Extreme 4 & Savage 24 please :)

DISCLAIMER: This would be OPTIONAL CONTENT & identical in design (minus mechanics) to prior dungeons so no player who doesn't wish such a challenge would be left out from experiencing the dungeons themselves.

I feel like this game is very lacking in challenge for both smaller & larger groups.

So much potential to create very difficult dungeons but since they attempt to cater to players of every skill level, they fall short. Same goes for the Crystal Tower 24 Person Raids. At least, while they're relevant, they're somewhat hard but still very mechanically simple for the most part (dodge, dps check, dodge, stack, repeat).

It's simple... please infuse the dungeons & 24 man raids with some more complex or layered mechanics (along with adding some to the mob groups)... give dyeable versions of their gear drops that're a bit higher in ilvl.

There's a problem when you have such a big playerbase & there's a rift among players who want challenge vs. easing of content. Naturally, you'll always go for easing to assist players in accomplishing or progressing content to maintain interest for them. This however gives midcore players the shaft.

It also gives the shaft to players who enjoy a challenge but prefer to roll in smaller groups (or have trouble scheduling 8 ppl to raid consistently) or have very large FC's.

And no, merely wearing the weakest allowable gear is no good solution. For seasoned MMO players, the skills required are often on auto-pilot even in minimal loot as most of the contents are too mechanically simple. Statistical difficulty needs to go in conjunction with mechanical complexity, one or the other alone is insufficient for a rich challenge. It should be said, I think a strict (harsh) ilvl sync would benefit this format well.

Having normal & savage 8 person raids is a step, but it needs to be applied to 4/24 person as well.

Please tell us you've already done this for HW or plan to do so soon(tm)!

To facilitate this discussion, please share your ideas for Extreme v's of your favorite Dungeon Bosses!

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

You seen what happens when you try to force people to do something harder, see Steps of Faith.

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This would be optional. This' a compromise to the nerfing of contents as it'd be a copy of the lesser difficult dungeons.

People who don't wish for harder content would have zero interest in this besides for completionist purposes (which those people would need to beat Savage SCOB anyway) or to obtain a dyeable set of dungeon armor they enjoy (if Yoshi went this route). These dyeable sets could even unlock through Hunts later on for all I care.

The goal here is optionally more difficult encounters.

The problem of ppl whining is Yoshi didn't implement enough difficulty tiers to satisfy the playerbase to begin with.

This' a solution to that. Win win.

Only reasons more difficult content didn't work in the past:

1) forced to complete MSQ (Steps of Faith)

2) significant plot gating (Binding Coil + Steps of Faith)

3a) imbalance to like contents (pre-nerf Pharos, much harder than it's intended-to-be, equal tiered counterparts but provides equivalent rewards... also, broke precedent for difficulty of prior or future contents of such a type)

3b) inappropriate challenge:reward ratio (pre-nerf Pharos, for its challenge, didn't provide incentive to be worthwhile to players)

I'll kick it off, Qarn HM Final Boss EXTREME:

New Mummy Marching patterns (diagonals, criss-cross, X, etc.). Now nonstop.

After 50%, they produce quicker & march faster.

Now to where they'll even overlap cross-wise!

The player mummy's now lock-on to a victim & chase them instead.

After 50%, he now periodically forces two players to become mummy's instead of 1.

One is always a DPS, the other always either the tank of healer (perhaps alternating).

CT was originally slated for 2.0 release but was deemed too difficult for an uncoordinated DF group so it was delayed until 2.1 so they could rebalance it. So theoretically they have at least 1 'savage' 24man ready to go, unless they 'lost' the original files like why we can't have first coil savage. Yoshida has also said in a PAX interview (iirc) that they have always started with a 'savage' mode of at least extreme primals and then tune it down for normal/story modes so this really shouldn't be that big of an issue assuming they do the same with all the other content (savage scob makes it clear that they probably do). He has also said that he doesn't find 4 man 'raid' content particularly interesting since it couldn't have much depth and would force an optimal composition much more than an 8 man raid does which would lead to player exclusion based on role which is something he wants to avoid.

