Am I the only one that sort of kinda likes the nerf to SoF?

The problem with the Trial was that youre asking a random group of people over the internet to cooperate. That usually almost never ends well. With the boss having less HP than before, you can still have a chance of winning even if you miss a large cannon shot. I'm all for difficult gameplay, but the way it was before was "Oh you missed a shot? Guess what, youre screwed. Now please wait patiently for the boss to slowly walk towards your inevitable defeat." And with no way to reset the trial to a checkpoint a loss can be incredibly irritating just to go back to the one spot you screwed up on. "Missed that vital canon shot at the very end?" Hope you enjoy 10 more minutes of doing the exact same thing again.

Take that as you will. But remember, when youre asking random people to cooperate, you have to take into account that almost no one wants to step up and give out orders and some people just refuse to cooperate even if it means a win for the team. Were humans. Were a**holes by default.

The nerf is good. It was not end game content, just story content meant for all players (including casuals) to do. I'm sure you will get a few dumb comments like "This game is catering to casuals" or "Game is EZ mode nowzzz!" but honestly those comments are just dumb. There is plenty of hard mode content out there for people, and it really is not unreasonable to make content that is meant for everyone (including casuals) be able to be cleared by casuals.

Before nerf, missing a DK wasn't an automatic failure, I had plenty of runs where we missed first one and still won, even had a run with only 3 dps where we missed a DK and still beat him.

I think the nerf was dumb, but I understand the reason why we needed it. Too bad people won't get the pleasure of coordinating an attack like a tactical strike, but at least people can complete the story now.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

The problem with the Trial was that you're asking a random group of people over the internet to cooperate. That usually almost never ends well.

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This is sad, but true. You'd figure FFXIV is supposed to be a game that requires teamwork (it being multi-player and all), but the truth is that most people don't want to co-operate with others. Never understood why that crowd even plays MMOs in the first place.

I still don't think SoF really needed a nerf (after beating it without issues with my first DF group), but I guess if it'll help my friends catch up quicker for Heavensward, then it's cool.

Since when was missing DK an auto fail... heck, had DPS on a cannon and still beat Vishap before even reaching the 3rd DK

It didn't need one. We had something outside of coil that was even somewhat difficult.
If you cannot read, since they TELL you when to go here and there and cannot cooperate with the peoples
then how very sad this turned out to be. People wanted to rush in and DPS race it.
The main problem is it was gated behind the expansion so... Still, they nerfed a few dungeons outside coil because people
teared up plenty of times. I just hope 3.0 has good stuff in new dungeons that's HARD! and not face-roll easy.

An easier fix was either give more time during it the whole thing.
[You were waiting an impending doom because if you missed a thingy it took forever for Vishap to get to the end
so you were basically having a tea party as he got to the gate lol.]
Or more time in itself. After about 2 fails, people got it together but the time limit is what was hurting a lot of people too.
Could of given a re-start trial with the same team as well. A lot of easy fixed but the nerf bat is always numero uno. :/

Hurray for the adjustment, it is sorely needed. Now all can complete it, zerg it, finish it and move on to other things.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

Hurray for the adjustment, it is sorely needed. Now all can complete it, zerg it, finish it and move on to other things.

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That's the thing...there are no "other things" in the MSQ at the moment. This nerf was premature in my opinion.

Given how much of a roadblock it wound up becoming a nerf was inevitable. I mean, remember, you need Steps of Faith cleared if you want access to Heavensward. If Vishap has you stomped (figuratively) then you aren't going to be enjoying any of that.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

I just hope 3.0 has good stuff in new dungeons that's HARD! and not face-roll easy.

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They will be only during the first 2 months hard, then they follow the path of Amdapor/Pharos Sirius/Step of Faith.
Do them before the first mini patch after 3.0 go online

I don't really mind it.

People may argue "but it's catering to casuals", but content that is (going to be) mandatory to access major game features is the place to put the lowest difficulty content.

