Request: Please tone down PoTD Solo 181+. My experience and partial rant.

[Louvain]

I commend your dedication to this, Lou.

I am! I know the issue isn't something that really affects any sort of gameplay and it can be completely ignored but then...why have it?

Possible fixes for this have included

• Increasing the amount of gold chests and decreasing mimic spawns in later floors
• Decreasing the damage and hp of enemies while solo
• Allowing aetherpool stats to go above 99/99
• Allowing players to reach level 70 and use level 70 abilities in there
• Increasing the amount of pomanders that can be held by a solo player
• Increasing the amount of time for completion on later floors
• Making a specific solo mode (perhaps with the aforementioned fixes)
• Removing the achievement

[Whichi]

I actually love some of these ideas. Personally I actually don't find palace of the dead that difficult to solo as redmage. Its just the RNG of pomanders on the later floors is a bit silly. Yeah Soloing palace is still not an easy task by any means but the fact that hitting 200 atm solo is a REDMAGE only Dice roll is a bit silly. Personally I think palace should add items that each class can use specifically maybe? im not sure. I like the solo specific mode. I dont think the achievement should be removed necessarily thats kind of silly theres no point to. Maybe the new deep dungeon will be connected? idk. I think honestly all you'd need to do is that if you queue solo remove the time limit. It would let you play more carefully and conserve pomanders a bit.

[Tint]

[...]

is... that a screenshot instead of the quote tag? you are blowing my mind ^^

i got 2 ideas.

one is that it saves your progress every tenth floor just like in 1-100 and after a wipe at floor 184 you are able to start over again at floor 180. sure, this makes the thing much more easy, just bang your head against it until you finish it. however, it's not much different from any other content in the game and it's still harder than unsynching raid turns for example. it also solves the problem with the disconnects.

another idea was that you can buy pomanders with your high-score points at every tenth floor. taking out some RNG, but at the cost of your place on the board ^^

[Angelusdemonus]

I am! I know the issue isn't something that really affects any sort of gameplay and it can be completely ignored but then...why have it?

Possible fixes for this have included

• Increasing the amount of gold chests and decreasing mimic spawns in later floors
• Decreasing the damage and hp of enemies while solo
• Allowing aetherpool stats to go above 99/99
• Allowing players to reach level 70 and use level 70 abilities in there
  
• Increasing the amount of pomanders that can be held by a solo player
• Increasing the amount of time for completion on later floors
• Making a specific solo mode (perhaps with the aforementioned fixes)
• Removing the achievement

One thing that I've been racking my brain about is how do you adjust solo PoTD without ruining PoTD as a whole? Because yes, a number of what Louvain suggested are good...along the lines of what I had posted. However, some of those type of adjustments affect everything about it (light party, etc). So my big question that I wanted to find an answer for is: How do you adjust solo PoTD ONLY, without touching and adjusting the experience of PoTD 2-4 player, which much of the community will say is well balanced, and I think it is.

I've said in a few posts and in my original that I feel the scale of difficulty for enemies, all the way up to 199, is fine. I had an opportunity with one of my light party groups where my other teammates had wiped on 196 and I was left standing, so I had to raise them and open the portal solo...and granted I had Strength/Steel, I honestly did not find it impossible to solo that floor specifically. So I would hate for them to nerf the enemies and make it too easy.

So here is an idea I would like to propose: Add special solo-specific abilities and, as Louvain said above, increase our amount of pomanders held by a solo player. I think these two should be easy to implement, and I'll explain below.


Special Solo-Specific Abilities


A big issue with the other 14 jobs that aren't called RDM is that they are missing key abilities that can push them to the high levels. RDM has "almost" the full toolkit to reach 200, but there is still an enormous amount of luck required (duh). So, I would like to propose that you add in special solo-specific abilities that can be used by all jobs, and only when you run solo.

You guys have already introduced the "orders" menu option for squadron, which only show up when you do command missions, as well as the duty specific abilities like in Lakshimi, so I would like to think adding special abilities to PoTD Solo might not be too crazy.

The abilities I would propose would be (all OGCD, by the way):

- Stun (30s~ recast, close range or long range)
- Silence (30s~ recast)
- Stoneskin (short recast, but only useable outside of command)
- 50%-60% HP Cure (15-20s~ recast)
- Melee Range powerful attack (5-8s~ casting time, would do 60%+ damage to a single enemy, and can only be used in combat)

Stun

It's pure utility. There are many times as a RDM that I wish I had one useful CC option, because buying time even for one GCD makes the difference between living and dying. Also, there are a few notable enemies who have DPS checks, so having a stun handy can save you from what was suppose to be a light party DPS check, and not punishing to a solo player who will more than likely not make it to the DPS check.

Running a job like MNK, who has stuns, definitely makes getting through the floors easier, because you are buying time for CDs to come down, and you get that extra tick of Sustaining Potion.

Silence

There is really only one major use for this, and it's to stop the Wisent on 171-180 floor set from doing it's DPS check. There might be other places you can use it (like stopping the elementals from casting a GCD), but I think this has a place for the solo abilities.

Stoneskin

Bring this baby back! More specifically for floor sets 181-190, because of the Deep Worms that attack you from a distance. That attack is unavoidable and does a large amount of damage....sometimes you can get hit at the worst moment and die because of it. Stoneskin can help mitigate that a little bit, and also it can be useful as some buffer when you use Pomander of Rage in the higher floors, where enemies can 1-4 shot you easy. Important to note that you would only be able to use this outside of combat.

