Alarm Pheromones 1 opens the door for true midcore content in FFXIV

The savage tier has been out for months now, but the PLL with the new content reveal (chaotic alliance raids) got me thinking again about the lack of good midcore content in this game, and what square enix could create that would be fun, repeatable (and worth repeating), and puggable via the duty finder...Alarm Pheromones 1 is the answer.

Alarm goes beyond the current consideration of "midcore" content currently in this game like bozja for example. Its a great midcore mechanic because it is not a solvable mechanic, or something you simply learn how it works and then you are good. Sure, PF and other groups have tried to create strats to minimize the pain, but it really is a use eyes and dodge accordingly mechanic for every pull the entire time. It does not matter if you've done it once or one hundred times, you always need to have your brain on and use your eyes to manuever the mechanic.

This is something unique that I have not seen in any piece of battle content in this game yet. In my opinion, this type of mechanic is perfect for midcore, and they should develop a new set of duty finder content with these types of mechs in mind. Thoughts?

Sure and it actually comes from Barbariccia and then later 2st boss of Rokkon (criterion), seen as bullet hell mechanics that they improved upon since then. We also see that kind of thing in Vanguard. In all cases there is different speeds and paces, and the width and shape of the AoEs vary, as well as the randomness (some are scripted like in barbariccia, some are fully baited like in here, vanguard and rokkon).

But I'd like them to go further than just this. For example taking M2S as a fight since we're on M2, the mechanic that allows the boss to build up hearts as soon as people fuck up in the Beats phases is actually a great soft enrage mechanic, and I could see that kind of things in midcore content.

But more than anything I think people are also just fed up of being regurgitated the same trial arena with a boss model over and over. They want more unique and creative things to crop up again like we have seen in the Bozja instances like CLL and Dalriada, and it's not exactly hard to retranslate this into duty finder content either.

Hot take: I think some Ultimate mechanics are easier to resolve than Alarm Pheromones.
That mechanic is absolute trash for anyone with any ping above 100ms. This concept of 'ping' seems to be foreign for the devs, and some players apparently too.

Speaking from experience. I get weird situations where I get knocked into a wall because I was only human and didn't perfectly estimate the width of that bee attack from the other side of the arena. Someone with a low ping might estimate it approximately and they can do a micro-adjustment the moment that the AOE shows up for that half a second and they're out of it in time when the actual AOE goes off. But for me? That line AOE shows up, and if I'm in it, even with a single pixellated pinky toe? I'm already snapshotted in place and will be sliding into the wall before I even see the actual mechanic go off. I can sidestep all I want in response to the initial AOE, doesn't matter. I have to do it right without any microadjustment. No adjustments, no second chances.
Don't get me wrong, I've done so for weeks now. It's still a frustrating and unfair mechanic for anyone with some distance to the server and I'm happy I can just skip that fight these days.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Hot take: I think some Ultimate mechanics are easier to resolve than Alarm Pheromones.
That mechanic is absolute trash for anyone with any ping above 100ms. This concept of 'ping' seems to be foreign for the devs, and some players apparently too.

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Counter Take: its just a different type of mechanic.
Personally, I find mechanics like those a thousand times more exciting and fun to master than having to memorize positions to stand in safely over the course of a 10-15 minute fight. May just be my brain, but I find it more intuitive to react to these moments than to rely on my memory (granted, I have issues with memorization).

So, Ultimate Stuff is pretty much impossible for me, while the bullet hell approach works better for me personally.

It's definitely a matter of preference. I hate the mechanic and the bullet hell hearts both,

I don't think the problem lie in mechanics. Heck, I don't even think calling a lack of midcore content is even the right way to express what the game is lacking. Far too often, people use midcore to talk about difficulty. The problem doesn't lie in the (lack of) difficulty. It lies in the lack of day to day content you can engage in. Sure first tribe quest is coming, but that's gonna be 10 min for 24 days (with the bonus quest after reaching a new level). That's it. What we lack is content with longevity you can see yourself progress slowly but surely, that regulary unlocks some sort of reward. Also that content has to be easily accessible (no queue), a content you can jump in/jump out when you want without hurting the other players.

