Is EX/Savage content a battle or a dance number?

[ColorOfSakura]

Beep.

The thing is, what you're asking for is strict checks for DPS and Healing and Aggro Management to come in place of mechanical rotations.

While that is fine and good to want - the problem comes with the fact that there was already an entire raid tier that was much more heavily dependent on these things - Alexander: Gordias (Savage). And people found that raid tier to be terribly constructed and painful to go through. A lot of people called it boring and said that strict checks on things like damage meant that you had to rely on gear, not skill (to them: with mechanical rotations, your skill at playing your class comes at maximizing damage around the mechanics.) But the incredibly tight damage checks in Gordias are what really burned the "spec into damage" mentality that the endgame community had for a long time regarding tanks melding and using STR accessories, as well as healers being required to start doing damage. And some of that mentality has never gone away from the community - but SE moved back to mechanics based fights because the playerbase as a whole enjoys them more.

Mechanics are always going to be a major part of the raid scene in FFXIV - and that's not your cup of tea, so its likely that raiding in this game just isn't for you. And that's okay.

[Astrelle_hyperion]

One thing I've been thinking about in relation to this thread -- one of the things that makes 'Savage' (and Extremes to a lessor degree) different from normal, is that they've purposefully created mechanics that require multiple people to solve. Through most of normal & 4-person dungeons you can typically solve a mechanic 'locally'/solo without worrying about what others are doing. The times when 'global' mechanics pop up they're things that stay difficult long past the time they should -- things like the omni-present stack-marker that people still trip up on, the void seal in library normal mode -- how many times do you still see adds spawn?

Look at "The Game" in 03n and o3S, in normal as long as you're on an appropriate square for your role you've solved the puzzle. If everyone does that you're good -- even if one of the dps squares is left empty (all four stack in one). In savage leaving a square free is bad.

The game assumes you're already mitigating/shielding tank busters, pre-casting AoE heals for raid aoe damage, at the savage level. That's why the focus shifts to the group dynamics for how to solve things, yes it can turn into a preset formula which I think most people agree isn't desirable, but its better than a striking dummy. Forced movement to solve mechanics also is useful for equalizing what different mobilily/rigidity jobs bring to the table and create interesting optimization challenges -- can you shield the BLM enough for them to ignore a mechanic in the middle of a burst or do they have to move?

[Sebazy]

What Sebazy is saying, is that you are trying to judge Savage as a whole by only doing the easiest two floors of Savage in the easiest tier that this game has ever seen

the problem here is that I suspect he has the wrong end of the stick here, let’s take o1s. It’s not dull because it’s easy, it’s not dull because it’s a choreographed dance, it’s dull because it vomits 2 basic mechanics at you with very mild variations until it dies. Don’t be near the fireballs, dont stack with the thunder. Here’s some loot. It’d still be just as boring and lame if it had twice the amount of incoming damage frankly. It’s telling that my group has had people literally jump off the side like lemmings in an attempt to make this boss vaguely entertaining.

However, dances can make for enjoyable encounters, A10S wasnt especially hard but most seem to consider it a good fun fight despite being especially movement centric. T9’s final phase makes a good case for being one of the best moments of raiding this game has. It was also a total dance.

[Velthice]

The issue is in feeling like I'm dancing more then fighting. It comes down to two kinds of mechanics. You have attacks like Twin Bolt, where you have damage that needs to mitigated, barriered and healed. This type of mechanic is countered by class abilities. These are the type I enjoy. The second type are mechanics that are countered solely by movement/positioning, such as Classical Elements. This type are the ones I refer to as dance steps.

This actually did clear things up for me and I'll agree that some fights feel much more weighted to the latter. I don't think that they're so common as to be a problem however, though alte roite is certainly an exercise in "don't stand in the bad" and not much else.

I think there is obviously some satisfaction in learning the dance in dance heavy fights, but overuse can feel like you're just fighting the arena instead of the boss itself. I'll even agree that I find those "active" abilities more fun, because they're typically things I can affect, like a reprisal+divine veil for almagest or covering a healer for earth shakers.

I wouldn't say that dance mechanics are bad or that i don't enjoy them, but I will admit to liking mechanics that I can take a more active role in more than ones where only my position matters. Of course I also like to see the two combined which is probably why O3S is my favorite fight this tier. Queen's waltz is a great mechanic.

[HyoMinPark]

the problem here is that I suspect he has the wrong end of the stick here, let’s take o1s. It’s not dull because it’s easy, it’s not dull because it’s a choreographed dance, it’s dull because vomits 2 basic mechanics at you with very mild variations until it dies. Don’t be near the fireballs, dont stack with the thunder. Here’s some loot. It’d still be just as boring and lame if it had twice the amount of incoming damage frankly. It’s telling that my group has had people literally jump off the side like lemmings in an attempt to make this boss vaguely entertaining.