50%-60% HP Cure

This to me is the key, for all the other jobs that aren't called RDM. One of the specific situations that a huge cure like this is needed is against the 180 Boss Floor, Behemoth. RDM is viable because you can cap yourself off between meteors very easily, but every other jobs, except healer, will not survive multiple meteors AND do enough damage to kill the last 15% of behemoth. A "percentage" cure is important, because jobs with higher HP pools, like tanks, will benefit from this also. A PLD against behemoth would struggle to stay alive; yes, they have their own cures, but because Meteor does percentage damage, you have to cure all that HP just to be in the safe zone again to survive another meteor...and you'll also be spending all that time casting Clemency and not doing damage.

Additionally, a big cure like that should also assist in surviving floor 190 boss, because your big concern there is it's cleave combo that can potentially 3-shot you WITH steel pomander.

Additionally, additionally, a low cast big cure will be huge for clearing the floors. Lets face it, Max-Potions are a big joke and certainly doesn't keep you alive in 151+, and sustaining potions can only do so much regen (and also does not scale per job).

Jobs that don't have any significant cures (mainly a majority of the dps jobs) will gain a major benefit to just having a cure option, it should allow them to climb far higher in solo PoTD.

Melee Range powerful attack (with a long casting time)

This is more for healers and tanks, which are the job roles that can survive the best, but can clear the floors the worst.

Healers with pre-nerf Cleric Stance were viable....a lot of runners got pretty high before Stormblood because you had the best of both worlds: good damage and survivability. But check the board now, and you'll see almost every data center has no new healer floor records since Stormblood, because what they are suffering is in the damage department. I know also, running PLD, they also suffer from a lack of damage, especially on the bosses. You probably wont die on PLD, but you're not getting anywhere fast.

So I propose a special, big damage attack, as the last solo specific ability, which can help solve the DPS issue. But, the caveat is that it has a long casting time, just to balance it's usefulness. There are enemies in the higher floors that can kill you in 2-3 GCDs, so I would want such a useful attack to have a big risk in using it, where unless you prepare it properly or time it properly, you might die before the ability goes off. There is an obvious plus side to a powerful attack which would be saving time, and for jobs like healer and tank, it would be more useful to them. Also, it shouldn't be useable outside of combat, otherwise anyone can just walk up to any enemy and just farm down things, making the entire thing trivial. It should also not be useable on bosses, for obvious reasons.

I will say as a word of caution that as useful as a big attack would be, that would probably need to be more thought put into it so that it doesn't become such a broken ability that it makes soloing trivial. Of all the additional abilities I mentioned, I think this last one is a little iffy and would be to balanced really good.


Increasing Pomander Maximum Limit

The other part of the adjustments is increasing the amount of pomanders a solo player can hold. This in my opinion should also not be a hard implementation. The game already reads the fact that you are going in solo, both in the game log before you start the floors warning about the fact you are entering solo, as well as a separate solo ranking board. Also, on bosses such as Floor 50 and Floor 150, the enemies adjust to how ever many people are on the field....so with a light party the attacks will spawn 4 separate attacks, where as on solo only 1 will spawn.

Because of how that is setup, I believe it you should be able to have the game increase how many pomanders that can hold based on how many people are running PoTD. For instance, A Light Party will have the standard 3 limit, but if its a party of 3, then the limit would be +1 (so they can hold 4 max), party of 2 a limit of +2 (so they hold 5 max), and solo a limit of +3 (so you can hold 6 max).



Welcome to the conclusion of my term paper, thank you for reaching this far. I'm really, really hoping this get's adjusted somehow that all 15 jobs can clear, not just RDM. But as a few of the posters have also said, we don't want this to be destroyed and made so easy that people can obtain the title in their sleep. I think giving classes the tools they need to succeed for solo only is a way to accomplish this, AND/OR let us has more access to pomanders. If we can hold more pomanders, then you are eliminating a lot of the luck and RNG that is basically destroying everyone's attempts. If you give us more tools to survive and clear floors, then you are also removing much of the RNG on floor spawns that also destroy our runs.

SE, I want this title, and so do many of my fellow runners. Keep it challenging, but give us a chance here.

[Louvain]

One thing that I've been racking my brain about is how do you adjust solo PoTD without ruining PoTD as a whole? Because yes, a number of what Louvain suggested are good...along the lines of what I had posted. However, some of those type of adjustments affect everything about it (light party, etc). So my big question that I wanted to find an answer for is: How do you adjust solo PoTD ONLY, without touching and adjusting the experience of PoTD 2-4 player, which much of the community will say is well balanced, and I think it is.

thinking about this, it is technically balanced for light parties, yes...but would it really be such a bad thing to have it made easier at this point? The content has already been out a year. As someone who frequently runs it in a light party, even a good run can take us 6-7 hours. Many people I know have not cleared it - either because they (or their party) don't have the experience or disposition to deal with the later floors, or because its long and boring. Touching on the latter point, even with my party usually doing its best to remain upbeat, getting to 200 is still extremely tedious and draining because of how boring it can be (particularly, 140-170 because there's nothing special about those floors, its your typical aggro > kill cycle just done a lot more slowly with very little strategy involved)

And wait a second, your name is a bit familiar... were you by any chance that Kalahan fangirl from DN? (also, Mayu says hi!)

YES....THAT'S ME.....