Was Coil 2 and Ramuh extreme over tune?

[Triston]

To reply to myself and pre-empt: Landslide obviously is not obtuse, it's heavily telegraphed, but being unrecoverable is still poor design for entry content. Other OHKO mechanics however are more obtuse: Ifrit's Nails and Titan's Heart are obvious, but for a new player to the genre in other fights it's not necessarily clear that they will instantly wipe. Garuda is worse: the first time in your average player might not know that Chirada and Suparna HAVE TO DIE ASAP. They are adds with their own abilities and modestly substantial health bars; it's not unreasonable to think they are additional mobs that must be tanked and dealt with while burning Garuda. This is not to mention the Spiny Plume mechanic in Garuda EX, Leviathan's energy generator, King Mog EX requiring that every add die simultaneously (he might be the worst, since the game literally tells you in previous guildhests to take out lesser foes one by one before resuming fighting the boss, and in HM it's totally fine if they die separately, AND if you mess this up in the final phase you wipe with the King at like 4%)

These are all great mechanics for experienced raiders, but now that they've moved into the mainstream, (<--- this is the key aspect here! These are fights that a new 50 might be doing after having just gotten out of clearing a bunch of pathetic 4-man dungeons) they're very punishing with relatively little forewarning or information.
The problem isn't the fights themselves, they're well-made, it's that they're now accessible to literally anyone. Like he said, the progression for a new-to-MMOs player doing their Relic quest will be: Chimera, (someone else handles the interrupts) Hydra, (someone heals them through the Terror) Ifrit, (the other DPS sneeze on nails and they fall over) Garuda, (the other DPS look sternly at plumes/chirada/suparna and they pop) Titan, (they die to first Landslide and get carried through a 7-man anyway without learning ANY ASPECT OF THE FIGHT) and now they have i90 weapon and i90 gear and have had no opportunity to really learn anything, because nothing is punishing enough to force them to learn. Now they enter into Extremes and haven't a fraction of the knowledge they need to clear it, and the punishments have amped up to "one guy fucked up, the entire party wipes."
Old players obviously won't put up with that, so they get kicked and stay at i90 until they discover Hunts and upgrade to i110 all without ever being provided the opportunity to learn how to play using appropriate gear against an appropriately-tuned encounter with appropriate-to-their-skill punishments. HM *used* to do that but gear has so far surpassed it that there's no hope.

We're not saying that having hard encounters is bad, (it's awesome) but rather that the gear progression (philo being wiped out and replaced with myth, producing i90, plus hunts that can take an i50 player straight to i110) has eliminated the potential for new players to learn what the hell they're doing before they jump into DF.

[Exstal]

it's not unreasonable to think they are additional mobs that must be tanked and dealt with while burning Garuda.

It's actually completely unreasonable. If anything in any game teaches you, it's that you must kill the smaller foes before resuming to kill the main boss lest you be overwhelmed.

[Triston]

It's actually completely unreasonable. If anything in any game teaches you, it's that you must kill the smaller foes before resuming to kill the main boss lest you be overwhelmed.

That's actually fair, it's the reasoning I used for Mog; on the other hand a new player wouldn't know about the time crunch involved. DPS checks in HM will be automatically passed just by virtue of having i90; when you reach EX you need to actually know what order to push your buttons in.

[Exstal]

That's actually fair, it's the reasoning I used for Mog; on the other hand a new player wouldn't know about the time crunch involved. DPS checks in HM will be automatically passed just by virtue of having i90; when you reach EX you need to actually know what order to push your buttons in.

Good King Moggly Mog is quite possibly my most detested fight in this game. The difference between HM and EM is so ridiculous I can't believe SE likes fights like this. EM punishes you for DPSing hard, punishes you for DPSing out of turn, punishes you for every minor mistake. It's a dumb fight. Although, I sell the fight to other people, I always groan and moan when we have to do it.

