Increasing difficulty in casual content ≠ Savage

I disagre, with the introdcution of ultimate is perfect and there is something for everyone

I'm all for harder content if the reward is there.
I would soon hope into a dungeon and have 2 paths, easy patch with 2x trash, or boss with harder less forgiving mechanic.
Then the party could chose which way to go.

To 1st boss normal
Let's people in DF know what party can do.
Then it would be a door all 4 members interact with the door pick easy or hard path, if tie random, if wipe hard path closed.

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

I'm all for harder content if the reward is there.
I would soon hope into a dungeon and have 2 paths, easy patch with 2x trash, or boss with harder less forgiving mechanic.
Then the party could chose which way to go.

To 1st boss normal
Let's people in DF know what party can do.
Then it would be a door all 4 members interact with the door pick easy or hard path, if tie random, if wipe hard path closed.

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That was FFXIV V1.0. Parties could be up to 16 players, and each dungeon had like 4 bosses, of which you got different rewards depending on which ones you defeated, how fast you defeated them, and how fast you cleared everything in the dungeon.

What we got in V2.0 are versions of these dungeons with portions blocked off (In fact only Total-snore (Toto-rak) even has two paths still) and difficulty scaled down. Everyone's hated dungeon, Aurum Vale, also comes from V1.0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs8nEtHrCr8

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

I'm all for harder content if the reward is there.
I would soon hope into a dungeon and have 2 paths, easy patch with 2x trash, or boss with harder less forgiving mechanic.
Then the party could chose which way to go.

To 1st boss normal
Let's people in DF know what party can do.
Then it would be a door all 4 members interact with the door pick easy or hard path, if tie random, if wipe hard path closed.

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That suggestion reminds me of a similar mechanic in another game. In Elsword there were Dungeons that you ran mid to late game called Secret Dungeons. Sometimes during the run, an NPC called Luto would randomly appear on a section. Then a vote would start. If the vote was passed, the dungeon would restart from the beginning in a harder difficulty called "Luto Mode". There were perks for the added difficulty, mainly being higher drop rate and TRIPLE EXP on kills. It was a good difficulty spike, but oh man did it suck when you didn't want to do it. XD

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Originally Posted by Lynde

"Luto Mode". XD

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Oh heavens I remember those...they were fun but gods above one serious screw up could mess the whole thing up. Luto mode made me completely rethink my opinion on Void Princess' Aging skill. Elsword had such fun ideas and gameplay, just sucks its bogged down (Even more now) with their cash shop BS...

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Originally Posted by Kaitoo

I disagre, with the introdcution of ultimate is perfect and there is something for everyone

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I strongly disagree.

Ultimate is far beyond Savage, not even comparable. Most won't even enter Ultimate, much less clear it.

The primary complaint is there's nothing between standard face-roll content and Savage.

We aren't asking for ultimate to be the standard; that would be nonsense. We're asking for standard content to actually be designed properly, in a way that prepares players for the real content.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

I think people don't get that 4 man parties don't allow you to have hard mechanics.

You don't have an offtank or cohealer, so you can't have any meaningful adds. DPS have zero offtank capability and are made of paper; even in normal trials single hits can be 50% of a dps health or more. The burden in 4 man is on the healer first; a bad healer will make things impossible when even a bad tank can be compensated for to some extent. And if you have group mechanics that kill, a DPS will be impacted less than a healer for the most part. They gave us bardem's second boss, which essentially made class not matter.

You have a DPS check in it that's tough, you need everyone 100%. There's no compensating for a bad dps save for kicking them. The tank needs to do every boss perfect because if they go down, chances are both DPS or worse will go down too and then its just a wipe if it reaches the healer.

8 man parties build some redundancy in, and even then hard 8 man content is a pain for most of the playerbase to do and complete. 4 man everyone will need to be perfect all the time, and one person will make it wasted time. The closest analog is the Feast, which is probably the hardest 4 man content we have in general, and people know that if one class is not on point it can easily be a lost game.

They'd probably be better off just making 8 man dungeons or something. We do have varied mechanics in experts; baeslar's wall for example actually has decently complex ones including healer gaols. But making them harder is going to really make it start and stop gameplay with a lot more player kicking.

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First of all this is ridiculous. 4mans cant have hard mechanics? No, 4mans just can't have exact carboncopies of 8man mechanics. Exactly what would change about like, Phantom Train or Chadarnook, if we made that a 4man? Absolutely nothing. You would need to scale the Prey damage down slightly because you wouldnt have offhealer shielding or healing after Prey for the next Rain but besides that, it's exactly the same, but with mechanics targeting 1/2 of the players. Lights target 1 instead of 2, and with the 1 tether. If tank is caught in a ghost, you wipe, because you failed the mechanic and you should wipe.

As for 8man dungeons, this has been a point of contention since 2010. It was bad idea then, is bad idea now. It's not practical for 8 people to put in an hour to do a dungeon, much less the hours and hours of progression to learn it, if you actually wanted it to be meaningful content. Even organizing 8people is difficult.

It's lazy to say 4mans cant have mechanics. They can, they just need to be designed for 4 players.

And then to say "oh we cant have mechanics because players will actually need to do them"

That's the point. What in the world did you think we were talking about? You need to say NO.

No, Black Mage. You need to do your rotation. Ice will not work. Dragoon, spamming Heavy Thrust is not enough. White Mage, spamming Cure isn't enough, and tank, spamming Flash isn't enough.

Nobody is asking for ultimate to be the standard. But we're sick and tired of players that have NO idea what to do in this game. And since the game has done literally nothing to enforce some sort of standard of quality upon players and teach the players, we can't expect everybody to go out of their way to learn to play the game using 3rd parties. The blame is not 100% on the players here.

I cannot say the game has done a poor job teaching players to play the game, because that would imply that the game has even attempted to do so.

To accomplish this you need to change the mentality of most of the community. Right now, people expect perfection and they expect speed runs. If that doesn't happen, they rage quit. Making content harder will result in wipes and it will result in runs taking longer. This would require the dev to dig their heels in and say "this is the bar, we're not going to lower it"

Personally, I feel the normal mode raid is what should fill the gap between faceroll and savage. At one of the sessions at fanfest in 2016 they mentioned expert dungeons would stay like they are. They are meant to be something that can get done in about 20 minutes. Using the current ilvls, they should make tome gear 350, obtained by faceroll content. Kick up the difficulty on normal mode raids a notch and have it drop 360 and then have savage at 370.

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Originally Posted by Luin

As for 8man dungeons, this has been a point of contention since 2010. It was bad idea then, is bad idea now. It's not practical for 8 people to put in an hour to do a dungeon, much less the hours and hours of progression to learn it, if you actually wanted it to be meaningful content. Even organizing 8people is difficult.

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It's completely practical to put in an hour+ to do a dungeon, you just have to design the dungeon so you can come-and-go, which is how dungeons work when they aren't instanced. People want to explore, not just kill things mindlessly and endlessly. Version 1.0 let you explore, but it was ham-handed by not having the ability to jump, not allowing people to fall to their death, not letting players enter "completely built dungeons", gated off by a door or NPC.

