Increasing difficulty in casual content ≠ Savage

[RiyahArp]

The crocodiles are "interesting" in that they use AoE against people getting behind them.

Except that for melee...you have to be behind them for one to two thirds of your attacks in order to get the highest potency, which removes any idea of baiting. It actually punishes a smart playstyle by forcing potency losses, especially for monk. So those kind of mechanics can be a double edged sword.

Those aren't lose conditions but minor annoyances no different than Skalla forcing you to partake in a mini-game. A perfect example of how poorly tuned dungeons are is the first boss of Hell's Lid. He puts a vulnerability stack on for each swipe yet the damage is so inconsequential, you rarely see tanks bother dodging. I have gotten 5-6 before and still haven't been brought down to half my HP. If that is the "lose condition," not only does it accomplish absolutely nothing it only reinforces the mindset people can get hit by things and shrug it off no problem. Even Kefka normal suffers, though to a lesser extent. I flat-out will not dodge his fake Blizzards because I can heal myself through the damage with just Bloodbath. What about the vulnerability stack? One stack means very little, especially with how significant heal potencies are.

You can increase the risk of both these mechanics without going the OHKO route. Leveling dungeons are standing proof of that. Weeping City and Dun Scaith have few one shot mechanics yet pose a challenge for the average player.

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.

[AxlStream]

Snipped

In order...

No, lose conditions means losing the game aka wipe, no Kefka doesn't hurt even at min ilvl and no dungeon mechanic actually one shots.

[Lynde]

In order...

No, lose conditions means losing the game aka wipe, no Kefka doesn't hurt even at min ilvl and no dungeon mechanic actually one shots.

Theres plenty of dungeon mechanics that can 1 shot if not followed to the mark. Granted you might not see some of them because of gear, but some still exist. For example, if you get pushed off the edge by the Demon Wall or get crushed by his book brother are a few examples. Heck, T5 and T9 in coil can and still one shot a player(s) if not followed, even UNSYNCED.

[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.

[HyoMinPark]

Usually any hard content in this game is hard because it outright kills you.

Honestly, it’s my opinion that mechanics should be more punishing if you fail them in all forms of content. Otherwise you end up with tanks in Kefka normal mode that think it’s okay to get up to 8 vulnerability stacks, and then whine to the healer when they die because they ignored mechanics 8 times and finally got punished for it by eating a tankbuster with 8 vulnerability stacks...but it only took them 8 mistakes for it to finally come back and bite them in the butt.

[Gemina]

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.

My mistake. I do apologize for reading it incorrectly.

I've never been caught up enough to do any expert roulette dungeons while they were in that roulette. I've only done them after getting tossed into 50/60 roulette. Are they around typical HM difficulty? If so, I have always found the leveling dungeons to be more difficult since players tend to be at, or below a decent iLv to run the dungeon. What I've noticed about HM dungeons is that they do indeed toss more at you, but it doesn't matter because everyone is so over-geared. If ran at a lower iLv, the same stuff people don't bother to move out of is going to hurt.

I understand where you are coming from though. If a telegraphed attack isn't threatening, or easily mitigated with a healer regen, then there is no reason to avoid it as it disrupts positioning. Even if not using a positional job, players usually have 'comfort zones' and only move if necessary. I really like what they did with some ARR dungeons. The ones that didn't carry a HM tag and also weren't part of the MSQ. Pharos Sirius and The Lost City of Amdapor come to mind. I know these got nerfed, and it never should have happened.

I wish SE would adopt a similar mentality to these older dungeons, and create dungeons that are simply known to be more difficult than the average dungeon. Not crazy punishing, but by the Gods your attention WILL be required to get through it. We already have them, but they are few. We need more. We shouldn't have to rely on random/bad/inebriated players to make things interesting.

[Dzian]

I'm afraid that they do mean a lot, but for all the wrong reasons.

The secondary stats in this game are born from the games desire to be "for everyone" originally. And there are people that like variety, customization...call it however you want. Early on you had actual choice of whether you prefer this piece or that. There was some sort of variety (though still limited). The relics (at least the Anima one) is a perfect example of that. You choose the bonus stats you want, while the rest is the same. That means that you can promote one build over the others to suit your play styles.

