Darkhold really "easy" or merely what we were warned about by Matsui?

I had posted this in this the "tough content" thread but it was buried by a cavalcade of casual whining. I think though maybe this deserves its own thread. I want to ask whether Darkhold's "easy" problem is the result of poor design, or merely a player created problem resulting from them implementing such high end encounters prior to the battle changes being finalized.

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

Most of the "difficulty" of the batraal 5th chest run is just getting through the dungeon. The fight itself is easy and does not pose a challenge in itself. Tank it in the corner, drop the circles, kill the skeletons.

I know many people will say that getting the speed run accomplished is "hard" but I can say that compared to even most normal HNM in FFXI, speed run is nowhere near the same difficulty. Thats like saying getting to ROC was tough because you had to run through Garlaige Citadel...... Hardly....

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I played XI endgame to the bone, and I take exception and some offense to this post.

Now I haven't watched Mog's videos, but if I had to guess they are using the pretty standard pick up group method of stationary tanking/soaking. For those who are unaware what this means I'll break it down for you:

• Ogre is tanked against the upper wall the entire fight, and when the ghosts are up the tank simply takes the hits.
• Batraal is tanked in the corner (or other spots) and the tank either avoids the ghosts (by standing between Batraal's legs), or soaks their damage.

Doing it this way I can see how it could be said that darkhold is easy, but is that how the encounter was designed? Let's look at the situation, both encounters center around ghosts which disappear and reappear at a static (Ogre) or dynamic (batraal) location. These ghosts are capable of all types of drains, and heavy AOE damage if they use their dmg ability in unison. Darkhold was intended to be completed in under 30 minutes in order to get the 5th chest, and it was balanced to allow a setup of all classes in the same group (which means 4 melee).

• The stationary tactic is not melee friendly, melee either have to back off and throw weapon during a large portion of the fight, or they like the tank have to soak (or in the case of batraal I suppose they could mimic/stand on top of the tank).
• Was the tank meant to soak this damage/debuff? How well does a pure r50 gla or any tank soak this damage/debuff and can said tank hold enmity enough with those to beat the instance in <30 minutes?

I'm not saying it is wrong or exploitative to employ different strategies and workarounds for mob mechanics, heck that is what endgame is all about (half the fun). Matsui said he was worried about implementing these high end encounters before battle changes were finalized. What I believe he meant by that was that currently players, especially those with multiple (or all) classes to 50, are overpowered. This allows them to employ such soaking strategies and is why the fight appears to be so easy to execute. These same strategies might not have been possible/preferable if the changes had come first.

At the same time I'm not going to sit here and pretend like jousting is this end-all-be-all raid tactic or that Darkhold is the most difficult raid encounter design ever. It's a beginner dungeon no matter how you look at it, I'd be wholly disappointed if things never got more interesting, but are the fight really that dumbed down, or do we simply overpower them due to our being overpowered.

Nerf players, nerf the armory, bring class specialization and uniqueness and suddenly I think darkhold's encounters are not that bad at all. If people would do them more as they were designed (and I'd love to get some confirmation on how that was) and they've got a pretty decent finesse check factored in.

• Tanks manually dodging Batraal's laser frontal of death while jousting so that melee are unhindered, and keeping everyone out of range.

I think that takes a certain finesse, is it impossible or "elite" maybe not, but it's a far cry from how simple the standard pick up strategy is.

I want to know is anyone doing the fight this way and still thinks it is overly easy for a beginning dungeon? Is anyone claiming it is overly easy that doesn't have at least a core selection of players running with them with all or most currently useful cross-class abilities for their class? Does anyone doing so not feel the problem might reasonably be tied to them being a tad overpowered under the current system?

You know a major balance change is coming, and if you believe that doesn't mean a nerf I seriously hope you are expecting a giant boost in mob strength as well because one day of any activity killing mobs @ or above the maximum level (10+) in XIV should show you that we have outgrown our britches. Since they have stated due to "balance concerns" they are not raising that limit the logical development step to address this problem is to Honey, I shrunk the kids! us.

>.> (fear for the children of video game developers)

tl;dr learn to read better, it's good for you.

