The constant disbanding of Steps of Faith

[Govalon]

It took me few days to find a group which could beat this. I have done all roles as DPS. Cannons, tower, keeping on boss and stunning tortoise because cannon people suck. It is a hard fight and anyone saying otherwise is full of himself. If this was a easy fight, I would not had to spend 3 days in this single fight now would I? I didn't have to try Castrum multiple days to get it done, I didn't have to try Snowcloak or Keeper of the Lake multiple days to get it done. Those are easy dungeons. They can be done in ANY DF group. Steps of faith is not easy because most DF groups fail at it. Simple as that.

I am glad they are making this easier since this is a story fight that needs to be beaten to progress in to heavensward. People should not get stuck in the story dungeon for days. It is ok to make fights like these optional but not story dungeons. Last night, time was like 2 am and I was heading to bed but decided to do trial roulette for fast tomes before sleep. Well, I got into Steps group and I knew that it was not going to be fast. It never is so I left and wen't to sleep. If rewards would have been better, I might have stayed to see if the group can make it but with so little rewards I was not going to stay for half of hour wiping with a really small chance to get few tomes.

[Gardes]

II am glad they are making this easier since this is a story fight that needs to be beaten to progress in to heavensward. People should not get stuck in the story dungeon for days.

Yeah, they should be able to steam roll every main story content. Then we would never have anything to fight that feels 'worthy' for a big bad boss. They're all just as easy as the little bosses in the 4 man dungeons. Then people would start thinking that the game has only teased them a little bit and have more 'challenging' content for them to tackle. Then they walk up to a raid boss and get slapped and then spin a thousand times when they're already dead on the 1st spin. Then they would get confused and think there must be something wrong with the game balance and demand nerfs.

Large leap of thinking? Feels like it already happened.

[Govalon]

Yeah, they should be able to steam roll every main story content. Then we would never have anything to fight that feels 'worthy' for a big bad boss. They're all just as easy as the little bosses in the 4 man dungeons. Then people would start thinking that the game has only teased them a little bit and have more 'challenging' content for them to tackle. Then they walk up to a raid boss and get slapped and then spin a thousand times when they're already dead on the 1st spin. Then they would get confused and think there must be something wrong with the game balance and demand nerfs.

Large leap of thinking? Feels like it already happened.

Seems like you are new to final fantasies. You should try those games sometimes. They are really fun and and easy but they also have lot of OPTIONAL hard content. Just the way I like it.

[Felis]

Seems like you are new to final fantasies. You should try those games sometimes. They are really fun and and easy but they also have lot of OPTIONAL hard content. Just the way I like it.

But SoF is not "hard" content.
I think the difficulty is right for a story endboss fight, similar to the story endboss fight of 1.0 To Kill a Raven (story). Even here was it wipe after wipe for the majority until the right tactic got ironed out and spread through the community until everyone's grandma could do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrZUUmiPtXo

[RiceisNice]

....

Difficulty is subjective. I've never played 1.0 so I really cannot comment on the difficulty just by looking at it, I jsut see a lot of standing around, rupping up the stairs to destroy meteors, and not step in laser.
1.0 Nael also did not gate you from playing ARR. That being said though, SoF is still presented very differently from every other main scenario fight (or fights that are put on DF immediately) that it's causing enough problems for a low clear rate. You really do not want the latter when its a requirement for an entire expansion

[Alberel]

Difficulty is subjective. I've never played 1.0 so I really cannot comment on the difficulty just by looking at it, I jsut see a lot of standing around, rupping up the stairs to destroy meteors, and not step in laser.
1.0 Nael also did not gate you from playing ARR. That being said though, SoF is still presented very differently from every other main scenario fight (or fights that are put on DF immediately) that it's causing enough problems for a low clear rate. You really do not want the latter when its a requirement for an entire expansion

The trouble is all story content up until now has basically consisted of 'burn the boss until it dies'. Most mechanics involving dodging things do so little damage that far too many players have gotten used to them being inconsequential. Now we have a fight that simply requires players to fire three cannons and detonate some dynamite to kill him and players find it too hard because they simply cannot adapt. This is just a case of lazy players stuck in their ways unwilling to play a different way to defeat the boss (using the environment instead of directly attacking them). These players will NEVER learn unless they are forced to do so to progress.

The real issue I have here is that if SE has to nerf this fight to let the bad players through does that mean we can't have any medium difficulty content that doesn't just consist of burning the boss and ignoring AOEs? If a bunch of idiots can't learn how to play through an easy fight (and yes it is OBJECTIVELY easy, you literally just push a bunch of switches when an NPC tells you to during the fight) do the rest of us have to suffer through monotonous, anti-climactic and disappointing storyline encounters for the rest of the game's lifespan?

What if all story content in the expansion is of a similar calibre to SoF? What point is there in nerfing the fight if all these players will just get stuck on the next encounter anyway?

[Sapphic]

This is just a case of lazy players stuck in their ways unwilling to play a different way

Sounds like quite a few FFXI and 14 1.0 players that switched to FFXIV ARR XD

[RiceisNice]

...

What if all story content in the expansion is of a similar calibre to SoF? What point is there in nerfing the fight if all these players will just get stuck on the next encounter anyway?

Then maybe it should be the case at a beginning of the game/expansion, rather than do a 90-180 turn in fight mechanics for main scenario. So far, most of the fights for MS don't even make proper use of the 8-man composition because you never really need more than 2 tanks.

And no, difficulty is still subjective. It's different, that's about it. Its not as simple or straightforward as "hitting the switch when the NPC tells you" because as far as I know, they don't even tell you when to hit it, simply to ready it. From that point, one of two things can happen.
A. You miss because you shoot it when Vishap walks into the AoE, but misses because he wasn't channeling his cleave.
B. It hits because you shot the dragonkiller at the correct timing.

And for the record, you'd be hard pressed for the enrage timer if you didn't have people attacking the boss at all times (having two dps stay on Vishap, with cannons shooting both vishap and the adds) because as far as I was concerned, I was under the impression (by an NPC dialogue no less) that my direct attacks will "avail little against this foe". And honestly, this wouldn't be the first time that a fight mechanic (or how it should be done) came off as incredibly vague or even misleading, I never figured out the mechanics to interrupting Madison's musket spam in Sastasha(HM) until someone straight up told me.

I'm all for making main scenario fights actually difficult and worth a damn for a change (levi HM was my biggest disappointment, zzz), but either way, it seems really silly to do something completely different at the end of a content cycle which makes it also required for the expansion. The overall clear rates alone is showing that something was done differently from the previous fights and just isn't a good design for the game's lifespan if you want the expansion to hit a good start.

[Sapphic]

Yeah, they should be able to steam roll every main story content.

You see posts complaining there is too huge a jump in skill requirements going from end game lvl 50 content to end game raids. Yet, when any non raid content is put in that is mildly challenging or requires a certain level of coordination. This is what happens. Players abandon (same happened with original AK and Pharus Sirus) and posts start appearing demanding nerfs.

Aka "We want this SE give us it nao!" SE obliges and then "We don't want this SE nerf it NAO!"

I'm still placing my bets that first week of Alexander normal we will see posts demanding nerfs.

[Gardes]

I'm still placing my bets that first week of Alexander normal we will see posts demanding nerfs.

You can't make a bet when we're making the same bets. Wait, can we?