a video. Try wiping get to the fight for a couple hours, and you probably won’t find it boring anymore.

People are just asking you to try rather than continue to just make blanket generalizations about the content as a whole. It’s fine if you find V1S and V2S boring—lots of people do. But to just brush off the rest of Savage based on two embarrassments of Savage fights is not right.

EDIT: Saying that you “don’t need to do V3S” because “it’s scripted” will just further invalidate your arguments. You aren’t willing to even try and see the actual Savage content in this game. So please, stop making sweeping judgements about the content as a whole when you can’t even give yourself an adequate background on it.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

That sums it up perfectly.

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In otherwise... target dummies that require little more than class awareness to overcome. As Sebazy mentioned, A4S somewhat attempts this by simply throwing extremely high volumes of damage and demanding just as much to kill. Not only is it widely disliked, but frequently credited as the actual reason people despised Gordias. There simply isn't a means to make shielding, DoTs, HoT and etc engaging over a 6-14 minute duration across multiple fights. At this point, Savage just isn't for you and there isn't much discussion to be had.

Sorry, but the only one who doesn't understand is you. Miste pointed out that you are the one who is closed minded and I agree with her. You have jumped between saying you want more randomized mechanics to more class based mechanics. If you want to make a point stick with it otherwise the responses are going to be varied. When I responded earlier about your desire for more random mechanics you didn't respond. As for your second point the idea that you want less positional mechanics and more class based mechanics. That is literally every fight, the first two savages are tuned extremely low as an entry into savage. There are only a few previous savages that I would say are as boring. (A9S)

If you want a fight that is fun and engaging run V3S it is the best of the current content for enjoyment sake. There you can actually put your skills to use, Tank buster hits for about 70k unmitigated, auto attacks crit for 20k, dimensional wave does about 15k to everyone, the fire3/thunder/blizzard and spellblade holy followed by dimensional wave is a b for healers. Those are the kinds of checks you are interested in, instead of complaining go and try it. If you are so unwilling to try the content, don't complain about it. Also you keep saying this fight is scripted yadda yadda, if you want to do the fights with real skill and reactions. Don't read a guide learn through doing it, of course everything is scripted it is a program. That is how programs work you plug in this input and it outputs a set of possible commands. Everything that you asked for really starts at every third fight in savage, open your mind up and do them. I did the first 3 fights without any guides because it is fun learning, I would suggest you try that for once.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

Beep.

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The thing is, what you're asking for is strict checks for DPS and Healing and Aggro Management to come in place of mechanical rotations.

While that is fine and good to want - the problem comes with the fact that there was already an entire raid tier that was much more heavily dependent on these things - Alexander: Gordias (Savage). And people found that raid tier to be terribly constructed and painful to go through. A lot of people called it boring and said that strict checks on things like damage meant that you had to rely on gear, not skill (to them: with mechanical rotations, your skill at playing your class comes at maximizing damage around the mechanics.) But the incredibly tight damage checks in Gordias are what really burned the "spec into damage" mentality that the endgame community had for a long time regarding tanks melding and using STR accessories, as well as healers being required to start doing damage. And some of that mentality has never gone away from the community - but SE moved back to mechanics based fights because the playerbase as a whole enjoys them more.

Mechanics are always going to be a major part of the raid scene in FFXIV - and that's not your cup of tea, so its likely that raiding in this game just isn't for you. And that's okay.

One thing I've been thinking about in relation to this thread -- one of the things that makes 'Savage' (and Extremes to a lessor degree) different from normal, is that they've purposefully created mechanics that require multiple people to solve. Through most of normal & 4-person dungeons you can typically solve a mechanic 'locally'/solo without worrying about what others are doing. The times when 'global' mechanics pop up they're things that stay difficult long past the time they should -- things like the omni-present stack-marker that people still trip up on, the void seal in library normal mode -- how many times do you still see adds spawn?

Look at "The Game" in 03n and o3S, in normal as long as you're on an appropriate square for your role you've solved the puzzle. If everyone does that you're good -- even if one of the dps squares is left empty (all four stack in one). In savage leaving a square free is bad.