A way to do 8/16/24 player dungeons , as main story content, is to design it so that the area is not gated off (eg you seemlessly enter it from the overworld, or can pick it from a teleport list) and can thus are always entered solo, and anyone else who is on that part of the story, enters the same instance and auto-partied until the maximum number of players is hit. If you don't meet the requirements to complete the dungeon (eg under-leveled, under-geared) you get dropped into the "auto-fail" instance where you are thrown out of the dungeon early on without wasting more than 3 minutes, and given some kind of message like "Perhaps you should come back later when you're stronger/better equipped", where as if you meet the requirements, you can proceed.

Once you clear the story part, you only join other non-cleared instances as long as there are ones. If everyone has cleared it, then the game creates a default "already won" instance to bleed off players who already cleared it (to avoid the mess that MSQ roulette creates.) It automatically becomes non-story "hard" mode if there are no non-cleared players,. Hard more scales the monsters by the combat power of the collective players in it, so when the boss spawns and locks the boss room, you can't just zerg the boss, or keep throwing yourself at it. You can also force a hard mode once completed by manually creating at least a Light Party of players who have already completed it. If players leave during the boss fight, the boss will not rescale until a wipe.

If players need to go, they always come back to the same one if the instance for the dungeon hasn't been cleared yet. If players don't like the people they're paired with, they have to sit out the dungeon for a week.

And if the content becomes "stale", eg nobody joining it, both normal and hard mode can still be completed solo, just it will take 8 times longer. During solo runs at the boss, if you're the only one in the instance, the boss will be scaled directly to what job you're playing so there are no "easy solo" jobs. Unlike "undersized party" options, the dungeon is always level synced regardless of the number of players, as the combat scaling considers the collective number of players and their jobs.

Of course SE wouldn't do that because that would require more server resources to keep instances open all week instead of open for the 10-15 minutes most duties can be completed in.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

To accomplish this you need to change the mentality of most of the community. Right now, people expect perfection and they expect speed runs.

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Based on what I've seen from pugs and PF I walk into everything expecting to wipe until we disband because people are bad and lazy. I don't think I'm alone in this sentiment. The idea that people expect perfection in a game where 0 dps healers are clearing endgame/tanks who don't leave tank stance are common is laughable.

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Originally Posted by Luin

Exactly what would change about like, Phantom Train or Chadarnook, if we made that a 4man...If tank is caught in a ghost, you wipe, because you failed the mechanic and you should wipe

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You wouldn't be allowed to make any mistakes, mostly. You answered yourself. The healer gets caught by a ghost, you wipe because he can't kill it fast enough before people die. The healer makes any mistake at all, and you are all dead. Essentially we are talking landsides and being knocked off arenas, but one person getting such would just make it a fast wipe instead of a slow limp to the finish. If you get nailed once, game over.

I don't think a lot of people would be into that kind of content. If its decently hard, combined with no real redundancy, its going to be worse than ex trials. I mean, at least in them you can recover from a mistake either with your cohealer or cotank, or 3 dps can cover for a fourth. It's not easy, and may not always be possible, but you can. In 4-man, healer missed the mechanic? wipe. Healer dies to a specific mechanic but gets the rest? Wipe, instead of being able to finish.

I mean, everyone here talks a lot of junk about wanting hard content, but noone here is going to love 45 min dungeons or 20 min vote disbands because no one can drop the meteors correctly.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

Based on what I've seen from pugs and PF I walk into everything expecting to wipe until we disband because people are bad and lazy. I don't think I'm alone in this sentiment. The idea that people expect perfection in a game where 0 dps healers are clearing endgame/tanks who don't leave tank stance are common is laughable.

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Yeah you probably suck, with that attitude. And you like to berate non raiders about being elitist.

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Originally Posted by dejiko_san

People don't want hard dungeons. Look what happened with Pharos Sirius or the Demon Wall in Amdapor Keep. It started as tough, lots of people complained, it got simpler.

I won't even get into people quitting as soon as Steps of Faith loaded up..

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I'm not remotely surprised that everyone I knew who complained about either of those first two initially, but eventually got past them, ended up far more skilled players and faster learners than my friends/acquaintances who did not. Personally, their pre-nerf forms remain two of my favorite dungeons of all times.

My only issue was the effort-to-reward imbalance. As it wasn't originally even required for Expert Roulette (and remained optional until the next dungeon's release), it ended up at the time far superior not to unlock Pharos Sirius so that one could get consistently fast (well, standard speed) daily bonus runs.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Yeah you probably suck, with that attitude. And you like to berate non raiders about being elitist.

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That’s uncalled for. Moro has a point—just today there was a tank in the Aery (I had queued in to help a friend level their SCH, which was level 56) that was wearing i90 green gear (not the AF gear) and was using an item level 45 (level 45) NQ greatsword. When it was said that they could go to Mor Dhona and easily buy an i120 weapon that would make their holding aggro much easier (because everyone was tanking the trash mobs, including the SCH just from ripping hate through sheer healing, not DPS), they responded with snark. No one was even rude about it either. And the sad thing was, they had a level 70 job, and multiple level 60s. They weren’t a new player, and they probably knew that what they were doing wasn’t a good thing.

I did a God Kefka clear tonight, and the MNK in there with the i375 Diamond weapon could not deal more damage than a RDM, and were barely doing more damage than me, a BRD that is still wearing an i350 body piece and didn’t have a DRG. The SCH also had extremely low HPS, rarely made use of their oGCD heals, and when we pointed out that they needed to time some Indoms for when the DPS had to eat skulls during First and Third Forsakens (this was after the 6th wipe to God), they tried to blame the AST for not healing, whom had almost double the HPS they had in the previous pull, and almost as much DPS.

There are plenty of people in all forms of content that do not play at any level of perfection. To insinuate that everyone calls for perfection is proven wrong just by the existence of people like the two I have described here.



Aside from pointing out this uncalled for comment, I also want to point out the irony of you calling someone elitist when your comment is far from nice, and it has its own type of elitism built into it.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

You wouldn't be allowed to make any mistakes, mostly. You answered yourself. The healer gets caught by a ghost, you wipe because he can't kill it fast enough before people die. The healer makes any mistake at all, and you are all dead. Essentially we are talking landsides and being knocked off arenas, but one person getting such would just make it a fast wipe instead of a slow limp to the finish. If you get nailed once, game over.

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It’s my opinion that the Landslide mechanic (and any other mechanic that knocked you permanently off an arena and out of the fight for the rest of its duration) is an excellent mechanic because it teaches you that, if you fail, you’re going to be punished for it. The story mode (and Hard Mode) of Titan have more forgiving/less complex landslides, corresponding with their intended difficulty. Titan Extreme, by comparison, has far less forgiving Landslides in that they happen faster, more frequently, and, later on, more than one landslide occurs at once.

