Why do casuals act as if it's the end of the world when suggesting?

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

I still need to do Aglaia this week. I will record a video tonight and post to youtube so you can see just how much you "dont need to heal for the most part." Im probably not allowed to link to the video here, but it will be findable. Im not disputing that you really believe the things you are saying, but my experience is very, very different lol. Like half the raid still gets blown off of Rhalgar multiple times.

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Go ahead. I will do the same.
How can the entire raid blown of by Rhalgr? I never expierenced that since the raid came out.
The max amount of deaths at the same time were 5 or 6.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

If you dont want to make 24 man raids harder, fine. But then make it shorter.


Let me compare Aglaia with CT.

CT got trash. I hate trash.

15-20 mins and you re done.

Aglaia got trash too.

25-35 mins for the most part.

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25-35 mins for the latest 24 man raids against 15-20 for the fastest one because people are completely overgeared on it, I don't see a problem in needed time for 24 man raids here. The only reason it take a while is because too much people are lazy and not doing their parts in damaging the boss, not a raid design problems...

And that's why the rest of the game should be a little harder and have DPS checks more often to force people into pushing their damn button...

One thing I never understood in ShB, the first days, I killed Titania in one pull with a lot of death during the adds phases. The next weeks, I've seen party unable to beat the dps checks of adds without any death...

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Originally Posted by Kazelus

The only reason it take a while is because too much people are lazy and not doing their parts in damaging the boss, not a raid design problems...

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I totally agree with you. But since the playerbase wont change to the better, the dungeons must change. Laziness shouldnt be awarded in my opinion. Not in a team-based game.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

I totally agree with you. But since the playerbase wont change to the better, the dungeons must change. Laziness shouldnt be awarded in my opinion. Not in a team-based game.

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Funny thing is, I know Yoshi P agrees with you too. He has gone on record stating that (paraphrasing) if he were designing a game for his personal tastes, it would be much, much harder. But he knows that isn't his audience.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

The same rule still applies to HW/ SB/ ShB alli raids.
CT is mandatory so even the smallest amount of the playerbase not unlocking HW/ SB/ ShB already reduces the pool of players eligible for it. CT is available at 50 while the other alli raids are 60/70/80 further reducing the pool of players by a signifcant amount the higher up you go.
A single person sub 60 is enough to lock 23 other people into CT and it doesn't matter if 23 other people could also get other alli raids in their roulette and roulette is still the biggest reason to do alli raids, that has nothing to do with difficulty.

I know you're trying really hard to argue that nobody needs more midcore content because the alli raid queue times clearly prove that it's not wanted with that really, really subtle "or... not wanting to play them?" but use some logic.
I have all alli raids unlocked and I rarely get anything other than CT because I always have a few people that are sub 60. I'd love to see Ivalice and Nier more often alas the playerpool for them is simply a lot smaller by nature.

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I don't know why you're acting all antagonistic towards me and saying I'm not thinking logically..

It is perfectly understandable and good to make a point about wanting more mid-level content in terms of difficulty. All I am trying to point out is that the mid-level content that does exist in the game currently doesn't seem to be actively sought out and played as the rest of the easier content, putting into question how big of an issue this is overall, and how much time and effort should developers put into fixing this issue.

Your argument is that people don't play this content solely because they haven't unlocked it (yet).
I am saying that I disagree somewhat, and that the reason people don't actively play them is because the effort needed to put into them isn't worth their time. What I am also saying is that if this specific issue you are presenting is as big of a glaring flaw in the game that needs fixing immediately, the lack of people playing actively queueing in for said content doesn't seem to make a good case for your argument, and that the addition of harder '' casual '' content is not a thing that doesn't come with it's issues that need to be addressed.

I am not saying that the game doesn't need said content. What I am saying is that it doesn't seem to be this huge issue that majority of the playerbase is concerned about, making it a question of what content should be increased in difficulty, how do we implement said increase in difficulty and what should we look out for as we increase difficulty, what negative effects does it have on the player base and their enjoyment.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

I totally agree with you. But since the playerbase wont change to the better, the dungeons must change. Laziness shouldnt be awarded in my opinion. Not in a team-based game.

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That's what I'm saying since the start of the thread, we need the MSQ content to ask players to play not perfectly optimal but with a baseline of doing combo and using CD.

The best thing that could happens to the game would be locking the DF from new players if they don't do some learning before (Like an enhanced hall of the novice with dps check and heal check. And an overhealing check.) and just give them the duty support so they can play with AI if they don't want to learn. It should have different level of difficulty throught ARR and only block dungeon from a level you haven't done before on the "enhanced hall of the novice".

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

Funny thing is, I know Yoshi P agrees with you too. He has gone on record stating that (paraphrasing) if he were designing a game for his personal tastes, it would be much, much harder. But he knows that isn't his audience.

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Well, it was designed for his personal taste back in Heavensward. It was much harder back then. Demon Wall in Amdapor Hard. Even some job quests.
But a small or niche audience doesnt create much money. So he sacrificed FFXIV's original status as a "hard but fair MMORPG" just to be more accessable for more players. The thing is, games can be hard AND accessable at the same time. But that would require alot of work.

I hate it. I hate to see how FFXIV become easier and boring. Just for the sake of generating a bigger playerbase.
Alot things improved over the years, I know that. But the only thing which gets worse every time is the playerbase as a result of making things easier and boring.

