we need content with difficulties between dungeon and ex/savage

dungeons are so braindead even my 10 years old sister could do them, meanwhile savage and ex keep getting harder with more nonsense mechanics and longer duration. i want content where i can feel challenged and beat without having to watch youtube videos

inb4 "i beat hades ex first try eyes closed hands tied behind my back"

I agree with you. What would you call them?

Side note: Hades is mechanically simple, its just a bunch of DPS Checks that hold people back.

Dungeons and EX/Savage aren't really the best things to compare. Because to that end normal trials/raid fit your bill.

EX is the middle ground between normal and Savage. It's your first step into the higher tier content and it's not that bad. Hell all three SHB EX's have been pretty fine. Hades is prob the easiest one mechanic wise, it just looks a lot worse then it actually is.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...02/103/650.jpg

We have that content. Normal mode trials, normal mode raid and 24 man raids are all between dungeons and ex/savage in difficulty.

Why do you have to watch videos?

Find some friends that haven't done the fight and/or are willing to go into it blind, and go into it blind.

For me, that's the biggest fun in new content. Discovering it and figuring out how to beat it without someone telling me how.

The last time I ever watched a video was when I was entering a learning party for content that had already been out for over a week

The only thing I can think of that would be more challenging but less esoteric mechanics wise would be mechanics that come out faster, but then you start running into ping issues.

I remember running O11N with my fc and hearing tons of complaints about how they were sure they were safe on the wavecannons but got hit.

well, the content you seek for between dungeon and savage is already there : normal trials, normal 8man raids, 24man raids, and even extreme trials fall into the category (albeit in the higher end of the chart)

if you want to blind run, just create a pf...
for next content, just don't late on the hype train in the first week of content, usually there's plenty of blind run on the first week or so (you could even find some of those blind progger in df ! )

normal trials and 24 mans are just as braindead as dungeon. speaking of ex, why dont they put these in duty finder? not everyone has the time to camp party finder waiting an hour to fill up just to practice

You want a challenge but you don’t want it to be as hard as savage. Hmmmmmmm....



Just do savage?

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

meanwhile savage and ex keep getting harder with more nonsense mechanics and longer duration.

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Which is funny because Savage and Extreme has been getting easier and easier.
Inno Ex is literally the "dodge aoes" the fight where it has no waymarks and Tit Ex is literally "make sure to not cleave people with the big red glowing orb attached to you".
Hades Ex is a lot easier than Thordin Ex on release as well.

Savage was also made easier that they made Ultimate for people who wanted old Savage difficulty.
If you compare e4s with a8s, or e3s with a3s, a8s and a3s has 5+ phases all with very tight mechanics.
Meanwhile E1s is literally E1N, but with no aoe indicators. Even the orb phase in normal is harder than Savage.

That's not really a bad thing though. They have been trying to get people into Savage, which is good.
Why not gather a group of people to do Savage blind OP? With how few people actually do Savage, there's no shortage of people to do it blind with.

Aaaaand troll thread confirmed...

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Originally Posted by Payotz

Even the orb phase in normal is harder than Savage.

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God, why is this so correct.

I feel as though content is getting easier, I cleared hades with no clue what to even do in last phase, we had multiple people die upwards to 3 times a piece and still cleared it.....I think the difficulty level stopped at HW while this savage tier is at the level of Alexander creator, so maybe give savage a try it’s honestly much much much more easier then it looks.

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

speaking of ex, why dont they put these in duty finder? not everyone has the time to camp party finder waiting an hour to fill up just to practice

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but... the current ex trial IS in df tho... to be more specific, it is in the Raid Finder section of duty finder...
the not current ex trial usually moved to the normal duty finder...

oh wait... join date on 2014 and doesn't know this ?
are you the rare case of "I create this account waaay back then, but never happen to play it until recently, I don't even know what a raid finder is" person ?

What we need is an extra fight at savage level. That way they can make X1S more accessible and have a smoother progression through fights. For some reason SE hasn't seemed to get the difficulty of the second fight right since deltascape (Chardanook was easier than Phantom Train, and Midgardsormr and Voidwalker are very unfriendly on PUGs).

