Heaven on High: That's it?

[Jijifli]

And that's exactly what I'm criticizing. It's an arbitrary restriction which adds nothing to the content apart from needless frustration. I have no problem looking for people to party up with. I do have a problem with planning my time around a game only because its content enforces strict grouping rules. To some it's just a feature but to me it's a flaw.

Oh no, I have to get people that play the game the same time frame I do. What ever shall I do?

Honestly, you know 100% what they would have to do if it was still matched. Even just look at floor 30 boss, you think I got any idea how to pop those correctly? Even thinking I'm in the right spot I still get like 5 vun stacks and barely get hurt anyways. You want that all the way to floor 100?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Okay, let me ask you this. Is PotD/HoH something that needs to be done once and forget ? If it is, then you're right, go static all the time.
Reality check, it is not, replayability is an artificial value from how random rewards are given. If running from start to finish give me every
single reward possible then it no longer has replay value. A content that -requires- replay but forces identical setup? I'd say that's stupid design.

Except it doesn't. You are only required to setup a pre-made party, which you have the tools readily available to do through the use of cross world PF. People like to bring up FFXI all the time. Well, being forced to make parties was a key component of that game.

[Lunalepsy]

They need to release more stuff.

[RiyahArp]

it's not that its bad, its that NA style is to do the whole run in one sitting. That really discourages pickup play, because when you factor in breaks, you coudl spend 4 hours plus doing it. You can do it over time, but unlike a raid static its impossible to sub members, so you have to wait till everyone is on and able to do it to resume. Its not impossible, not at all, but it kind of is like the relic; some people will nonstop grind fractal continuum for tomes to get it done, but a lot just do it slowly over time.

[Alleo]

Oh no, I have to get people that play the game the same time frame I do. What ever shall I do?

Honestly, you know 100% what they would have to do if it was still matched. Even just look at floor 30 boss, you think I got any idea how to pop those correctly? Even thinking I'm in the right spot I still get like 5 vun stacks and barely get hurt anyways. You want that all the way to floor 100?

And not everyone that you know will be good enough or even want to do the harder floors. (And honestly any boss including 80 is not hard. IMO the 80 boss is easier than the 30 one, so for me at least the bosses are already easier than the PotD ones)

[HyoMinPark]

And that's exactly what I'm criticizing. It's an arbitrary restriction which adds nothing to the content apart from needless frustration. I have no problem looking for people to party up with. I do have a problem with planning my time around a game only because its content enforces strict grouping rules. To some it's just a feature but to me it's a flaw.

I understand completely why the challenge floors are not matched—they require strategic use of pomanders and party coordination when you get to Floor 71+ that random groups just either aren’t capable of providing, or are unwilling to provide. Do you remember what most players did when they found pomanders on early floors? Either used them immediately or ignored them outright when they could have actually been useful. I can already see the complaints people would have if something like HoH Floor 81 or HoH Floor 99 was open to matched parties: “we found a Garuda magicite a couple floors ago, but someone used it immediately, and then we got to a terrible room later on a floor with 3 debuffs and had no options to get out of a sticky situation, and then we wiped”. Followed probably by a demand to nerf the content because it’s too difficult.

You also have to stock up on pomanders to store for the later floors...which you cannot do in matched parties since they’re purged after every 10 floors. Matched would not work with the higher floors in its current iteration. But changing that would require pomanders to be held individually so that the save data goes with the character, not the party.

To be blunt, if someone cannot set aside a few hours a day to do this content with friends/FC mates/other reliable individuals that they know, then I really don’t know what to tell them. I was working full-time when I cleared Floor 200 with my friends with a schedule that was never the same each week, and still cleared it in 3-4 days with only doing 2 or 3 sets of floors a night. Both of my HoH clears literally took an evening to do. It’s not nearly as difficult or as “gated” as some people like to make it out to be.