It says alot about the playerbase if people join a "Lion Phase practise group for E12S" and then wiping for 30 mins on the very first mechanics. Yes, that really happened. And it happened more than once.
And people are wondering why I beg the Devs to change their course. Make content more engaging and less a waste of time. Thats the only thing I want (that and some sin eater glamour in the shop xD).

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

Well, it was designed for his personal taste back in Heavensward. It was much harder back then. Demon Wall in Amdapor Hard. Even some job quests.
But a small or niche audience doesnt create much money. So he sacrificed FFXIV's original status as a "hard but fair MMORPG" just to be more accessable for more players. The thing is, games can be hard AND accessable at the same time. But that would require alot of work.

I hate it. I hate to see how FFXIV become easier and boring. Just for the sake of generating a bigger playerbase.
Alot things improved over the years, I know that. But the only thing which gets worse every time is the playerbase as a result of making things easier and boring.

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While you and I seem to want very different things from the game, I am actually truly sorry that you and those like you aren't having fun like I am, which is the most Ive ever had in a video game. and I do hope you find the fun again.

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

While you and I seem to want very different things from the game, I am actually truly sorry that you and those like you aren't having fun like I am, which is the most Ive ever had in a video game. and I do hope you find the fun again.

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I have fun. But I dare to run something with random people. Since Yoshi-P want to make the game more solo-friendly, I cant wait to go all content with NPCs only.
And on a side note, I ve been here since Beta of ARR. You dont know how FFXIV was in the good old days.

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Originally Posted by Tehmon

I don't know why you're acting all antagonistic towards me and saying I'm not thinking logically..

It is perfectly understandable and good to make a point about wanting more mid-level content in terms of difficulty. All I am trying to point out is that the mid-level content that does exist in the game currently doesn't seem to be actively sought out and played as the rest of the easier content, putting into question how big of an issue this is overall, and how much time and effort should developers put into fixing this issue.

Your argument is that people don't play this content solely because they haven't unlocked it (yet).
I am saying that I disagree somewhat, and that the reason people don't actively play them is because the effort needed to put into them isn't worth their time. What I am also saying is that if this specific issue you are presenting is as big of a glaring flaw in the game that needs fixing immediately, the lack of people playing actively queueing in for said content doesn't seem to make a good case for your argument, and that the addition of harder '' casual '' content is not a thing that doesn't come with it's issues that need to be addressed.

I am not saying that the game doesn't need said content. What I am saying is that it doesn't seem to be this huge issue that majority of the playerbase is concerned about, making it a question of what content should be increased in difficulty, how do we implement said increase in difficulty and what should we look out for as we increase difficulty, what negative effects does it have on the player base and their enjoyment.

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Apologies if I came of as rude but whenever someone seems to go for a "Ha! Gotcha!" moment, I lose my patience. Whether you intended to or not, it came of as doing exactly that to me.

What it does put into question is if the right midcore content.
Do you know what core loops are? Just a genuine question here because it might explain while you view things as you do.
The problem is that alli raids are not part of them aside from the most current one.

Glamour farming, RPing, housing district parcours or seeking your own challenge are all not part of the core loop.
Leveling and gearing are two of the major core loops in any MMO. Most other content ranges from "support content" to "niche".
Old alli raids are essentially niche content once done for the story. Why? They don't provide gear upgrades, they don't give signifcant amount of tomes and they don't give even halfway-decent exp. On top of that you're also synced down and many job kits has been changed so much over the years that they feel incomplete and janky below a certain level.
And that is a problem that FFXIV has dealt with for a long time: they design elaborate content which then has restrictions which makes it unattractive and completely cut off from the core loops.

The majority of alli raid roulettes will result in CT because it is the lowest common denominator, that is a simple fact.
The reason why people usually don't queue for e.g. SB raids specifically in order to get their fill for midcore difficulty is because they're not part of the core loop - you basically get nothing for it.
And MMOs don't function on hopes, faith and prayers alone where everyone does everything without getting anything out of it because they simply love it oh so much.

And before you say "so you only want a shiny reward".
Why do you think MSQ roulette had that insane exp and tome gain attached to it and forced cutscene watching? Not because players loved helping new player so much.
People want something for their time.
It's natural.
But people get next to nothing from doing specific old alli raids. You can't delegate a whole level of difficulty to unrewarding niche content and then say "See, you have content like that! But nobody is doing it so nobody seems to want it".

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

I have fun. But I dare to run something with random people.

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ahh okay and there is where the disconnect is. You probably actually dont wipe that often then, and I dont think either of our videos would be likely to change anyones mind about anything.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

Since Yoshi-P want to make the game more solo-friendly, I cant wait to go all content with NPCs only.
And on a side note, I ve been here since Beta of ARR. You dont know how FFXIV was in the good old days.

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You are right I dont, and I regret that very much. There were times in my life where I would have appreciated a more challenging hardcore MMO and indeed have from time to time. Now just isn't that time for me. But honestly though, if it was? This isn't the game I would be playing.

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

ahh okay and there is where the disconnect is. You probably actually dont wipe that often then, and I dont think either of our videos would be likely to change anyones mind about anything.

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You misunderstand me.

I ran all the leveling stuff with randoms. I did savage and ex with PF ppl. And i tried PvP with randoms obviously.
BUT: I keep all that content to the very minimun. I have no interest to run dungeons more than neccessary. I wont farm tomes or do PvP anymore. And no leveling, because everything is on max for months.

Since I want some glamour, I run Aglaia several times per week with 23 random ppl. And I experience only 1 wipe so far. I will make a video tonight.