For that reason, games with secondary stats like that normally have multiple set of gear at every relevant level that are mostly different in bonus stats. Either that...or have randomly generated bonus stats on top. Or both of these...It doesn't matter what path is chosen, what matters is that a player A could make a max-level warrior that have significantly different additional stats compared to player B, while still having the same overall power level.
In this game, there is no such thing. The higher level armors are generally simply better, while there is no alternative at the same level. You will get whatever secondary stats you get and the only difference is from (all in all) small amount of stats you can add using materia (which is FURTHER capped by what is naturally on the gear).


However, what this game DOES have...is the drawback of secondary stats. You see, if you have 300 spell speed at lvlX and 600 spell speed at X*2, then you have -20% cast time. But if you have 300 spell speed at lvlX*2, then you have only -5% cast time. For example.

The amount of secondary stat you need for the same effect grows with levels. However, the sets in the game are so brainlessly simplified, that your rough crit, spell speed and so on will stay on a relative same level when you put on the complete sets from level to level. If you mix and match however, for example use the lower-level top that have crit and direct hit instead of skill speed and direct hit, then you will have a higher crit rate and higher global cooldown. It's nice and all, but you will still be weaker because you will also lose significantly on strength and defenses. If you want variety...you suffer being weaker by design.


The developers know this. They outright said that they want to remove all variety in order to make balancing stuff much easier without alienating anyone. In other words, they don't want there to exist gear or any customization to characters, but in order to avoid people leaving the game due to how ridiculous and worthless it would be at that point (and to have a cheap incentive for people to run boring content), they make a smoke screen by giving gears that give a semblance of choice...even though they don't.

That basically validates my point. they're worthless stats. but they don't just go up by level they go up by ilevel. you can almost guarantee the stat weights will change slightly in 4.4. so then you'll need even more skill speed to maintain the same gcd sweetspot you may have now....

the result is these stats aren't doing anything the numbers are getting bigger and bigger and bigger but the effects of those numbers never change... as illustrated in an earlier example.

at level 50 with 350 crit my bard had an average crit rate of maybe 17-18%.
at level 60 with 1200 crit my bard had a crit rate of 17-18%
presently level 70 with over 2000 crit my bards crit rate is 17-80%

how much would you wager than in patch 5.0 when my bard is level 80 with 4,000 or more crit that its crit rate will still be 17-18%
or in 6.0 with my level 90 bard and hell 10,000 crit.. my crit rate then? I think 17-18% would still be a safe bet...

it realy makes no difference at all. hell even if patch 4.4 and the tier comes out my i400 bard might end up with 2400 crit. i'd wager my crit rate would still be 17-18%
my blm exactly the same. i400 it might have 3-400 more spell speed than i370. but the cast times will still be exactly the same....

Stats basically just don't matter. the only one you ever need to look at is Item level. every other stat in the game could be totally removed. even the primary's. because there all dictated and hard capped by item level anyway... just equipped the highest ilevel piece you have for the slot and go. you don't even need to look at the other stats. they are meaningless

This is why it's such a big complaint that gear is just boring because none of the stats actually matter. and thus gear is all dull boring and trash

[kikix12]

Except that for melee...you have to be behind them for one to two thirds of your attacks in order to get the highest potency, which removes any idea of baiting. It actually punishes a smart playstyle by forcing potency losses, especially for monk. So those kind of mechanics can be a double edged sword.

Melee have no cast times (except for one skill of Samurai)...so how is it punishing smart play?! Melee are good at baiting those attack as well. Monk for example have a "side" and a "back" attack at every stance, and attacks that don't even care as well. The cast is about done?! Use the side one. You're out of danger. He's not casting?! Use the back one to bait him and trigger the effects of the skill then go to the side.

Samurai is a bit different. Only the combo finishers are directional, one for back and one for side. That makes it completely irrelevant. All samurai needs to remember is not to "bait" the crocs before going onto the combo that requires him to be at the back.

I don't know about Ninja and Dragoon, but I reckon they have similar means of avoiding the back for a short duration.