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

What we need is an extra fight at savage level. That way they can make X1S more accessible and have a smoother progression through fights. For some reason SE hasn't seemed to get the difficulty of the second fight right since deltascape (Chardanook was easier than Phantom Train, and Midgardsormr and Voidwalker are very unfriendly on PUGs).

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But are you surprised lol both Midgard and voidwaifu both requires some form of coordination while chardanook required virtually none lol pugs lack coordination which is honestly the only thing that sets them apart from statics. Phantomtrain was absurdly stupid lol so I won’t comment on that

How do you, OP, think those youtube videos are made? Could it perchance be players that go in blind, learn the mechanics by seeing them, drawing conclusions to what they did wrong and adapting properly? Or are they popping up at random, given by a myterious entity or the devs themselves?

Hint: It's the first one. Go in blind and learn the fights by yourself. People can clear on day 1 with comparably crappy gear, so they are not that hard, actually.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

What we need is an extra fight at savage level. That way they can make X1S more accessible and have a smoother progression through fights. For some reason SE hasn't seemed to get the difficulty of the second fight right since deltascape (Chardanook was easier than Phantom Train, and Midgardsormr and Voidwalker are very unfriendly on PUGs).

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While I agree a fifth fight would be nice, Voidwalker is a complete cakewalk. People simply don't pay attention. Adding a boss between him and Eden Prime wouldn't really do anything. And Levi's pretty much a chump outside Tsunami 2.

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

meanwhile savage and ex keep getting harder with more nonsense mechanics and longer duration.

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https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...93/875/084.png

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

dungeons are so braindead even my 10 years old sister could do them, meanwhile savage and ex keep getting harder with more nonsense mechanics and longer duration. i want content where i can feel challenged and beat without having to watch youtube videos

inb4 "i beat hades ex first try eyes closed hands tied behind my back"

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There is content between dungeons and EX/Savage. It’s called normal mode raids, normal mode primals, and 24-man alliance raids. All three are harder than dungeons (leveling or level-cap); and all three are easier than EX/Savage.

If you were to argue we should have a more fluent increase in difficulty going from end-game dungeons to end-game EX/Savage, then I would agree with you. I think the difficulty jumps can be particularly staggering sometimes, depending on specific pieces of content. But if the argument is simply “we need more content with difficulties between dungeons and EX/Savage”, well that already exists.

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

normal trials and 24 mans are just as braindead as dungeon.

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Are we seriously going to say that the Nier raid is the same difficulty as the Grand Cosmos? My friend tanked the dungeon in our first run—they had 8 vuln stacks during the last boss and the boss still couldn’t kill them with the buster. Meanwhile, 8 vulns and a buster from any of the Nier bosses would be INSTANT SPLAT DEAD.

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speaking of ex, why dont they put these in duty finder? not everyone has the time to camp party finder waiting an hour to fill up just to practice

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See: Mentor Roulette & EX Primals for why these aren’t in Duty Finder.

That said, Raid Finder/Duty Finder has never been the go-to for high-end content on NA or EU servers. There was a brief period in 3.4 where Sophia EX was done in Raid Finder (because she was relatively straight-forward, and all you really needed was a macro to mark people for Sin & Punishment [black/white circle matching]), but that died off once Zurvan came out to play.

JP actually uses PF for practice and DF for clears/farming, but NA/EU use PF for both. Just the way we operate.

E4 Normal got you covered

e4 normal is a lot of fun. punishing but keeps you on alert and every mechanics is clearly visible and udnerstandable without watching any video

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e4 normal is a lot of fun. punishing but keeps you on alert and every mechanics is clearly visible and udnerstandable without watching any video

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I have a hard time believing that people doing E4N for the first time without any guide knew what to do with Massive Landslide / ATV mode without either watching/following other people or simply just being lucky.

nah e4n was great. it was clear "blue area=bad" "big glowy rock = bomb = bad" its not some weird "memorize these random attack names/ symbol on the ground/tether color" bs

Again, without any sort of prior knowledge, how would you know what to do about Massive Landslide / ATV? There are no markers on the ground and no indication as to what area is the dead zone (especially with regard to Massive Landslide) until you've seen the attack at least once, and any failure with regard to these two attacks is instant death.