[IMG][/IMG]

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

While you and I seem to want very different things from the game, I am actually truly sorry that you and those like you aren't having fun like I am, which is the most Ive ever had in a video game. and I do hope you find the fun again.

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bro you on the forums this is you right now

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...96/564/2f7.jpg

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Originally Posted by Kazelus

The phase 1 musics was already a mistake in normal, it completely got me out of the moments, it's the final boss, it deserved a unique musics for hitself, I can't listen to this musics anymore, it's presents in TOO MUCH fights... So if we can't had "with hearts aligned" we should have another unique musics for the fight, with a special phase to make the EX fight memorable and not a downgrade from the normal one... (Not on mechanics only in vibe) Instead of the scions reaching us, the fight should have showed our characters breaking his limit even more to beat meteion...

Never said planets are hards, I said there's annoying. I never get hit by any cause I know where to stand to avoid it and yeah you have plenty of time to move and I never lose uptime on the blue either... It's just not really an interesting mechs but an annoying one, that need a OS to justify players doing it because we all know, we wouldn't bother with if it wasn't the case... (Just like non melee uptime pattern on Zordiark...) And you can always stand at melee range for the red also... NE boom ? You go W. NW boom ? Go E. You will be safe for the red.

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Personally, i like the Music in normal and EX(i found "with hearts alligned" to be the worse of the two, it was a good hype music, but thats it, it was a good music for a "victory round" not for an actual fight)
I find it PERSONALLY fitting that the Final boss of the 10 year saga
it is quite litteraly a medley of each expansions final boss, Shinryu, the FF Overture in general, Ultima Weapon, Thordan, hades. There is not really a more fitting piece of music for this boss, Especially as its creation lead to basicaly everything we fought against even if indirectly. And honestly only ultima was "overused" prior to this fight from what i can remember

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

I didn't say the game is supposed to be hard or hardcore nor did I ask for it to become hard, did I?
So I don't get what you are argueing here.

Don't jump to conclusions or put words in my mouth and then argueing against them just because I used the word hard in relation to single-player games. I explicitely mentioned that the game lacks midcore content.

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I mean, you did say, quote:

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

I'll simply decline, find like-minded people and play it on hard with them.

...Or for slightly increased difficulty of MSQ with Duty Support (once expanded for all MSQ content) being the default story mode unless you change settings.

...SE is already set on going the spoonfeeding route.

If they do it they at least need to give others the options to not get spoonfed outside savage/ ultimate. I'd prefer to be treated as if I have a functioning brain, thanks.

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...all of that requesting a harder game, and implying people who don't play at that level lack "a functioning brain" or need to be "spoonfed" or need to fail in some way and then learn they need to go into the settings and decrease difficulty (which good luck on getting Grandma to understand how to do that).

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

Let me compare Aglaia with CT.

CT got trash. I hate trash.
But you have some kind of big healing (bone dragon).
You have to split into your groups (atomos).
You have tank swaps (thanatos?).
You have wipe mechanics (atomos, behemoth and the last boss).
The healer glamour is nice.
15-20 mins and you re done.

Aglaia got trash too.
No real big healing there.
No split up into groups.
No tank swaps.
Only one real wipe mechanic at the very end (balance).
The healer glamour is nice.
25-35 mins for the most part.

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you have some points


but LOTA(not CT as a whole, altough all of CT also dosnt have a tankswap)dosnt really have a Tankswap.. nothing is stopping the tank ot just keep thanatos on aggro when he no longer can attack it, it dosnt hurt anyone except some DPS on adds that the tank can also aggro to himself and attack.



And at leats CURRENTLY at current ILVL situation, half the raid does almost NOTHING during the party split, they sit on a platform and emote.. maybe shoot a stray arrow at something.
and behemoth is a "personal responsibility wipe" mechanic for 90% of it(unless all rock carriers decide to troll or are unlucky) as in, you carry the responsbility for your own death, noone else


and only has "big healing" if either the tank is garbage and tanks the dragon center, or the DPS are garbage and let the skeletons trough. aka "its big heal if people are bad at the duty"



and Aglaia
Has similiar "own responsibility wipe" with the hammer in the first fight that move the platform. And the knockback in The third fight(second "boss")
It also TECHNICALLY has a Shared tankbuster in the last fight, but because every single tank dosnt understand that its a SHARED TANKBUSTER!!!!! you have to basically invul it or otherwise overmitigate it (ignorign overgearing)which, let me tell you as a PLD is REALLY annoying, as the second tankbuster is just BARELY far enough apart to invul them booth.. so if you invul slightly late during the first tb cast? your shit out of luck





and perosnally i rather wipe at Naldthal 10 times, then even twice in LOTA. i actually enjoy the Naldthal fight, its not overly complex, sure, but it is good msuic, nice asthetic, and so on.

^^^^^^
Also the problem is, we cant judge this ARaid tier at the moment, as CT also had varying degree of actual "mechanics"

LOTA had a split, a "tankswap" if we want to call it, and instawipe in behemoth and endboss.
Sycrus dosnt have a split(at least currently from what i recall)
a single "instawipe" in Amon
and mostly trash(like jesus a lot of trash)


WoD had, a party split, fair, better then the one in LOTA as well.
a Second party split in cerberus(technicaly its "all DPS go in with a healer or so" but " Alliance B go Belly" is easier to coordinate randomly)
and a "pseudo party split" in cloud of darkness("pseudo" because its really just "get a few people in every box for a total of 20 seconds")
infact, most of WoD was either trash, more trash, or Party split
only five headed Dragon defied that.