It's all about managing the passage of time. They will not use those AoE's constantly. There is always a cooldown, short as it is, that you can stand there without them going at it. Even if you cannot see the "smart play" in that, that doesn't mean there is none.

[Remedi]

That basically validates my point. they're worthless stats. but they don't just go up by level they go up by ilevel. you can almost guarantee the stat weights will change slightly in 4.4. so then you'll need even more skill speed to maintain the same gcd sweetspot you may have now....

the result is these stats aren't doing anything the numbers are getting bigger and bigger and bigger but the effects of those numbers never change... as illustrated in an earlier example.

at level 50 with 350 crit my bard had an average crit rate of maybe 17-18%.
at level 60 with 1200 crit my bard had a crit rate of 17-18%
presently level 70 with over 2000 crit my bards crit rate is 17-80%

how much would you wager than in patch 5.0 when my bard is level 80 with 4,000 or more crit that its crit rate will still be 17-18%
or in 6.0 with my level 90 bard and hell 10,000 crit.. my crit rate then? I think 17-18% would still be a safe bet...

it realy makes no difference at all. hell even if patch 4.4 and the tier comes out my i400 bard might end up with 2400 crit. i'd wager my crit rate would still be 17-18%
my blm exactly the same. i400 it might have 3-400 more spell speed than i370. but the cast times will still be exactly the same....

Stats basically just don't matter. the only one you ever need to look at is Item level. every other stat in the game could be totally removed. even the primary's. because there all dictated and hard capped by item level anyway... just equipped the highest ilevel piece you have for the slot and go. you don't even need to look at the other stats. they are meaningless

This is why it's such a big complaint that gear is just boring because none of the stats actually matter. and thus gear is all dull boring and trash

I disagree, some jobs playability is influenced by how much you have of a determined stats, like SAM and their 1-3 Sen openers, not to mention BLM and their 2 actual builds in terms of stats.
True WD and main stat will always triumph, but I don't really think you want something like wow were a 30 ilvl difference might mean that the higher ilvl item is worse than the one currently equipped for stats alone and frankly they are moving away from that apparently

[Dzian]

I disagree, some jobs playability is influenced by how much you have of a determined stats, like SAM and their 1-3 Sen openers, not to mention BLM and their 2 actual builds in terms of stats.
True WD and main stat will always triumph, but I don't really think you want something like wow were a 30 ilvl difference might mean that the higher ilvl item is worse than the one currently equipped for stats alone and frankly they are moving away from that apparently

I don't really dispute that. but the point is that even though the number gets higher and higher the effect of that stat doesn't really change....

lets say 1500 skill speed right now gave a warrior a short enough gcd to get a 5th fell cleave out in inner release for example. (I dunno what the actual number is but its just an example)
when patch 4.4 lands and that warrior upgrades a couple of pieces of gear to maybe i380. his skill speed might go up to 1530.. but now he can't do that extra fell cleave because his gcd is to long the stat weights have changed.. now he might need to get 1650 skill speed to squeeze that extra fell cleave into inner release......

so essentially he needs 150 more skill speed just to stay where he was before. he actually gains nothing from those extra 150 points..

then in 5.0 for example at level 80 he might need 2,000 skill speed just to squeeze out that 5th fell cleave....

this is why I say stats are useless. because his stats are going up and up and up but they do nothing... that warrior might have 500 more skill speed than he did but can still only just squeeze in that 5th fell cleave....

so what has he gained from those 500 extra points? nothing!!! hes doing exactly the same number of cleaves he was doing when he only had 1500 points in skill speed.... absolutely nothing has changed as a result of those extra 500 points....

thus stats are useless..

again my above bard example is the same with crit.
when I was running coil with 350 crit. landing 17-18% crits.. now rocking over 2000 crit but my crit rate is still 17-18%. so I've gained 1650 points in that stat and what has changed? nothing. my crit rate is exactly the same as it was and always has been.

You can't really say stats matter when they don't actually change anything... if in 5.0 my bard is rolling 4000 crit and my crit rate is still 17-18% what exactly will those extra 1,000 points do for me?
what will I gain from the extra 2,000 points?
a higher crit rate? nope still 17-18% exactly what it is now.... thus worthless.