The constant disbanding of Steps of Faith

[RiceisNice]

..

Then why not start it with 3.0 rather than gating to it? Even if you try to tell them to get better at the game, soemthing like SoF is much more team oriented where you can't outcarry 2 or 3 baddies (or trolls), even if they were DPS who typically have the most leeway for performance.

You could say its a babystep to endgame...except this isn't even required for coil so I'm not sure what it's supposed to lead to. If it's leading to what 3.0 is expecting, then I'd like to vouch that it'd be the wrong time to do so (at the end of 2.0 instead of one of the story trials in 3.0).

Comparing it to Dark Souls is a little much... just because you personally find it irrationally more difficult than it actually is does not warrant a comparison to suggest everyone does. This line of argument is basically saying that we can never have any variety in content because people can't adapt. Is that what you want? Nothing but fights where everyone just burns the boss whilst ignoring AOEs that do too little damage to actually bother dodging them?

It's incredibly sad that the creative direction of future storyline content is going to be completely inhibited because a few players don't want to have to think about anything...

My point was that Dark Souls started off without pulling any punches with it's difficulty or curve balls. I'm not saying we should have difficult fights, but we shouldn't ahve difficulty spikes (which we also see in T5, T9 after nerfs, but those are supposed to be side, end game content)

Think of it like this.; you're only doing main scenario. Do you feel that the difficulty jump fight expectation (meaning party communication, group composition and all that) transitions smoothly from Good King Moggle Mog XII-> Levi HM -> Ramuh HM -> Shiva HM -> Mr.Ascian > SoF? I do not feel that's the case because of how the fight work, how the NPCs give you vague advice which can be perceived as the wrong strategy, the "requirement" of a 2/2/4 party breakdown, and the degree of execution required from every single party member (can you afford to carry 2 deadweights that can't dps or even manage cannons?)

Like I mentioned before, I'm all for main scenario fights being more difficult or even interesting, Levi HM was an utter disappointment to me and honestly EX should've been for main scenario instead, but I feel this is a wrong way to immediately introduce it (being at the end of a game cycle and being required for the expansion) all things considered.

[RyuDragnier]

Then why not start it with 3.0 rather than gating to it? Even if you try to tell them to get better at the game, soemthing like SoF is much more team oriented where you can't outcarry 2 or 3 baddies (or trolls), even if they were DPS who typically have the most leeway for performance.

You could say its a babystep to endgame...except this isn't even required for coil so I'm not sure what it's supposed to lead to. If it's leading to what 3.0 is expecting, then I'd like to vouch that it'd be the wrong time to do so (at the end of 2.0 instead of one of the story trials in 3.0).

Well it's the final story battle of the 2.x story, makes sense that it's this hard. I'd be disappointed if it had been lolLahabrea easy again.

[RiceisNice]

Well it's the final story battle of the 2.x story, makes sense that it's this hard. I'd be disappointed if it had been lolLahabrea easy again.

Yet we've had no difficulty ramp up since the start of Levi HM. And all things considered, this didn't even feel hyped like the "final" battle as much as ultima was. I'm all for content being progressively harder as we go down, but we've had absolutely none of that with how the HM primal fights were designed.

That's not the point. The point is that we basically can't have challenging content and, if we do, it gets nerfed asap. The future content to be released will pretty much have that in consideration before it gets developed. Step of Faith was, ironically, a first step into a something different world of development and I really wanted to see more like that in the 3.0, but sadly it broke the existing structure. People expected a tank+spank, they didn't have it. They failed. As a consequence, the whine was real. They called it "hard", because people were unable to pay attention, let alone following instructions.

And this happens because we have no build up to this sort of difficulty or coordination required out of a main scenario fight. Can you even consider steps to be a traditional trial fight like the primals or the Ascian beforehand? It's different, but it also raises up the bar for expectations of group coordination (for something that's put on duty finder), which I feel is done poorly either because there was no build up to it (previous trials had no difficulty behind it) or where it's done (that it is a gate to an expansion, which might as well be a new game altogether).

[Sapphic]

Yet we've had no difficulty ramp up since the start of Levi HM.

We did have mildly challenging content with the original AK and Pharus sirus. Look what happened to those. Nerfed due to vote abandon issues and complaints on the forums. Players are the reason we cant have more difficult fights outside coil because they complain or just leave it when presented with it.

Same is happening with Steps of Faith. Thing is, it isn't mechanically in anyway hard. It just requires a little bit of coordination and common sense to clear. Which is a bare minimum for multiplayer party content. Yet many are incapable of that minor level of co-ordination. Steps highlights exactly why some are stuck on tier 5 even massivly overgearing and with echo. Exactly because of the co-ordination needed. Going into party content with a lone wolf attitude is totally wrong.

So what do they do? They add easier HMs so players dont auto abandon them as they have shown to before and have to nerf them later.

tldr: common sense should be renamed uncommon sense.

[RiceisNice]

..

But is it mechanically straight forward? It deviates so far from requiring 2 tanks and 4 dps. My first impressions after being told "arrows will avail us little" was that most of the damage would come from the weaponry. That's definitely not the case though if you want to get Vishap down before the final gate. I just feel that this sort of fight was implemented at the wrong place (main scenario, again the required coordination is astoundingly different considering the previous main scenario fights) at the wrong time (end of the cycle, combined with what I mentioned earlier, and this being required for 3.0, an entire expansion)

I havent done AK or Pharos pre-nerf, but honestly I wouldn't have a problem being hard dungeons, you're expected to be ready to tackle these sort of things since there's no previous low-low expectations from otehr dungeons, and those sort of things naturally get easier anyway as you overgear it (less mechanic oriented for example).

[Nestama]

SoF actually has something that most Trials don't. An NPC who tells you exactly what to do and when to do it. Sadly, she doesn't have a voice, so unless people stop to read what she says, her directions are falling on deaf... eyes?

[RiceisNice]

SoF actually has something that most Trials don't. An NPC who tells you exactly what to do and when to do it. Sadly, she doesn't have a voice, so unless people stop to read what she says, her directions are falling on deaf... eyes?

"Arrows and slings will not avail us against this foe!"

It implied that my normal attacks had very little meaning

[Sapphic]

SoF actually has something that most Trials don't. An NPC who tells you exactly what to do and when to do it. Sadly, she doesn't have a voice, so unless people stop to read what she says, her directions are falling on deaf... eyes?

Nah! players turn around and tell the NPC "I play how I want to!" XD

[Sapphic]

But is it mechanically straight forward? It deviates so far from requiring 2 tanks and 4 dps.

If you break down the mechanics, yes it is. group up adds at boss, shoot cannons, which we all have done with Castrum. tether it. which we have done with Cerberus in WoD, avoid AE, which we have done in every fight. One person fire the dragon killer at the right time. Rinse, repeat.

The only difference is the boss is constantly moving.