The game assumes you're already mitigating/shielding tank busters, pre-casting AoE heals for raid aoe damage, at the savage level. That's why the focus shifts to the group dynamics for how to solve things, yes it can turn into a preset formula which I think most people agree isn't desirable, but its better than a striking dummy. Forced movement to solve mechanics also is useful for equalizing what different mobilily/rigidity jobs bring to the table and create interesting optimization challenges -- can you shield the BLM enough for them to ignore a mechanic in the middle of a burst or do they have to move?

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

What Sebazy is saying, is that you are trying to judge Savage as a whole by only doing the easiest two floors of Savage in the easiest tier that this game has ever seen

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the problem here is that I suspect he has the wrong end of the stick here, let’s take o1s. It’s not dull because it’s easy, it’s not dull because it’s a choreographed dance, it’s dull because it vomits 2 basic mechanics at you with very mild variations until it dies. Don’t be near the fireballs, dont stack with the thunder. Here’s some loot. It’d still be just as boring and lame if it had twice the amount of incoming damage frankly. It’s telling that my group has had people literally jump off the side like lemmings in an attempt to make this boss vaguely entertaining.

However, dances can make for enjoyable encounters, A10S wasnt especially hard but most seem to consider it a good fun fight despite being especially movement centric. T9’s final phase makes a good case for being one of the best moments of raiding this game has. It was also a total dance.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

The issue is in feeling like I'm dancing more then fighting. It comes down to two kinds of mechanics. You have attacks like Twin Bolt, where you have damage that needs to mitigated, barriered and healed. This type of mechanic is countered by class abilities. These are the type I enjoy. The second type are mechanics that are countered solely by movement/positioning, such as Classical Elements. This type are the ones I refer to as dance steps.

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This actually did clear things up for me and I'll agree that some fights feel much more weighted to the latter. I don't think that they're so common as to be a problem however, though alte roite is certainly an exercise in "don't stand in the bad" and not much else.

I think there is obviously some satisfaction in learning the dance in dance heavy fights, but overuse can feel like you're just fighting the arena instead of the boss itself. I'll even agree that I find those "active" abilities more fun, because they're typically things I can affect, like a reprisal+divine veil for almagest or covering a healer for earth shakers.

I wouldn't say that dance mechanics are bad or that i don't enjoy them, but I will admit to liking mechanics that I can take a more active role in more than ones where only my position matters. Of course I also like to see the two combined which is probably why O3S is my favorite fight this tier. Queen's waltz is a great mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

the problem here is that I suspect he has the wrong end of the stick here, let’s take o1s. It’s not dull because it’s easy, it’s not dull because it’s a choreographed dance, it’s dull because vomits 2 basic mechanics at you with very mild variations until it dies. Don’t be near the fireballs, dont stack with the thunder. Here’s some loot. It’d still be just as boring and lame if it had twice the amount of incoming damage frankly. It’s telling that my group has had people literally jump off the side like lemmings in an attempt to make this boss vaguely entertaining.

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I basically auto-pilot in V1S anymore; even if I get clipped with one fire, I still don’t die, and I’m just like “well, alrighty then”. It’s not an engaging fight at all, and I really think it does nothing more than skew the OP’s perception of Savage as a whole. Because even though Halicarnassus is no Cruise Chaser, she was still far more engaging than Alte Rolte. And Neo is just a fun fight in general. Exdeath is good too; I just get tired of seeing him all the time lol.

That’s why I really wish OP would at least try Hali and Exdeath/Neo because they’re so much better than Alte Rolte and Catastrophe, even if they aren’t as hard as some of the previous fights in previous tiers.

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However, dances can make for enjoyable encounters, A10S wasnt especially hard but most seem to consider it a good fun fight despite being especially movement centric. T9’s final phase makes a good case for being one of the best moments of raiding this game has. It was also a total dance.

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Agreed about A10S (I didn’t do T9 when it was relevant since I started playing in HW, so my only experience with Coil has been unsynced :c). I really enjoyed A10S and found the little mechanic dances he did far more engaging than, by comparison, Refurbisher...where I literally stood in the same spot 90% of the fight and only had to move for Acid Rain and when one of the platforms were about to become lava.