[Reinha]

I understand completely why the challenge floors are not matched

I understand it too, that's why I never mentioned matched mode. They should remain only for premades, but players should have the ability to swap players in the party. Assuming the new party members have cleared the prior boss and have an empty save slot, the party leader's save slot can be given to them upon entering. They can even enforce the save file's job selection to ensure people don't game the system. Just like it works for savage: you get the leader's lockout and that way you can skip what you have cleared previously. This way nothing about HoH is compromised, only more flexibility is gained.

It’s not nearly as difficult or as “gated” as some people like to make it out to be.

It could be less gated without making the content any worse and that is a perfectly good reason to make the suggestion. Just because it isn't totally awful and absolutely undoable doesn't mean there's nothing to improve. So everyone is welcome to leave the condescending remarks at the door.

[Lambdafish]

I understand it too, that's why I never mentioned matched mode. They should remain only for premades, but players should have the ability to swap players in the party. Assuming the new party members have cleared the prior boss and have an empty save slot, the party leader's save slot can be given to them upon entering. They can even enforce the save file's job selection to ensure people don't game the system. Just like it works for savage: you get the leader's lockout and that way you can skip what you have cleared previously. This way nothing about HoH is compromised, only more flexibility is gained.

That sounds like a nightmare to design a backend for. Trying to merge two save slots, especially when removing one part to replace another, is likely far beyond the capabilities of the current system. The current save slot system neither has the capability to edit save slots, nor have two save slots interact with each other, and adding both of these features would likely involve a complete rewrite of the feature with those capabilities as a focus.

Also, logically when would this be used? Imagine your party is on floors 81-90, why would any single person be on 81-90 without having their own party? You are asking for a rewrite of a feature over something that would happen extremely rarely, even more so considering you are suggesting job restriction be added.

[HyoMinPark]

I understand it too, that's why I never mentioned matched mode. They should remain only for premades, but players should have the ability to swap players in the party. Assuming the new party members have cleared the prior boss and have an empty save slot, the party leader's save slot can be given to them upon entering. They can even enforce the save file's job selection to ensure people don't game the system. Just like it works for savage: you get the leader's lockout and that way you can skip what you have cleared previously. This way nothing about HoH is compromised, only more flexibility is gained.

What you’re describing is essentially the same thing as matched, though—you’re swapping out old party members for a new one. The only thing I can agree that should change that has been mentioned in this thread is the ability to remove a player from a save if they flake. But allowing them to be replaced is just the same as matched parties, and opens up other cans of worms along with it. One of which Lambdafish already described: a total rework of the save file system.

It could be less gated without making the content any worse and that is a perfectly good reason to make the suggestion. Just because it isn't totally awful and absolutely undoable doesn't mean there's nothing to improve. So everyone is welcome to leave the condescending remarks at the door.

I never said there weren’t improvements to be made. I said that the content isn’t gated, because it’s not. And again, if people truly have difficulty finding 1 or 2 or 3 other friends, FC mates, or other reliable people to do this content with them for a Saturday evening or couple hours a night for however long it takes to clear (PotD is significantly longer than HoH, but I haven’t had a Floor 100 run yet exceed 5 hours), then I don’t know what to tell them.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I agree with this so much. I only have about a 4 hour window at specific times a day (not counting days off) that I would be able to do this with a group. Then there may be days where you or another member of the group simply can't log on or just doesn't WANT to log on that day. Which means the group cannot continue.I tried to get with a group for PotD higher floors. We went in ONCE and then everyone else just stopped logging in without a word. Other than that one time I've never been in the higher floors of PotD. I wish they would at least add the loot options to be purchased with shards. Even if it's 50 shards, that's better than never getting a chance at it.

Also it's still saying I can't post longer than 1000 characters. xD

The issue with PotD is the sheer amount of time it took. Setting aside what essentially amounts to an afternoon isn't unreasonable. PotD, on the other hand, took upward of 10+. You also have to factor in cost for such a system. As Lambdafish cited above, this would necessitate a full overhaul of the save files to allow two parties both of whom made it to say floor, 81-90, and were both abandoned by their parties to join together. How often is that ever going to happen?