NOW dont get me wrong, Aglaia has problems..
Like Why is it that killing one of the 2 Lions in that fight(well lion lioness) makes it EASIER? my FC assumed when we run it blind together as a full 24 man stack that killing one before the other would be some sort of "soft enrage"..(similiar to stuff like Castrum Lacus litorce and the top bottom boss) so we did burn them down evenly..


Only to learn after that killing one first is genuinly the better idea. Or why is there a 100% no damage safespot during Rhalgrs Metero shower when he punches said meteor? going to the fingers edge as far away from a flare marker made more inherent sense for me and my party when we first fought it,

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Originally Posted by kaynide

...all of that requesting a harder game, and implying people who don't play at that level lack "a functioning brain" or need to be "spoonfed" or need to fail in some way and then learn they need to go into the settings and decrease difficulty (which good luck on getting Grandma to understand how to do that).

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A good grandkid would have joined their Grandma and taught her how to play the video game. I'm fighting against the wind though, lets go full accessibility across the board (except ultimates, of course. :^) ).

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

The problem is that part of the playerbase gets forced into something without a choice while the other gets to enjoy things their way.
Does anyone here mind a "story mode" in single players?
Probably not and the reason is that there is a choice. Someone can play a game in story mode, it doesn't affect me in the slightest because I can just play it on hard. If someone wants to play a game in coop with me but is dead set on story mode, I'll simply decline, find like-minded people and play it on hard with them.

MSQ is set to story mode.
All dungeons are set to story mode.
Open world (fates, hunts) is set to story mode.
Alliance and normal raids are set to a bit above story mode.
Bozja is set to story mode except for duels and DR savage.

The only things not set to story mode is content that is one boss on a platform, has to be done with 8 players and via PF/ static unless you're on JP, is not part of daily/ weekly tasks and requires a higher amount of time at once. You don't do a "quick ultimate", you don't spontaneously queue for p3s. Hopping into ex farm for 15min is considered a-hole behaviour and for good reason.
The famous response to the current state of healers would be just as tone-deaf if used for this problem.
There is no midcore content and there is no choice for how you do your weekly homework. My only ways to cap tomes right now are experts (story mode, yawn...), hunts (same), roulettes at 90 (pray I get a rarely done duty with clownfiesta), farming Aglaia (clownfiesta please, please, please).
I'd kill for 4man content with scaling difficulty that is an alternative route for catch up gear and tome farming. Or for slightly increased difficulty of MSQ with Duty Support (once expanded for all MSQ content) being the default story mode unless you change settings. Nobody is excluded from completing MSQ this way.

If if was entirely up to me, I'd go for a gradual, smooth increase in difficulty that lets people learn naturally without them even noticing while also offering tutorials like Hall of Novice/ Intermediate/ Advanced to refresh memory or give additional ways to learn if someone wants to. But I suppose that ship has long sailed and SE is already set on going the spoonfeeding route.
If they do it they at least need to give others the options to not get spoonfed outside savage/ ultimate. I'd prefer to be treated as if I have a functioning brain, thanks.

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^^^This, this and this again.^^^

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I mean, you did say, quote:



...all of that requesting a harder game, and implying people who don't play at that level lack "a functioning brain" or need to be "spoonfed" or need to fail in some way and then learn they need to go into the settings and decrease difficulty (which good luck on getting Grandma to understand how to do that).

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Do you know the difference between "hard" and "slightly increased"? Where have I mentioned that people need to fail?
And kindly remind me again where exactly I said that:
1) I want the game to be hard
2) FFXIV is supposed to be/ advterised as hard?
You have yet to do that.

I mean, you even highlighted "slightly increased" and yet you are talking as if I want to turn the game into a full-blown hardcore game while highlighting proof that it wasn't my intention at all.
Or why do you think I advocate for choices for easier modes (Duty Support/ difficulty settings for duties) to exist? Or specifically for midcore content?
Oh and I specifically said Duty Support is the default story mode unless you change settings - so it's easy unless you set it to harder. Please just read properly. Please.

If you want to have a sensible discussion I'm all ears. But as long as you're deliberately misinterpreting what others say just so you can paint them in the evil super duper hardcore elitist light that won't be possible.

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Originally Posted by ZeraSkiratea

Personally, i like the Music in normal and EX(i found "with hearts alligned" to be the worse of the two, it was a good hype music, but thats it, it was a good music for a "victory round" not for an actual fight)
I find it PERSONALLY fitting that the Final boss of the 10 year saga
it is quite litteraly a medley of each expansions final boss, Shinryu, the FF Overture in general, Ultima Weapon, Thordan, hades. There is not really a more fitting piece of music for this boss, Especially as its creation lead to basicaly everything we fought against even if indirectly. And honestly only ultima was "overused" prior to this fight from what i can remember

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"With hearts aligned" was a fucking second wind and hope out of despair because after the first minutes of P1 musics I lost hope in Soken and Yoshida to bring that musics for the final fight... The first minutes in the arena is an old music already used too much times and that is not what I expected from them... So yeah, it was maybe the most fitting piece for this since in put into despair but... That killed the hype of the expansion & the emotions of the moments until "with hearts aligned" started playing. I had high hope for the EX version to be incredible, I was disappointed to a point... I literally stoped playing after having killed it, I don't want to farm for the mount because the music just makes me want to do something else... Just like Zodiark EX annoys me with his easyness, this fight just kills me with this musics...
And by the way, I'm really bad at recognizing music at first, so if I recognize a music somewhere I enter for the first time in less than 10 seconds in this game, I'm already out in my heads... (Yeah, this raid tier was not good for me either on that point but at least I wasn't expecting much on this side for this content...)