Alright, I will respond in two parts – I do hope you read them through. The reason I am repeatedly saying that you should try O3S is because you’re using your argument for all four Omega Savage runs. You want to dance less, and I get that. However, you can watch all the guides and videos you want – you can post timestamps, you can memorize all the attacks, but the fact is, you haven’t actually tried it, and therefore, what you are saying doesn’t have much merit when the majority of what you’re basing your opinion on is coming from the first two battles, which are actually quite easy.

You’ve been arguing the same thing multiple times, however, I think the disconnect that you’re having with most of us is that you are saying that O3S is not your cup of tea based on what you have seen, but you want more to do with your role that makes a fight feel like a fight. But, it’s been pointed out that O33 and, honestly, O4S, are extremely dependent on your role as a healer. I think that’s where my issue lies with your posts. You said you liked Shinryu EX, but that requires a lot more moving around than O1S. You have to position the tail drops, dodge the icicle, deal with your burning chains…in fact, I think you move around the same amount as you would in O2S.

Now, with that all being said, you said yourself that this was an open discussion, so I’m not quite sure what is getting you so flustered with posts. Yes…many of us do not agree with some of what you said. But those same responses, myself included, understand clearly what you said in your original post.

I have a better question for you. What would you like to see in EX/Savage fights? I don’t mean say something vague like less dancing. Keeping with the open discussion mentality, what specifically would you like to see? Maybe a mechanic where the boss’ auto-attacks target a healer for a full minute (that actually would make a fun challenge, tbh). Oh, I just thought of one while typing this – one healer gets zombie status and their heals damage players who are not zombified? And pulling a little bit from FFX, you can’t rez a dead zombie til you Esuna them.

I know my opinion on this is going to be very unpopular, but at this point I just don't care anymore.

Take a moment to reflect on crafting specialization right now (basically, the "savage" tier of crafting if you'd like to think of it that way). Of the reasons some people choose to support why end-game recipes should be locked to specialists only (on top of the 3-specialist per player limit) is that it encourages interactions between players towards a common goal. It's an MMO, so we should all go out and make and hang out with friends, right? If you oppose this, you must be some solo player who doesn't want to make friends.

Problem is that way of thinking is severely flawed. It's quite possible (and in fact, more likely), that the friends you make in FFXIV will not be into end-game crafting, and thus cannot help you in the least if you happen to be interested in end-game crafting. The only "solution" is to go out and make more friends, but inevitably it means having to spend more time away from your original friends since no matter how many friends you have doesn't affect the number of hours in a day. It's often joked that RDM's previous incarnations is the "jack of all trades, master of none", and here we have an attempt to force players to be "friendly to all, friend to none".

Guess what? Same problem happens with EX/Savage. The required skill for the current content is just far to high above the average player to complete it. It's so high, in fact, that even good players often have to spend hours each week working on it. This isn't some quick "hey random-dude-i-hardly-know, can you make me a thing-a-ma-bob?", it's a serious time commitment to get into this stuff. If you are interested in it, but your friends aren't good enough (even if they happen to be interested in it), you're kind of stuck. Even if you bother to seek out a static that is good enough to go for it, you're going to have to resign to reserving several hours per week to your "new" friends giving your old friends the cold shoulder.

The only solution is to quit making content that's well beyond the abilities of an average player. I know hardcore players won't like hearing this, but do you think Nintendo would sell very many more copies of Mario games if they started tuning the last set of levels in each game to the level that FFXIV's savage content is tuned to? Hell no.

Want to show off your awesome gaming skills? Do it like they've been doing it since at least the days of the Atari... pick something and speed run it, set/break records and record videos of it.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

The only solution is to quit making content that's well beyond the abilities of an average player. I know hardcore players won't like hearing this, but do you think Nintendo would sell very many more copies of Mario games if they started tuning the last set of levels in each game to the level that FFXIV's savage content is tuned to? Hell no.

