Replayability and rewatchability for Solo Instances

I realize I might be a bit unique here in this wish, but has anyone else realllyyyy wanted to just replayed certain solo instances? I constantly find myself going, man, I really want to fight Zenos or play In From the Cold again. (EW solo instances in general are some of my favorite.) But as far as I know, there's no way to really replay them without going through all the MSQ again through NG+. I love them, but not enough to try and furiously skip through several hours of quests and the occasional dungeon/trial...

On another note, sometimes I also wish they had a "hard" difficulty for some of these fights instead of just the easier modes, though I appreciate they are there for people who need them. That and I wish I could see the cutscenes from some of them easier too. The solo instance from 7.1 with Koana has such a good cutscene that I wish I could watch again without having to specifically screen record it or watch someone else do it.

Does anyone else want the same thing, or am I alone in this? lol

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Originally Posted by maidgil

On another note, sometimes I also wish they had a "hard" difficulty for some of these fights instead of just the easier modes, though I appreciate they are there for people who need them.

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This is a large part of why I still wish the match against Gulool Ja Ja had been a trial instead, that fight is such a powerful vibe, but it being one-and-done(or two-and-done considering the fight against the phantom later, but that doesn't carry the same vibe), that it made me wish we could've gotten at least a EX of it, Vali can go back to FF6, fucker didn't need to be here.

I think everyone wants these things. Just SE does not apply the basic concept of "easy mode" and "hard mode" to everything in the game. Instead it's extremely uneven, where the MSQ only has "normal", "easy" and "very easy", dungeons only have "easy", I don't know who B rank hunts are even designed for because even a 90-year-old grandmother would find them boring, and then there are FATEs that "challenge" you with a little conal AoE that you avoid out of habit anyway.

Where there are hard modes (trials, raids and criterion), it's a complete 180. The most challenging solo content for me that has any sort of real stakes is solo spawning Nunyunuwi and a few of the Masked Carnivale challenges (which, are challenging on the basis you can't fallback on someone to carry you).

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Originally Posted by maidgil

I realize I might be a bit unique here in this wish, but has anyone else realllyyyy wanted to just replayed certain solo instances? I constantly find myself going, man, I really want to fight Zenos or play In From the Cold again. (EW solo instances in general are some of my favorite.) But as far as I know, there's no way to really replay them without going through all the MSQ again through NG+. I love them, but not enough to try and furiously skip through several hours of quests and the occasional dungeon/trial...

On another note, sometimes I also wish they had a "hard" difficulty for some of these fights instead of just the easier modes, though I appreciate they are there for people who need them. That and I wish I could see the cutscenes from some of them easier too. The solo instance from 7.1 with Koana has such a good cutscene that I wish I could watch again without having to specifically screen record it or watch someone else do it.

Does anyone else want the same thing, or am I alone in this? lol

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Definitely not alone!

I'm not a big fan of having to replay the second-half of Endwalker if I want to partake in the one-on-one fight Vs Zenos (which I LOVE) again!

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

This is a large part of why I still wish the match against Gulool Ja Ja had been a trial instead, that fight is such a powerful vibe, but it being one-and-done(or two-and-done considering the fight against the phantom later, but that doesn't carry the same vibe), that it made me wish we could've gotten at least a EX of it, Vali can go back to FF6, fucker didn't need to be here.

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Memory Misera was a solo instance fight that was given an 8-man extreme. I would absolutely be down for a Galool Ja Ja instance on that level.

Actually an Echo fuel’d instance fight that him in his youthful prime would be rad. SE please. Maybe make that a Chaotic or use that new Quantum system. He was Dawntrail's coolest character!

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Definitely not alone!

I'm not a big fan of having to replay the second-half of Endwalker if I want to partake in the one-on-one fight Vs Zenos (which I LOVE) again!

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The Venat duel, too. There is an HW instance that has us 1v1 Raubahn that I loved.

Honestly, we might be on to something.

I'd love for them to be easily replayable. Furthermore, I'd love uncapped versions to come out that are similar in difficulty to Bozja duels.

Nope, really wanted these myself. I can understand it may be difficult to code, though. But if it was ever possible, I'd love to see it. Those are the exact instances I wanted to do without going through NG+ up to them, too.