Everything is easy once you figure out how to do it consistently. The difficulty is figuring out how to do it.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

• Ogre is tanked against the upper wall the entire fight, and when the ghosts are up the tank simply takes the hits.
• Batraal is tanked in the corner (or other spots) and the tank either avoids the ghosts (by standing between Batraal's legs), or soaks their damage.

• The stationary tactic is not melee friendly, melee either have to back off and throw weapon during a large portion of the fight, or they like the tank have to soak (or in the case of batraal I suppose they could mimic/stand on top of the tank).
• Was the tank meant to soak this damage/debuff? How well does a pure r50 gla or any tank soak this damage/debuff and can said tank hold enmity enough with those to beat the instance in <30 minutes?

• Tanks manually dodging Batraal's laser frontal of death while jousting so that melee are unhindered, and keeping everyone out of range.

I think that takes a certain finesse, is it impossible or "elite" maybe not, but it's a far cry from how simple the standard pick up strategy is.

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First the point of a tank is to soak damage, while keeping hate off the DDs and healers it always has been the job of a tank and always will be.

Second melee never have to back off and throw, its called stun currently we only have leg sweep and shock spikes, but any DoW can use it.

Perhaps a tank with no other classes leveled can take the damage and keep hate, but one with con r20 has access to cure 2 which allows them to self heal and neuter the hate generated to the mages, any tank worth going with knows this.

The next one implies that you dont think a tank should take any damage and should dodge all attacks to ensure melee arent hit by AOEs, when you melees should know where to stand to avoid frontal AOE or rear AOE or side AOE, and for any full AOE theres always this magical thing called stun.

Also if tanks had to dodge attacks, why not just have DDs dodge attacks and make tanks completly obsolete.

Finally if you had this in another post then you should link to it so we can see what was said, rather than having to search for it.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

Everything is easy once you figure out how to do it consistently. The difficulty is figuring out how to do it.

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Yes, and no. The difficulty of executing a strategy differs. This is why you have a disagreements between people who want to claim that WoW's raids are the hardest endgame ever, and you have lots of old school MMO players who beg to differ. WoW has all sorts of little environmental obstacles, and once you learn these yes it is easy, but old school MMO raid encounters were more punishing in their finesse requirements which meant that players had to maintain a high level of focus/attention throughout the fight. This changed though later on as expansions in both old school (PvE) MMO's FFXI and EQ made players overpowered in my opinion.

the problem is some say it's too easy and some say it's too hard and se is trying to cater to both crowds. you have a post about the same darkhold complaining that they cannot get the completion in the time limit because it is hard. to me this is the main problem we have. there should be areas that are r50 for the people with only one class capped, but there should also be areas that are made that are so difficult that even fully equipped parties with multiple r50's struggle to defeat.

it's no different than the crafting changes. we have people that actually really enjoy the system, but it is getting dropped to a lower quality because people don't want to put the effort into it. i feel that same type of thing is happening in the dungeons now. everything is being catered to the people that put in the very minimum effort into each class which removes the difficulty of the people that have put in more work.

before i make this statement i want everyone to realize i mean casuals as people that want to only put in minimal effort into one class not casual as in restricted by time. to me hardcores i am not talking about the rude elitest people, but the people that try to make their character the best that they can be.

if you make content suit the casuals taste you make the hardcore players upset. if you make all the content for the hardcore players you upset the casual base. if you try to please them both with the same event you upset both.

I think the dungeon was designed and QA'd with the old MP costs and AoE cure in mind. That's really the only way they could justify the heavy toll of melee sponging AoE damage for large portions of the fight. With speed/efficiency in mind, there's no way they could intend for a number of melee DD to sit out parts of the fight for fear of taking AoE/ghost damage, or expect melee to avoid taking the damage in the first place.

As for the part about Matsui being worried about releasing content before Jobs, I think its actually the opposite of what you were thinking about making the encounter harder by taking away Armoury flexibility. I think he knew that the dungeon would be very difficult for players who did not have multiple classes leveled or were limited in main class role flexibility. Perhaps Jobs would've made certain parts of the dungeon easier by basically negating or trivializing the more difficult portions of the dungeon.

