Royal Menagerie

[Trespar]

People's unwillingness to learn and pay attention is still a problem.

Just went at it for 20 minutes in a single attempt, all the dps kept dying to mechanics they should already know. None of them were sprouts(one returner, though), so I expect better from people like that.

This fight is just not a fun experience with randoms. Which is a shame because it's a fairly cool fight.
I'm definitely in the nerf camp.

I don't care if this fight becomes braindead, because I'll have my fun in the extreme mode, anyway.

I have no idea how to coach these people. They don't respond when spoken to, and the mechanics are blindingly obvious when you've seen everybody else survive them 20 times, so I have absolutely no idea what to tell them, anyway.

[Kaiden019]

It's fun, its intense and its pretty long too.
However, in most of our runs, DPS players (SAM players, I see you, yeah I follow what you do in those runs) mess up so many things that it becomes a nightmare for the healers. Tanks are already really busy not dying and begging for mercy, but when DPS players cant stop messing around, it all starts to slowly, but surely fall apart. It can get a bit frustrating at times.

No one role or class is responsible for mess ups. I have seen plenty of lazy healers and tanks not doing the mechanics.

[Lyrai_Celestine]

I got it today on trial roulette, the increase in gear has really made it a lot easier. There were 4 new players and it was a 1 shot despite many deaths, like people predicted it is possible to carry quite a few people through with gear

This... of course, is as long as the players include tanks and healers.
In any case, they could really just look for help. I want to help them clear it, but they gotta give it their all.

[Kaurhz]

Very healthy fight, unhealthy community though, especially when a clear majority of people have not a single shred of patience. It's fairly sad especially when I see this disband or exit duty from a mentor, please drop your crown.

People having no patience doesn't warrant a fight getting nerfed, especially this one. The mechanics are fairly straightforward when you play conservatively instead of just mindlessly throwing out DPS. just fairly unforgiving if you happen to fail a mechanic (as an individual), and even moreso a little more if you don't have a good connection.

God forbid players entering through roulette get Shinryu instead of Cape Westwind, god forbid you don't get something 'easy' for your daily routine. Those poor Creation tomestones. Personally, I still think that players entering through roulette that immediately leave duty within [x] minutes should be awarded 0 tomestones and have the given roulette set to 'Reward received' until reset. Unless it already does this, I wouldn't know. It's quite (very) sad that people actually leave duty when they get this, or Steps of Faith

Also, not everyone mindlessly wants to read/watch a guide for every single encounter they ever come across. This is a good encounter, that, IMO is best enjoyed without a guide. Of course there are some that won't be willing to ask questions on something, but given how for most players all story content thus far has been a breeze which hasn't really required much aside from burn it down. Some are slower learners than others. Preps to anyone that joins this instance on PF, or via DF to actually help and not use it as an opportunity to act like a...

[Frizze]

Finally pulled a group unable to finish this trial. Was in Kugane doing some crafting when someone shouted for help. I joined up, since its a fun fight. We recruited most of a group(3 dps, a healer, and both tanks) before queing, and explained the relevant mechs to the new guy(s? there may have been 2). Healer we brought had only done the fight once, and was slowly re-learning as we went. Fight was going a little rough, and we wiped at about 25%. The reason the fight was rough? We we're helping a tank get his clear, and he hadnt done the level 70 quest for his 290 gear. He only had a belt and single piece of jewelry from ala mhigo, most of the rest of his gear was the "crafted" gear you get from the quests. His lower stats and hp meant he was dead a lot, and other players were taking offtank damage. The healer we brought had a family situation and had to drop before we could pull for try two, and the other tank left as well since they were a friend helping that particular healer. Group left from there(though someone who had noticed pointed out to said tank that he should do the class quest first - them mentioning it while the group left one by one is what prompted me to look). So even with my most recent attempt being a fail, im still in the no nerfs camp. Anything beyond the echo is unacceptable.

[Kurando]

God forbid players entering through roulette get Shinryu instead of Cape Westwind, god forbid you don't get something 'easy' for your daily routine. Those poor Creation tomestones. Personally, I still think that players entering through roulette that immediately leave duty within [x] minutes should be awarded 0 tomestones and have the given roulette set to 'Reward received' until reset. Unless it already does this, I wouldn't know. It's quite (very) sad that people actually leave duty when they get this, or Steps of Faith

This kind of punishment doesn't happen, players just get suspended from duties for 30mins I believe, or locked out for the day eventually? But definitely, this needs to happen not just for trials but any duty. Really do feel from those new players that get the usual torture duties but lose team members at the get go because a certain few don't like it.