I like it. Now everyone else can be traumatized by the last few cutscenes like the rest of us.

Yes, you're the only one. Along with the people who couldn't get it down after hundreds of tries because they didn't bother looking up tacts for 5 minutes.

Ridiculously easy fight. Got it down in a random DF group. Simply shouted out what to do and down it went.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

I like it. Now everyone else can be traumatized filled with joy by the last few cutscenes like the rest of us.

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FTFY. :P

/10char

So they made a trial easier for casuals, so what.

Because clearly the solution if people are bad is to nerf everything.

Heres the issue. According to the forums no one wanted to run it. This is a problem for people wanting to advance the story. Story mode isnt focused towards the hardcore crowd. Its designed to accesible to casuals whether you like it or not. If casuals cant beat it, theres an issue. Hardcore players are treated to coil and soon to be Alexander or something similar. 3.0 is gated by this expansion. What do you think will happen when 3.0 comes out? No one will ever want to run the Trial again making it harder for people who have yet completed it even more difficult. If you think 3.0 should be some badge of honour or something for completing SoF, then you need to get over yourself.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

Heres the issue. According to the forums no one wanted to run it. . . If you think 3.0 should be some badge of honour or something for completing SoF, then you need to get over yourself.

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No one wanted to run it because people are excruciatingly bad at it and because there is no incentive to run more than once. You go on about casuals not being able to beat it, but it's not difficult. The game literally has speech bubbles popping up on your screen to tell you what to do at almost every step, and people still couldn't get it. This is not an issue with the instance but with the playerbase. No one should be thinking that beating pre-nerf SoF is a badge of honor, because there's no honor in beating easy content.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

No one wanted to run it because people are excruciatingly bad at it and because there is no incentive to run more than once. You go on about casuals not being able to beat it, but it's not difficult. The game literally has speech bubbles popping up on your screen to tell you what to do at almost every step, and people still couldn't get it. This is not an issue with the instance but with the playerbase. No one should be thinking that beating pre-nerf SoF is a badge of honor, because there's no honor in beating easy content.

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Still doesnt change the fact that no one wanted to run it. You shouldnt make content that people only want to run once. SoF was set up in a way that required you to make zero mistakes. People didnt want to get to the very end and screw something up. With the nerf, its a bit more lenient with errors.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

3.0 is gated by this expansion. What do you think will happen when 3.0 comes out? No one will ever want to run the Trial again making it harder for people who have yet completed it even more difficult. If you think 3.0 should be some badge of honour or something for completing SoF, then you need to get over yourself.

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The new players would have spent a couple days figuring out the tactics and beat the trial. This wasn't Twintania or Bahamut we are talking about. Then they would have been more prepared for the increased challenges of Heavensward, since level 50-60 monsters and bosses will more than likely be harder than level 40-50 was. If your going to make it impossible to fail, why make it at all? A cutscene could have sufficed. And the developer's could have used that time making something cool for Heavensward. The trial itself was only slightly harder than Chrysalis was.

Essentially what happened was the developers made something cool for us in the very last patch before heaveansward, and we spit in their faces by being super-critical and abandoning trial roullettes.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

Still doesnt change the fact that no one wanted to run it. You shouldnt make content that people only want to run once. SoF was set up in a way that required you to make zero mistakes. People didnt want to get to the very end and screw something up. With the nerf, its a bit more lenient with errors.

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SoF was never a zero-mistake instance. As people have mentioned repeatedly, it's entirely possible to kill the boss pre-nerf even with missing a dragon killer. And as it stands, it's still content that no one has any reason to run more than once, because there are still zero rewards to clearing multiple times. I fully expected them to do something like adding a Vishap card or later when they add non-character cards maybe a Steps of Faith card or something. But now there's no motivation for poor players to improve and no motivation for decent players to do the trial more than once. . .

Trial wasn't hard, at all. Cooperation =/= difficulty. It's just some people have been handfed the entire game to them, so when an instance actually required them to press buttons not on their hotbars, they were exposed. Don't nerf instances for people who don't understand what interacting is.