For example:

• Batraal Laser Show spam ----> PLD pops Invincible (magic invul. too) for 30s
• Melee all at 20% Health on Batraal or Ogre and no MP ----> WHM pops Benediction
• Last 20% on Batraal or Wave of Skeletons ----> BLM pops Manafont and nukes for duration.
• Last wave of Skeletons or Batraal last 50% (depending on how u handle them) -----> MNK pops Hundred Fists, Each RNG hits Eagle Eye Shot, WAR goes Mighty Strikes and everything dies in seconds (a few seconds faster than current AoE/mana burn strat I guess).

We haven't had much to do in the last 11 months other than level, so the gamble paid off I guess, as the main complaints about the dungeon's diffuculty now are from people who do not have multiple classes leveled for whatever reason(s).

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Originally Posted by Delsus

First the point of a tank is to soak damage, while keeping hate off the DDs and healers it always has been the job of a tank and always will be.

Second melee never have to back off and throw, its called stun currently we only have leg sweep and shock spikes, but any DoW can use it.

Perhaps a tank with no other classes leveled can take the damage and keep hate, but one with con r20 has access to cure 2 which allows them to self heal and neuter the hate generated to the mages, any tank worth going with knows this.

The next one implies that you dont think a tank should take any damage and should dodge all attacks to ensure melee arent hit by AOEs, when you melees should know where to stand to avoid frontal AOE or rear AOE or side AOE, and for any full AOE theres always this magical thing called stun.

Also if tanks had to dodge attacks, why not just have DDs dodge attacks and make tanks completly obsolete.

Finally if you had this in another post then you should link to it so we can see what was said, rather than having to search for it.

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This thread is not about the ogre's AOE, it is about ghosts and the currently popular strategy employed which puts melee in ghost range for much of the fight.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

Everything is easy once you figure out how to do it consistently. The difficulty is figuring out how to do it.

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I disagree.

The purpose of my previous thread was to illustrate that a good encounter in a video game should be one that challenges players even after doing it a thousand times.

Learning a fight takes very little time and provides very little content if the fight itself proposes no challenge.

Batraal is a good example. It took us a few tries to learn the fight, and now we kill it regularly with no degree of difficulty.

Batraal however could have been a very challenging fight had he been reworked to provide a bit of randomness to the fight. Maybe he should have run into the eyes on a whim, that would have made it interesting. Or something, ANYTHING that would give the fight something to make a player who had done it fifty times go "oh crap"

Another one of these posts ;=; Uh ohs.

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Originally Posted by Chiz

I think the dungeon was designed and QA'd with the old MP costs and AoE cure in mind. That's really the only way they could justify the heavy toll of melee sponging AoE damage for large portions of the fight. With speed/efficiency in mind, there's no way they could intend for a number of melee DD to sit out parts of the fight for fear of taking AoE/ghost damage, or expect melee to avoid taking the damage in the first place.

As for the part about Matsui being worried about releasing content before Jobs, I think its actually the opposite of what you were thinking about making the encounter harder by taking away Armoury flexibility. I think he knew that the dungeon would be very difficult for players who did not have multiple classes leveled or were limited in main class role flexibility. Perhaps Jobs would've made certain parts of the dungeon easier by basically negating or trivializing the more difficult portions of the dungeon.

For example:

• Batraal Laser Show spam ----> PLD pops Invincible (magic invul. too) for 30s
• Melee all at 20% Health on Batraal or Ogre and no MP ----> WHM pops Benediction
• Last 20% on Batraal or Wave of Skeletons ----> BLM pops Manafont and nukes for duration.
• Last wave of Skeletons or Batraal last 50% (depending on how u handle them) -----> MNK pops Hundred Fists, Each RNG hits Eagle Eye Shot, WAR goes Mighty Strikes and everything dies in seconds (a few seconds faster than current AoE/mana burn strat I guess).

We haven't had much to do in the last 11 months other than level, so the gamble paid off I guess, as the main complaints about the dungeon's diffuculty now are from people who do not have multiple classes leveled for whatever reason(s).

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First of all 2 hours? What?! Where did you hear we were getting 2 hours????