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

I still need to do Aglaia this week. I will record a video tonight and post to youtube so you can see just how much you "dont need to heal for the most part." Im probably not allowed to link to the video here, but it will be findable

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Well, I did Aglaia with 23 random ppl and recorded it. Based on the recordings, I counted the healings and raises I did. Shields and Pneuma are counted as heals as well. It may not be 100% correct though.

To make things more interesting, I asked the random WHM not to heal (excluding Assize, which is part of his damage rotation). As far as I can tell, he barely healed, with the exception of Assize, a few raises and maybe the one or other Afflatus Solace (because it was a bit messy at the end).


Aglaia, 03.06.2022 22:41 - 33 mins total

Byregot: 9 heals
Rhalgrs Pet: 4 heals
Rhalgr: 16 heals and 2 raises (2 deaths)
Lions: 3 heals because DNC got aggro
Azeyma: 30 heals and 3 raises (5 deaths)
Naldthal: 31 heals and 2 raises (4 deaths)

Total: 93 heals and 7 raises (of 11 deaths) from my side. If some video evidence is needed, I can provide a link here or via discord. Someone even uploaded the logs lol.

93 heals may look like a lot, but its not. Split that number in half because you have 2 healers. And I m just a casual with standard gear. Real raiders may heal the entire group with even lesser heals.


In conclusion: No, you dont really need to heal in Aglaia.

I'm personally okay with most MSQ stuff(this includes the leveling dungeons) to be straight forward and easy. There's a lot of people that play the game just for the story (I was one before I raided) and has no interest in hard content at all, so it wouldn't make sense for it to be hard. MSQ is pretty much the lowest of the lowest floors because you have to do it to unlock the features of the expansion for so it makes sense for it to be really accessible. It's the bare minimum filter essentially.

I'm also okay with the 24 mans as it is. It's supposed to be LFR, raids for the casual playerbase. A place for a dude to just go in with a couple of friends and just have a good time. Kinda like the arcade, but in the MMO. Sure they can be as hard as pre-nerfed Orbonne (and I personally would love that type of difficulty back), it doesn't really have to be. 24 mans have its place, as a way for casuals to have a taste of raiding, with no pressure. Like a taste test of some sort.

Normals are the same thing. They're meant to be a taste of 8 man raiding. They have actual mechanics to make it more difficult than the MSQ trials, and are just there to put just a little bit of personal responsibility on the people in there. Go in, have some fun, farm the last turn weekly for the tome weapon token, blah blah blah, you know the drill.

Now I'm okay with the above three being accessible. They shouldn't really be much harder than what they are right now. They're just there for the people who can't handle raiding, and honestly that's completely fair. Make content for the peeps who just wanna vibe and chill without thinking about buttons. That's fine. They're all pretty much beatable by literally doing your 123s and that's perfect. Let people have that.

What I kinda have a problem with right now, is that they're slowly making the High End duties(aside from Ultimates) a lot easier.

Extremes have an enrage, but no dps check. Sure they should be easier than Savage, since it's technically the first fights a budding raider would do, but I don't think making the enrage not matter is a good path forward. I think they should still have a relatively tighter enrage, but have easy mechanics to compensate, since they should be the "do you know the basics of your job" check. If you can do your rotation while handling very straightforward mechanics, then you can clear the fight. As it is right now, it has easy and straightforward mechanics, but its dps check needs to be tightened a lot more. 5-8 deaths with damage downs should be the maximum leeway. Right now, you can clear EX 1, EX 2 and EX 3, with more than 10 deaths.

P3S and P4S are exactly where they should be. I have no problems with these floors. The only problem is that P1S is essentially has the ideal Extreme dps check. I don't think any of the floors for Savage should have an Extreme level dps check. I get that the tier gets "harder" as you prog through the tier, but P1S (and to an extent P2S) feels like they're made to be Extreme fights. I don't like the idea of Savage getting nerfed for the sake of "Ah yes more people into Savage!", because it's meant as a wall you have to overcome. Savage shouldn't have a welcome in mat. The welcome mat are meant to be the Extreme fights. Make the first and second Savage floors harder and make it appeal to the target audience of Savage, the people who like being tested and improving to overcome that test.

High End duties are meant to be a test of a player's endurance and consistency. Don't make them easier to try and shovel people in.

There's also no point to making the jobs easier to play when casual content demands 0 effort to clear (as it should be). The jobs should remain complex. BLM should be the baseline of complexity for the jobs in the game as it has a very low skill floor, but a very high skill ceiling. People who have no interest in tackling harder content will play the job as usual whether or not it's complex or the state it is now. The people who just do 1 2 3s or spam Cure 1s in Dungeons will still keep doing that whether or not the WHM has 3 more dps buttons and or the Monk has its positionals back.

Making the jobs easier and the high end content easier will just disgruntle high end players while barely affecting the casual players. Making the game accessible doesn't mean lowering the skill ceiling Yoshida. You can both lower the floor and raise the ceiling at the same time. It's just harder to do so, but hey, that's your job isn't it?

There needs to be room for skill expression in this game, and right now, there barely isn't.

Lol we just wiped in LOTA because people didn't know not to stand in KB's hitbox during meteors...after someone explained it. People don't care, that's all it is. They just want the easy carry to the reward.

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Originally Posted by Quor

If the "In From the Cold" nerfs taught us anything, it's that the vast majority of the player base seems incapable of understanding context clues and is completely helpless without something akin to a bright neon arrow pointing them to exactly where they need to go.