It still isn't going to help the disbanding in PF.

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Originally Posted by Evumeimei

This is sad, but true. You'd figure FFXIV is supposed to be a game that requires teamwork (it being multi-player and all), but the truth is that most people don't want to co-operate with others. Never understood why that crowd even plays MMOs in the first place.

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Completely agreed. Steps of Faith was really not that difficult. It required some basic coordination with a group, that's it. Yes, this doesn't always work out in DF and that sucks, but the fight could have been easily completed by asking people on your own server or making a PF. I find it incredibly hard to believe that any player wouldn't be able to find 7 other players who have the ability to work together to clear the fight through shout chat or PF.

If the goal of the nerf was to make the fight easier to DF when you get players who can't listen or work together, then mission accomplished.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

SoF was never a zero-mistake instance. As people have mentioned repeatedly, it's entirely possible to kill the boss pre-nerf even with missing a dragon killer. And as it stands, it's still content that no one has any reason to run more than once, because there are still zero rewards to clearing multiple times. I fully expected them to do something like adding a Vishap card or later when they add non-character cards maybe a Steps of Faith card or something. But now there's no motivation for poor players to improve and no motivation for decent players to do the trial more than once. . .

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Its on trial roulette. Everyone runs the rest of them just fine. So whats makes SoF different?

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

So they made a trial easier for casuals, so what.

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Future Trials (and dungeons) that are tied into the storyline will also be super easy. So easy it will make us, the player, question why people were so terrified of the big bads. Remember Gaius and Lahabrea from Prae? Those two were 'hyped' up throughout the entire story, Gaius more so for people who played 1.0... then we actually fight them and they're about as challenging as Yu Yevon.

Were the people of Eorzea really terrified by these wimps?

The only reason I don't like the nerfs is because I believe they could have kept it were it was at (because really it wasn't that hard) while giving people a better REASON to run it more then once. Something like a Triple Triad card, people will trip over themselves running it multiple times to try and get it, which would also help out newbies who just want it done (and then maybe go back themselves to get the card as well if they don't get surpreme luck first try). Ultimately though its nerfed, nothing to do about it now.

I was fine with making the trial slightly more forgiving just to deal with the sheer levels of uncoordinated faceroll people tended to go into the place with. The trial itself isn't even hard, it just required coordination - which sadly, most people seem to lack due to how little game content has actually forced players to do so, outside of more challenging content like Ex primals and Coil - and even Ex primals are starting to be able to be facerolled due to increasing gear levels.

Nerfing a trial to this degree just because no one wanted to actually do it correctly and instead cry out that it's "too hard" was silly.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

Still doesnt change the fact that no one wanted to run it.

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In my Free Company, if a player needs help with any MSQ, most of us will drop whatever we are doing (not much to do pre 3.0, anyway) and help them. FFXIV: ARR is an MMO. It still blows my mind that people choose not to socialize, make friends and join a decent linkshell or free company that will help them with content and only use duty finder as a last resort.

"no one wants to run it" in DF or even PF is not an excuse...or a reason to start nerfing content because players are too lazy to learn a fight. This was never a "hard" fight to begin with. I say people that CHOOSE to play an MMO, and then refuse to make friends or join a community have not earned the right to complain about what is or is not going on in duty finder.

This trial should have just reset if everyone is dead at the same time and then no nerf would have been needed. Because it did not, people would abandon and have to queue up again, which means no practice with the same group. I don't mind the story version being nerfed because of this.

What I do mind, is that they did not introduce a hard mode like they do with other trials that are toned down to allow storyline progression. There needs to be a HM version (harder than the original version please), which has actual rewards of some kind. Maybe as part of the 3.0 drg relic quest line, that would be fun and be so much better then running old dungeons a gajillion times.

I was surprised by the difficulty of both Chrysalis and Steps of Faith in the main scenario.

