Increasing difficulty in casual content ≠ Savage

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yeah, I'm going to say no. Smooth runs through leveling dungeons is about 50/50, with the exceptionally optimal, and the atrociously awful run are both rare. But all it really takes is one 40+ minute clear time of a leveling dungeon for the devs to say the difficulty is staying right where it's at.

Suffice to say, a player won't learn if they are not punished for failing mechanics, but at the same time, a player also has to have the desire to get better. There will never be a middle ground content if the mindset remains 'Savage/everything else'. 24-man is about as middle as it's going to get.

But I never said leveling dungeons needed to have their difficult increased. In fact, I said the precise opposite. Leveling dungeons are relatively fine as you will actually be punished for mistakes but to a severe degree. It's Expert and beyond that are absolute jokes.

Lose conditions mean failing the mechanic, not losing the fight.

Also, tanks honestly are OP in terms of mitigation. If those swipes hit melee it can get pretty brutal. Kefka normal seems easy, but at lower ilvls and later in the fight the vuln stacks hurt, especially for new players who don't get the grave image things right away. Especially the gaze mechanic, because if i remember right, its from the image not from Kefka. Kind of works out that two or three can mean you die later in the fight, especially if they cause you to take a lot of damage from the double cast aoes.

I think they did one shot you a bit in those dungeons too. Necropurge and meteor drops have that potential, haircut is similar to hashmal's rush but with slightly more forgiving timing and will two shot the player unless the healer is very quick and in range. Usually any hard content in this game is hard because it outright kills you.

How is it a lose condition though if the damage is so insignificant you can get hit multiple times and still not dip below 50% HP? That's the whole crux of this argument. Mechanics with trivial consequences accomplish nothing.

I actually agree, though it isn't just tanks. Healers are equally too strong hence why fights are leaning more notably on OHKO mechanics. A particularly poor design is White Hole/Heartless Archangel in God Kefka. Forcing healers to heal inefficiently through mass overhealing just to ensure everyone is 100% topped. As for the swipes, they only remotely hurt if you're very close to the ilvl. I did Kefka day one and ate people of nonsense yet still managed with little issue. Considering this is brand new content, I shouldn't be able to shrug off vulnerability stacks. If he were a leveling boss, sure. Let people get their feet wet, but he's endgame yet doesn't do enough to cause any real concern unless people are either new or dumb.

All of those mechanics are good examples though. People messed up mechanics and either died or came dangerously close. This encourages players not to fail. Compare that to Expert or normal modes and you begin to see why the playerbase doesn't care.