It is my fervent hope that SE understands that said casual players will simply abandon the game when it becomes too boring for them, which it will in record time due to how absolutely braindead most content has become. SE will also lose the more dedicated fan base that was the source of this games revival and success in the process. SE will once again make the corporate mistake of prioritizing short-term profits over long-term sustained growth. I'm reminded of a line from the intro cutscene in Secret of Mana; time flows like a river, and history repeats. It seems as if the hubris of SE may once again be on the rise, with dedicated fans and new players alike, who both enjoy a challenge, being left behind in favor of the FotM fly-by-night casual crowd who will largely tap out after a handful of months.

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There were legitimate complaints about the In from the Cold scenario, though. I can see it being very jarring for someone not used to that type of gameplay. Before it's brought up, no I'm not one of them. That was one of my favorite parts of Endwalker and I would be thrilled to see more like it, but I'm also a fiend for stealth games. And I know that can sometimes be an acquired taste in gameplay.

For me 'In from the Cold' the goal was reasonably clear; it was the clustered mobs that spawned without the whistles and bells stealth games normally offer to help sneaky-sneak past foes that hurt a lot. Being mediocre in Tenchu translated to eating dirt hard on multiple tries. So many times I'd wind up trapped between a gaggle of foes guaranteed to aggro and a fast approaching gang ready to split my helmeted head open like a melon.

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Originally Posted by Cygnia

For me 'In from the Cold' the goal was reasonably clear; it was the clustered mobs that spawned without the whistles and bells stealth games normally offer to help sneaky-sneak past foes that hurt a lot. Being mediocre in Tenchu translated to eating dirt hard on multiple tries. So many times I'd wind up trapped between a gaggle of foes guaranteed to aggro and a fast approaching gang ready to split my helmeted head open like a melon.

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A majority of the complaints I recall seeing from ppl about "In from the Cold" were either ppl unhappy the quest had you play a different person who was unable to just walk thru the quest area killing everything while sipping a cup of tea or spent too much time finding the quest objectives in the magitek salvage because it wasn't auto marked on their map for them with big glowing markers on the main screen to make them go "ooh a piece of candy" repeatedly until they finished the quest.

As for the other person saying the quest indicated a vast majority of the player base being incapable of understanding context clues. Nah I'd like to think a majority cleared that quest like I did with 0 issue and it was just a noisy minority that didn't even read said clues making most of the noise as they were clueless on the quest due to doing the equivalent of buying assemble yourself furniture but throwing the assembly instructions in the garbage without even looking at them the moment you open the box.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

[...]In conclusion: No, you dont really need to heal in Aglaia.

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Aglaia as a whole has a very pushover healing requirement. As far as unavoidable damage, either from raidwide or tankbusters, they all come out at very low frequency:

• Byregot
  
  00:10 - Ordeal of Thunder (Basic Raidwide)
  00:36 - Byregot's Ward (Basic Tankbuster cleave)
  03:13 - Ordeal of Thunder
  03:48 - Byregot's Ward
  ...With most auto attacks happening when the arena is transformed.
• Rhalgr
  
  00:12 - Lightning Reign (Basic Raidwide)
  01:07 - Broken World (Proximity)
  02:06 - Destructive Bolt (Basic Tankbuster)
  02:27 - Broken World + either real or fake proximities.
  03:52 - Destructive Bolt
  04:19 - Broken World
  04:26 - Lightning Storm (random, personal circle AoE)
  05:26 - Broken World
  All of these has very long cast time in which period Rhalgr stops auto attacking. He does not cast another Lightning Reign until about 6 minutes or longer into encounter, which is quite a rarity nowadays for his fight to last that long outside clownfiesta groups. Failing to do the knockback attacks properly results in instant deaths most of times (Yes, you can get get punched by Hand of Destroyer and somehow not falling off the arena).
• Azeyma
  
  00:12 - Warden's Prominence (Basic Raidwide)
  00:51 - Warden's Warmth (Basic Tankbuster AoE)
  02:07 - Warden's Warmth
  03:05 - Warden's Prominence
  03:32 - 1st Triangle knockback, minor damage
  03:36 - 2nd Triangle knockback, minor damage
  03:40 - 3rd Triangle knockback, minor damage
  04:21 - Sublime Sunset (Proximity)
  05:50 - Warden's Warmth
• Nald'Thal
  
  00:12 - As Above, So Below (Raidwide + Blue/Red Flame mechanic)
  00:35 - As Above, So Below
  01:01 - Heaven's Trial (Stack up) + Smelting (random personal cone)
  01:09 - Golden Tenet (Stack Up Tankbusters)
  01:20 - As Above, So Below
  01:47 - As Above, So Below
  04:03 - Fortune's Flux (Boss jumping around for pointblank or knockbacks with minor damage)
  04:46 - Fortune's Flux
  05:42 - Magmatic Spell (Add's stack up marker)
  06:48 - Tipped Scales (Ultimate Raidwide)
  07:07 - As Above, So Below
  07:33 - Stygian Tenet (Personal Tankbusters)
  07:43 - As Above, So Below
  08:08 - Hell's Trial (Basic Raidwide)
  If you're (un)lucky, Red "As Above, So Below" usually comes with additional damage from a line up marker.

Nald'Thal is a bit of an outlier amongst the 4, but nothing like pressing 1 or 2 more buttons from a healer's arsenal & it would be enough to go back to 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 again. This is one of the reason why day 1-3 of Alliance Raids are the most fun period for green icons.