By difficulty, I mean the requirement of communication and organisation to ensure all members are participating in the proper way, like a raid.

Personally I would be fine with a separation where only casual content is in the main scenario, and team coordinated events are left to endgame raids.

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Originally Posted by Rath

There needs to be a HM version (harder than the original version please), which has actual rewards of some kind.

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Obligatory Vishap triple triad card, ultra rare minion and/or a mount in an Extreme Mode?

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

SoF was set up in a way that required you to make zero mistakes.

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Completely untrue. The DF group I cleared it with had multiple people die, sometimes more than once. (I wear this badge of shame.) We still managed to down it on the first try even despite that.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

Its on trial roulette. Everyone runs the rest of them just fine. So whats makes SoF different?

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People are exceptionally bad at SoF, and unlike Titan HM, you can't carry 4 people through it at current gear levels. >_>

Everything else in trial roulette with the possible exception of Chrysalis you can carry people through at current gear levels, especially given that veteran players have reasons to actively run the rest of the trials still (except Westwind, Chrysalis, and SoF). And none of them take nearly as long for a group to fail. SoF takes forever to fail, which will almost certainly happen at least once because people really are bad.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

Its on trial roulette. Everyone runs the rest of them just fine. So whats makes SoF different?

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Time vs Reward is what makes it different from every single other thing in that roulette. You could do a hardmode dungeon roulette for 100 tomes in less time than a SoF for 60. Something is wrong with that.

Also the main reason people left SoF right away in roulette wasn't because it was hard. They left because it's baffling and a serious test of patience to see how people could fail repeatedly at something so easy.

Either way, the nerf is fine because nobody ever did this trial looking for a challenge anyway. There is other content in the game for people looking to be challenged more.

The nerf takes away that sense of accomplishment when you finish it and also prevents you from seeing what lies at the end of the bridge.. no longer will players see the large group of barrels at the end set off by the Npc's to help take Vishap down.

Imo the ones on this forum who are happy for this nerf are the very ones who were leaving the instance w/o even trying to pass it only to come here on the forum to complain while they wait 30 min for their ban to wear off.

SE could have implemented a system where the fight just got easier after like the second wipe or those that just cant seem to get it down but w/e whats done is done and it doesn't seem like anyone who enjoys a challenge or players that understand that difficult content exists to help you as a player increase your skill will ever be catered to.

SE please bring back that Sense of Accomplishment... bring back that Feeling of Danger of knowing you could fail but then succeed.. stop pandering to these people that will only play the game during free weekends.

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Originally Posted by Seiss

Stuffs

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I'm happily accepting all nerfs that SE has given, especially everything related to main story progress. Why? Because I'm what you people call casuals whom many hates. I would happily wanted to play the game all days all week cuz I love FF XIV, getting those sense of accomplishment and all, however, I can't.

I have to work, I have to take care of my husband, laundry, clean the house, social gathering, etc, which already taken so much time of my gaming time.

I love FF series and I love FF XIV which in fact that it's a casual friendly MMORPG.

Though I got very lucky and my DF group passed the trial after just two wipes, the nerf is OK for at least two good reasons:

1) Main story content should never be too challenging: it's "casual" content. Particularly if there is an EXPANSION gated behind it! There's lots of challenging content in the game.
2) It will infuriate elitists to no end, and a game with infuriated elitists is a healthy game, because it's a game that can be played also (for example) by older people like me. Cater to elitists and you will follow the Wildstar road.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Future Trials (and dungeons) that are tied into the storyline will also be super easy.

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Main scenario trials and dungeons have always been easy though. I really don't think much of it.

While I had my first avatar clear SOF on the first day it was available, it was a few weeks later when I got my second avatar through it and did so with 5 people who had also not yet cleared with their avatars and we saw a lot of each other as we finished the last set of main story quests so it was satisfying to see more people get through to the end of the game. And keep in mind this was before SE nerfed the fight today. So take that, quitters!