Second that is not really the opposite of what I was saying, because it was acknowledged (I'm sure) that the dungeon would be more difficult for people without all r40+ abilities, it was balanced I'm sure for them. Most likely the test groups which ran the raid did so with a GLA, PUG, LNC, MRD, ARC, CON, CON, THM setup (wasn't that in the video they leaked?). I just think it was balanced around a much more difficult strategy than the one made popular and employed by people with multiple r40+ cross class abilities (and with setups more like 3x Archers, 4x mages etc.).

What I'm saying is the balance changes had come first, I don't think we would have been as apt to negate so many important (mainly ghost related) encounter mechanics and use stacking. I can't know this for sure, but I like to think that at least this wasn't intentional/will be addressed by the battle changes.

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

I disagree.

The purpose of my previous thread was to illustrate that a good encounter in a video game should be one that challenges players even after doing it a thousand times.

Learning a fight takes very little time and provides very little content if the fight itself proposes no challenge.

Batraal is a good example. It took us a few tries to learn the fight, and now we kill it regularly with no degree of difficulty.

Batraal however could have been a very challenging fight had he been reworked to provide a bit of randomness to the fight. Maybe he should have run into the eyes on a whim, that would have made it interesting. Or something, ANYTHING that would give the fight something to make a player who had done it fifty times go "oh crap"

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Now you say it was merely learning the fight and then now it is easy. But is it? Or are you merely charity running people through it using a few overpowered players? Do you use a stationary method? Do you not see how that might be negating intended important encounter mechanics which would make the fight significantly more difficult to execute?

Gotta' agree with Mog. That's the very reason why I've only logged in a few times in the past week...stared blankly at my screen, then logged out.

If there was a greater degree of difficulty to it (read: fun) I'd be far more interested in not only repeating the dungeon to help others get gear, but I'd also have a greater sense of urgency in continuing to rank up multiple classes.

As it is, I just can't justify putting in the time and effort into ranking up to do events that are only fun for a week or two tops.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

This thread is not about the ogre's AOE, it is about ghosts and the currently popular strategy employed which puts melee in ghost range for much of the fight.

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I can fight ogre with my LNC at the top and only get aggro from the ghosts if I try to run from AOEs so if you know the mechanics melee dont get aggro.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Do you not see how that might be negating intended important encounter mechanics which would make the fight significantly more difficult to execute?

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That's a flaw in the mechanics if you can negate "intended, important encounter mechanics." It's no different from when AV was zergable for a short period and the devs responded by nerfing BW's effect on him. Hell, that could be said for zerging period in XI.

No, you don't need "overpowered," players to do this btw. Just players that pay attention and can follow instructions.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

First of all 2 hours? What?! Where did you hear we were getting 2 hours????

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Just based off the natural assumption that in order to take something away, SE will have to offer something as good or better in return. Also, its pretty obvious most people and the new team want their FFXI-2, and the abilities I listed are some of the Job-defining abilities we saw in XI. Certainly not limited to old 2 hour abilities though, I'm sure we will see familiar abilities like Refresh or Ballad or Berserk etc. eventually to help differentiate new Jobs from old Classes. Also, I don't think they will be limited to 2 hours CDs, maybe only 20-30 minute CDs judging by the direction these games have gone.

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Second that is not really the opposite of what I was saying, because it was acknowledged (I'm sure) that the dungeon would be more difficult for people without all r40+ abilities, it was balanced I'm sure for them. Most likely the test groups which ran the raid did so with a GLA, PUG, LNC, MRD, ARC, CON, CON, THM setup (wasn't that in the video they leaked?). I just think it was balanced around a much more difficult strategy than the one made popular and employed by people with multiple r40+ cross class abilities (and with setups more like 3x Archers, 4x mages etc.).

What I'm saying is the balance changes had come first, I don't think we would have been as apt to negate so many important (mainly ghost related) encounter mechanics and use stacking. I can't know this for sure, but I like to think that at least this wasn't intentional/will be addressed by the battle changes.

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Well, my comment about being the opposite was more based on this quote below:

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Nerf players, nerf the armory, bring class specialization and uniqueness and suddenly I think darkhold's encounters are not that bad at all.

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I guess you were still referring to classes still, but I was probably thinking of Jobs. And like I was saying, I think Jobs will make the encounter much easier, especially for those who only have a few classes leveled.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

I can fight ogre with my LNC at the top and only get aggro from the ghosts if I try to run from AOEs so if you know the mechanics melee dont get aggro.