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So what is Dark Souls? Devil May Cry? Ninja Gaiden? Bloodborne? Cuphead? Do those just not exist?

Take into account that Dark Souls was such a hit that it spawned a whole new genre of games. And remember the term "Nintendo Hard" exists too, describing a lot of games that were hard to impossible made by Nintendo.

For that matter, you make it sound like it's a bad thing to have to branch out of your clique of friends. I can agree to the point that it specializations are dumb; but that's because this game advertises itself as being able to do everything on one character, and then turns around and says no, you can only specialize in three crafts.

"Giving your friends the cold shoulder" is a bad way of looking at it. No friend or group of friends should monopolize so much of your time that you cannot spend time with other people. If that group of friends is the only reason you log in...then you're obviously not interested in raiding anyway. You're here for them.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

snip

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Umm...I'm definitely an average player. I've gotten my clears on O1S, O2S, and O3S without members of my wonderful FC, a static, or even a particular group. All of my clears and weekly page runs have been done with complete randoms since Day 1 of Omega Savage. It's not as hard as you think. Join or make a learning party, prog for your own sake, and when you're comfortable doing the whole fight, join a clear group or make one. Having friends or an FC is better, but these fights are definitely doable, so long as you understand the fight and actually know how to do your job. Besides, it is called Extreme/Savage for a reason. These aren't meant to be faceroll fights, nor should they ever be.

As for your Mario comment, I seem to recall that Super Mario Bros. had a punishing level towards the end with the Hammer Bros. And SMB3 had quite a few difficult as hell stages. I'm not sure why you brought Mario into this discussion. Please explain.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

O3S and, honestly, O4S, are extremely dependent on your role as a healer

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Pretty much this, there's a fair amount of "dancing" if that's what you wanna call it - however this is also reinforced with the healer role check type mechanic that OP seems to be quite entranced by. Spellblade Holy -> Damage -> Queen's Waltz Followup, which i guess follows the styles of "dance > role check" ? The same happens in O4S with GrandCross Delta with the psuedo random debuff brand on everyone in the group, people "dance" to their positions and then a huge amount of damage goes out immedietly following up with the Almagest healer & mitigation check, followed by tank busters and some more dancing, i guess.Like HyoMinPark and others have said for 3/4S you should definitely give them a solid shot at because they push players to pay far more attention with what they are doing, there are randomized aspects in O3 that incorporate both dancing and the role check follows up right after. IE:

• Spellblade Holy Tethers - > Dimensional Wave
• Animal Phase -> Squelch/Ribbit/Oink
• Book Phase's Spellblade Holy
• Haste -> Blizzard/Thunder/Fire III
• Queen's Waltz - > Book / Blue / Briar Tiles
• MindJack + Reapers Later on -> Cardinal Directions
• Place Dark Token's Safe Zone (Reapers)

I feel as though it's a step in the direction that you might want (?), yes it has quite a few "dance" type mechanics still present, however these are often immediately followed up with raid-wide damage that players need to be healed through and mitigated if possible for best survivability. In general you're paying a lot more attention on enmity, personal resources and the party members who accompany you, watching for people who get 'clipped' by failing a non fatal, but punishing mechanic and risk dying to the next raidwide AOE that is already being cast - and yes! you can actually save them from death if you react quick enough.

It's still scripted to some degree though, but to be fair - you can only have so much randomness in a fight before it's swayed from ''challenging'' to literally playing the cactpot to get a weekly clear. What i guess i'm trying to convey is, as you get higher in this current raid tier - the game slowly takes away the general strict " boss will always do this" type of mechanic and instead changes it to "The boss will do something shortly, it could be X, Y or even Z - Stay alert." which i think is pretty cool to be honest, although i wish it was introduced earlier and ramped up a bit further.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I really enjoyed A10S and found the little mechanic dances he did far more engaging

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Agreed. I really enjoyed the randomized routines that would occur in that fight. I also heavily enjoyed the cluster-truck that was the A11s Lapis phase with a DPS Check going on, tank busters, cleaves, dodging orange beams of doom and the green tether ball placements. I really liked that sort of chaos of different things going on at the same time.