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

[Louvain]

Bumping this back up because I would really like to see this issue addressed. This isn't some random complaint filed by people who are bad or only tried once or twice and failed- this is from people who have made multiple dedicated attempts to clear the content. It's just not possible. Scouring the potd boards on the official lodestone page, you'll see a majority of people get stopped at 160, and only two(?) who have ever made it past 190. Nobody's gotten to 200. I am all for difficult content, but not impossible.

[LalaRu]

I just wonder why in all that interviews, the potd doesn't take place in any question. "Piloted" interviews or I do missed the good piece of the cake?
I just saw a talk about a new one coming, but nothing about the difficulty level of the current one.

[miraidensetsu]

What it will happen if S-E tune up the level your char can achieve inside POTD to 70? Maybe a BLM with Foul or a DRK with TBN will be able to clear the content up to floor 200?

[Alleo]

I just wonder why in all that interviews, the potd doesn't take place in any question. "Piloted" interviews or I do missed the good piece of the cake?
I just saw a talk about a new one coming, but nothing about the difficulty level of the current one.

Probably because most people just try it with a group which is clearable thus the solo part is probably not on their mind. Its just sad that SE does not do something about it. They have the data and can see that nobody cleared it solo after all the time and on top of that there are some complains about this on the forum.

[Zojha]

What it will happen if S-E tune up the level your char can achieve inside POTD to 70?

Not much, truthfully, unless it also ups the aetherpool values.

The thing is standard trinity design with unavoidable autoattacks that at some point simply hit too hard. Pox and the floor effect that disables auto-healing only further that issue, they both are fairly trivial when you got GCD heals but require a lot of pots to remedy when you don't. There is nothing you can do about any of that other than pomanders and pomanders are RNG - If you don't have the right pomanders when the luring trap hits, GG, and you cannot have traps visible/disabled at all times unless you get real lucky, so the only thing you can do is crawl along the walls and hope no trap is laying there. Not even mentioning mimics.

It is "difficult" in the same way as giving level one marmots and ladybugs the damage output of level 50 mobs is "difficult" for newbies. It's "difficult" in the same way as Lakshmi randomly not providing the needed Vril is "difficult". It really isn't "difficult", it's just stupid design.

And there really isn't much to be done about that either. Up the stats so that you don't have to rely on RNG on any job and you'll trivialize the whole thing, because it's already mechanically as trivial as said level 1 marmot, it just got its stats cranked up and those selfsame stats are what prevent clearing. Guarantee people get the pomanders they need and you need to re-do the whole place to not be random which goes against the point of it. Don't guarantee the pomanders and it will keep boiling down to RNG as now. There is no good solution to the issue, hence why I provocatively sent the designer back to the drawing board on page one already.

It simply isn't designed as a solo challenge, the combat follows the same design template as any normal group dungeon, except with the vain hope of winning the pomander lottery. And I'm still salty that I fell for this dev troll even once, thinking the floors above 100 would be any different than the floors before and would have unique mechanics or anything more engaging than super-powered level one marmots. I should have known better.

[Louvain]

Monday morning bump for the devs/mods to see. At least a "we'll look into an issue" would be nice to have. There are lots of good ideas here to adjust getting the achievement, and they don't even need to be taken to any kind of extreme to make it more feasible.

[Kallistra]

I commend your dedication to this, Lou.

[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 ^^