Of 8 people only one has to be saved to t9. So if i took a party of 7 people with me that hasnt cleared t6-8 and im on t9 it will pull them to t9. And that doesnt mean that the person with the t9 save actually beat t6-8 either, they could have been pulled to t9 as well. So stop trying to correct that guy. Correct yourself first.

He was right, however.

How do you check if a person has cleared turns 1, 2, and 3..if the only way to check is if they have turn 4 available to go into? So for that week they can't go into Turns 1-3...which defeats the purpose of having a PF group looking for more people for weekly clear. If you *know* they've defeated those turns, and you bring them every week, that has a special name, "static".

[Sapphic]

To reply to myself and pre-empt: Landslide obviously is not obtuse, it's heavily telegraphed, but being unrecoverable is still poor design for entry content. Other OHKO mechanics however are more obtuse: Ifrit's Nails and Titan's Heart are obvious, but for a new player to the genre in other fights it's not necessarily clear that they will instantly wipe.

It's called trial and error, you wipe, you learn from it, you progress till you get the kill. Same as it has been for every content in every MMO with a modicum of challenge.Also to reiterate about landslides, they where there in titan story mode which gave players the experience that they are lethal which should be carried over to HM and EX.

ALL mechanics are taught throughout levelling, from dungeons and guildhests. Whether it's dealing with adds and how important it is to clear them first or getting out of stuff on the floor.

Also "non lethal" abilities are not punishing if you have gear. OHKO punish everyone irregardless of gear if they make a mistake keeping a challenge there for everyone.

But im not averse to adding more challenging dungeons, dungeons closer to the "casual" Ilvl, eg ilvl 95 dungeons, more challenging Leves and guildhests for example. More options are always good.

[Triston]

snip

The issue isn't being punished, it's the grossly under and over-punishment relative to expected skill level of new players. In HM they aren't punished because no matter how they screw up they'll still get the win, and in certain EX they are punished with a full-party wipe or being removed from a fight within a minute or less. I recall doing my first Mog EX on Bard with around i90. Cleared it in I think two total attempts, and I managed all the mechanics EXCEPT: I died the first attempt to the giant meteor. (I think I must have had Blood for Blood active; I was with the whole party and at full HP, shouldn't have died otherwise) The result was being Raised and immediately 100-0'd by the Archer any time he targeted me because of Weakness. Raise, Ballad briefly, shoot a couple attacks until targeted by Archer again, die. Rinse and repeat until we wiped. That right there is a case of being overly punished, and I'm not remotely new to MMOs. Imagine if that wasn't just a fluke death, but say a new person accidentally stood in Delta Attack. Same result of being effectively removed from the fight for a single error. I've figured out how I messed up; a new player wouldn't have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes because they get to attempt the fight for about 20-30 seconds every 10-40 minutes (depending on when/if the remaining 7 wipe or clear)

However, I also agree that more challenging dungeons and especially guildhests to ease new players into these sorts of OHKO mechanics is the solution. Brayflox isn't bad at this, but since it became Speedflox or get kicked there is again little room for learning.

[CGMidlander]

To reply to myself and pre-empt
...
[Cut for character length]

Landslides are recoverable in early stages of Titan HM. If you aren't getting hit by them in the early stages, then that's a sign that you already know you aren't supposed to be hit by them right?

And so what if you wipe? After the wipe, you can ask the party "What happened?" or look up mechanics on the internet if you want to learn.
Or, you can ask before the fight starts about stuff you should know beforehand. Or, you can get friends who will help you out with the fight's ins and outs.

If it's something that can't really be explained well in a couple sentences (e.g. Turn 5), get friends who will help, or look up mechanics beforehand if you want to DF. The resources are plentiful and available. All that it takes is a little initiative.

[Triston]

snip

We're discussing game design here though; the burden should never be on the player to use 3rd party sources in order to play your game. Having friends or asking is definitely a good solution, because friends are more likely to be patient with wipes or explain things you don't know, but a game should never require a player look it up on youtube before queuing in order to make a passable attempt at it, even though somehow that has become the expected norm within the player community that every player walks around with all knowledge of all mechanics of all fights.