A new difficulty level: after Extreme... it is Unreal!

It seems so, looking at the notes on patch 5.3 special site.
Just an Extreme for the level 80, or something really... unreal to beat?

We don't know that it's specifically higher difficulty than Extreme.

It seems more like it would be a weekly duty that around the same difficulty as an Extreme, kinda like providing an equivalent to weekly Savage reclears for Extreme level players.

Its the old hard or extreme trials bumped up to 80. they have said this numerous times

Hell the reason its OG shiva is because it was originally going to be titan, but they considered Titan hard/extreme to be too difficult as it was on par with a savage level fight at release both times (though as its synced to 80 i doubt it would be on account of absurdly good healing kits now which was part of OG titan's difficulty- you had to beat him before the scaling tumult damage started out pacing the healers healing power)
I find that a bit insulting tbh, everybody did titan hard because it was the last step in the first stage of your relic and yes, it was challenging, but that was more due to server ticks and very little gear creep available

there was no need to go straight from the hardest to the easiest primal at 50! Should give it to ifrit as he was the first primal and middling in terms of difficulty.

It's not a new difficulty, it's just a remake of older trials. Hence the name: it's not the 'real' fight.

Since it's just level 80 Shiva Extreme, it's safe to say this Trial will be easier than all of the ShB Trials. Only thing that really trips people up in this fight is Glass Dance and Avalanche... and the tank swap, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Since it's just level 80 Shiva Extreme, it's safe to say this Trial will be easier than all of the ShB Trials. Only thing that really trips people up in this fight is Glass Dance and Avalanche... and the tank swap, I guess.

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Didn't they say there would be a few new surprises as well to trip up players?

During the previous Live Letter, they basically said that these trials would be below Savage level:

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Originally Posted by Zhexos

Unreal Trials and Faux Hallows
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...3&d=1588271215 https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...4&d=1588271226

(01:10:34)
In Unreal Trials, not only are primals scaled up to level 80, but they are also re-balanced accordingly. If we were to keep introducing new Unreal Trials, we’d have to spend a tremendous amount of cost to re-balance every trial all over again when the level cap is increased in the future. As such, our solution was to change the featured primal with each patch.

Some members of the development team felt that Titan deserved to be the first Unreal Trial, but Titan’s difficulty on release was around that of current Savage fights, which we felt was too difficult for the first Unreal Trial. Instead we decided on Shiva, as she had recently made a sort of appearance in Eden’s Verse.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

but they considered Titan hard/extreme to be too difficult as it was on par with a savage level fight at release both times

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Titan Hard was Savage level at launch?

Maybe I'm better at the game than I thought. I never found it to be too difficult back then. I mean there were wipes and stuff sure, but I never struggled with it personally.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Titan Hard was Savage level at launch?

Maybe I'm better at the game than I thought. I never found it to be too difficult back then. I mean there were wipes and stuff sure, but I never struggled with it personally.

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It was bad. It was REALLY bad. The fight itself wasn't difficult, but at the time it was probably the biggest learning curve in the game and many people failed to complete it initially. This lasted for at least a month. It took that long for me to get a clear, and I only got it when I did because a group was offering free carries. Luckily I lived until one of the final landslides in the last phase so I still don't consider that to be a carry. I knew my stuff but made a mistake. Many other people could not even make it past the Heart phase.

As to the topic, someone already said that it was old trials being scaled up to 80. The way they were talking about it though I'd be willing to bet that they are the Ex versions.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

It was bad. It was REALLY bad. The fight itself wasn't difficult, but at the time it was probably the biggest learning curve in the game and many people failed to complete it initially. This lasted for at least a month. It took that long for me to get a clear, and I only got it when I did because a group was offering free carries. Luckily I lived until one of the final landslides in the last phase so I still don't consider that to be a carry. I knew my stuff but made a mistake. Many other people could not even make it past the Heart phase.

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Hm. I don't remember having that much trouble, and I definitely played it when it was still fresh. Maybe I just got matched with a good group back then.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Hm. I don't remember having that much trouble, and I definitely played it when it was still fresh. Maybe I just got matched with a good group back then.

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I didn't have much issue with it either.

I really think a lot of the difficulty had to do with people not understanding how cast bars worked.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I didn't have much issue with it either.

I really think a lot of the difficulty had to do with people not understanding how cast bars worked.

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There were also pretty significant ping issues if I recall. That, plus certain jobs were downright terrible back then. Dragoon, in particular, was a mess.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I didn't have much issue with it either.

I really think a lot of the difficulty had to do with people not understanding how cast bars worked.

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Well, I'm glad I'm not just looking back with rose-tinted glasses or something.

I definitely recall a lot of people just not moving and getting knocked off or blasted to hell by all Weight of the Land puddles in a single spot (which is a good strat, if you actually get out of it). I feel like I learned how to move out of attacks much earlier in the game like you're supposed to, so maybe that's why it was easier for me.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Titan Hard was Savage level at launch?

Maybe I'm better at the game than I thought. I never found it to be too difficult back then. I mean there were wipes and stuff sure, but I never struggled with it personally.

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Titanextreme upon release with the 300 EU ping was akin to savage difficulty. Titan hard, was not as you say

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Originally Posted by Wyakin

Titanextreme upon release with the 300 EU ping was akin to savage difficulty. Titan hard, was not as you say

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Yeah, Titan Hard wasn't anywhere near that bad in terms of difficulty. It was just a big step up from what a lot of people were used to at the time.

