Titan Extreme is NOT Fun

[Raikki]

Once you fight Titan so many times, you are playing off prediction, not reaction. Why? Cause it is a 100% scripted fight, and people will eventually start to memorize the moves in some form, even if they cannot call it out themselves perfectly.

Sure, after a while prediction kicks in, but early on when you don't have enough experience it's all reaction. Nobody's perfect but both in Hard and Extreme I've seen lots and lots of people able to jump right in and dodge on reaction well before they could have the experience or awareness to know when plumes were coming. It's mostly about being alert.

If the extreme mode content is made for the minority crowd, it should not be so easily accessible via Duty Finder for a casual to jump into. It should of been handled in the same manner as the Binding Coil, or like in FFXI; where it is either your in a HNM linkshell, or not. It was pretty much cut and dry on which content was made for which group.

Availability through the duty finder is a poor indicator of what is casual vs. what is hardcore content. Coil is missing from the duty finder likely due to difficulty in working out how to handle progress saves and syncing and entrance lockouts, features which no other content available via duty finder incorporates. Additionally, access to Titan Extreme is locked behind a Garuda Extreme clear, which itself is locked behind a Titan Hard clear.

[CatholicFan]

...access to Titan Extreme is locked behind a Garuda Extreme clear, which itself is locked behind a Titan Hard clear.

A player can be carried through Garuda X to some extent. I had a discussion with a person in my Titan X party last night who used to sell Titan HM clears. He half-joked, something to the effect of, he's now paying the price for all those relic sales because people can access content they weren't skilled/geared/ISP'd for. Because Garuda X is not a particularly difficult fight, I think there will be many people that make it to the wall that is Titan X and progress no further (until selling Titan X runs is more of a thing).

[odintius]

They should made the EX fight more random abilities used instead of being scripted as it currently is would make the fight abit more interesting if cannot prodict the next ability but that could be used for the ultra mega extreme fights.

[Remn]

Believe it or not. Peoples already start selling Titan Xm run on my server/...... ;S

[Gwynn]

It's a pretty epic fight. I agree the scripted aspects of it made it in some ways easier then HM but requires memorization and studying which who knows if that really should be a part of an MMO and not everyone is willing to do that. A lot of players are gear blasting the fight as well at this point. It most likely is detrimental to the community in terms of not being accessible or cleared by everyone. It prob leads to a lot of frustration and anger. Some people enjoy the intensity most do not enjoy wiping for days especially if it's due to other people's abilities. A good majority of players patience quickly runs out if wipes are happening. I'd say it's most likely passed what the average player will clear in this gear level but there will be carrying and selling in the future garuda > titan > ifrit kills the same as titan HM so people will get it.

The comments on Party Finder for almost every group are very toxic and not community building at all. I would say before the patch the community felt like a Final Fantasy MMO, after the patch the community feels incredibly self absorbed most likely the most self absorbed I've seen a player base in any MMO. You have to ask yourself is all this really worth it for the short thrill of a fairly fast paced action fight? (That's still soft enough to be cleared the first day)

The people that can clear mostly have better weapons already have it on farm already and are already bored and ready for the next thing besides possibly farming accessories now it's just a source of frustration making everyone selfish and angry.

Walking kind of a strange line. The fights are all cleared on day 1 so they arn't hard enough to cater to the Hard Core playerbase. But it seems like they will be to hard for a majority of players, titan at least. How can something be to hard and to easy? I'm inclined to agree it's the unforgiving insta kill threat, and the fact that gear adds so much health. The scaling of equipment is big so players that could easily kill Titan EX have been able to kill other things and have more then enough gear handle it, whereas players that can't kill Titan EX can't kill other things or get gear as reliably and are double penalized in some ways. The time gating of equipment with the job system plays a part as well I think as it is very unforgiving if you rely on myth and gear a few classes here and there.

[Noahlimits]

The people that can clear mostly have better weapons already have it on farm already and are already bored and ready for the next thing besides possibly farming accessories now it's just a source of frustration making everyone selfish and angry.

It's not boring, there's just no point in beating it anymore besides once a week for a i90 weapon. We farmed all three for 3-4 hours each to where every person got all 5 accessories/rings/earrings that each can drop. Once you have those, there's no point to do it again except for the weekly reset.

If a friend or FC member needs it I'll help, but why do it otherwise now?

[Gwynn]

It's not boring, there's just no point in beating it anymore besides once a week for a i90 weapon. We farmed all three for 3-4 hours each to where every person got all 5 accessories/rings/earrings that each can drop. Once you have those, there's no point to do it again except for the weekly reset.

If a friend or FC member needs it I'll help, but why do it otherwise now?

For the sake of community I guess. I can see a vast amount of gamers being really discouraged by the Party Finder comments etc. It's not hard core enough to give the game a reputation as a "Hard" game and it isolates a lot of the community and has changed the community I'd say for the (much) worse. The content was slightly fun but short and the effects it's had has made the game a lot less enjoyable for me. Everyone I hang out with is so high strung, it's like they are on drugs, not in a super power kind of way but a spaz way.

For example I play with mostly family members, my girlfriend, and a couple of casual friends. I play more seriously then they do and get things done with some linkshells I go with but I prefer to play with the family and my people for obvious reasons. They aren't up to that level of twitch and don't know if they can, perhaps with practice but when we try other members are so exclusive and angry it makes the whole experience really quite terrible. Hence to easy to be hardcore to hard to have fun with some friend. I'm used to the general amount of MMO angry but it's very insane at times, I've never seen it this bad in any game.


Can't do anything about it individually however.

[Astarica]

People rely on memorization because this is the one game where reflex alone isn't enough. I've said this before but suppose you managed to hook an AI that can instantly interpret any mechanism in a MMORPG the moment they appear, but it does not know what any of the mechanisms are ahead of time (so it can't prepare for them by standing in the right spots), this AI would run circles around the best human player in every MMORPG except this one. To use a simple example, this AI would have no idea that a Geocrush is coming immediately after Eye of the Storm on Ultima Weapon HM, so it'd take full damage from that. In this game even with arbitarily awesome reflexes, it is still entirely possible to find yourself completely trapped by some mechanism with no way of escaping if you didn't know it's coming ahead of time. The lag tends to amplify this issue, but even with no lag at all there are numerous examples of mechanism that simply cannot be avoided unless you know what they are ahead of time.

Honestly this game is more like the old school 'guess what the dev is thinking' than the newer paradigm of 'if your reflexes are awesome enough you can do everything' that virtually every other MMORPG uses.

[Noahlimits]

For the sake of community I guess.

This is why I usually tell whoever I'm going to help to pug or duty finder it a few times before asking for help. They should learn the basic mechanics of the fight before we attempt to actually kill it. I don't think it's asking too much to not have to baby-sit their learning phase. Once they get a little experience, we'll form a group and down it. I'm sure if your friends/family practiced each hard type of run a few times, they'd do a lot better when you form a kill group (and likely avoid a lot of trolling). But to expect players who down it every time to wipe again and again because of your friend/family member without leaving isn't realistic.

[NeonC]

I actually prefer to do primals outside my static, I know that sounds masochistic but I enjoy the triumph of beating them with rag tag groups and minimal communication. It took a lot of runs but I got a couple of Titan Ex wins and even beat Ifrit in DF. DF for Ex primals is surprisingly competent as I imagine only the brave care to venture though I am sure that will change with time. Plus it gives me a tough goal every week, I don't think I will win Titan Ex every week in pugs but that is fine with me.