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The ghosts don't aggro they are like sea hares they just emit an AOE at set intervals. The ogre is one thing as I can see how you can position him so that melee can be out of range, but what about batraal? Unless you are standing between Batraal's legs with the tank are you avoiding their AOE's there as well? If so then are you not hitting lights as well?

I just think those strategies hinder melee because they are getting hit unintentionally by ghosts. Whereas if the tank moves with the ghosts then melee do not have this problem at all and can get archer level damage without needing heals (or near enough to it to not be a hindrance).

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Originally Posted by Airlea

That's a flaw in the mechanics if you can negate "intended, important encounter mechanics." It's no different from when AV was zergable for a short period and the devs responded by nerfing BW's effect on him. Hell, that could be said for zerging period in XI.

No, you don't need "overpowered," players to do this btw. Just players that pay attention and can follow instructions.

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Or the Modus Veritas zerg where you got an alliance of scholars, one would put a hielix on a mob, then just before the first tick of damage all scholars would hit modus veritas and oneshot any mob in the game, it didnt require you to be overpowered just to beable to listen/read to somone saying 5,4,3,2,1 NOW.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Now you say it was merely learning the fight and then now it is easy. But is it? Or are you merely charity running people through it using a few overpowered players? Do you use a stationary method? Do you not see how that might be negating intended important encounter mechanics which would make the fight significantly more difficult to execute?

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To follow my original idea:

If the fight itself was challenging enough, our group would not be able to take other players through with us. This is how I judge the fights difficulty. It is indeed a "somewhat" complex tank and spank.

This is how I personally would have made the Batraal fight:

1) Remove the area to the south. Force players to tank Batraal in the middle.
This should force players to "watch out" for the eyes creating an ever changing positioning of the group. It would also make the circle that stops the eyes from moving more useful.

2) Make Batraal run to a circle to gain the corresponding buff. (weapon buff or damage immunity)
Players then would have to move him out of the circle, and drop it themselves to remove the buff while remaining out of Line of Sight when he starts doing his conal. Again, this creates an ever changing fight and an element of randomness to prevent a tank and spank. Which it is very close to currently.

Now you have a fight that is never identical twice, can still be explained to new players and will challenge players even after having done it 500 times.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

The ghosts don't aggro they are like sea hares they just emit an AOE at set intervals. The ogre is one thing as I can see how you can position him so that melee can be out of range, but what about batraal? Unless you are standing between Batraal's legs with the tank are you avoiding their AOE's there as well? If so then are you not hitting lights as well?

I just think those strategies hinder melee because they are getting hit unintentionally by ghosts. Whereas if the tank moves with the ghosts then melee do not have this problem at all and can get archer level damage without needing heals (or near enough to it to not be a hindrance).

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I will admit I have done batrall once but in that fight I was killing skeles, once they are dead hitting the lights then engage batrall untill the skeles repop the repeat, didnt get hit by anything except the skeles and the healer assigned to us could cope, until the tank died and we got raped, but that was only because the tank died.

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

To follow my original idea:

If the fight itself was challenging enough, our group would not be able to take other players through with us. This is how I judge the fights difficulty. It is indeed a "somewhat" complex tank and spank.

This is how I personally would have made the Batraal fight:

1) Remove the area to the south. Force players to tank Batraal in the middle. (this should force players to "watch out" for the eyes creating an ever changing positioning of the group. It would also make the circle that stops the eyes from moving more useful)

2) Make Batraal run to a circle to gain the corresponding buff. (Players then would have to move him out of the circle, and drop it themselves to remove the buff) Again, this creates an ever changing fight and an element of randomness to prevent a tank and spank (which it is very close to currently)

And Tada! Now you have a fight that is never identical twice, can still be explained to new players and will challenge players even after having done it 500 times.

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Which would be fine, but couldn't they just fix the ghost blind spot/up ghost damage requiring the tank to move and suddenly the fight becomes more difficult to execute since the tank has to joust between two spots (and a healer with them), while making sure batraal stays pointed away from that healer/group. It wouldn't be quite as random, but I believe that is how batraal was intended to be fought, and it is significantly more difficult to execute.

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

I disagree.

