Thordan's Reign and Containment Bay S1T7 (Extreme)

[Zohar_Lahar]

Wasn't Steps of Faith like this?

Yes, it was.

[Whiteroom]

Yes, it was.

It was no where near that difficulty. It showed how sad the development of the playerbase has been, that they could not do the minimal teamwork required to complete it. The big failure of it was that it also did not have some sort of a saved progress system and that a failure had to wait for the full trial to run it's course.

[Kaurie]

I think I can be the middle man here. As I understand both sides. On one hand, are the fights fun with full on mechanics, instead of fighting a training dummy. Of course. The main issue, I think is the community. I have been in countless PF parties and have seen people harassed for not enough dps, bad gear, or making silly mistakes in a PRACTICE run. Instead of moving on and trying again, like a functioning static would. You will see things like "GG scrub" or "have fun in savage".

Then everyone argues, and instead of learning the fight. Everyone will just disband. The stress of this puts people off, and I feel thats why some of the players on this forum seem intimidated by this midcore content.

That's weird. All of my learning party pfs have been very friendly and productive

[Ashkendor]

I say keep it, and not only that throw even more mechanic filled fights even in the story mode content. I'm talking Thordan Ex/A3S difficulty for the story mode content, with the difficulty ramped up even further for the harder content. That way you HAVE to work as a team to beat the content and the petty arguments will not get you anywhere because you can't just faceroll it.

Eh. This strikes me as a bad idea. While there are many people that enjoy tackling challenging content (I am one of them), just as many others do not enjoy it in the least. SE's goal with this game is to make it as accessible as possible to a wide variety of players. In keeping with that goal, participation in difficult content is and always should be optional. Steps of Faith was never anywhere near as difficult as even the easiest raid content has been; it was just a matter of getting eight randoms in Duty Finder to actually listen and work together instead of being lazy or doing their own thing. That's completely different from meeting steep DPS checks or executing difficult mechanics. Gating MSQ progression behind Gordias Savage level difficulty wouldn't make people 'git gud' if they aren't the type of player that enjoys a challenge. It would just make them quit, which is a bit self-defeating for a P2P game.

[Hayward]

It was no where near that difficulty. It showed how sad the development of the playerbase has been, that they could not do the minimal teamwork required to complete it. The big failure of it was that it also did not have some sort of a saved progress system and that a failure had to wait for the full trial to run it's course.

This is a really dishonest distortion of why Steps of Faith had to be adjusted. Contrary to elitist opinion, fights like that should never be such a wall that less than 25% of the players would have access to Heavensward content. SE knew they messed up with that fight's design (mainly the dragon's obscene HP). This is coming from someone who did manage to get past that fight PRIOR to the adjustment, so you can forget about twisting my words to suit your narrative.

As for Thordan & Sephirot EX, those fights will eventually be scaled back so I have no worries about them. My issue with Extreme fights lie mainly with SE's determination of what a normal person's reaction time should be for these mechanics. I have no real problem with AoE mechanics as long as I'm allowed to get out of the way in time, but mechanics that don't allow us to anticipate where line attacks are going and push us into barriers that instantly kill us is a bridge too far (How is it no big deal if the Singularity Reactor story mode fight allows us to see where an offscreen knight is headed, but a mortal gaming sin if we asked SE to let us see that line attack in EX?).

[Colorful]

I say keep it, and not only that throw even more mechanic filled fights even in the story mode content. I'm talking Thordan Ex/A3S difficulty for the story mode content, with the difficulty ramped up even further for the harder content. That way you HAVE to work as a team to beat the content and the petty arguments will not get you anywhere because you can't just faceroll it.

Players won't improve, they never do. Honestly if I have to put up with the frustrations when trying to clear EX content on content like story mode trials/dungeons/Midas Normal I'd sooner quit, it's absolutely insufferable if you're not in a static or with your FC. People quitting left and right, people joining for specific phases when they haven't reached that phase (or even close), not beating the dummy before even trying to attempt it, etc.

Eh, my definition is closer to Slappah's.

One shot = guaranteed to kill one player
Raid wipe = guaranteed to kill the whole party

I'd normally agree for a single player game, but I don't take the term literally in the case of an MMORPG. Besides that, I don't even think there are much one shot mechanics other than M3 which I see getting hit with the nerf bat as it's much more challenging than the other floors if the tank messes up.

[Paladinleeds]

Players won't improve, they never do. Honestly if I have to put up with the frustrations when trying to clear EX content on content like story mode trials/dungeons/Midas Normal I'd sooner quit, it's absolutely insufferable if you're not in a static or with your FC. People quitting left and right, people joining for specific phases when they haven't reached that phase (or even close), not beating the dummy before even trying to attempt it, etc.

I'm sorry but I find that flat out impossible to believe that players will never improve. You just need the right motivation if you ask me. Now if Ex content in story mode content isn't it, then fair enough, but there MUST be a way to make players improve.

[Colorful]

I'm sorry but I find that flat out impossible to believe that players will never improve. You just need the right motivation if you ask me. Now if Ex content in story mode content isn't it, then fair enough, but there MUST be a way to make players improve.

If the content is optional they just won't do it and if the content is forced they'll either be carried through it, wait until they're overgeared or quit. They nerfed Steps of Faith for a reason, and that's because of all the awful players in a very easy encounter, laughably easy even, all it requires is communication and then it's not required if half the people there know what to do.

Could you get them to improve past the point of smashing their heads on the keyboard? Maybe, but can they get them to the point that they'll do more than 700 in full i200? Most likely no.

[Atmora]

SE knew they messed up with that fight's design (mainly the dragon's obscene HP).

The boss around the same hp as t8, months after the ilvl cap was made 130, and after the catch up patch. You could dps it down without even using the dragonkillers/performing mechanics.

[Fynlar]

Let's hope no one from Square Enix sees this thread and even more good fights get ruined the way Steps of Faith, T6-8 etc were.

These fights were awful before and the adjustments actually made them remotely tolerable (although in my opinion, T8 is still awful)

I'm all for more changes like these.