How Do You Feel When Old Content Is Made Easier?

[HyoMinPark]

You know, I'm doing trial roulette tonight, and i'm getting castrim flummins. One of my runs had one of the healers say at start "well, thirteenth time is the charm," which is the amount of failed runs he did before a clear. Another I came in as a dps on the 30 min mark. You'd be surprised at how often you can come in to a failed run on some of the harder casual content, like launch 24 mans. Now imagine if every single one of those things gets harder.

Failed runs doesn’t mean the content is even hard; just that players are either impatient or flat-out bad. That doesn’t make the content hard mechanically. Tsuku is actually good in its design as it requires you to actually pay attention...unlike most content in this game. Final Steps of Faith, Royal Menagerie, and Weeping City were the same way, and what do they all have in common? People whining that they’re “too hard”...because they actually have to pay attention and can’t just barrel through it. In my opinion, all four are the perfect difficulty for this game, especially since they are all supposed to be done at max level for their relative expansions—you know, when people are supposed to have an inkling of how to play their class.

That being said, none of these pieces of content were hard in the way you like to put it (i.e., “Savage-level difficulty”)—they were just more difficult than the majority of other MSQ-related content that required little to no thought to it.

I don't care if raiders think casual content is too easy. It will always be easy for them, there's no way they can make dungeons equal to beginning tiers of savage, which you yourself says is no challenge. If they did that, it would hurt others far more than it helps.

You’re speaking in extremes again—please quote where anyone in this thread has asked for Savage-level difficulty for dungeons. I want them to bring back dungeons more akin to original Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius...especially since they’re supposed to be “Expert” level dungeons. I don’t want more Kugane Castles and Swallow’s Compasses where I don’t have to actually heal the tank, much less the party outside of 1 GCD.

[RiyahArp]

You’re speaking in extremes again—please quote where anyone in this thread has asked for Savage-level difficulty for dungeons. I want them to bring back dungeons more akin to original Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius

Cool, people would just do the same things they did back then and leave on pop. Actually these days you don't even need to queue for expert, so maybe they would just ignore it like they do 50/60 roulettes.

If you want hard 4 man content, well, you have challenge floors both in POTD and heaven on high.

As for Tsukiyomi. This is what happens when you have sudden difficulty spikes, though more often than not I see players who simply refuse to pay attention.

it has nothing to do wiith that. Its the last phase and the speed of the mechanics, as well as how icky they are rendered. Not many story fights stack multiple mechanics on top of each other, nor are they particularly fast. You also have issues with tankbusters happening right after the fast mechanic phase, and the entire fight requires a lot heavier knowledge of positioning and awareness then most others. This is why SE made sure to give every attack audio cues to help players anticipate. It's a tedious fight once you get past the first clear, just like shin is.

And yeah, you think you are complaining about idiots now, wait till regular players keep screwing up your runs cause the content is hard for them. I have the nasty suspicious the monster hunter event might just be this; i wouldnt put it past yoshi to make it an ex-trial because the original game is so hardcore.

[HyoMinPark]

Cool, people would just do the same things they did back then and leave on pop. Actually these days you don't even need to queue for expert, so maybe they would just ignore it like they do 50/60 roulettes.

50/60 Roulette is largely ignored because the rewards tied to the roulette are extremely lackluster, not because the dungeons in there are any sort of hard difficulty. They’re just as faceroll as everything else, especially now when we blatantly overgear them, and where they had been nerfed with the onset of a new expansion; or, in the case of Amdapor and Pharos, where they were previously nerfed so hard they barely resemble anything of their former selves.

If you want hard 4 man content, well, you have challenge floors both in POTD and heaven on high.

And why do those two have to be the only challenging pieces of 4-man content?

it has nothing to do wiith that. Its the last phase and the speed of the mechanics, as well as how icky they are rendered. Not many story fights stack multiple mechanics on top of each other, nor are they particularly fast. You also have issues with tankbusters happening right after the fast mechanic phase, and the entire fight requires a lot heavier knowledge of positioning and awareness then most others. This is why SE made sure to give every attack audio cues to help players anticipate. It's a tedious fight once you get past the first clear, just like shin is.