The purpose of my previous thread was to illustrate that a good encounter in a video game should be one that challenges players even after doing it a thousand times.

Learning a fight takes very little time and provides very little content if the fight itself proposes no challenge.

Batraal is a good example. It took us a few tries to learn the fight, and now we kill it regularly with no degree of difficulty.

Batraal however could have been a very challenging fight had he been reworked to provide a bit of randomness to the fight. Maybe he should have run into the eyes on a whim, that would have made it interesting. Or something, ANYTHING that would give the fight something to make a player who had done it fifty times go "oh crap"

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They definitely could have made better use of the eyes. Why is that light to stop the eyes moving even there? The eyes aren't anywhere near the fight if done right except for an unlucky hit when popping the 0 damage or sword light. If the eyes moved everywhere in the room then you'd have to factor them in and stop them moving when they're away from Batraal.

I think SE tried to cater to both the casual and hardcore crowd by adding the speed factor. It might not be the best way of adding hard mode to a dungeon but it's not bad. What they could have done is had multiple pathways with optional extra bosses that open up more chests at the end but by doing so you make the Batraal fight harder. That way the casuals can still complete the dungeon and get some nice loot, but the hardcore have a challenge for even better loot. They could even make all the drops on the hard run HQs of the normal run.

Problem with this dungeon is they had to design the content to fit in the map rather than design the content and the map together. We'll have that issue for quite a while since there's a dozen or so dungeons still locked off. The raids will have to be tailored to their layouts.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Which would be fine, but couldn't they just fix the ghost blind spot/up ghost damage requiring the tank to move and suddenly the fight becomes more difficult to execute since the tank has to joust between two spots (and a healer with them), while making sure batraal stays pointed away from that healer/group. It wouldn't be quite as random, but I believe that is how batraal was intended to be fought, and it is significantly more difficult to execute.

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I misunderstood edit:

Upping ghost damage would just encourage the moving of Batraal even more, but we do it anyway so it wouldn't matter...

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Originally Posted by Delsus

I will admit I have done batrall once but in that fight I was killing skeles, once they are dead hitting the lights then engage batrall untill the skeles repop the repeat, didnt get hit by anything except the skeles and the healer assigned to us could cope, until the tank died and we got raped, but that was only because the tank died.

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You know what's funny is I had like an identical response to the "matsui hates melee" thread that came out shortly after Darkhold. The problem with the stationary tactic on Batraal and melee is that once the ghosts pop (they aren't there at the start of the fight), if the tank does not joust because the ghost are dynamic unlike in Ogre the melee cannot as easily dodge them 100% of the time.

The result of this is that either they are slower on circles, require significant healer attention, or have to stay out of range for periods of time not doing damage. This makes them a hindrance using that strategy, however if the tank does joust the ghosts melee are free to damage more on par with archers.

I know groups that use the static strategy and have melee DD come along, but I honestly think in this case they are treating the melee more as a charity case than anything because I don't see how that strategy really accounts for ease of melee DD (and I'm 100% positive that Matsui did not design a ranged centric fight from the onset).

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Originally Posted by Murugan

You know what's funny is I had like an identical response to the "matsui hates melee" thread that came out shortly after Darkhold. The problem with the stationary tactic on Batraal and melee is that once the ghosts pop (they aren't there at the start of the fight), if the tank does not joust because the ghost are dynamic unlike in Ogre the melee cannot as easily dodge them 100% of the time.

The result of this is that either they are slower on circles, require significant healer attention, or have to stay out of range for periods of time not doing damage. This makes them a hindrance using that strategy, however if the tank does joust the ghosts melee are free to damage more on par with archers.

I know groups that use the static strategy and have melee DD come along, but I honestly think in this case they are treating the melee more as a charity case than anything because I don't see how that strategy really accounts for ease of melee DD (and I'm 100% positive that Matsui did not design a ranged centric fight from the onset).

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The reason the ARC onry idea came around is because ARC could avoid damage from ogres AOE, and this mentality has stuck even when people are completing the dungeon left right and center because the ARC onry tactic has been tested so many times, the melee tactic has not been tested as much because people insist on ARC onry for darkhold, therefore people dont know how to utilise melee for batrall and choose not to use them becuase the see melee as a hinderance.