The mechanics can be slowed enough to give people time to react in easier forms of content. But they should still be punishing if the individual fails, so that they can learn “Hey, I probably should dodge that, because this 90% Damage Down is awful” or “I should move faster out of that Landslide, because it sucks to be knocked off the platform for the rest of the fight”. Again, see what I said before in that there are tanks in Kefka Normal Mode that get up to 8 Vulnerability Stacks, are finally one-shot by a tankbuster (with AND without a cooldown being used, save for an immunity), and then opt to cry to the healer about dying as opposed to accepting responsibility for the fact that they failed mechanics 8 times, and got 8 stacks of vulnerability that essentially sealed their demise when Kefka decided it was time to Hyperdrive them again.

It’s already forgiving enough that it takes multiple stacks of Vulnerability to even make something tickle in normal mode, much less it finally taking 8 to do a tank in.

I honestly don't remember people complaining about the difficulty of AK in 2.0, rather that it was simply faster to grind WP mainly due to the ease of which you could skip large swathes of trash via boss lockouts.

Demonwall was great because you couldn't rely on simply zerging your way through it, the Bees acted as a great DPS check usually making things rather messy if you couldn't dispose of them quickly with early groups usually LBing the first set then aiming to kill the wall before the second set wiped you.

Pharos Sirius was a different kettle of fish. I'll go out on a limb and just say that the first boss was outright lame. The adds and stacking bomb mechanic were fine, the super fast ground aoes tipped it over the line though and whilst it didn't really cause me trouble as a healer, I can imagine that it must have been horrible as a melee.

The bird boss was a great example of a difficult 4 man boss done right. Whilst the mechanics were a little confusing at first glance, paying attention to debuffs, tooltips and animations cleared things up pretty quickly and the fight was actually pretty easy going if you did the mechanics right. Ignore them and it would quickly punish you by way of a thorough curb stomping that hasn't been seen in a 4 man since.

Not really sure what the deal was with the 3rd boss with the zombie adds, even early on with a sub par group it typically died before enough adds spawned to cause any real trouble. /shrug.

Siren was another great boss too IMO. Choreographing her divebomb/circle aoes would have been the perfect fix to tone her down rather than the outright neutering that SE eventually settled on.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

It’s already forgiving enough that it takes multiple stacks of Vulnerability to even make something tickle in normal mode, much less it finally taking 8 to do a tank in.

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I really cannot +1 this point enough. The biggest problem with end game 4 man content isn't that the mechanics are too simple, but that you can safely ignore almost everything with little to no risk. Even when you do step over the line and actually manage to get yourself killed, the only real penalty is a chunk of your healers MP to get you going again (Which is only really a penalty in itself if your healer is DPSing fairly hard). Whilst proceeding to kill the boss that bit slower can be an annoyance, it's certainly not going to cause a wipe on the current crop of bosses. I'm fairly confident the current crop of expert dungeons could be cleared by a Warrior and WHM or SCH duo with relative ease with the only question marks being the particularly generous DPS checks on both final bosses.

We don't need to see ultimate grade mechanics or even the return of the likes of Pharos Sirius to be honest. Rather I suspect most would be happy with dungeons that actually legitimately punish you when you repeatedly sit in the fire/cleave/spinny death thing. People can and will adjust to stuff like that, they managed it with AK in 2.0, they managed it with Garuda HM and most even managed it with Titan HM.

Healers messing up or sleeping up might cause a wipe? Good. Healer's shouldn't get an easy ride because they are special snowflakes. On the contrary, whilst I think it's fair not to expect huge DPS out of the average healer if they have mechanics or legitimate damage to keep an eye on, they should still be tested and made to work all the same, be it via forcing them to heal or move.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I did a God Kefka clear tonight

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I got curious and stalked the log ;)

That SCH was pretty much flogging themselves to death by way of frighteningly excessive succoring coupled with missed potential out of Lucid Dreaming and Aetherflow. They flatlined in MP 5-6 times in that clear. No surprise they had no mp to do much of anything else. Madness.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

It’s my opinion that the Landslide mechanic (and any other mechanic that knocked you permanently off an arena and out of the fight for the rest of its duration) is an excellent mechanic because it teaches you that, if you fail, you’re going to be punished for it. The story mode (and Hard Mode) of Titan have more forgiving/less complex landslides, corresponding with their intended difficulty. Titan Extreme, by comparison, has far less forgiving Landslides in that they happen faster, more frequently, and, later on, more than one landslide occurs at once.

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It's funny because I loathe that mechanic. As a healer main, I'm... irrelevant. The game forbids me from doing my job. Not only can I not prevent it (which is the point), I also can't recover it. Whoever failed it gets to watch the game for a few minutes and do nothing (or more likely: get up and get a drink) and I get to not do what I'm there to do. It's not fun for anyone.

The revised version on something like Ravana/Bismarck (or Hashmal's tower crushing) are IMO far better. They clearly punish anyone who fails tremendously, but not in a "you're watching the rest of the fight and I'm powerless to do anything about it" way.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

You wouldn't be allowed to make any mistakes, mostly. You answered yourself. The healer gets caught by a ghost, you wipe because he can't kill it fast enough before people die.

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All tanks in Stormblood have some way of self-sustain and some way of buying more time with a cooldown. While a PLD would clearly be in the best spot because Clemency and Hallowed can buy all kinds of time (I mean, I've flat out healed O8N for almost a minute alone as a PLD after both healers got knocked off at the same time and needed to recover), all the tanks have something to do that isn't "just keep DPSing until I die and blame the healer." They can buy time for a healer to get out from the ghosts, as it doesn't take that long to kill one. DPS can actually avoid stuff until the healer is out, and if you've got a RDM who realizes they have Vercure, you're fine anyway.

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The healer makes any mistake at all, and you are all dead. Essentially we are talking landsides and being knocked off arenas, but one person getting such would just make it a fast wipe instead of a slow limp to the finish. If you get nailed once, game over.

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I don't know why you like to exaggerate, but there's a gap between "everything instagibs you and wipes the party" and "it's literally impossible to fail this boss if you are awake."

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Yeah you probably suck, with that attitude. And you like to berate non raiders about being elitist.

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Classy.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

You have a DPS check in it that's tough, you need everyone 100%. There's no compensating for a bad dps save for kicking them.

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Good

Learn how to play your job before queuing into endgame content. Nevertheless, you can make demands on players without it necessitating perfection. Higher floors of PotD prove that. Neither the trash nor bosses require perfect uptime yet they can pound you into the ground. Time and again you create these nonsensical strawmans. Difficulty scaling is not black and white wherein you either have insanely hard or laughably easy. I should not be allowed to stack multiple vulnerabilities and keep going yet I can. In o6n I never touch the plane mechanic. Why? It won't kill me and only 60-ish% of my HP. What incentive do I have to dodge this? Per an earlier example I made; the first boss in Hell's Lid. Even with five vulnerability stacks I still can take his buster with Rampart. That's embarrassingly pathetic.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The tank needs to do every boss perfect because if they go down, chances are both DPS or worse will go down too and then its just a wipe if it reaches the healer.