I think a lot of XI players (at least) would also appreciate an Ark Angel type encounter where a 24 man group would have to fight 6 primals at once as a 'savage' encounter necessitating splitting up into 6 4man groups or having a tank and 1-2 healers hold each primal while the rest of the group burns them down in some order that is either pre-determined based on instant wipe mechanics (like T8 towers) or in an order that avoids stacking conflicting mechanics that would kill people. Granted this would probably be really hard to implement with the whole circle arena philosophy if they're to maintain the Titan/Leviathan knock off mechanics or Shiva's frozen floor / ice jail.

Net code and 2.5 sec base global makes it hard to have fully hardcore content.

Sure, 4 man "raids" couldn't be near to the complexity of 8 man variants (have to account for fewer net APM & spatial coverage)...

But I don't think that's a fair enough reason to exclude them.

The tight-knit small group synergy can be very fun & it gives lesser #'s who enjoy a challenge something more to do during off-time from raids.

Besides, these would be very easy to implement compared to other contents.

Slap an ilvl increase on the gear & boost/multiply some preexisting mechanics for the most part.

They wouldn't need to go the whole route of hugely altering the dungeons like the Norm>Hard diff. transitions.

If we want lore explanation, they could be "Minstrel's Ballad: Qarn (hard)," where the Minstrel remembers the encounters we had as way more epic than they actually were lol.

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Originally Posted by Saccharin

Net code and 2.5 sec base global makes it hard to have fully hardcore content.

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Apparently they are increasing the pace of combat significantly in Heavensward. Can't say if they'll be reducing the base GCD but it sounds like they might (and they really should). Besides, we'll have loads more skill/spell speed in i170~ & more TP regenerators than ever (plus, sspeed is being enhanced somehow too... hopeful this means faster TP ticks passively).

You seen what happens when you try to force people to do something harder, see Steps of Faith.

I like this idea.
And the ilvl increase wouldn't need to be that huge (depending on how much more difficult the difficult dungeon/raid is, of course). Say a trickier Labyrinth of the Ancients, where the gear is i85 or i90 and dyeable. For me personally, it wouldn't even need to be a higher ilvl; the dyeability would make it worth it for me.

And like you said, having them be "Minstrel's ballad: xxxx" would be a very good way of implementing it.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

You seen what happens when you try to force people to do something harder, see Steps of Faith.

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Well, it's not like this would be forcing people to do them. Steps of Faith was forced, since it was part of the MSQ. These would just be extras.



Hm. As an extra.... if we got a couple more of these "minstrel's ballad" things... there could also be a roulette just for those.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

You seen what happens when you try to force people to do something harder, see Steps of Faith.

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This would be optional. This' a compromise to the nerfing of contents as it'd be a copy of the lesser difficult dungeons.

People who don't wish for harder content would have zero interest in this besides for completionist purposes (which those people would need to beat Savage SCOB anyway) or to obtain a dyeable set of dungeon armor they enjoy (if Yoshi went this route). These dyeable sets could even unlock through Hunts later on for all I care.

The goal here is optionally more difficult encounters.

The problem of ppl whining is Yoshi didn't implement enough difficulty tiers to satisfy the playerbase to begin with.

This' a solution to that. Win win.

Only reasons more difficult content didn't work in the past:

1) forced to complete MSQ (Steps of Faith)

2) significant plot gating (Binding Coil + Steps of Faith)

3a) imbalance to like contents (pre-nerf Pharos, much harder than it's intended-to-be, equal tiered counterparts but provides equivalent rewards... also, broke precedent for difficulty of prior or future contents of such a type)

3b) inappropriate challenge:reward ratio (pre-nerf Pharos, for its challenge, didn't provide incentive to be worthwhile to players)

Titan extreme with 23x plumes would be hilarious.