[Kaurhz]

This kind of punishment doesn't happen, players just get suspended from duties for 30mins I believe, or locked out for the day eventually? But definitely, this needs to happen not just for trials but any duty. Really do feel from those new players that get the usual torture duties but lose team members at the get go because a certain few don't like it.

Ahh okay, I knew of the 30 minute lockout, but yeah it's a shame the punishment doesn't extend to a daily lockout, if people aren't willing to run a given trial in their roulette, then they probably shouldn't run roulette in the first place, at all. I was in a party some time back helping someone with Steps of Faith, they attempted once beforehand and over 1/2 the party left, many of them mentors, second attempt which I saw was all the same, though some were willing to exit out the duty and help them run it undersized which was great. Quite a shame that he mistook my FC recruitment message, but it was nice seeing someone ask for help. I removed my mentor status shortly thereafter since many of them use it as vanity rather than to actually represent something remotely meaningful. As the way they intended for it to be.

[Yuella]

Steps of Faith should be fast now. It's rare that the dragon breaks the second ward. At most, it dies shortly after second ward.

[Penthea]

IMO, it is too difficult for a MSQ for more casual players and putting a flight aether behind it ain't cool.

There isn't a single mechanic in that fight that isn't in a previous msq encounter in one form or another. It just has a lot of mechanics, and most you'll pick up from just seeing them once.

You don't need to be an amazing player to beat this fight, being average is enough. It seems the biggest challenge is having enough patience for it. I hear so much about players leaving after one wipe, because heaven forbid a boss isn't idiot proof.

Anyone who knows the story knows it only makes sense for Menagerie to be challenging. It would have been a massive disappointment, not to mention a major immersion breaker, if the fight was easy.

[Myriads]

Being a Triad card collector I'm faced with farming this Trial for a card. History tells me I'll need an average of about 20 wins to see the drop. I have 7 so far. When I farm a card I tend to try for three or so runs a night til drop, it's a method that has worked well for me. This Trial is going to take longer then average for my drop. Because I won't be seeing three wins an eve.

I made it thru the first time with a FC group the first week, after some pretty rough DF fails. The experience told me that this would be the last card I'd farm for, to allow time for what the above posters noted; gear improvement, and skilled vets to handle the sideways moments the fast mechanics sometimes deal. Well, this became my last card a few days back and I'm starting to bang on it.

I'd say my DF clear ratio is about two out of five now. I find parties that one shot, or after a failure get back up and do it the second time, the better gear lets one cover for a new DPS that is often dead, or to take mechanics to the face that would have killed before. So that is as it should be and as expected.

But those other groups... man, the issues that I see. Most often it's skilled people bailing after one fail (or on entry, had one last night where both tanks and a healer exited immediately), which is annoying. Sometimes you can get a loss due to bad tile breaks, and the mechanics eat you because there is no where to go (I had one board that was an "X" shape for phase three, a real joy when the center square stomp happened) but bailing after a single loss or try is just impatient, give it 15 minutes thats one strong try or two short failures.

If a group can get it to 30% then they can clear it. As I noted above bad luck with tile breaks can kill you in phase 3 pretty easily. But if you can get decently into it, you can win eventually with better luck on the tiles, and exact mechanic combos.

You do get a feel when a group won't make it. More then one loss to the Dragon phase DPS check? That's a time to go symbol. Two DPS down more then up for most of the fight for whatever reason? Time to vote abandon after the third try. Dead DPS are the main fail reasons for this trial to go south, though healers that don't rez (Seen that a lot) and the seeming inability to save the LB3 for healers in phase three when things go sideways is another (and sometimes when it is saved a healer won't use it even with 5 dead players imploring them to in chat, so many 1-4% losses have happened to me because of that)

I'm more then happy to stick it out for three to four tries with a group, trying to help folks learn the fight, but sometimes you get folks that just cannot, or are under geared (I had one run where 4 players were all under iLevel 280) and it's a time eater.

The biggest frustration I think many players have is that one can know the fight and be darn good at it, but unless five more of your party members are likewise skilled, the odds of clearing go way down, and pressure is on the healers to be good especially. I'm a DPS (Monk) and I can dodge things, manage to put out decent DPS like a champ in here, and still loose because of other failures. Try three or four times and you need to stop and do something that is not so draining after fail after fail.

I don't think it needs a nerf, and eventually it will be decently simple for overheard clears (I don't think it's iLevel capped) and it will see an echo eventually. I find it a pretty enjoyable fight overall, and it's been fun to see how I can get better at it as I have done it more and more. I will be happy when that card drops though