The Royal Menagerie

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

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Some of us would just like to be able to see the game's story without it feeling like pulling teeth. Not everyone is interested in proceeding on to extreme/savage stuff and I don't think that sort of thing should be pushed onto the casual players.

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What you are proposing is to divide the casual and core communities again as they were in HW.

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This divide will always exist because (here's a shocker) players are different, with differing goals, and differing capabilities. This one fight isn't going to change that one bit.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Not everyone is interested in proceeding on to extreme/savage stuff and I don't think that sort of thing should be pushed onto the casual players.

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Are you insinuating that the Royal Menagerie feels on par with extreme primals and/or savage?

Barring perhaps Bismarck at launch, I have to vehemently disagree.

Shinryu is extremely forgiving, and the mechanics are pretty much just dodge really obviously telegraphed moves. I'm not sure whether the add phase is a DPS check, but if it is, it is very mild to say the least.

I just wanted to throw in the fact that I absolutely loved this challenge. After the initial shock of the difficulty, I felt empowered to study each time I gave it a shot and master the fight down to a science. It is very party reliant, and sometimes you just get a shitty deck handed to you. It's okay. It took me about 3 days to complete this. Trying 3-4 times each day.

My girlfriend started playing FF for the first time with this expansion. She boosted a healer, I'm a DK. Granted she was sitting right next to me and I was calling out for her to react, but on the run we beat it, not a single person died to mechanics. If she can do it, anyone can do it, and I don't mean that as an insult, but she is literally completely new to FF. I think this level of difficulty is fine. You want to beat a game in 4 days go buy a single player game.

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Are you insinuating that the Royal Menagerie feels on par with extreme primals and/or savage?

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Did I say that?

The fight isn't hard, but it does give all players a stepping stone towards extreme primals, making the content feel more accessible and less daunting, generating a gradual difficulty curve.

This is what I was responding to, and I'm saying that if this fight was intended as a "stepping stone" to extreme/savage content, then I'm against it being part of the main story. The MSQ should be for everyone; extreme/savage stuff is for a minority.

Please do not get SE to nerf this fight. It is fun and provides an enjoyable challenge.

When I get this in trial roulette I will gladly work to help any new players to clear it. I'll stay wipe after wipe till the team starts bailing.

If you can just wave the magic "but msq" card at every challenge then just replace everything with westwind cape. The guy needs some company anyways.

I suppose I kind of glossed over the thing you were quoting.

That said, extreme primals are intended to be mid-core, so I personally don't see an issue with a difficulty in-between ridiculous faceroll and mid-core.

It seems in a good spot from what I've seen. I've done it twice. Once for my first time and another for a friend's first time. In both cases it took 3-4 pulls do and little over a half hour total.

I think that's a fine spot for a "Final Boss"-type encounter. It feels about on par with the final bosses from the single-player Final Fantasy games, which is a great place to be.

It's only going to get easier as players gear up and you start getting folks more kitted out winding up in it from the roulette.

Guys, Its a final Boss fight, It HAS to be challenging até minimum.

Thordan was awesome bit he lack on the difficulty departament.

We had him do the water knockback in a way that the fallen platforms made it impossible I think.

And I died to AoEs like twice when my screen was just entirely white and I couldn't see them to be able to dodge.

Other than that it seemed fine.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

This is what I was responding to, and I'm saying that if this fight was intended as a "stepping stone" to extreme/savage content, then I'm against it being part of the main story. The MSQ should be for everyone; extreme/savage stuff is for a minority.

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Um. Mechanics are for everyone.

Extreme/Savage end-game is a minority you don't have to be part of. Take your clear and be done with it.

This fight was amazing. Almost wish they would ilvl sync it at 310 like the Ala Mhigo dungeon to preserve this experience (if it is already I didn't notice). Beating that fight felt like defeating an EX trial without having the difficulty of it. Kind of felt like killing Sophia EX for the first time.

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Originally Posted by TeddyXIV

I love EVERYTHING about this fight. It test everything I have learned, and I stood up and cheered so hard after we won.

Thank you. Please don't change it. Please keep it this way! We as a community will learn, help each other, and we'll be out geared in no time.

Thank you for a wonderful story in Stormblood!

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Nothing else to say to that. Thank you SE for this finale in 4.0.
Please do NOT change it. It's a test of everything you have learned so far.

Tried this Sunday casually while hungover and got absolutely destroyed and spent 90 minutes trying and trying and wiping lol. Did it again this morning prepared for hell and cleared without even a single wipe. It's a lot of fun and felt extremely rewarding once we finished but ultimately I do think it's asking a bit much of some casual players. It won't be so bad in a week though, at the moment there are a lot of people who leveled up as a tank first for fast queues who no offence to them but have no experience/business tanking. Same with some healers I've seen, if you get paired up with a poor tank and/or healer, yeah you're going to have a really tough time with it.

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Originally Posted by Senden

...but ultimately I do think it's asking a bit much of some casual players.