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Once again, good.

Dungeon bosses should not be so trivial DPS can tank them otherwise what's even the point? People should not be rewarded for messing up. It's absurd how your every rebuttal essentially boils down to "OMG IT'S TOO HARD. THEY MIGHT WIPE!!!!!!"

I hate to borrow a cliche meme, but... git gud.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Yeah you probably suck, with that attitude. And you like to berate non raiders about being elitist.

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But you don't partake in content that demands more than a pulse. How would you even know let alone have the authority to assume someone else's experiences with PF?

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

You wouldn't be allowed to make any mistakes, mostly. You answered yourself. The healer gets caught by a ghost, you wipe because he can't kill it fast enough before people die. The healer makes any mistake at all, and you are all dead. Essentially we are talking landsides and being knocked off arenas, but one person getting such would just make it a fast wipe instead of a slow limp to the finish. If you get nailed once, game over.

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Great! Perfect! I actually like mechanics like that one in Thordan where if ANYONE dies it's an insta-wipe. Please use that liberally SE! (I'm serious!) Then the burden is on everyone equally.

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I don't think a lot of people would be into that kind of content. If its decently hard, combined with no real redundancy, its going to be worse than ex trials. I mean, at least in them you can recover from a mistake either with your cohealer or cotank, or 3 dps can cover for a fourth. It's not easy, and may not always be possible, but you can. In 4-man, healer missed the mechanic? wipe. Healer dies to a specific mechanic but gets the rest? Wipe, instead of being able to finish.

I mean, everyone here talks a lot of junk about wanting hard content, but noone here is going to love 45 min dungeons or 20 min vote disbands because no one can drop the meteors correctly.

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Then people learn to do mechanics. If it's done consistently, then people will learn to do mechanics. Those that will ragequit over mistakes will just go off and make their own parties. Win win to me. Those who are willing to stick around and progress will keep queueing. Means better experiences for players all round. Double win!

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Yeah you probably suck, with that attitude. And you like to berate non raiders about being elitist.

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Pot. Meet kettle.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

It's funny because I loathe that mechanic. As a healer main, I'm... irrelevant. The game forbids me from doing my job. Not only can I not prevent it (which is the point), I also can't recover it. Whoever failed it gets to watch the game for a few minutes and do nothing (or more likely: get up and get a drink) and I get to not do what I'm there to do. It's not fun for anyone.

The revised version on something like Ravana/Bismarck (or Hashmal's tower crushing) are IMO far better. They clearly punish anyone who fails tremendously, but not in a "you're watching the rest of the fight and I'm powerless to do anything about it" way.

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I actually hate that knockoff mechanics now just mean you have to wait a few seconds before you can be ressed. Falling off should mean falling off and you're out for the rest of the fight. When they changed that in Sophia I was baffled. To this day I STILL hate that change.

Just make them like T9 where the walls instagib you but you don't fall off so you can be ressed. Maybe even add a "Resurrection Blocker" debuff for some time if you want to stop them being able to be instantly ressed. Maybe save the falloff mechanics for Ex versions only as well?

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

I actually hate that knockoff mechanics now just mean you have to wait a few seconds before you can be ressed. Falling off should mean falling off and you're out for the rest of the fight. When they changed that in Sophia I was baffled. To this day I STILL hate that change.

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The problem with that is that it's not interactive. If you fall of early because of lag or a mistake and it's a 10 minute fight, what are you now doing? Playing on your phone, alt+tabbing to something else, getting up and leaving the game entirely, or in the worst case scenario, the group calls for a wipe and restart because you now can't beat enrage and will fail in 8 minutes (granted this one can happen in some fights anyway if you're very tight on DPS already, but this would make it far worse).

All of those, frankly, suck. Telling people to stop playing the game for extended periods of time is flat out poor game design as you're encouraging people to leave the game to go do something else. You're not allowing them to learn from mistakes by getting up and trying it again, and you're excessively punishing the rest of the group by dramatically increasing the cost of a death to the party. If a healer dies, should the outcome of that really be to punish the other healer by forcing them to solo heal the entire thing?

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Originally Posted by Tridus

All of those, frankly, suck. Telling people to stop playing the game for extended periods of time is flat out poor game design as you're encouraging people to leave the game to go do something else.

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I did push out a response for that. Just make them like the walls in T5/9. If you land in it you die instantly, maybe even with a debuff that blocks resurrection for a time. I agree that the falloff mechanic is overused, and that it should be used less. But please make falloff actually mean fall out of the arena for the attempt. In its current state, what's the difference between a falloff vs a wall that simply instagibs you? That's what baffles me. The falloff is just a death wall with a different coat of paint.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Like my preference would be something closer to much longer timeout (eg 30 seconds) before being returned to the platform, and it could be done cheekily with Midgardsormr just tossing you back onto the platform with 1hp, so the healer has to get you right away or you're going to get ko'd by the next thing and need a rez anyway. But you need to also make sure it's not a way to cheat an enrage mechanic, so "everyone jump off" = reset.

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Yeah, I hear you. Hence the "Resurrection Blocker" debuff to keep you from being able to be immediately ressed. I do like that idea of Middy throwing you back on with 1HP. That's an idea I could get behind. But now I'm reminded of Lakitu in Mariokart just cheekily chucking you back on the track with that smug grin on his cloud... The idea is I want falling off to not just be a death wall with a different coat of paint, but the only way I could think of was "Out = out". Your idea of chucking them back on after 30 seconds with 1HP would achieve making falling off be something different. Good out of box thinking. :)

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

I actually hate that knockoff mechanics now just mean you have to wait a few seconds before you can be ressed. Falling off should mean falling off and you're out for the rest of the fight. When they changed that in Sophia I was baffled. To this day I STILL hate that change.

Just make them like T9 where the walls instagib you but you don't fall off so you can be ressed. Maybe even add a "Resurrection Blocker" debuff for some time if you want to stop them being able to be instantly ressed. Maybe save the falloff mechanics for Ex versions only as well?

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I suppose there was probably outcry about how that "fall off" mechanic works, seeing as it originated in Titan, and newbies would get a quick carry just by screwing up. Don't reward screwups with a carry that way.

Like my preference would be something closer to much longer timeout (eg 30 seconds) before being returned to the platform, and it could be done cheekily with Midgardsormr just tossing you back onto the platform with 1hp, so the healer has to get you right away or you're going to get ko'd by the next thing and need a rez anyway. But you need to also make sure it's not a way to cheat an enrage mechanic, so "everyone jump off" = reset.

I think what's being lost here is that the idea behind this post was to get 4mans to start pushing towards savage mechanics. Within the game system, you can introduce difficulty within doing savage stuff. Quite easily in fact. I'm saying this from a non raider perspective too. Again, within the game engine, the devs can easily make an entire dungeon nerf healing and tanking through persistent debuffs, just lower the damage that mobs do overall.