Quest In from the Cold wasn't even a challenge. Finished it on the first try.

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Originally Posted by Kazelus

"With hearts aligned" was a fucking second wind and hope out of despair because after the first minutes of P1 musics I lost hope in Soken and Yoshida to bring that musics for the final fight... SNIP

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you have your opinion, nothing will change that, i just fundamentaly disagree that "having the final boss use the music of the previous 10 years of Endbosses" is bad in any capacity

This specific composition was never used before, parts within where obviously used all troughout the games history, as they where expansion endbosses. But outside of, once again, Ultima, i disagree that any of them where overused prior to this(well maybe the HW portion as well) HECK how the fuck would invincible be overused, it litteraly came out an expansion ago.
And it starts with Shinryu, and the FF overture.. if you complain that a FF game uses the FF overture.. then what the actual.

And Shinryu is by far the least "overused" song in the entire track, it IS a very memorable track tho so its easy to recognize





it also perfectly "mirrors" Endwalker-Footfall, which also used previous expansion songs for its composition.
While Footfall uses the Expansions Main themes(including a remix of "torn from the heavens") which we can more or less "claim" to be our own

and EVEN HEARTS ALLIGNED isnt "fully original" it also uses part of "the makers ruin"(which IS the Warrior of Lights theme(as in the players))

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Originally Posted by ZeraSkiratea

you have your opinion, nothing will change that, i just fundamentaly disagree that "having the final boss use the music of the previous 10 years of Endbosses" is bad in any capacity
SNIP

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Actually if the songs have been a composition with shinryu's theme and the main EW theme as the way "hearts aligned" is, it would have been better, I just don't like having musics that have nothing to do with the boss I'm fighting... Shinryu is here so okay, no problem his theme can come but the others... If it was a ultima like with all ancient boss coming and doing something during the fight, okay no worry, but right now, I hear music and I see a different boss... If I blink, I will be lost, I'm not fighting what I thought during the blink...
And yeah, I put "with hearts aligned" in my house, I close my eyes, I see the endsinger fight. If I do the same with "the final day", nope... And that's sad... But yeah, that's my opinion.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

Quest In from the Cold wasn't even a challenge. Finished it on the first try.

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Yeah, me too, but it's "sneaking", which is boring as fuck. All they'd need to do is give that Garlean mook you have to play as some proper skills and make him less of a chump, so it's less monotonous, and so you can actually fight a little. I know the point was that you can't do that, but that doesn't make it any better.

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Originally Posted by Misplaced_Marbles

Yeah, me too, but it's "sneaking", which is boring as fuck. All they'd need to do is give that Garlean mook you have to play as some proper skills and make him less of a chump, so it's less monotonous, and so you can actually fight a little. I know the point was that you can't do that, but that doesn't make it any better.

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I remember fighting a fair amount during that quest. But then I collected a number of those optional objective points and as such had a supply of healing items to use.

As far as "sneaking" goes. I didn't consider that a sneaking mission. It honestly was just walking around an open area where stuff can aggro and potentially kill you. You know, kind of like when you run around Eureka zones for the first time before getting your elemental level up. The quest where you play as Thancred before that would be considered a sneaking or stealth mission.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Aglaia as a whole has a very pushover healing requirement. As far as unavoidable damage, either from raidwide or tankbusters, they all come out at very low frequency.

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I've largely quit healing, but I ran it last week on WHM because I wanted the robe for a hopeful future in which the role actually exists.

No healing was required that wasn't met by DPS weave Assize and Lily dumping. Actually, that's an exaggeration, I use more than 50% of my lilies to fuel Misery during movement, there's no way this content requires even a single heal every twenty seconds.

What I did do was spend 98% of the time spamming Glare and refreshing Dia.

As someone who has played healers in a litany of major and minor MMOs since EQ: This game currently has some of the worst healer gameplay of any MMO I've ever played, FFXI's WHM absolutely dunks on the sad specimen in XIV.

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Originally Posted by Mapleine

I've largely quit healing, but I ran it last week on WHM because I wanted the robe for a hopeful future in which the role actually exists.

No healing was required that wasn't met by DPS weave Assize and Lily dumping. Actually, that's an exaggeration, I use more than 50% of my lilies to fuel Misery during movement, there's no way this content requires even a single heal every twenty seconds.

What I did do was spend 98% of the time spamming Glare and refreshing Dia.

As someone who has played healers in a litany of major and minor MMOs since EQ: This game currently has some of the worst healer gameplay of any MMO I've ever played, FFXI's WHM absolutely dunks on the sad specimen in XIV.

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I remember having all of like 32 healing magic skill on WHM when I lvled it to 75 lol. I did however have capped club skill, enhancing magic, enfeebling magic, and holy magic... lol

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Originally Posted by redheadturk

In from the cold's problem is that it was not completely clear even with context clues how to clear it without using a guide first. Unless you found the downed mech or the fuel first before trying to find the linear path out you were likely to get murdered by the machina near the exit without understanding what you were supposed to do to get past them.

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In From the Cold is a common sense check. That is all. Does a person have the common sense to pick up on the very-obvious context clues the game presents to them and then act on them? Or are they going to continue to YOLO into danger regardless of the limitations they now work against?