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I am genuinely curious as to what makes you and apparently a fair few others feel this way.

I could see the fight potentially being taxing on healers, particularly if tanks don't share Akh Mourn, but otherwise I don't get it.

If people are having trouble with the fight, then quite frankly they probably need the practice, they got 4 months or so to clear it till 4.1 drops. The fight will be significantly easier anyways once the new tomestones of boredom come out.

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Originally Posted by missybee

I am genuinely curious as to what makes you and apparently a fair few others feel this way.

I could see the fight potentially being taxing on healers, particularly if tanks don't share Akh Mourn, but otherwise I don't get it.

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Just from my experience dealing with random people across various games. Maybe it's a slightly negative view but some players are just seemingly incapable of using their brain while gaming. You need to be on your toes in the fight and constantly reacting to things with very little room for error, that's asking a lot for some players. As I discovered on Sunday, it's a pretty horrible feeling when you feel like you're holding the rest of the group back for whatever reason.

Can't wait for the Minstrel's ballad/ Extreme mode for this fight!

I think it was a fantastic fight, and I still sometimes run it myself just for kicks!

I don't really understand why some people believe it is too difficult. I mean, it primarily uses mechanics that we've already seen on other Primals.

Its an epic fight! Not too easy and not too hard! it has the perfect balance. I just do this fight for the lulz, because its so awesome. People are asking me why are you still doing this trial? And im like. I like the challenge.
Never ever nerf this! Pls! you just need to dodge at the right time, everyone can do that after a while!

My experience with trying to "dodge" things in this fight is that many of them hit such a wide area that you can't even get out of range in time, which kinda goes back to the whole "useless AoE markers" thing that became really common in instances like Dun Scaith. Why bother even showing them if they don't give sufficient reaction time?

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

My experience with trying to "dodge" things in this fight is that many of them hit such a wide area that you can't even get out of range in time, which kinda goes back to the whole "useless AoE markers" thing that became really common in instances like Dun Scaith. Why bother even showing them if they don't give sufficient reaction time?

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There's literally no aoe attack in this fight that isn't avoidable with purely reactionary dodging. You probably didn't see the safe spot closest to you and tried to run to one that was farther away.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

My experience with trying to "dodge" things in this fight is that many of them hit such a wide area that you can't even get out of range in time, which kinda goes back to the whole "useless AoE markers" thing that became really common in instances like Dun Scaith. Why bother even showing them if they don't give sufficient reaction time?

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You're supposed to use sprint when he charges across the arena. That's the only wide attack in that fight. Everything else can be dodged with little movement.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Did I say that?

The fight isn't hard, but it does give all players a stepping stone towards extreme primals, making the content feel more accessible and less daunting, generating a gradual difficulty curve.

This is what I was responding to, and I'm saying that if this fight was intended as a "stepping stone" to extreme/savage content, then I'm against it being part of the main story. The MSQ should be for everyone; extreme/savage stuff is for a minority.

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I'm not insinuating that extreme/savage content is for everyone, I am insinuating that this game had a really big problem of making those pieces of content feel accessible. When you have faceroll content like dungeons and regular NM primals as your base intro content, the spike in difficulty is offputting for a lot of players. What this piece of content does is demonstrate to players what a real fight looks like, it isn't difficult and it isn't extreme/savage level, but it requires you to be able to push buttons and not AFK, something which should be expected of all players.

Oh, and your comment about the divide in players, obviously the divide will always exist but the devs are trying to bring down how wide the gap is, and to find ways to bridge the gap and provide more accessibility to players.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

I'm not insinuating that extreme/savage content is for everyone, I am insinuating that this game had a really big problem of making those pieces of content feel accessible. When you have faceroll content like dungeons and regular NM primals as your base intro content, the spike in difficulty is offputting for a lot of players. What this piece of content does is demonstrate to players what a real fight looks like, it isn't difficult and it isn't extreme/savage level, but it requires you to be able to push buttons and not AFK, something which should be expected of all players.

Oh, and your comment about the divide in players, obviously the divide will always exist but the devs are trying to bring down how wide the gap is, and to find ways to bridge the gap and provide more accessibility to players.

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This so much. Aside from being overtuned A3S had an issue with an intense difficulty spike from A1S and A2S, which caused a lot of problems for people. Having the final boss fight as a stepping stone and putting the difficulty so that, while it is not on par with an Extreme Trial, it is a bit elevated from the usual face roll content. The only thing I feel like they could have done better was maybe make the leading dungeons a tad more difficult as it felt like The Royal Menagerie had its own difficulty spike so there would be a bit more of a gradual transition from them to it.

I cleared it today and was a very good fight, very flashy and confusing at first buts that's part of the fun. My only "complaint" is the wide range push back, even with sprint it feels that the timer is too tight if for whatever reason (a mechanics that made you move away from the group, like the chains or markers) you are not in the middle of the platform. This fight will nerf itself with gear and DD's doing a better job.

I hope this will be the base difficulty for 24m and normal mode OMEGA.