Its catch 22, people dont use melee because a decent tactic has not been discovered but because people dont use melee they cant get a decent tactic. People want to win the dungeon so they go with proven tactics.

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

Actually, that would make the fight easier. Not having to move it and not having to heal the damage the ghosts cause would make it the easiest endgame fight thus far. Maybe I misunderstand; but I don't see how you think that would make it easier.

I would genuinely like to know.

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What are you talking about? Not moving batraal means that you don't factor in the ghosts, unless that is your tank is mispositioned and getting hit by all the ghosts. It is also unfairly punishing your melee DD. It makes it simpler because you are negating an important mechanic of the fight (the dynamic ghost popping).

If the ghost damage could not be soaked (or blind spotted) then the tank would have to joust them. This coupled with Batraal's laser spam makes the repositioning require coordination and finesse because if the mage steps ahead of the tank/batraal's 180 frontal span they risk being killed.

I define difficulty in MMO raid encounters by the amount of coordination required. Anyone can play any singular MMO role with one hand tied behind their back, it is only through coordination that any amount of difficulty in PvE shows through.

The standard pick up group static tanking method requires significantly less coordination so I think it is much easier.

Easy fix for the ghosts would be so that they never spawn directly on the Ogre or Batraal, but spawn in a 360 perimeter around them. Inside the perimeter would put you in harm's way of AoE dmg from Ogre/Batraal, outside the perimeter puts you out of ranged attack or spell casting range. The way it is now, melee basically suffer double jeopardy for most parts of the fight while mages just move about to avoid damage from the ghosts entirely. This change would put more pressure on mages/ranged and simultaneously make melee more desirable, with less penalty.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

The reason the ARC onry idea came around is because ARC could avoid damage from ogres AOE, and this mentality has stuck even when people are completing the dungeon left right and center because the ARC onry tactic has been tested so many times, the melee tactic has not been tested as much because people insist on ARC onry for darkhold, therefore people dont know how to utilise melee for batrall and choose not to use them becuase the see melee as a hinderance.

Its catch 22, people dont use melee because a decent tactic has not been discovered but because people dont use melee they cant get a decent tactic. People want to win the dungeon so they go with proven tactics.

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This is not true, the ogre's AOE can be easily stunned (more easily if you actually have a LNC in melee range). The ARC preferred strategy came about because of the stationary tank method's ability to negate the ghost making the fight significantly less difficult to execute.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

This is not true, the ogre's AOE can be easily stunned (more easily if you actually have a LNC in melee range). The ARC preferred strategy came about because of the stationary tank method's ability to negate the ghost making the fight significantly less difficult to execute.

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To quote a linkshell member "whats the obvious way of dealing with a fight where a mob uses alot of AOEs, use archers who can stay out of range", the ARC only mentality came around before anyone got to batraal, the first day I logged on after the patch my linkshell were making a dungeon run and asking for archer, it was within a week the ARC only mentality was around which was I believe before anyone beat batraal, and you can tell from the distance the ogre is from the ghosts that you can have melee in there without getting hit.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

To quote a linkshell member "whats the obvious way of dealing with a fight where a mob uses alot of AOEs, use archers who can stay out of range", the ARC only mentality came around before anyone got to batraal, the first day I logged on after the patch my linkshell were making a dungeon run and asking for archer, it was within a week the ARC only mentality was around which was I believe before anyone beat batraal, and you can tell from the distance the ogre is from the ghosts that you can have melee in there without getting hit.

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Right but haven't we moved past people being ignorant of being able to stun abilities? Batraal does not have static ghosts like the Ogre, they instead pop by the person who has aggro. This is why there is an actual not imagined difference between ranged and melee DD ability during that fight if the group is using a stationary tank method (which is quite popular and the topic of this thread really).

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Right but haven't we moved past people being ignorant of being able to stun abilities? Batraal does not have static ghosts like the Ogre, they instead pop by the person who has aggro. This is why there is an actual not imagined difference between ranged and melee DD ability during that fight if the group is using a stationary tank method (which is quite popular and the topic of this thread really).

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If its whoever has hate on the tank, im sure that if the tank is decent they should always go to the tank if its whoever has hate its not hard to manipulate to win.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

If its whoever has hate on the tank, im sure that if the tank is decent they should always go to the tank if its whoever has hate its not hard to manipulate to win.