Just can't support this as much as I would like... even the current easy 24 man raids are made up of
25% people just there to do as little as possible, get loot and go
25% trolls to disrupt everything for lulz
25% people with no idea about their role/mechanics/anything
25% actually there for the intended reason of being there

Well they did add a challenge with Coil Savage, but apparently no one wants to do it.

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Originally Posted by Noxifer

Well, it's not like this would be forcing people to do them. Steps of Faith was forced, since it was part of the MSQ. These would just be extras.

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Like Pharos Sirius?

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Well they did add a challenge with Coil Savage, but apparently no one wants to do it.

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1) I know plenty of ppl who do it on my server alone, myself included.

2) another case of faulty reward structure (should've given dyeable SCOB sets from it at least).

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Originally Posted by Felis

Like Pharos Sirius?

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Pre-Nerf Pharos was problematic for numerous other reasons related to its difficulty, but not having to do with its difficulty in an isolated sense (or vacuum).

Design-wise, it fit into a content type which was historically (and even horizontally in the case of the other two dungeons released with it) not built to be as difficult. It made for a bad outlier.

For being meant to be on par with those others, it wasn't & there was another issue--dungeon roulette. People felt unfairly shafted if they got into a pug for the much harder dungeon that rewarded the same & was less pug-friendly than others of its kind.

It's even evident, by design, that SE didn't intend (and never will) for this sort of outlier.

Not if its meant to be in the "hard" dungeon difficulty tier. That's just nonsensical.

Y'all have to look at this from a developer/producer perspective & take Pre-Nerf Pharo's difficulty out of isolation.

Ex Dungeons would create an appropriate context for harder formats which aren't forced upon players. Right now, that context doesn't exist (and obviously isn't meant to yet).

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Originally Posted by randysquirrel

Just can't support this as much as I would like...

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Preformed Alliances.

Besides, for game health, it's probably best these formats be premade only. There's a reason Savage SCOB isn't on the Duty Finder.

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Originally Posted by Yuri_Hyuga

SApparently they are increasing the pace of combat significantly in Heavensward. Can't say if they'll be reducing the base GCD but it sounds like they might (and they really should). Besides, we'll have loads more skill/spell speed in i170~ & more TP regenerators than ever (plus, sspeed is being enhanced somehow too... hopeful this means faster TP ticks passively).

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usually MMOS like this increase the required combat rating require to have the same effect when you level. I do remember being told that speed stat will be more important but we've had nothing recent. The planned EU servers will help European players greatly.

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Originally Posted by Saccharin

usually MMOS like this increase the required combat rating require to have the same effect when you level. I do remember being told that speed stat will be more important but we've had nothing recent. The planned EU servers will help European players greatly.

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Fair point. They did however recently reiterate that the pace of game-play would be increased significantly in interview(s). So I guess we'll just have to wait & see!

Either way, APM isn't the only way to deal with mechanics.

It's hard enough to get 8 people to do Savage coil, and back when i90 was the ilevel cap, trying to do Garuda -> Ifrit EX for the weekly went about as well as pugging t12 and t13 does now. Now we all out-gear extreme primals that it's not really that big of a deal. Just as we all over-gear LotA and ST which were much more challenging at their respected ilevels.

It'd be incredibly difficult to gather 24 people for a savage/extreme/whatever 24-man raid and expect all of them to successfully preform flawlessly, you'd probably end up wiping to the same thing over and over again more often than getting anywhere because it'd be so easy for a couple of people to mess up. Not to mention the amount of people and mechanics going on would be horribly confusing and overwhelming to meet the difficulty of savage content (could you imagine being in a TS3/Mumble/Raidcall/whatever with 23 other people and trying to clear t7 savage at the same time?). I mean, you see what happens in current WoD when half of an alliance goes down? Everything can easily go to sh*t because you no longer have the people necessary for the mechanics.

So no. Please no.