I basically auto-pilot in V1S anymore; even if I get clipped with one fire, I still don’t die, and I’m just like “well, alrighty then”. It’s not an engaging fight at all, and I really think it does nothing more than skew the OP’s perception of Savage as a whole. Because even though Halicarnassus is no Cruise Chaser, she was still far more engaging than Alte Rolte. And Neo is just a fun fight in general. Exdeath is good too; I just get tired of seeing him all the time lol.

That’s why I really wish OP would at least try Hali and Exdeath/Neo because they’re so much better than Alte Rolte and Catastrophe, even if they aren’t as hard as some of the previous fights in previous tiers.

However, dances can make for enjoyable encounters, A10S wasnt especially hard but most seem to consider it a good fun fight despite being especially movement centric. T9’s final phase makes a good case for being one of the best moments of raiding this game has. It was also a total dance.

Agreed about A10S (I didn’t do T9 when it was relevant since I started playing in HW, so my only experience with Coil has been unsynced :c). I really enjoyed A10S and found the little mechanic dances he did far more engaging than, by comparison, Refurbisher...where I literally stood in the same spot 90% of the fight and only had to move for Acid Rain and when one of the platforms were about to become lava.

[KaivaC]

Alright, I will respond in two parts – I do hope you read them through. The reason I am repeatedly saying that you should try O3S is because you’re using your argument for all four Omega Savage runs. You want to dance less, and I get that. However, you can watch all the guides and videos you want – you can post timestamps, you can memorize all the attacks, but the fact is, you haven’t actually tried it, and therefore, what you are saying doesn’t have much merit when the majority of what you’re basing your opinion on is coming from the first two battles, which are actually quite easy.

You’ve been arguing the same thing multiple times, however, I think the disconnect that you’re having with most of us is that you are saying that O3S is not your cup of tea based on what you have seen, but you want more to do with your role that makes a fight feel like a fight. But, it’s been pointed out that O33 and, honestly, O4S, are extremely dependent on your role as a healer. I think that’s where my issue lies with your posts. You said you liked Shinryu EX, but that requires a lot more moving around than O1S. You have to position the tail drops, dodge the icicle, deal with your burning chains…in fact, I think you move around the same amount as you would in O2S.

Now, with that all being said, you said yourself that this was an open discussion, so I’m not quite sure what is getting you so flustered with posts. Yes…many of us do not agree with some of what you said. But those same responses, myself included, understand clearly what you said in your original post.

I have a better question for you. What would you like to see in EX/Savage fights? I don’t mean say something vague like less dancing. Keeping with the open discussion mentality, what specifically would you like to see? Maybe a mechanic where the boss’ auto-attacks target a healer for a full minute (that actually would make a fun challenge, tbh). Oh, I just thought of one while typing this – one healer gets zombie status and their heals damage players who are not zombified? And pulling a little bit from FFX, you can’t rez a dead zombie til you Esuna them.

[-BlueGreen-]

I know my opinion on this is going to be very unpopular, but at this point I just don't care anymore.

Take a moment to reflect on crafting specialization right now (basically, the "savage" tier of crafting if you'd like to think of it that way). Of the reasons some people choose to support why end-game recipes should be locked to specialists only (on top of the 3-specialist per player limit) is that it encourages interactions between players towards a common goal. It's an MMO, so we should all go out and make and hang out with friends, right? If you oppose this, you must be some solo player who doesn't want to make friends.

Problem is that way of thinking is severely flawed. It's quite possible (and in fact, more likely), that the friends you make in FFXIV will not be into end-game crafting, and thus cannot help you in the least if you happen to be interested in end-game crafting. The only "solution" is to go out and make more friends, but inevitably it means having to spend more time away from your original friends since no matter how many friends you have doesn't affect the number of hours in a day. It's often joked that RDM's previous incarnations is the "jack of all trades, master of none", and here we have an attempt to force players to be "friendly to all, friend to none".

Guess what? Same problem happens with EX/Savage. The required skill for the current content is just far to high above the average player to complete it. It's so high, in fact, that even good players often have to spend hours each week working on it. This isn't some quick "hey random-dude-i-hardly-know, can you make me a thing-a-ma-bob?", it's a serious time commitment to get into this stuff. If you are interested in it, but your friends aren't good enough (even if they happen to be interested in it), you're kind of stuck. Even if you bother to seek out a static that is good enough to go for it, you're going to have to resign to reserving several hours per week to your "new" friends giving your old friends the cold shoulder.