One compromise maybe is more checkpoints for NG+ that are closer to these instances? Then we wouldn't have to play through as much to get to them.

Arcade mode for solo instances please

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I think everyone wants these things. Just SE does not apply the basic concept of "easy mode" and "hard mode" to everything in the game. Instead it's extremely uneven, where the MSQ only has "normal", "easy" and "very easy", dungeons only have "easy", I don't know who B rank hunts are even designed for because even a 90-year-old grandmother would find them boring, and then there are FATEs that "challenge" you with a little conal AoE that you avoid out of habit anyway.

Where there are hard modes (trials, raids and criterion), it's a complete 180. The most challenging solo content for me that has any sort of real stakes is solo spawning Nunyunuwi and a few of the Masked Carnivale challenges (which, are challenging on the basis you can't fallback on someone to carry you).

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I'm pretty sure B-rank hunts are only designed for achievement hunters.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

This is a large part of why I still wish the match against Gulool Ja Ja had been a trial instead, that fight is such a powerful vibe, but it being one-and-done(or two-and-done considering the fight against the phantom later, but that doesn't carry the same vibe), that it made me wish we could've gotten at least a EX of it, Vali can go back to FF6, fucker didn't need to be here.

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I agree. Valingarmanda defnitely didn't live for the expectations. I thought it would play an essential role in the rite of succession, like being the final challenge and the entity that would bless the winner.

In fact, they also misled by showing the Alexandria's last boss, the Eliminator, in a way that made me think it would also have a pretty big role in the story.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I agree. Valingarmanda defnitely didn't live for the expectations. I thought it would play an essential role in the rite of succession, like being the final challenge and the entity that would bless the winner.

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I didn't think that, because they teased it so much before release including in the MSQ. The lore and its theme and every "formula" thing about it pointed to it being the 93 trial and a 93 trial isn't a last boss by any stretch. I actually made a roadmap of how I thought Dawntrail would go after one of the Fan Fests on January 8th 2024 and most of it ended up being accurate, here it is (notice I placed Valigarmanda by Urqopacha). Then it just got outright confirmed if there was any doubt when Yoshi-P previewed it on stream.

They teased Valigarmanda as something you would fight along the way and that Wuk Lamat was excited to face. They portrayed "one of the candidates has really bad views" in a way that made them seem like they were closer to a main threat and last boss than Valigarmanda, in my opinion. Which, turned out to be the case since he's the 99 trial.

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they also misled by showing the Alexandria's last boss, the Eliminator, in a way that made me think it would also have a pretty big role in the story.

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Same but I expected it given they did the same with Endwalker and SE makes a formula out of every precedent. They teased the last boss of the first and second dungeons as if they were trial bosses so that they didn't outright spoil the 83 and 89 trials, which, they had basically spoiled anyway with the "end of the hydaelyn and zodiark arc" promotional material, but they gave you that just to suspend your disbelief a slight bit.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I agree. Valingarmanda defnitely didn't live for the expectations.

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I didn't find Vali disappointing, as much as I found them paling in comparison to the much cooler solo duty in the same leg of the story, Gulool Ja Ja was, by every metric, the Turali counterpart to the Warrior of Light, and the feeling of facing against someone who is essentially one of your predecessors is amazing, it was amazing against Venat, it is amazing here.

Though thinking about it, I feel you might be right that Vali would've been a better final boss, like maybe their presence could also serve to better explain Gulool Ja Ja showing up at the Golden City, other than "Gulool just planned to follow the winners all along", like maybe he had gone to Yak T'el to fight Vali again, maybe even planning a heroic sacrifice to take them down once for all, since he was by now depowered without the Head of Reason and even at their peak they could only seal Vali away, but then Wuk Lamat and Koana, with the Scions' help(including WoL as "the Scions" to be clear, WoL IS a Scion even if the term is broadly used to refer to the group outside of them), manage to strike down Vali without any losses, and Gulool gets to feel this absolute sense of pride in his children.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I didn't think that, because they teased it so much before release including in the MSQ. The lore and its theme and every "formula" thing about it pointed to it being the 93 trial and a 93 trial isn't a last boss by any stretch.