@Selli, it'd be optional. If you don't have 24 people to premake a WoD Savage, you'd have the original WoD to enjoy as you please.

24 Man Savage would be for larger FC's or conjoining statics for some challenging fun.

And if 8 & 24 Man Savage's aren't for you because of lacking the numbers, you'd have the 4 Man Extreme's to enjoy.

It appears that you'd like to do 8 Man Savage Coil, that you enjoy a challenge, so 4 Man Extreme's are perfect for you.

Also, I envision Savage 24 Man's to be more in line with either Pre-Echo SCOB... not so much in line with Savage Coil current.

As you are correct in that it is much harder to coordinate 24 players than it is 8, having them be exactly equal in difficulty would be a bit overbearing.

I agree.

If it helps, I'd much rather development effort be put into 4 Man Extreme's than 24 Man Savage's for the reasons you listed (if having to choose).

It's not often I completely U-turn my opinion, but I guess if it was pre-made group it could work

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Originally Posted by Selli

could you imagine being in a TS3/Mumble/Raidcall/whatever with 23 other people and trying to clear t7 savage at the same time?

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And this makes me want to try it even more lol

Here's difficulty for you:

In order to log in the game a 28 button passcode must be input via keyboard only and within a 12 second interval. Also the passcode is randomized through hints placed in bags of Kellogg's cereal, written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

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Originally Posted by Selli

It'd be incredibly difficult to gather 24 people for a savage/extreme/whatever 24-man raid and expect all of them to successfully preform flawlessly, you'd probably end up wiping to the same thing over and over again more often than getting anywhere because it'd be so easy for a couple of people to mess up. Not to mention the amount of people and mechanics going on would be horribly confusing and overwhelming to meet the difficulty of savage content (could you imagine being in a TS3/Mumble/Raidcall/whatever with 23 other people and trying to clear t7 savage at the same time?). I mean, you see what happens in current WoD when half of an alliance goes down? Everything can easily go to sh*t because you no longer have the people necessary for the mechanics.

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In older mmos people did this all the time. Sometimes with 40+ppl.

It is not that hard at all. WOD is made up of pugs, which will always be vastly subpar to an organized group.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Well they did add a challenge with Coil Savage, but apparently no one wants to do it.

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The problem is there's no reward. It's like if WoW attempted to have Mythic raiding with nothing but a title from it. The large majority of people wouldn't bother.

If you're going to have harder content, the reward needs to be superior. Otherwise people will do it once and never touch it again.

Many option is nice, I support that.
Easy content for those who want to complete story fast.
Hard, Extreme & Savage for superior reward.

What more important is no more nerf...

Casual player can obtain high end gear with currency progression.

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Originally Posted by Zaft

The problem is there's no reward. It's like if WoW attempted to have Mythic raiding with nothing but a title from it. The large majority of people wouldn't bother.

If you're going to have harder content, the reward needs to be superior. Otherwise people will do it once and never touch it again.

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There is a risk with multi difficulty tiers with superior rewards with higher difficulties that it leads to Power creep and stat bloat. One of the reasons WOW just did its 'crunch' with numbers was because their raid structure caused that. They also said they will have to do it again in a expansion or two.

There are two factors I see governing this. How many people will actually be doing the harder content vs the time it will take to manage the rewards system and structure the encounters to work well as a challenge in 24 man fights and what other ingame systems they wish to create that would have to be pushed back or laid aside to facilitate it.

For the first one, its important to remember that large group hardcore content has a relatively small playerbase. Wow is the best example and I think the last time I saw details on it, it was something like under 10% of the playerbase even touched the content and only a small portion of that completed it while the content was still relevant. I cant say how much work it would require to create and test the harder version and manage the reward systems but I'd assume including QA testing it would be a decent amount.