I fear adding another in-between difficulty won't solve anything if it's another "one time and never again" content. No, what really matters is the shelf life and the low entry barrier. It can be that inbetween difficulty, but attacking the problem by that angle seems to me like the right way to get it wrong.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

The savage tier has been out for months now, but the PLL with the new content reveal (chaotic alliance raids) got me thinking again about the lack of good midcore content in this game, and what square enix could create that would be fun, repeatable (and worth repeating), and puggable via the duty finder...Alarm Pheromones 1 is the answer.

Alarm goes beyond the current consideration of "midcore" content currently in this game like bozja for example. Its a great midcore mechanic because it is not a solvable mechanic, or something you simply learn how it works and then you are good. Sure, PF and other groups have tried to create strats to minimize the pain, but it really is a use eyes and dodge accordingly mechanic for every pull the entire time. It does not matter if you've done it once or one hundred times, you always need to have your brain on and use your eyes to manuever the mechanic.

This is something unique that I have not seen in any piece of battle content in this game yet. In my opinion, this type of mechanic is perfect for midcore, and they should develop a new set of duty finder content with these types of mechs in mind. Thoughts?

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But that's basically the same mechanic as normal just with a harsher penalty for getting stung. Hell it might actually be less difficult than the normal one since it's easier to bait the stingers with a party that's more receptive to strategy.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

It's definitely a matter of preference. I hate the mechanic and the bullet hell hearts both.

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For sure. I'm like:

• AP1 bees: What the f*** even is this?
• B1 hearts: I can do this!

B really is for Brilliant.

Randomized but simpler mechanics are just fundamentally more engaging when it comes to repetition vs. the scripted dance parties that define most of the harder content.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Speaking from experience. I get weird situations where I get knocked into a wall because I was only human and didn't perfectly estimate the width of that bee attack from the other side of the arena. Someone with a low ping might estimate it approximately and they can do a micro-adjustment the moment that the AOE shows up for that half a second and they're out of it in time when the actual AOE goes off. But for me? That line AOE shows up, and if I'm in it, even with a single pixellated pinky toe? I'm already snapshotted in place and will be sliding into the wall before I even see the actual mechanic go off. I can sidestep all I want in response to the initial AOE, doesn't matter. I have to do it right without any microadjustment. No adjustments, no second chances.

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This is probably gonna come down to taste and appreciation but I've never been very happy with what i'd call 'abstract geometry' where you're constantly asked to eyeball where exactly the AoE is starting and where it's safe, because one of the most common ways the devs have to (artificially) increase difficulty is just to remove all the visual markers and feedbacks. Worst offender being those stupid cannons in M4S during Sunlight.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

The savage tier has been out for months now, but the PLL with the new content reveal (chaotic alliance raids) got me thinking again about the lack of good midcore content in this game, and what square enix could create that would be fun, repeatable (and worth repeating), and puggable via the duty finder...Alarm Pheromones 1 is the answer.

Alarm goes beyond the current consideration of "midcore" content currently in this game like bozja for example. Its a great midcore mechanic because it is not a solvable mechanic, or something you simply learn how it works and then you are good. Sure, PF and other groups have tried to create strats to minimize the pain, but it really is a use eyes and dodge accordingly mechanic for every pull the entire time. It does not matter if you've done it once or one hundred times, you always need to have your brain on and use your eyes to manuever the mechanic.

This is something unique that I have not seen in any piece of battle content in this game yet. In my opinion, this type of mechanic is perfect for midcore, and they should develop a new set of duty finder content with these types of mechs in mind. Thoughts?

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the mechanic is horrible, its always a pf filter and has no real way of resolving. it goes against the entire design of this game for the last 10 years

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Randomized but simpler mechanics are just fundamentally more engaging when it comes to repetition vs. the scripted dance parties that define most of the harder content.

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Completely agree. I wish they'd embrace more randomised encounter design or even just individual mechanics.
The cool thing is that it doesn't need to kill you to be fun (subjectively, I know), the mere fact that you have to actively think about it just makes it so much more engaging.