I would love to see a gimmick dungeon that is like ff9s Ipsen's Castle, in that lower ilvl makes it easier to actually get through the dungeon

If the general dungeon difficulty were to be raised, would those who desire such be willing to be more patient with other players and more accepting of the potential for mistakes and failure? It seems like you'd almost have to be, but then again I'm not sure it's safe to presume how others will act or react in an online game setting.

My own opinion of the playerbase aside, I would be patient. I rarely lose my composure for players in 4mans. That being said, that's why I prefer expert dungeons actually feeling like expert content. I like turning my attention towards something a bit challenging when my confidence for savage is gone.

On that note, let me counter another argument, I highly doubt that if one or two dungeons went into the optional expert roulette, that a higher difficulty in those dungeons will make players unsub. Not on the difficulty part at least.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

If the general dungeon difficulty were to be raised, would those who desire such be willing to be more patient with other players and more accepting of the potential for mistakes and failure? It seems like you'd almost have to be, but then again I'm not sure it's safe to presume how others will act or react in an online game setting.

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If it would be one or two dungeons randomly dropped into a roulette with easier ones...no. There's no way that the average good players would have patience. If the entire game before then caters to the unskilled players, there's just no way the average Joe or Jane would learn before getting into those harder dungeons and it'd be like throwing an unskilled player into savage. Just look at Shinryu when it hit. Suddenly there was a trial where you needed to pay some attention and it was a roadblock until the better/luckier players went past and begun overgearing it.
My first attempt at it was with a party where half of the players died to literally the first Tsunami, the one that is guaranteed after about 10 seconds into the run, every single time. And they died on third and fourth approach. Player that cannot avoid a mechanic like that absolutely should not reach lvl70.

If the dungeons would either be optional and not part of any roulette that have lower-difficulty dungeons or the mandatory dungeons would be more difficult from day one (aka all the way from Sastasha and up), then yes. People would be more patient because the unskilled players would be forced to learn the earlier ones growing more skilled step by step or never reach the ones higher up. So in any run, you would have players with the capacity to learn, and that's a lot. Especially since right now it's common for people to refuse to listen to advice after a wipe...

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

On that note, let me counter another argument, I highly doubt that if one or two dungeons went into the optional expert roulette, that a higher difficulty in those dungeons will make players unsub. Not on the difficulty part at least.

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Oh you may never know, some ppl will unsub for literally everything and make sure everyone knows it /sigh

That said I think SE is more concerned about ppl dropping the hard dungeons in hope to get the faster one than eventual sub losses

The indomitable problem with an aging MMORPG is the aging of it's player base. People graduate from college, find themselves at work 8 hours a day or more, drive for an hour and half a day going to and from their job or more, spend time cleaning and shopping, etc. Those old players no longer can keep up and do hard dungeon content because they're tired, their brains are melting into their skulls (at least mine feels that way when I finally get done for the day), and basically go wondering into content like Eureka falling asleep while waiting for NMs to spawn. My own glorious return to form was conquering Byakko extreme a few months back and getting my paladin weapon before entering a routine of tome farming for 360 gear. I don't even collect or bother with materia anymore because by the time I'm finished gearing up, the next patch comes around and I just have to pull everything out again.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Yeah you probably suck, with that attitude. And you like to berate non raiders about being elitist.

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So to be clear because I think other people play poorly you believe I play poorly, that's the gist of it? Since you're judging someone's skill level with whom you've never even played how bad must that make you?

I feel like this gets thrown at you a lot and I never see you respond to it, likely because you know you're a hypocrit, but "pot, meet kettle!"

As far as "liking to berate non raiders for being elitist"... huh? What does that even mean? I haven't even cleared o7s, I'm not some hardcore orange-or-bust bleeding edge person (because yes, despite what your treatment of them might make people believe raiders are people too) I'm pretty casual.

The fact that I can have purple and orange parses at all in anything with little to no mmo experience, poor skill at action-based video games in general and relatively little time invested here is a source of confusion for me. The only thing I have going for me is that I'm dedicated enough to not want to be a buden on any parties I join or form. When someone like me is beating a significant portion of the playerbase in any content I'm sorry but that means they're lazy (haven't put in research to understand how their class plays, aren't trying to keep their CDs and GCDs rolling constantly, etc.) or bad (know what they should be doing but can't manage to keep gcds rolling/appropriate buffs up/etc.) and saying those things might hurt some feelings but, a favorite quote of mine recently, "facts don't care about your feelings."

I commented on a post that said most people "expexted perfection" which is what I took issue with. If most people expected perfection the only people playing the game would be those orange+ players. Most people accept mediocrity without batting an eye and won't say anything to any level of play above "literally afk" outside of EX/Savage.

To tie this back around to the purpose of this thread originally - these people who are catapulting me into orange parses on a class I can name several people who outplay me on have a ton of content. All dungeons, 24 mans and raids can be completed with more than half a party of people who are playing like they've set their cat on their keyboard. Sadly this statement is hardly hyperbolic.

The only content that requires any amount of attention or care is EX/Savage and the extreme difficulty curve scares people away from it. They're used to participation trophies and you drop them in the olympics. Rapid-fire mechs that kill the party when failed instead of just hurting you, incoming damage that can actually press a healer's mp and all that on top of an enrage timer that requires at minimum pretty good play from everyone in the party.

It's no wonder people aren't participating in Savage - the game breeds a playerbase that thinks it's okay to screw up about as often as you get anything right and lets them do that... right up to the end where, yes, people start expecting something much closer to perfection if they want to clear.

So yes - I could not possibly support some difficultly in optional dungeons more. It would do nothing but good and would maybe teach people a bit more about how to play the game they've been mashing buttons in.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

The indomitable problem with an aging MMORPG is the aging of it's player base. People graduate from college, find themselves at work 8 hours a day or more, drive for an hour and half a day going to and from their job or more, spend time cleaning and shopping, etc. Those old players no longer can keep up and do hard dungeon content because they're tired, their brains are melting into their skulls (at least mine feels that way when I finally get done for the day), and basically go wondering into content like Eureka falling asleep while waiting for NMs to spawn. My own glorious return to form was conquering Byakko extreme a few months back and getting my paladin weapon before entering a routine of tome farming for 360 gear. I don't even collect or bother with materia anymore because by the time I'm finished gearing up, the next patch comes around and I just have to pull everything out again.

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I myself went from a college student to a full-time professional with a demanding job while playing XIV and I agree with your statement in many ways. I simply don't have the time or willpower to beat my head against the wall for hours to learn the hardest content any more. When I get home I want to chill and do something that won't kill the whole party because I made one mistake. A few years ago I was on the bleeding edge of Coil/Savage; now I think I might get around to it eventually. I'm getting older and less responsive and can't devote as much of my energy to games as I used to.