For the second issue, you have to consider that SE has many content forms they are looking to develop. They have the new Airship system, are talking about 3 new features in the Gold Saucer and of course, all the usual patch dungeons and such they are working on. Resources in this game are finite. They can't just simply do more. These devs work their asses off as it is. So to include the above system its likely something else will get left out. Whatever it is, the devs would have to be convinced that it is more healthy for their game to include content a small portion of the playerbase are likely to play than add whatever other systems they are looking at.

Their compromise looks to be Alexander Savage. I think they will wait and see how much people play that before they consider adding anything else.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

Snip.

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Hate to say this but somehow I have to admit it, player base is small and this is a business.
I like multi tier system, but I'm also from WoW so I know the commitment and time consuming that we need to pour into harder content.

For 20 man raid, to success 1 run it's not easy and drop only limited for few item and not all party member can obtain it,
So we need many runs and need more times, but not all player have much time on it especially for those who have career or family.

I start to understand now why SE put Coil without difficulty level and they adding Echo for each update.

Game needs 3 supported difficulties for various contents (not all, but definitely for dungeons/raids) +9,001

Signed!. I'd love more challenging content to be honest, i don't see them doing it though. I mean look what happened to steps of faith. It was the final boss of ARR and they STILL listened to people complaining about it...skyscraper dragon, immense amount of power...let's nerf it.

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Well they did add a challenge with Coil Savage, but apparently no one wants to do it.

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The release timing of savage coil wasn't ideal for a large majority of players (eg those who didn't clear T9 fast enough).

Every people I could have run savage coil with were too busy farming for their relic or hunts to do the coil, once we had cleared T10~T13 they were too busy farming those floors for gear, end once they were geared up they massively took a break while waiting for heavenward.

I think this would be a ok idea so long as it isn't in duty finder. If you leave it out of duty finder, and put some rewards in there, it would be decent. Just because you can group up with either FC people, or PF to find people that have progressed to x phase. It's true people will sometimes drop in that haven't got that far, but you can just kick.

I support the OP's idea. It wouldn't even have to be a "savage" mode of existing content, simply adding new things that can challenge 4-man groups (which is easier to put together/find people than 8-mans) or challenge 24-man groups (which is easier for any somewhat active FC and LS to include more participants). Heck, I'll even take challenging 16-man group content as a start.

But predictably, we already see the common counter-arguments for anything over 8-man compositions:

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Originally Posted by randysquirrel

Just can't support this as much as I would like... even the current easy 24 man raids are made up of
25% people just there to do as little as possible, get loot and go
25% trolls to disrupt everything for lulz
25% people with no idea about their role/mechanics/anything
25% actually there for the intended reason of being there

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Which are really mostly just Duty-Finder anxieties; about half of that list isn't even a real issue on a server-side/Free Company/Linkshell basis where people should be a little more motivated and mindful of their behavior.

And inb4 "it's too hard to get 24/16 people to show up/organized" because there are no FCs and LSs with over 24 active members at a time, nor can they be made. /eyeroll

I mean, I can totally see parts of WoD(for example) that could have spiked the difficulty up a bit for more focused and coordinated groups; such as the 6 portals that spawn the Thors needing to die before the cast bar finishes otherwise they explode into, I dunno, 4k-5k dmg (some would prefer instant death), as opposed to DFs where usually a party's worth of DPS ignore portals. Just cranking up small things here and there like all bosses' auto-attack damage or more activity from the 5-headed dragon's different heads can be a good challenge for serious groups.

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Originally Posted by Drako

I think this would be an ok idea so long as it isn't in duty finder. If you leave it out of duty finder, and put some rewards in there, it would be decent.

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This sort of approaches what I mean; it doesn't have to start out in DF. None of the Coil raids started out in DF.

If you would have DF for it though, it would need some additional settings. To put in if a player reached X phase of a fight. Or player as X ilvl, or have completed X raid. I know its a pipe dream to think DF will ever have any level of customization. But that would make it actually useful for things like coil, so its not always a RNG. You wouldn't have stories of how people did titan EX in duty finder after their 200th attempt.