The only solution is to quit making content that's well beyond the abilities of an average player. I know hardcore players won't like hearing this, but do you think Nintendo would sell very many more copies of Mario games if they started tuning the last set of levels in each game to the level that FFXIV's savage content is tuned to? Hell no.

Want to show off your awesome gaming skills? Do it like they've been doing it since at least the days of the Atari... pick something and speed run it, set/break records and record videos of it.

[Dualgunner]

The only solution is to quit making content that's well beyond the abilities of an average player. I know hardcore players won't like hearing this, but do you think Nintendo would sell very many more copies of Mario games if they started tuning the last set of levels in each game to the level that FFXIV's savage content is tuned to? Hell no.

So what is Dark Souls? Devil May Cry? Ninja Gaiden? Bloodborne? Cuphead? Do those just not exist?

Take into account that Dark Souls was such a hit that it spawned a whole new genre of games. And remember the term "Nintendo Hard" exists too, describing a lot of games that were hard to impossible made by Nintendo.

For that matter, you make it sound like it's a bad thing to have to branch out of your clique of friends. I can agree to the point that it specializations are dumb; but that's because this game advertises itself as being able to do everything on one character, and then turns around and says no, you can only specialize in three crafts.

"Giving your friends the cold shoulder" is a bad way of looking at it. No friend or group of friends should monopolize so much of your time that you cannot spend time with other people. If that group of friends is the only reason you log in...then you're obviously not interested in raiding anyway. You're here for them.

[KaivaC]

snip

Umm...I'm definitely an average player. I've gotten my clears on O1S, O2S, and O3S without members of my wonderful FC, a static, or even a particular group. All of my clears and weekly page runs have been done with complete randoms since Day 1 of Omega Savage. It's not as hard as you think. Join or make a learning party, prog for your own sake, and when you're comfortable doing the whole fight, join a clear group or make one. Having friends or an FC is better, but these fights are definitely doable, so long as you understand the fight and actually know how to do your job. Besides, it is called Extreme/Savage for a reason. These aren't meant to be faceroll fights, nor should they ever be.

As for your Mario comment, I seem to recall that Super Mario Bros. had a punishing level towards the end with the Hammer Bros. And SMB3 had quite a few difficult as hell stages. I'm not sure why you brought Mario into this discussion. Please explain.

[Sunhwapark]

O3S and, honestly, O4S, are extremely dependent on your role as a healer

Pretty much this, there's a fair amount of "dancing" if that's what you wanna call it - however this is also reinforced with the healer role check type mechanic that OP seems to be quite entranced by. Spellblade Holy -> Damage -> Queen's Waltz Followup, which i guess follows the styles of "dance > role check" ? The same happens in O4S with GrandCross Delta with the psuedo random debuff brand on everyone in the group, people "dance" to their positions and then a huge amount of damage goes out immedietly following up with the Almagest healer & mitigation check, followed by tank busters and some more dancing, i guess.Like HyoMinPark and others have said for 3/4S you should definitely give them a solid shot at because they push players to pay far more attention with what they are doing, there are randomized aspects in O3 that incorporate both dancing and the role check follows up right after. IE:

• Spellblade Holy Tethers - > Dimensional Wave
• Animal Phase -> Squelch/Ribbit/Oink
• Book Phase's Spellblade Holy
• Haste -> Blizzard/Thunder/Fire III
• Queen's Waltz - > Book / Blue / Briar Tiles
• MindJack + Reapers Later on -> Cardinal Directions
• Place Dark Token's Safe Zone (Reapers)

I feel as though it's a step in the direction that you might want (?), yes it has quite a few "dance" type mechanics still present, however these are often immediately followed up with raid-wide damage that players need to be healed through and mitigated if possible for best survivability. In general you're paying a lot more attention on enmity, personal resources and the party members who accompany you, watching for people who get 'clipped' by failing a non fatal, but punishing mechanic and risk dying to the next raidwide AOE that is already being cast - and yes! you can actually save them from death if you react quick enough.

It's still scripted to some degree though, but to be fair - you can only have so much randomness in a fight before it's swayed from ''challenging'' to literally playing the cactpot to get a weekly clear. What i guess i'm trying to convey is, as you get higher in this current raid tier - the game slowly takes away the general strict " boss will always do this" type of mechanic and instead changes it to "The boss will do something shortly, it could be X, Y or even Z - Stay alert." which i think is pretty cool to be honest, although i wish it was introduced earlier and ramped up a bit further.

I really enjoyed A10S and found the little mechanic dances he did far more engaging

Agreed. I really enjoyed the randomized routines that would occur in that fight. I also heavily enjoyed the cluster-truck that was the A11s Lapis phase with a DPS Check going on, tank busters, cleaves, dodging orange beams of doom and the green tether ball placements. I really liked that sort of chaos of different things going on at the same time.