THAT SAID, I would like to see the game challenge us a little more in DF. The mid-core content that the Alliance raids sit at are perfect for me in terms of challenge but those are also the only instances in the game that offer it. Even then, only Rabanastre, Dun Scaith, sometimes Mhach and occasionally WoD offer what I seek. I love Hashbrowns and Ozma in particular and hope to see more fights like that. Dungeons don't have to stop pandering to the lowest common denominator, but since have more of them than any other type of content in the game, I hope SE can make some mid-core dungeons that require thought instead of being pretty corridors full of trash to AoE punctuated by bosses that go out of their way not to wipe you.

When I go into Mentor Roulette, I will sit through even the worst and totally hopeless EX runs to help if the group is willing to try. I will not ask for challenges that I am not willing to help other players though. And honestly, I think SE sells the player base short by having so much faceroll content. The average Joe will learn what to do within a few failed attempts, and the XIV player base is one of the friendliest I've seen. Despite the bad apples and petulant players who will refuse to improve or teach others, I think we'd see a net benefit from SE holding our collective skills in higher esteem.

To back up Moro's statement, I wholeheartedly support more difficult dungeons because I feel that it would do some good. I'm sure you've seen my fflogs. A lot of folks on the forums have seen them. I'm one of the worst players on the game. Doesn't mean I don't support more difficult dungeons. In fact, I would love to have more of them so that I can get better and play on a higher level than where I'm sitting at right now.

I dunno why it's been such a bad thing to suggest tuning up the difficulty. There are more benefits than there are negatives to it.

Probably it will do some good, though SE has been a bit inconsistent with nerfs, recently they've seemed to hold their grounds more (ozma, nidhoog and shinryu comes to mind) but since they've already nerfed something in the past in response to players backlash (though I'll concede that it was to mitigate players leaving if an harder dungeon appared, hence why we have expert roulette in the first place) is a looming shadow imho.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Even one case is problematic, we have the same problem with tanks here, in a vertical progression setting you want to get stronger and stronger, since that's the fantasy they are after.

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We have it with more than just tanks, but tanks are a felony level example. While I agree that a single case is problematic it's a pretty nuanced issue. I wish I had a good solution for it, but I don't.

I can tell you (as a PLD main), it FEELs so much worse in this game than it does WoW. I really don't like secondaries in either game. I really don't like secondaries at all. I think the goal of secondaries could probably be better used as functions/themes inside class abilities in both MMOs.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Realistically, the hardest content in the game should be the 4-player content (if not the solo combat content,) but instead it's the 8-player Savage content. Perhaps SE should consider making savage content 4-player content, and make storyline content 8-player content.

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Why should 4 player content be the hardest? Cite specific reasons/examples/insight please.

Do you have any examples of mechanics that would be interested/challenging for a tank or healer in a 4 player party?

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Originally Posted by Luin

Exactly what would change about like, Phantom Train or Chadarnook, if we made that a 4man? Absolutely nothing. You would need to scale the Prey damage down slightly because you wouldnt have offhealer shielding or healing after Prey for the next Rain but besides that, it's exactly the same, but with mechanics targeting 1/2 of the players. Lights target 1 instead of 2, and with the 1 tether. If tank is caught in a ghost, you wipe, because you failed the mechanic and you should wipe.

I cannot say the game has done a poor job teaching players to play the game, because that would imply that the game has even attempted to do so.

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While I wholeheartedly agree on your last point, I'm not sure just translating Sigmascape savage to 4 man is as easy as you imply it is. Not to mention, the less people there are to make mistakes, the easier the content is as it dramatically cuts down learning time (all else equal) and thus shortens the life of the content.

I think a lot of things would need to change in the core combat system before we can make 4 man content both engaging and challenging. I think the limited way in which mechanics overlap is a core problem here.

O5S - 4 man would make that fight considerably easier (assuming incoming damage re-tuned for single healer). Think of how much more space you'd have for mechanics. The non-cheese strat would also be hilariously easy with just 4 people.

O6S - I suppose I can agree that not much would change here, but O6S isn't the most riveting experience as it stands now.

I'd be curious if you had any other good examples of how you could make engaging/challenging 4 man mechanics, within the existing design constraints, for tanks and healers specifically, but DPS if you have them too!).

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Originally Posted by Tridus

All tanks in Stormblood have some way of self-sustain and some way of buying more time with a cooldown. While a PLD would clearly be in the best spot because Clemency and Hallowed can buy all kinds of time (I mean, I've flat out healed O8N for almost a minute alone as a PLD after both healers got knocked off at the same time and needed to recover), all the tanks have something to do that isn't "just keep DPSing until I die and blame the healer." They can buy time for a healer to get out from the ghosts, as it doesn't take that long to kill one. DPS can actually avoid stuff until the healer is out, and if you've got a RDM who realizes they have Vercure, you're fine anyway.

I don't know why you like to exaggerate, but there's a gap between "everything instagibs you and wipes the party" and "it's literally impossible to fail this boss if you are awake."

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While it literally pains me to defend Riyah - I am inclined to agree (IN THIS SPECIFIC instance only).

I don't see how you can design good engaging/challenging 4 man content within the current design constraints with respect to tanks/healers.

Using your example - translated to a 4 man savage O5S, if you needed to use a CD to cover a mistake, then you don't have a CD you need later for a tankbuster. If you can survive without a CD, then the mechanic doesn't matter. If you can Clemency the boss auto's to survive while healer is trapped, how do you offset/survive raidwide damage then? Can't clemency everyone, and you could vercure some, but it won't be enough. What if your comp (which contains 4 out of 15 now, instead of 8 out of 15) doesn't have one of those? What if it doesn't have either?

While I would love to explore this avenue, I'm not sure how good it can be without some sweeping changes to the core combat system (which I'm all for). The result that I am afraid of would be an even more binary healing and tanking paradigm that would likely drive me to switch roles or quit.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I think what's being lost here is that the idea behind this post was to get 4mans to start pushing towards savage mechanics. Within the game system, you can introduce difficulty within doing savage stuff. Quite easily in fact. I'm saying this from a non raider perspective too. Again, within the game engine, the devs can easily make an entire dungeon nerf healing and tanking through persistent debuffs, just lower the damage that mobs do overall.

I would love to see a gimmick dungeon that is like ff9s Ipsen's Castle, in that lower ilvl makes it easier to actually get through the dungeon

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Your idea to this in perpetuity, is to have persistent debuffs throughout an entire content form (so multiple dungeons, or whatever else 'savage' 4 man content ends up being by nerfing output and modifying incoming mob damage? That would probably feel more unintuitive and jarring than being synced down to Sastasha, not to mention is a pretty hamfisted implementation.

While I love FF9 and Ipsens castle, that type of gameplay would NOT translate well to an MMO at all.

Do you have some examples of what 4 man savage content could look like? Specific mechanics, etc.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

Why should 4 player content be the hardest? Cite specific reasons/examples/insight please.

Do you have any examples of mechanics that would be interested/challenging for a tank or healer in a 4 player party?