I don't think the fight is that bad either... once you know these attacks and where they hit. But that's not quite the same thing as "every mechanic is easily visible and understandable". IMO if someone says that about a fight, the average Joe who goes into it blind should be able to understand what to do as the fight progresses without having to eat any deaths due to not knowing what to do.

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Originally Posted by Pixelburst

You want a challenge but you don’t want it to be as hard as savage. Hmmmmmmm....



Just do savage?

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In effect: You'd like seafood, but preferably not shrimp? Have you maybe considered shrimp?

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

I agree with you. What would you call them?

Side note: Hades is mechanically simple, its just a bunch of DPS Checks that hold people back.

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We used to have a better scaling system of: Story -> Hard -> Extreme -> Savage -> (Ultimate was not around then but it is now)

I would like to see a more graduated system as well.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Again, without any sort of prior knowledge, how would you know what to do about Massive Landslide / ATV? There are no markers on the ground and no indication as to what area is the dead zone (especially with regard to Massive Landslide) until you've seen the attack at least once, and any failure with regard to these two attacks is instant death.

I don't think the fight is that bad either... once you know these attacks and where they hit. But that's not quite the same thing as "every mechanic is easily visible and understandable". IMO if someone says that about a fight, the average Joe who goes into it blind should be able to understand what to do as the fight progresses without having to eat any deaths due to not knowing what to do.

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Some mechanics are meant to be seen before learned. It is "easily visible and understandable" in the sense that you can see what it does and understand it, not necessarily "know" beforehand what it does. With landslide, in particular, it is a "trick" mechanic in that the safe zone is the opposite of previous landslides, at least initially. But once you've seen it, you can understand it.

no one says you have to watch videos go in blind. there are still plenty of people who do that to find out what to do by themselves. I.E. Nest. and scottzone and his community

It’s the lack of any difficult 4 man content that’s the issue. There is absolutely none of that in the game.

This could really be a place where I think everyone sees a hole in the content and could also maybe satisfy the OP as well as a large % of the playerbase instead of just more ultimate stuff which only .5% of the playerbase will ever even see.

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Originally Posted by Dadbod

It’s the lack of any difficult 4 man content that’s the issue. There is absolutely none of that in the game.

This could really be a place where I think everyone sees a hole in the content and could also maybe satisfy the OP as well as a large % of the playerbase instead of just more ultimate stuff which only .5% of the playerbase will ever even see.

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I'd argue that POTD and HOH are reasonably difficult, at least when it comes to the higher floors. Though admittedly a lot of that difficulty resides in RNG. I often wonder how much more successful it would be if it wasn't such a pain to find a group.

I feel like I'm playing a game full of masochists.

This game really lacks something between those so called expert dungeons and the raids.
And no, the normal raids don't fill this gap. These are just some other forms of trials.

The dungeon system in "Rift" was pretty neat in my opinion (at least PRE-Addon phase, don't know how it was after the first add-on hit the shelves).
In Rift every dungeon hat a normal mode and a (back then!) real difficult version that introduced more hardhitting trashpacks, longer dungeons, more bosses, harder mechanics, unique loot. These dungeons were gap-closer between normal content and raids and back then people usually didn't pug them 1st try on Patchday.
Also did the game have a dungeon that was like a 4-5 player Raid. It was built like a regular dungeon but was really difficult. That was real fun and optional.

If FF14 had something like that, I'd be really happy because the current expert dungeons don't even remotely deserve to be named "expert".

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I'd argue that POTD and HOH are reasonably difficult, at least when it comes to the higher floors. Though admittedly a lot of that difficulty resides in RNG. I often wonder how much more successful it would be if it wasn't such a pain to find a group.

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Isn't it hard to find a group precisely because it isn't generally considered all that successful as repeatable content (outside of leveling)?

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

While I agree a fifth fight would be nice, Voidwalker is a complete cakewalk. People simply don't pay attention. Adding a boss between him and Eden Prime wouldn't really do anything. And Levi's pretty much a chump outside Tsunami 2.

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That wasn't my point. I'm not saying that voidwalker is difficult (though are you judging release voidwalker or current voidwalker? because gear progression is a big factor in difficulty), I'm saying that voidwalker is arguably a lot more difficult than E1S and arguably even E3S, my point is that a fifth fight would help smooth that curve and make raiding a lot more accessible to players.