Game needs Medium-Difficulty Support

This game ranges from pretty-utterly easy (All Dungeons, Steamroll Tower) to incredibly difficult (Savage Coil).

Every once in a while, we get a decent mid-grade difficulty option (Pre-Nerf Pharos, Primal Extremes, Obsoleted Echo-Coil)... but there's very little support for it in general... notice the terms "pre-nerf" or "obsoleted".

Using Duty Finder as a reference:

I think Easy Difficulty should be fairly PUG-able.
I think Medium Difficulty should be pretty difficult to PUG.
I think Hard Difficulty should be next-to-impossible to PUG.

How to Implement Medium Difficulty:

"Extreme" Dungeons, both mechanically/statistically tougher (no need bosses/layouts to spare development time).

"Savage" 24-Mans, generally for pre-made Alliances/FC fun.

"Raid Lite" 8-Man alternative, less dependent on statics; a good, achievable progression-point, for the less hardcore or skilled.

^will require the expansion, I've read there will be multiple 8-man raid options... but we'll see. Not saying "easy Coil", I'm saying a different raid altogether. I think it's okay to have top-tier difficulty raids that remain top-tier so long as imperative plot details aren't gated behind it (*cough* Coil *cough*).

Primal's seem fine as-is though they don't qualify as raid-alternatives (neither should they) since they have so little personal replay value once you earn the piece you want.

Obsoleting a raid-tier to medium difficulty doesn't really count either as it's not really 'supporting medium difficulty' content but rather assisting "catch up". Implementing medium difficulty content in-line with easy & hard content is more appropriate & a must for this game imho.

BONUS: Savage Raids need better incentive, a title doesn't cut it.

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Originally Posted by Toodles

"Savage" 24-Mans, generally for pre-made Alliances/FC fun.

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This would screw over small FCs. My FC has 2 active coil groups. And we are in total ~20 ppl in the FC. So we could maybe put together 16ppl max. Ofc this is assuming that it would not be possible to do with DF.

But i agree that game needs medium difficulty stuff. Only extreme primals could be counted to some sort of medium difficulty. but there is only 1 boss fight on each patch for that.

One of the difficult game in FFXIV is find another 7 persons can do the dance, and now you want to looking for 23 persons can do the dance & say it is easier !?

/sarcasm

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Originally Posted by xnonamex

This would screw over small FCs. My FC has 2 active coil groups. And we are in total ~20 ppl in the FC. So we could maybe put together 16ppl max. Ofc this is assuming that it would not be possible to do with DF.

But i agree that game needs medium difficulty stuff. Only extreme primals could be counted to some sort of medium difficulty. but there is only 1 boss fight on each patch for that.

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Hardly "screw them over", besides, it wouldn't be mandatory.

So befriend another FC or PF for another group of 8.

Or have a slightly more difficult time using the DF for the remaining 8.

It's also quite easy in this game to network via Linkshells honestly.

I hear wildstar has all the difficult content you could ask for. They also desperately need the subs.

I don't know if any of this is the answer to the problem but I certainly see where you're coming from.

Everything up till binding coil is faceroll simple; to the extent you almost have to actively try to fail and even when you do they give you enough echo to push you through it anyway. As a result I feel like a lot of players get a inflated sense of skill and don't know how to play their jobs; which leads to problems when you get to endgame and suddenly the difficulty curve spikes up and the game stopped holding your hand. This causes headaches especially when you see the massive skill gap between players if you ever have to add replacement into coil or extreme primals, or even doing high level roulette and watching monks spam dragon kick or summoners using titan-egi, blms spamming fire 3 and nothing else, you get the idea.

I'm hoping maybe we could tune down the echo buffs for stuff from now on, keep it as hard and just let the power creep nerf it as people higher and higher in ilvl. I think maybe you're doing a disservice getting players through content they shouldn't have cleared because the next fight is only harder.

^great points!

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Originally Posted by OranKells

I don't know if any of this is the answer to the problem but I certainly see where you're coming from.

Everything up till binding coil is faceroll simple; to the extent you almost have to actively try to fail and even when you do they give you enough echo to push you through it anyway. As a result I feel like a lot of players get a inflated sense of skill and don't know how to play their jobs; which leads to problems when you get to endgame and suddenly the difficulty curve spikes up and the game stopped holding your hand. This causes headaches especially when you see the massive skill gap between players if you ever have to add replacement into coil or extreme primals, or even doing high level roulette and watching monks spam dragon kick or summoners using titan-egi, blms spamming fire 3 and nothing else, you get the idea.

I'm hoping maybe we could tune down the echo buffs for stuff from now on, keep it as hard and just let the power creep nerf it as people higher and higher in ilvl. I think maybe you're doing a disservice getting players through content they shouldn't have cleared because the next fight is only harder.

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If only that were the only thing many players do wrong in endgame content such as coil. The biggest reason to wiping though however is not the lack of their own skill knowledge, but quite simply a complete disregard for tactics. People stand in AoE effects, they dodge incoming attacks way too slow, are often too late on situational tactics, etc.

And often these single player mistakes lead to wipes rapidly. It'd be nice if prior to unlocking raiding content such as coil, players would first need to clear a chain of hardmode guildhests which know similar mechanics. A selection of extreme dungeons to test their dodging skills and all on 4-player content of multiple bosses. Prior to giving entry to raids. That way at least the basic training is there. It'd also become easier to add raiding content to DF faster, as only those players who managed to get through all the other content would have access to it. Of course some may get carried through, but that portion would be significantly smaller than the amount of people simply queuing up in DF for coil 1-5 right now with no experience on such sort of content whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by Jaykos

I hear wildstar has all the difficult content you could ask for. They also desperately need the subs.

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Shots fired!

I needed the chuckle. I was also going to mention something similar.