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The more players there are, the greater chance of mistakes being made, and the more likeliness of "dead weight" so to speak. In a 4-player dungeon, you should not be able to "dead weight" anyone, but most of the 4-player content lets you lock someone out of the boss room, and still defeat the boss. So actual teamwork is required for a 4-player dungeon, and as we've seen in POTD, 4 healers or 4 tanks does not actually make the dungeon easier, it just creates a lack of defined roles, so you're more likely to fail by someone not doing their job. See "neither tank would switch out of tank stance" problems that content with two tanks has.

Realistically, the kind of "hard" mechanics you want to drop on a 4-player team are that which removes a player (eg fetters/gaol) from action if a major mechanic is ignored. eg fetter the tank, then the boss goes after the healer. Fetter the healer, tank can't free them, and the DPS has to free the healer. Fetter the DPS, the other DPS has to free them. If the tank or healer try to free a fettered DPS, then they neglect their roles, and create a failure situation. This is just one example of where the roles during a boss would need to be more rigidly enforced.

Why 4-player content is easy is because the healer's role is redundant for everyone, even the tank, by players having self-healing options and the auto-heal, as gear creep goes up. Unless Yoshi-P wants to redesign how HoT, self-healing and auto-healing works so that gear doesn't count in the calculation, this will always be the case. A tank should not be able to solo the boss while level-synced, yet that has been a thing since 2.0.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

Why should 4 player content be the hardest? Cite specific reasons/examples/insight please.

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Mechanic failure rates typically scale with player count because each player adds a potential point of failure. They can still make content that is extremely difficult to handle for large groups (e.g. ultimate), but the clear rates will be low and finding a group for it difficult because the target audience is a minority. It's not a terrible idea, but it won't have many players participating in it.

As player count scales down, the content difficulty can increase and still maintain the expected clear rate, while increasing player participation because it's easier to find a group. Theoretically, the most difficult content could be made for solo players but with the limited toolkit a single player has, there wouldn't be a lot for the designers to work with. The smallest party size seems like the sweet spot.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

While it literally pains me to defend Riyah - I am inclined to agree (IN THIS SPECIFIC instance only).

I don't see how you can design good engaging/challenging 4 man content within the current design constraints with respect to tanks/healers.

Using your example - translated to a 4 man savage O5S, if you needed to use a CD to cover a mistake, then you don't have a CD you need later for a tankbuster. If you can survive without a CD, then the mechanic doesn't matter. If you can Clemency the boss auto's to survive while healer is trapped, how do you offset/survive raidwide damage then? Can't clemency everyone, and you could vercure some, but it won't be enough. What if your comp (which contains 4 out of 15 now, instead of 8 out of 15) doesn't have one of those? What if it doesn't have either?

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Well, the thing I was replying to was specifically the idea that in that case, if the healer gets put into a ghost then it's an automatic wipe. Which isn't true. People can do stuff. If it's tuned so high that there's no room for error than perhaps not, but there's a fairly wide gap between that and "it's literally impossible to fail this" that we had in 4.0 expert. I think there's plenty of room to close up the gap without it being "someone missed a thing, wipe it". Especially with the ghosts, where in a dungeon context you'd really just need to be able to buy time for the healer to get back and then carry on.

Tuning is always harder with less people because of the wider variables involved, but that's not really justification to say "everything has to be faceroll", which is what I was getting from Riyah.

I enjoy how the title of the thread says "increasing the difficulty of casual content does not equal Savage" and yet people are getting into debates on how to bring Savage into 4man instances.

The point is that it doesn't have to be savage.

There is a bredth of potential contnet between faceroll and Savage. Aim there, not at Savage.

I Remember first dungeons aoe to be nearly lethal as to that error did matter, kinda reminded me of cataclysm where standing in the [insert w/e fire/water/void zone you like] would mean death, it was fun and engaging, but they had to tone down because ppl simply kept complaining instead of manning up.

I mean I get it on release most mechanics were not as obvious, some even could be hidden by aoe effects, but they fixed that and yet still ppl complained. That said it wouldn't be such a problem here so why not? I like fractal hard, but the fact that flare star doesn't really need me moving to save myself is jarring

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

I enjoy how the title of the thread says "increasing the difficulty of casual content does not equal Savage" and yet people are getting into debates on how to bring Savage into 4man instances.

The point is that it doesn't have to be savage.

There is a bredth of potential contnet between faceroll and Savage. Aim there, not at Savage.

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That said, figuring out whether the best way to reach such a difficulty is to aim at Savage and then proceed just part of the way and smooth out the edges vs. aiming for something inherently different is a very relevant point of discussion.

I'd argue that the best midcore difficulty is one that targets competence, awareness, engagement, and tactics insofar as positioning, CD-syncing, and focus-targeting (almost) equally to Savage (or perhaps, in some cases, even more, as repeat runs of an exact script actually devalues such things), but with greatly deemphasized memorization -- if any at all.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

snip

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I wish I could describe specific mechanics without spending a page on each, but alas, there's little between full and concrete detail and scant formulaic summary.

I will attempt to do my best with the latter. If necessary, I'll then attempt the former, if I've time.

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I don't see how you can design good engaging/challenging 4 man content within the current design constraints with respect to tanks/healers.

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While those constraints pain me even more than the staleness of encounter design they might force, I do think those restrictions are a bit overstated.

Let's consider briefly what a mechanic is, at least in XIV:
- A cue that signals viability of movement, or window-closure that punishes excess of movement, along an enforced route or set of routes.
- (Currently where "cheeseable" only) a point of group decision.

That's really it.

None of that needs to disappear with a 4-man. Where complexity is lost over the reduction in n network of players positioning around each other (which tends to be overstated unless preparation for the mechanic or mechanic prior failed to some degree), the latter can be emphasized.

Let's take the quoted example for example:

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Using your example - translated to a 4 man savage O5S, if you needed to use a CD to cover a mistake, then you don't have a CD you need later for a tankbuster. If you can survive without a CD, then the mechanic doesn't matter. If you can Clemency the boss auto's to survive while healer is trapped, how do you offset/survive raidwide damage then? Can't clemency everyone, and you could vercure some, but it won't be enough. What if your comp (which contains 4 out of 15 now, instead of 8 out of 15) doesn't have one of those? What if it doesn't have either?

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What becomes necessary isn't actually one extreme of tuning or another, but rather that "third" option, whereby you can apply tuning over the fight -- such as from areas with cover that cost uptime (to everyone, ideally, not just melee), rather than merely over the one make-or-break moment. This is largely why strong DPS checks exist, especially where downtime has survival advantages; they give a huge variety of mechanical flexibility to work from as downtime becomes a gradual but very real form of danger in itself.

Rather than compromising the tuning towards either a true, unavoidable one-shot when lacking a given tool or negligible damage to compensate for that tool's likely absence, allowing a mechanic to be a one-shot avoidable by certain tools or by downtime when lacking those tools allows a wider array of compositions to contribute towards the fight without diminishing the overall difficulty.