Fanny Danny makes it quite clear that you are just a regular mook, shorn of all of your inherent power and placed into the body of the kind of NPC that you've slaughtered in the thousands. He then, also quite clearly, talks about scurrying about "like a rat." Anyone who is paying attention here can put two and two together just from the first fight and the discussion with Fanny:

1 - you, as the player, are now in the body of a faceless NPC instead of the god-killing body that is the Warrior of Light.
2 - the game shows you, again, VERY clearly, that you will struggle to even engage in a single 1v1 battle and emerge victorious.
3 - further complicating things is the now-apparent lack of health regen; we are restricted to med kits that we must scrounge for in the ruins of the capital city.

With this, the game is making it clear; you are NOT going to balls-to-the-wall this quest. You are going to need to avoid fights whenever possible, you are going to need to keep your eye out for scavenged items to keep your HP up and you're going to need to pay very close attention to any fights you get into in order to survive. Since even a single tempered imperial soldier is a challenge it stands to reason (or it *should* anyway) that you're not going to be able to take on any kind of warmachina, so when you come across the immobile magitek armor in front of a huge horde of warmachina the player *should* be able to put those things together and go "ah, ok, based on the experiences I've just had I can't hope to beat this horde without using the magitek armor. The entire point of why the Garlean people came up with magitek was to help make up for their own personal weaknesses as a people. It only makes sense, as an imperial soldier, to utilize this imperial technology to overcome the obstacle ahead. I should look for the key and go scrounge for fuel to re-activate this Reaper."

But that leisurely stroll of logic is, apparently, a bridge too far for a depressingly-high amount of people.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quor

In From the Cold is a common sense check. That is all. Does a person have the common sense to pick up on the very-obvious context clues the game presents to them and then act on them? Or are they going to continue to YOLO into danger regardless of the limitations they now work against?

Fanny Danny makes it quite clear that you are just a regular mook, shorn of all of your inherent power and placed into the body of the kind of NPC that you've slaughtered in the thousands. He then, also quite clearly, talks about scurrying about "like a rat." Anyone who is paying attention here can put two and two together just from the first fight and the discussion with Fanny:

1 - you, as the player, are now in the body of a faceless NPC instead of the god-killing body that is the Warrior of Light.
2 - the game shows you, again, VERY clearly, that you will struggle to even engage in a single 1v1 battle and emerge victorious.
3 - further complicating things is the now-apparent lack of health regen; we are restricted to med kits that we must scrounge for in the ruins of the capital city.

With this, the game is making it clear; you are NOT going to balls-to-the-wall this quest. You are going to need to avoid fights whenever possible, you are going to need to keep your eye out for scavenged items to keep your HP up and you're going to need to pay very close attention to any fights you get into in order to survive. Since even a single tempered imperial soldier is a challenge it stands to reason (or it *should* anyway) that you're not going to be able to take on any kind of warmachina, so when you come across the immobile magitek armor in front of a huge horde of warmachina the player *should* be able to put those things together and go "ah, ok, based on the experiences I've just had I can't hope to beat this horde without using the magitek armor. The entire point of why the Garlean people came up with magitek was to help make up for their own personal weaknesses as a people. It only makes sense, as an imperial soldier, to utilize this imperial technology to overcome the obstacle ahead. I should look for the key and go scrounge for fuel to re-activate this Reaper."

But that leisurely stroll of logic is, apparently, a bridge too far for a depressingly-high amount of people.

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Again, I already pointed out unless you come across the machina first it is not immediately obvious. I know I am not the only person who tried to sneak around the mechs the first time to get to the exit, several other people right in this thread said they struggled with it their first time through.

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Originally Posted by redheadturk

Again, I already pointed out unless you come across the machina first it is not immediately obvious. I know I am not the only person who tried to sneak around the mechs the first time to get to the exit, several other people right in this thread said they struggled with it their first time through.

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yes and thats what we call this very simple thing called trial and error you know

and no the game shouldn't have to hold your hand literally every 2 seconds any person with literally any sense would go ohpe. i can't sneak past that large group of enemies maybe i should search the map for a way to deal with them or something like a camo upgrade you'd search the map come across the mech with fuel or the mech standing there. and go from there (you don't have a use for the fuel from the broken mech yet if you encounter it first. so it's 100% reasonable for you to not carry it around and put a giant explosive on you. only after you find a use for the fuel would it be reasonable to take it with you)

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

and no the game shouldn't have to hold your hand literally every 2 seconds any person with literally any sense would go ohpe. i can't sneak past that large group of enemies

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The game shouldn't hold your hand, correct. But it shouldn't give you false direction either.

It tells you to go to the camp it doesn't tell you that you have to go to the camp in a very specific way and you can't just use "common sense" and simply turn around a take the long way around and avoid them.
Good games give you real options, to fight or to avoid. They don't misdirect you they simply just don't tell you.

It makes perfect logical sense to be able to simply avoid them if the game gave you real choice, it doesn't. It misdirects you.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

The game shouldn't hold your hand, correct. But it shouldn't give you false direction either.

It tells you to go to the camp it doesn't tell you that you have to go to the camp in a very specific way and you can't just use "common sense" and simply turn around a take the long way around and avoid them.
Good games give you real options, to fight or to avoid. They don't misdirect you they simply just don't tell you.

It makes perfect logical sense to be able to simply avoid them if the game gave you real choice, it doesn't. It misdirects you.

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it did not misdirect you how would you even get that? it told you where to go and placed an obstacle in your way. you can't fight or dodge through it cause your not your OP self. you have to sneak and be careful, it's not the GAMEs fault you tried to brute force a clearly bad/impossible situation repeatedly. or aare you saying the ending is also a misdirection since you "won" the fight and shouldn't have been blown up since you could've just walked away or not fight at all?