Solving the hearts phase is fun for me because it's something new every time. With time you practice the general skill of quickly recognising where and how fast the hearts flow and how to see safe spots on the fly, so you can plan your movement. But you have to recognise and plan nevertheless since you can't just memorise their positions.

It would be a possible solution to keep an aspect of novelty and demand active engagement by players with each run of a fight without having to rely on making it super difficult or a 10 minute body check, while preventing the design of a fixed choreography that is bound to grow stale once you have internalised it.

It could be implemented at all levels, casual, midcore and hardcore and (re-)vitalise repeatable content as a whole.

uhh not quite true. you bait them all so its not truly rng. i wish the game WAS more like wow in that regard but too many would complain

I do wish there were more randomised mechanics, like how the variant dungeon boss mechanics can change based on the weather or an environmental interaction... But I don't think mechs like Alarm Pheremones 1 is the way to do it.

I'm also a high ping player, I play UK to NA servers and I tend to sit around 150-160ms on a good day, sometimes as high as 300ms on a bad day (my ISP isn't great lol). While I'm able to manage well despite it, misjudging the size of an AoE by a pixel or two and not having the chance to adjust isn't fun. I know people who live in the US but far from the server with something more like 80ms, and the mechanic is rather unforgiving to them as well. The game really isn't built for bullet hell, late telegraph type mechanics unless you're a JP player on JP servers - their internet infrastructure is far better than ours.

The other part that frustrates me about these kinds of mechanics is. I main Black Mage. The death of non-standard play and Flare Star being so inflexible make it a lot more strict than it used to be, and these kind of mechanics simply do not work for a class like BLM. The class relies on pre-planning, and while you can do an amount of sudden movement, you can't do a lot without messing up your rotation. Random AoEs appearing under your feet that don't last long enough for you to finish a cast and that you have no way to pre-plan for are completely antithetical to the class' design and make it feel impossible to work with. I ended up playing Picto this tier, because why would I bother sticking with BLM when all through the story and the first two Exes it's difficult to work with and no fun to play, Picto is very similar but FAR more flexible, and Picto does stupid damage by comparison?

Stuff like the AoE vomit in Vangard's second boss AND the spinning laser is just too much randomised movement without enough time to regenerate resources between them. It's not just DT content either - fight design has been getting rather BLM unfriendly for a while - P4S's Act 4 where you have to run around the whole arena (during leylines), P7S's Purgation, TOP's Looper followed immediately by Pantokrator.

BLM rant aside, I enjoyed some of the mechanics we saw in DT - I liked the AoE vomit in the first boss of Ihuykatumu, where there's a lot going on and it is random, but it gives you enough time to think it out and execution isn't move-non-stop-for-20-seconds-straight. Skydeep Cenote's final boss has some periods that require a lot of sudden movement, but it's in manageably small and spaced out chunks. Everkeep Ex has some mechanical combinations that can make you move a fair amount, but you have the time to figure out where you're going to go and even cast in between.

The game isn't built for these kinds of mechanics - not the netcode, nor the job design. Casters have been in a crappy spot for a while with the consistently rubbish damage through EW while melees got obscenely massive boss hitboxes to make sure they could maintain 100% uptime, but it really feels like they didn't test some of these encounters on casters at all. They need to rethink a little more than just the encounter mechanics if they want to do more things like this.

I'd love to see fights where, like SOS Ex, P8S or Valigarmanda Ex, there are different phases, but how about we don't cycle through all of them? Make them random, make it select only a handful per pull, make them different durations and movement and mitigation requirements to keep players on their toes. Give us expert dungeons where the mechanics can change with with weather to make them less of a drag to run multiple times a week. Give us random mechanics to make content more repeatable and interesting without resorting to "random bullshit, go!" bullet hell that really, really doesn't work with the job and encounter design we already have and leaves people frustrated because they got hit by a heart or a zombie that didn't even appear to be anywhere near them on their screen.

Bruh in here really thinking Honeybee Lovely isn't just a suped up second boss of Saint Mocianne's Arboretum.