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I know, but they almost made explicit that the MSQ would be divided into 2 parts, the second one being north towards Solution 9, so it could somewhat match the midway through, making sense for it to be the 93 trial and the conclusion of the first part.

Not personally, but I think this would be cool for people who do want to do this and it seems like it would be a great way to add replayability for that content and seems like it wouldn't be that hard to implement.

Adding a hard mode? That might take more work but still might be worthwhile. If it needed additional rewards besides personal achievement that might unbalance things in the game.

I would love to have a means of replaying solo duties without going through whole blocks of NG+

Replaying solo duties with different difficulties or challenges would be pretty neat.
Add a title for the highest difficulty similar to duels and those could become an interesting new challenge.

Even something in the vein of the masked carnival with solo duties in a roulette would be a nice challenge in-between.

Would probably get more players than Forked Failure. :3

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

Even something in the vein of the masked carnival with solo duties in a roulette would be a nice challenge in-between.

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I wish they'd use the Lightfeather Proving Ground or the Ul'dah coliseum for solo challenges.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I agree. Valingarmanda defnitely didn't live for the expectations. I thought it would play an essential role in the rite of succession, like being the final challenge and the entity that would bless the winner.

In fact, they also misled by showing the Alexandria's last boss, the Eliminator, in a way that made me think it would also have a pretty big role in the story.

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They pulled this same stunt with Anima. Just showing off a really cool boss we assume is a big trial and it wasn't. Endwalker messed around with our expectations on this front, however.

SHB had an Lost City of Amdapor boss as a big bad in its trailer, and it wholly unrelated to that dungeon in the game outside of light themes. Even the gremlin's lines were actually things Emet-Selch would later taunt us with.

im just chiming in to say that you're not alone. i would love this too!

My thoughts drifted back to this thread this morning - I was watching a streamer reaction video of the solo instance Vs Zenos at the edge of the universe and again found myself wishing I could simply click something in-game and play it myself.

And again, I know it is possible to replay via New Game+ but... as much as I adore Endwalker, I don't really want to play through the entire second-half of it with replaying that one fight as my primary motivation.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

They pulled this same stunt with Anima. Just showing off a really cool boss we assume is a big trial and it wasn't. Endwalker messed around with our expectations on this front, however.

SHB had an Lost City of Amdapor boss as a big bad in its trailer, and it wholly unrelated to that dungeon in the game outside of light themes. Even the gremlin's lines were actually things Emet-Selch would later taunt us with.

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That model happens to be the same they use for the sin eater that kills Tesleen, Forgiven Dissonance, which we later get to kill in Holminster Switch. Not a major boss, but one that did have some emotional impact if that scene got a reaction out of you.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

I didn't find Vali disappointing, as much as I found them paling in comparison to the much cooler solo duty in the same leg of the story, Gulool Ja Ja was, by every metric, the Turali counterpart to the Warrior of Light, and the feeling of facing against someone who is essentially one of your predecessors is amazing, it was amazing against Venat, it is amazing here.

Though thinking about it, I feel you might be right that Vali would've been a better final boss, like maybe their presence could also serve to better explain Gulool Ja Ja showing up at the Golden City, other than "Gulool just planned to follow the winners all along", like maybe he had gone to Yak T'el to fight Vali again, maybe even planning a heroic sacrifice to take them down once for all, since he was by now depowered without the Head of Reason and even at their peak they could only seal Vali away, but then Wuk Lamat and Koana, with the Scions' help(including WoL as "the Scions" to be clear, WoL IS a Scion even if the term is broadly used to refer to the group outside of them), manage to strike down Vali without any losses, and Gulool gets to feel this absolute sense of pride in his children.

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I was kinda expecting Gulool Ja Ja to be the second trial as the final challenge. They could of easily made Zoraal Ja the final boss and pushed Eternal Queen to the 7.2 trial (Zelenia could take a hike). Might of even made the story flow better.

I'm expecting a Gulool Ja Ja fight in the final alliance raid, though. There's a reason Sareel Ja summoned a younger version of him, and I doubt it was just to show him off. Plus, FF11 also had a Gulool Ja Ja that lead the mamool ja in that game.