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Originally Posted by Wyakin

Titanextreme upon release with the 300 EU ping was akin to savage difficulty. Titan hard, was not as you say

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I.... wasn't the one saying it was Savage, someone else said Hard and Extreme were Savage level on release. I was asking because someone said it and I couldn't believe it.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

There were also pretty significant ping issues if I recall. That, plus certain jobs were downright terrible back then. Dragoon, in particular, was a mess.

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We had 300ms built in lag plus whatever we have connecting to their old cheap Montreal servers.

The built in issue was fixed in 2.1, but we still had to deal with the Montreal servers.

I had a terrible delay on my PS3 and never survived Titan hm... When I got my PS4 I suddenly was much better in dodging AoEs o.ô;

I guess other PS3 players had the same problem at the time.

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Originally Posted by Tint

I had a terrible delay on my PS3 and never survived Titan hm... When I got my PS4 I suddenly was much better in dodging AoEs o.ô;

I guess other PS3 players had the same problem at the time.

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Playing this game on the PS3 was god awful. That is what I started with.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Titan Hard was Savage level at launch?

Maybe I'm better at the game than I thought. I never found it to be too difficult back then. I mean there were wipes and stuff sure, but I never struggled with it personally.

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The server ticks were worse back then. Like 3 seconds before the server registered you as no longer being in X location. It made playing this game on PS3, in Australia, on an American server an absolute nightmare.

There was a huge thread about the lag back in 2013 up until 2.1's release. I still remember a T2 gif where a BRD steps out of the ADS laser AoE and still get hit by it ~3 seconds later.

Honestly im not sure about this "Unreal" ... they state that they want to stick to the same mechanics but up them to 80.

Now ... why do we hate the 2.x Extreme trials ... or why are they forgotten mostly.

1. 2.x Had their EU players connect to NA which caused half a sec of delay making aoes appear late and hit you in an unfair way.
2a. Back in 2.x players did not have years of experience to pull from, for many of us we barely 50 and did attempt Garuda ex in ilv 60
2b. A lot of players simply never put in the effort to do them sync ... why would they?

Now that both of these factors are gone ... and if SE sticks to "mechanics stay the same" the fights will be incredibly easy going, if you take for sample Shiva ...

Starts with a shared buster, followed by a "walk through" frontal.
next is a few player marked aoes.
We are now already in Add phase ... which has once again
a shared buster followed by a "walk through" frontal
next is the cross and intercross shiva puddles and player marked aoe
And we are on bow ... in which everyone packs behind her and once 1 player is marked all others step to the side
At this point it repeats back to sword shared > frontal.

That is the entire fight, everything else is fluff dmg from her autos or some raidwide.

Shiva the E8 boss's list is already 3 times as long likely but still.
The difficulty of those is gonna be very very weird i feel as the fights are not mechanically challenging BUT punishing.

Unreal difficulty was specifically mentioned as being more aimed towards the casual crowd, so it being easier then current extremes wouldn't really bug me.

It's still liable to give people more trouble then any of the current normal mode trials if the moves hit about as hard as they did at 50 comparatively.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

The server ticks were worse back then. Like 3 seconds before the server registered you as no longer being in X location. It made playing this game on PS3, in Australia, on an American server an absolute nightmare.

There was a huge thread about the lag back in 2013 up until 2.1's release. I still remember a T2 gif where a BRD steps out of the ADS laser AoE and still get hit by it ~3 seconds later.

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Nah, position updates were at .3 seconds, and any action forced an update anyway.

It definitely was not a 3 second delay.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

There were also pretty significant ping issues if I recall. That, plus certain jobs were downright terrible back then. Dragoon, in particular, was a mess.

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You've pretty nailed the issue.

At the time, the only datacenters were NA and JP. As playing from EU, the little bit of added ping was enough to me to eat each and every landslide. As soon as the EU datacenter was created, and I moved there, did cleared the fight at first try.

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Originally Posted by Tint

I had a terrible delay on my PS3 and never survived Titan hm... When I got my PS4 I suddenly was much better in dodging AoEs o.ô;

I guess other PS3 players had the same problem at the time.

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The only problem ps3 had was long load times, eu did not have servers and that caused the lag but you could still clear titan as long as you memorized his rotation and evaded before the aoes appeared.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Nah, position updates were at .3 seconds, and any action forced an update anyway.

It definitely was not a 3 second delay.

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Certainly felt like it back then. Had to count to 4 after every single mechanic so I wouldn't be hit by the AoE.
But that's probably because of the playing on PS3 + Australian ADSL2+ + playing on American server ultra "why are you even trying?" combo.

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Originally Posted by RyuSaarva

The only problem ps3 had was long load times, eu did not have servers and that caused the lag but you could still clear titan as long as you memorized his rotation and evaded before the aoes appeared.

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No, it WAS the PS3. The day I bought the PS4 and plugged it into the same internet, on the same servers (and the same TV) the delay was gone (or at least reduced) and I could clear Titan without getting hit once.

Sure you could memorize the fight completely and dodge even before the AoEs spawned, but that was beyond my capabilities (and likely still is).

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Originally Posted by Tint

No, it WAS the PS3. The day I bought the PS4 and plugged it into the same internet, on the same servers (and the same TV) the delay was gone (or at least reduced) and I could clear Titan without getting hit once.

Sure you could memorize the fight completely and dodge even before the AoEs spawned, but that was beyond my capabilities (and likely still is).

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I was perfectly fine with ps3 after we got servers, I only changed to ps4 after it was mandatory and the only thing I notice is faster load times and better draw distance/faster character model load times.