Mechanics like this have been in the game for a long time, but they generally are allowed to be outgeared/power crept, and aren't generally lethal/fast paced if not in a savage.

Door for Midcore been around a long time. They just don't care to open it.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Hot take: I think some Ultimate mechanics are easier to resolve than Alarm Pheromones.
That mechanic is absolute trash for anyone with any ping above 100ms. This concept of 'ping' seems to be foreign for the devs, and some players apparently too.

Speaking from experience. I get weird situations where I get knocked into a wall because I was only human and didn't perfectly estimate the width of that bee attack from the other side of the arena. Someone with a low ping might estimate it approximately and they can do a micro-adjustment the moment that the AOE shows up for that half a second and they're out of it in time when the actual AOE goes off. But for me? That line AOE shows up, and if I'm in it, even with a single pixellated pinky toe? I'm already snapshotted in place and will be sliding into the wall before I even see the actual mechanic go off. I can sidestep all I want in response to the initial AOE, doesn't matter. I have to do it right without any microadjustment. No adjustments, no second chances.
Don't get me wrong, I've done so for weeks now. It's still a frustrating and unfair mechanic for anyone with some distance to the server and I'm happy I can just skip that fight these days.

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You don't resolve it, you react to it.
It's a good mechanic. I have 250-350 MS and i have not been hit by it since the first few weeks of clearing it

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Originally Posted by Valence

Sure and it actually comes from Barbariccia and then later 2st boss of Rokkon (criterion), seen as bullet hell mechanics that they improved upon since then. We also see that kind of thing in Vanguard. In all cases there is different speeds and paces, and the width and shape of the AoEs vary, as well as the randomness (some are scripted like in barbariccia, some are fully baited like in here, vanguard and rokkon).

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I would say the Barb twisters resemble the hearts in M2s more than anything else. I don't think there is anything in barb that really connects to what Alarm 1 does. Same for Rokkon, where I would agree Rokkon's first boss mech is similar in nature to a recent example like vanguard.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Bruh in here really thinking Honeybee Lovely isn't just a suped up second boss of Saint Mocianne's Arboretum.

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But the normal dungeon boss is very solvable because it tells you who is baiting and the pattern is very rigid, so I disagree with the correlation other than both bees both shoot aoes.



What Alarm 1 does that separates itself from all the above described mechanics is its timing and punishment:

Timing: If you compare Rokkon to Alarm 1, Rokkon's aoes go off about 3 or so seconds after they are placed, while Alarm 1's go off around 7 seconds after they are placed. Not to mention that the actual AOE indicator isn't shown until 1 second right before the pheromone snapshots. This forces the player to keep tabs on several aoes in different locations around the map that could cause problems, where as in Rokkon (or vanguard) you can easily sidestep alot of the beams in a small area because they are easier to keep track of when and where they'll go off.

Punishment: In any of the above mechs listed, the punishment is damage and potential weakness/damage down debuffs along with them. Dps/Healers will have less leeway than a tank, but you can easily survive multiple without dying (especially if healer spot heals). Alarm 1 will almost always cause certain death unless you are alert with gap closer, or you get lucky with where you are pushed (assuming you are near the middle of the arena).

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

I would say the Barb twisters resemble the hearts in M2s more than anything else. I don't think there is anything in barb that really connects to what Alarm 1 does. Same for Rokkon, where I would agree Rokkon's first boss mech is similar in nature to a recent example like vanguard.

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I never said anything about her twisters.

They should combine Alarm Pheromones 1, and 2 in the Arcadion Ultimate so players have to drop poison puddles while also dodging crazy bees.

As an avid lunatic ultra touhou player, Idc if it's bad or good :P I love these mechanics lmao.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I never said anything about her twisters.

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Then not sure what you could be alluding to :). The dashes that are resolved via clockspots? The puddle drops that are just mario kart? You're losing me here lmao

After transition there is a couple of fast, spammy line AoE phases but they're all static and unchanging, and after rewatching it again I'm ready to admit that it looks a lot less relevant than into my memories.