Well, of course they should be faster-paced—you’re doing the content at level cap, where you’re supposed to have a decent knowledge of the way your class functions. Why should level 70 content be as easy as level 15 content? Why should any piece of level 70 content be easier than something like Aurum Vale, a level 47 dungeon?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

it has nothing to do wiith that. Its the last phase and the speed of the mechanics, as well as how icky they are rendered. Not many story fights stack multiple mechanics on top of each other, nor are they particularly fast. You also have issues with tankbusters happening right after the fast mechanic phase, and the entire fight requires a lot heavier knowledge of positioning and awareness then most others. This is why SE made sure to give every attack audio cues to help players anticipate. It's a tedious fight once you get past the first clear, just like shin is.

And yeah, you think you are complaining about idiots now, wait till regular players keep screwing up your runs cause the content is hard for them. I have the nasty suspicious the monster hunter event might just be this; i wouldnt put it past yoshi to make it an ex-trial because the original game is so hardcore.

Welcome to level 70? Mechanics should increase in tempo as you progress otherwise what's even the point? Nothing Tsukiyomi does hasn't been seen prior except the rotating debuffs. Her fan mechanic are a repeat of Shiva; the cleave is a repeat of Zurvan; the stack mechanics are standard. For those inexperienced, it may seem overwhelming, but if people actually learned from their mistakes, it's hardly difficult. And if all else fails, you have guides available such as Mizzteq or MrHappy. The issue is many people don't want to learn, they want faceroll easy content they can spam a couple buttons and clear.

And I suppose we should tune everything so someone who can't be bothered to read party chat can still play? Frankly, I would welcome a wipe or two in dungeons because mechanics actually demanded something from the playerbase. At least that would be more interesting than wall to wall pulls you aoe down. Alas, when the devs have to readjust Heavy Thrust because doing a Heavy Thrust -> Chaos Thrust combo -> Full Thrust combo without allowing it to fall off is too difficult. Maybe I ask too much...

[RiyahArp]

Welcome to level 70? Mechanics should increase in tempo as you progress otherwise what's even the point?.

Go do shin, and you see every attack has an incredibly slow windup. The difficulty was in the sheer amount of them, and that they often would one-shot people at min ilvl if failed. Tsuku does shiva's circle, but much faster, and stacks an ahk morn or diabolic whistle on the end, or a cone aoe. The ahk morn in particular wipes groups since not everyone has the awareness to go to the last fan, and it just takes one person out of place to ramp the damage. The speed is a lot greater than any fight, even though the mechanics are a lot less. And one of the biggest differences between casual and ex content is in the speed of the mechanics. It has little to do with reading party chat; the player has to have good spacial awareness and resolve the mechanics in series. I notice healers have a lot of issues because they generally have to process more and have less muscle memory healing, so they end up eating the frontal tankbuster because they didn't get the tank switched position after lunacy.

Not everyone who does poorly is an idiot.

I don't think they need to nerf anything, but 24 man level content is about the highest true casual content can go, if it is required or expected to be (tome farms.) If you ask for harder stuff, its going to end up too hard for casuals to run, and it will be ignored.

And they nerfed heavy thrust because they nerfed timers in general; timers dropping off were the biggest lost of dps for any dps class in this game, and drg in particular is very rigid in timing, even still in SB. And yeah, in HW dps classes sucked, managing 3 or more separate timers for dots and buff abilities sucked hard. if we had HW system with these fights it would be hilarious, people would lose so much dps simply because they couldn't refresh their timers that they'd complain.

And why do those two have to be the only challenging pieces of 4-man content?

Because people don't even do those. To be fair, if it were matched party you might see some increase, but i think fewer people enjoy hard content than you think.

[HyoMinPark]

Because people don't even do those. To be fair, if it were matched party you might see some increase, but i think fewer people enjoy hard content than you think.

Considering the sheer amount of Floor 200 parties I saw on Cactuar not only in Heavensward but in Stormblood after they enabled cross-server functions for Floor 200 runs (and at that point, they were across Aether), I disagree. Sure that’s anecdotal...however—if people didn’t do the content, why would the developers mention they’re making floors 31 to 100 of Heaven on High difficult because players enjoyed the more difficult floors of PotD more than the easier floors? Those words came from Yoshida himself.

With the original Deep Dungeon, Palace of the Dead, we released 200 floors over two patches. However our feedback indicates that outside of leveling other jobs, players only really enjoyed the challenge of floors 180 to 200. With Heaven on High the leveling and story portion will end at floor 30, but floors 31 to 100 should feel closer to 180 to 200. Expect that kind of challenge from 31 to 100 and we hope the players enjoy accessing this content a little sooner.

Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...1A/mobilebasic

Maybe, just maybe, more people enjoy harder content than you think, Riyah.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

the player has to have good spacial awareness and resolve the mechanics in series.

This would be true on the initial few pulls, which is perfectly reasonable. After several attempts, if someone is still failing the same few mechanics, blaming it on anything but lack of effort often times comes across as excuses. Even at an increased speed, they remain the same mechanics people have already seen. And one person out of place will not kill you unless that single person is targeted.

Not everyone who does poorly is an idiot.

And nowhere did I say they were. You're putting words in my mouth. I cited a particular incident where someone failed the very first mechanic repeatedly despite being told how it work. He, instead, rushed in and pulled without listening. That isn't someone doing poorly because they're new. That is an impatience fool who couldn't be bothered to listen and wasted people's time. You'd see less of that if content actually forced you to pay attention far earlier. Leveling dungeons do a decent job of this. At least until the gear out-scales them, though the big pulls still hurt.

And they nerfed heavy thrust because they nerfed timers in general; timers dropping off were the biggest lost of dps for any dps class in this game, and drg in particular is very rigid in timing, even still in SB. And yeah, in HW dps classes sucked, managing 3 or more separate timers for dots and buff abilities sucked hard. if we had HW system with these fights it would be hilarious, people would lose so much dps simply because they couldn't refresh their timers that they'd complain.

First, they only reduced the damage bonus it provides not the timer itself. Secondly, they outright acknowledged the nerf was due to people forgetting to re-apply it. Keeping Heavy Thrust up should never have been an issue if you bothered to learn Dragoon's rotation. I was a novice back in Heavensward and learned the rotation through youtube and google doc guides. If I could figure it out and not have this issue, why can't someone else do precisely the same thing? Or do you actually believe I was born better somehow? No one is asking for Savage level dungeons or expecting top tier raid parses. They're asking for something with some teeth to it and a little competency.

[MoroMurasaki]

I think fewer people enjoy hard content than you think.

No one is asking for Savage level dungeons or expecting top tier raid parses. They're asking for something with some teeth to it and a little competency.

Is anyone else just so done with having this same conversation over and over again? I sure am.

Riyah - you're making a positive claim here, saying that less people enjoy more difficult content. Back that up with evidence or for the love of god open your mind to the idea you might be wrong.

Increasing clear rates right now for EX and Savage stand against you, come up with something compelling to put up against them or drop this.

[RiyahArp]

Riyah - you're making a positive claim here, saying that less people enjoy more difficult content. Back that up with evidence or for the love of god open your mind to the idea you might be wrong.

There are more people in a single eureka instance than there are making pug pfs for all of savage. On primal Pug PFs for all savage tend to cap out at 4-5 instances per fight, with the majority of them being farm parties. This is per data center; seeing all of 20 pfs for savafge per data center is not a sign of a healthy game. The amount of people doing savage or ex learning parties drops tremendously after the first two weeks the content is live, often without a single learning party in pf at a random time. SE released minimum ilvl for people who wanted to do old content somewhat close to the original ilvl it was released at; it was barely used, even when they gave increased drop rates to the crafted coil gear they introduced. I had a linkshell mate who was obsessed with using min ilvl to do all the old content, it would take him weeks to find the people to finish one fight. The hard 4 man content in POTD is also barely used, the big way you can tell is that crafted coil gear of the two higher tiers drops there like candy, but never hits the auction board.

The playerbase can and will leave instances they find are too hard in significant amounts. Trials of Faith, Pharos, Shinryu, launch 24 mans, Tsuku, etc. They sometimes leave preemptively, or will leave after the first wipe. There's plenty of evidence to show that people aren't particularly keen on content actually being hard, in practice. Heck, even reddit now is mostly about fan art and fluff pieces, and less about git gud or complaining the game is too easy.

I don't see why content has to be considered less important solely because of its age. If I go out and buy a ten-year-old single-player game and clear it, is the experience somehow lesser than an equally challenging game that was released last week?

You don't need to convince seven other people to play that game with you. People generally do the roullettes because they aren't hard, and you get a bonus to help out. We have had discussions about mentor roullette and coming into synced ex primal trials which show the difficulties of hard older content staying relatively hard; many mentors dislike it because you can spend the lockout just wiping, removing the reward for them being there.

They end up nerfing through echo and sync so players aren't just facing that. Other MMOs generally don;t even have that; they just make old content trivial and you get your overleveled buddy to facetank an entire instance for you