Of course, here comes the anti-DPS-checks faction's torches and pitchforks... Because god forbid a mechanic not one-shot us outright or that we can actually stay focused on the fight whilst performing that mechanic correctly...

To attach some modicum of example, though, in major regards beyond party-wide mechanics...

Let's say you have a fight from which a given player may (or must) be snatched/separated, leaving the others to fend for themselves. Assuming a strong DPS check, this is of approximately equal risk overall, but the most notable examples will doubtless be the loss of healer or a tank. If you make each hit or frequent hard-hitting special instead a split AoE (iirc, there have been 3-4 examples of this in 8-mans already), then the party can survive the temporary loss of a tank and the impending chain-kills with proper heals on a "MT" dps and "OT" dps swaps, just as a party could survive the loss of healer if topped off prior through said swaps, and a party short of a DPS could pop an extra CD or two and go full tank/healer ham on the DPS check (which, as it is not the final enrage, is meant solely to force a point of decision and commitment thereto in order to add dynamics to the way the fight is handled, not in itself to test DPS throughput under normal conditions).

In summary, before I have to dash out the door, you keep mechanical threat high without destroying compositional choice or butchering a party for singular mistakes through:
- Mechanics which weigh survival vs. downtime (thus flexing the role of tank and healer)
- Core changes such as damage-splitting (further flexing the role of tank)
- Considering the space consumed by mechanics as a situational average of proportionate (e.g. the AoE splash radii around each of 4 players therefore being bigger than around each of 8, such that roughly the same portion of the room is covered) and the downtime and preemptive action required (e.g. the amount of (down)time necessary to move from to the safe area)

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I'm not sure how good it can be without some sweeping changes to the core combat system (which I'm all for)

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"Workable" is my assumption. Probably just as workable as currently seen in the 8-man environment, even. Though, they could certainly be a whole lot better with said sweeping changes...

Firstly - let me clarify one point. With respects to the OP yes - I agree 100% you can make content more difficult without it being Savage difficulty. I've posted a few times earlier in this post, and even cited an example of a boss fight changed to fit that paradigm. However, we ended up getting off topic thanks to Riyah. While what he said was OT with respect to the OP. I still stand by the defense of his statement.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

The more players there are, the greater chance of mistakes being made, and the more likeliness of "dead weight" so to speak. In a 4-player dungeon, you should not be able to "dead weight" anyone

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Agreed. I should have been more clear in my previous response. My intent was for you to identify why you personally think that making 4 man content the hardest content available (instead of their current decision of 8) would be better.

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Realistically, the kind of "hard" mechanics you want to drop on a 4-player team are that which removes a player (eg fetters/gaol) from action if a major mechanic is ignored. eg fetter the tank, then the boss goes after the healer. Fetter the healer, tank can't free them, and the DPS has to free the healer. Fetter the DPS, the other DPS has to free them. If the tank or healer try to free a fettered DPS, then they neglect their roles, and create a failure situation. This is just one example of where the roles during a boss would need to be more rigidly enforced.

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In your example - what is the "failed major mechanic" that spawns the fetter? An example would be helpful to understand your concept.

Why couldn't a tank help free a gaoled/fettered healer?

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Originally Posted by Shihen

Mechanic failure rates typically scale with player count because each player adds a potential point of failure.

As player count scales down, the content difficulty can increase and still maintain the expected clear rate, while increasing player participation because it's easier to find a group. Theoretically, the most difficult content could be made for solo players but with the limited toolkit a single player has, there wouldn't be a lot for the designers to work with. The smallest party size seems like the sweet spot.

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Agreed - I should have been more clear. See my response above to Kisa for more clarification.

That said - you actually kind of touched on something that further corroborates my statement. The limited toolkit significantly hampers the viability of "challenging/engaging" solo content. This parallels with my statement that 4 man suffers from the same issue (namely in the tank/healer department). This is why I mentioned earlier that I felt 8 man was the better choice than 4 man. What types of 4 man mechanics can you design that are engaging/fun to tanks/healers?

Examples would be helpful here.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Well, the thing I was replying to was specifically the idea that in that case, if the healer gets put into a ghost then it's an automatic wipe. Which isn't true. People can do stuff. If it's tuned so high that there's no room for error than perhaps not, but there's a fairly wide gap between that and "it's literally impossible to fail this" that we had in 4.0 expert. I think there's plenty of room to close up the gap without it being "someone missed a thing, wipe it". Especially with the ghosts, where in a dungeon context you'd really just need to be able to buy time for the healer to get back and then carry on.

Tuning is always harder with less people because of the wider variables involved, but that's not really justification to say "everything has to be faceroll", which is what I was getting from Riyah.

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That's kind of our point though. As you lessen the ability to layer mechanics because of less available targets per responsibility it becomes more binary. Normally you'd offset this with a more robust toolkit/decision making and choice, but that isn't an option in the current design constraints. If it was an option I would agree with you 100%.

I touched on this above - I agree 100% that you can make things harder without being savage. You've even seen my Motherbit example that I think accomplishes that philosophy quite well. However, Riyah in all his ridiculous exaggeration went OT and that is what we were responding too.

I still agree with his assessment that given the games design, it really isn't that feasible to create a fun savage equivalent in 4 man content without considerable changes due to tank/healer design.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

None of that needs to disappear with a 4-man. Where complexity is lost over the reduction in n network of players positioning around each other (which tends to be overstated unless preparation for the mechanic or mechanic prior failed to some degree), the latter can be emphasized.

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What latter? I think you didn't finish your thought here.

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Let's say you have a fight from which a given player may (or must) be snatched/separated, leaving the others to fend for themselves. Assuming a strong DPS check, this is of approximately equal risk overall, but the most notable examples will doubtless be the loss of healer or a tank. If you make each hit or frequent hard-hitting special instead a split AoE (iirc, there have been 3-4 examples of this in 8-mans already), then the party can survive the temporary loss of a tank and the impending chain-kills with proper heals on a "MT" dps and "OT" dps swaps, just as a party could survive the loss of healer if topped off prior through said swaps, and a party short of a DPS could pop an extra CD or two and go full tank/healer ham on the DPS check (which, as it is not the final enrage, is meant solely to force a point of decision and commitment thereto in order to add dynamics to the way the fight is handled, not in itself to test DPS throughput under normal conditions).

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Your example mechanic is incredibly unclear (a result of your haste to get out the door I assume). I just don't think the jobs have the tools to do what you're entailing.

If a solo player gets grabbed what are they doing while they're detained? While a given player is detained what is happening elsewhere? How long is a player detained for? Does that impact change based on which role gets snagged?

DPS don't really have clean tools to swap threat, and if the damage is low enough that a healer can sustain it on them, how trivial would it be on the tank?

Control over DPS really doesn't exist in this game. It's very hard to conserve CDs, or pool resources.

I'd be interested if you could throw up a rough draft example encounter. As for guidelines - grab a random dungeon boss and make it into a savage equivalent encounter (yes I know this is OT). You can make a thread just for me I'll find/read it.