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That's not the point, the ghosts form a circle around the person with the aggro. It's pretty easy to hold hate on Batraal in comparison to ogre, however the (I think) most popular method of tanking batraal currently is to keep him stationary with the tank standing between Batraal's legs so that he is able to avoid all or at least most of the ghost AOE's. However this creates a barrier around batraal that makes melee DD maneuvering difficult.

What you can do to address this problem is to have the tank completely joust the ghosts, by moving every time the ghosts disappear (since they will reappear at his location when they begin the move). In order to do this method the tank's healer has to move with the tank, and what makes that difficult is that when Batraal ~30% starts doing his frontal which has a wide (180 degree) radius the mage has to carefully coordinate his movement with the tank so that he does not accidentally get hit by this (as batraal will sometimes fire it off during the move).

Or it is possible you could just have the tank move enough while minimizing the healer's movement so that they still get hit by 2-3 ghosts, but the melee are free to do damage.

However I rarely see either of these strategies, most groups simply use the stationary tank method because then they don't have to worry about the ghost movements at all really. I'm saying if people weren't able to overpower these bosses and soak that damage as easily, forcing them to joust the fight would be significantly less simple. It wouldn't be the hardest fight ever, no, but it wouldn't be as insultingly simple to execute as was implied in the other thread "tank batraal in corner, kill skeletons, pop circles" (no mention of ghosts which I consider a/the main intended obstacle of the fight).

Stop saying joust.

The only point I agreed with OP on was the Doc Mog quote, which really weren't his/her words.

I think a simple and easy solution would be allow people to unlock different diffuctulites to the dungeon. Everyone starts off at level one, And once you beat it, level 2 will be available, and so on.

Increasing the level increases the level of the mobs inside, as well as changes the boss fights slightly. Going off the same scale of leves with a max level of 5. Those players seeking a redicilious amount of challenge would find it, but only after they have completed the previous levels :)

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

I disagree.

The purpose of my previous thread was to illustrate that a good encounter in a video game should be one that challenges players even after doing it a thousand times.

Learning a fight takes very little time and provides very little content if the fight itself proposes no challenge.

Batraal is a good example. It took us a few tries to learn the fight, and now we kill it regularly with no degree of difficulty.

Batraal however could have been a very challenging fight had he been reworked to provide a bit of randomness to the fight. Maybe he should have run into the eyes on a whim, that would have made it interesting. Or something, ANYTHING that would give the fight something to make a player who had done it fifty times go "oh crap"

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Makes me think of how the FFXI's limbus proto-Ultima fight was. Even with a seasoned alliance you always had that oh sh-- moment somewhere in the fight. I am sure we'll get this eventually, i think they did a pretty decent job with darkhold at giving content that even a pickup group could enjoy while giving most groups a real challenge with teh speed chest restriction. The avg ls does not have 8 players with all r50's lvl'd. My group has 3-4 ppl who are very OP'd and another 3-4 with 2-3 50's and the other 10+ are 1-2 50's and usually missing some sub skills.

I think both sides of the argument have a point. Can't people agree that this was a reasonable first dungeon (regardless of personal expectations for game difficulty in the long term)? Because of the uncapped implementation of Toto-rak, this is essentially the only "endgame" content. Personally, I don't think SE could afford to make it incredibly difficult without alienating a massive portion of the player base.

Do I find the strategy in the dungeon a little easy? Sure. But I think a huge factor in how quickly players were able to farm this dungeon is due to the unlimited access. Even the groups that cleared the dungeon in the early going were only doing so because they were ready to tackle the content for endless hours, in an attempt to lock down a strategy. Even a 12 hour timer would have prolonged this dungeon content for months. I'm not saying that's what they should have done, just that groups literally made 20 attempts on the dungeon on day 1.

As far as future difficulty goes, this highlights the flaws in the Armoury system, in my mind. You either design something difficult for the multi-r50s or difficult for the single-r50s (or you start limiting the cross-classing, in some manner). It's incredibly difficult to balance content for everyone with such an open-ended class system.

Really well-written post. It does indeed sound like there might be a way to make the fights a bit more exploit-proof.