Thank you for increased difficulty

[ko_]

Eh, While more teeth is great, I wonder if it's more teeth or just gear checks. I don't wanna be that guy but I think we should wait and get gear before we toss our hats off to SE. If I remember correctly BW had teeth on first release too but that ended as soon as peopel got gear. D: I will say tho the last fight in omega feels like it def has teeth. THo I wonder if it's too late for it cause all I'm seeing is disbands :c

[Maeka]

Eh, While more teeth is great, I wonder if it's more teeth or just gear checks. I don't wanna be that guy but I think we should wait and get gear before we toss our hats off to SE. If I remember correctly BW had teeth on first release too but that ended as soon as peopel got gear. D: I will say tho the last fight in omega feels like it def has teeth. THo I wonder if it's too late for it cause all I'm seeing is disbands :c

The thing with Mist Dragon vs Mr. Sloppy though, is that the Mist Dragon will absolutely destroy you if ONE person in your group is an idiot. All it takes is for ONE person to lead the directional AoE into your healer and you are done, period, if nobody can rez the healer.

Pretty sure even at Genesis gear, that AoE is still likely going to wipe the group if the healer gets nailed with it.

Mr. Sloppy had large AoEs and an instant death add, but those were normally easily dealt with and mistakes could be recovered from. The Mist Dragon, however, does lots of unavoidable damage, has Large Damage+DoT+Stun all rolled into one, fast AoEs that you have little time to react to in some cases... it's just way harder on a mechanical level than Mr. Sloppy ever was.

[HyoMinPark]

Eh, While more teeth is great, I wonder if it's more teeth or just gear checks. I don't wanna be that guy but I think we should wait and get gear before we toss our hats off to SE. If I remember correctly BW had teeth on first release too but that ended as soon as peopel got gear. D: I will say tho the last fight in omega feels like it def has teeth. THo I wonder if it's too late for it cause all I'm seeing is disbands :c

Low item level gear doesn’t change the fact that Alphascape NM is the first 8-man raid this expansion that has actual DPS checks in 3 out of 4 of its floors: nails + dragons in V10, Level Checker in V11, and PoA Omega-M/Lunar Shower Omega-F in V12. No amount of gear will save you if you cannot properly perform the check, as the damage far exceeds any HP limit we have. That also doesn’t change that it’s the first 8-man raid (to my knowledge) that also has a floor with a soft enrage (V12N—if you do not kill the two Omegas at the same time, the one left will continuously cast Lunar Shower until its dead or you’re dead—I’ve wiped to the enrage at least twice so far). These are good things, and I want to see more of them in future 8-man normal mode content.

We had that difficulty. people called it faceroll and said it wasn't enough to make people git gud. Now they made it harder, and the same people here in a few months will say the same things again, and ask for harder content. Zero point in arguing any more, let them endure the wipes.

If you paid attention to posts from those who actually advocate for harder content, they note the first pull in Baelsar’s Wall to be one of the hardest 60 dungeons HW offered, especially if you pulled all the way to the end. Because those archers were serious business if you didn’t take care of them and the DoTs they spread willy-nilly to everyone in the party.

Compare that to Swallow’s Compass, which is an absolute joke of an “expert dungeon”—why is it that I can do it on a healer in i350 barely melded crafted gear and never have to actually press a healing button on my healers outside of Regen/A.Benefic/Adlo? And even the regen isn’t needed. That’s pathetic, and that’s what people argue against.

[RiyahArp]

If you paid attention to posts from those who actually advocate for harder content, they note the first pull in Baelsar’s Wall to be one of the hardest 60 dungeons HW offered, especially if you pulled all the way to the end.

If baeslar's came out now, and someone here complained the first pull was too tough, they'd be told the same thing they'd be told with virtually every other piece of content; it's faceroll. Shinryu was harder than it, and I did heal both at launch. And yet heaven help you if you said shinryu was a bit much for a story trial at its launch. At this point it's a broken record, and the only way people will be convinced is if they have to deal with abandoned duties or a ton of wipes. I expect them to ratchet up the difficulty to a point where this happens.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If baeslar's came out now, and someone here complained the first pull was too tough, they'd be told the same thing they'd be told with virtually every other piece of content; it's faceroll. Shinryu was harder than it, and I did heal both at launch. And yet heaven help you if you said shinryu was a bit much for a story trial at its launch. At this point it's a broken record, and the only way people will be convinced is if they have to deal with abandoned duties or a ton of wipes. I expect them to ratchet up the difficulty to a point where this happens.

Having done both from a tank and healer perspective, I disagree. The super pull is Baeslar's is much worse in terms of raw damage. Not to mention, the archer dots can be brutal. We haven't had anything remotely close to that pull in all of Stormblood, though the Hell's Lid seahorses hit pretty hard. Regardless, I would rather take wipes and occasional vote abandons than he bored senseless. People disagree so vehemently about Shinryu being too much because he literally uses mechanics you've seen before. Everything he does comes from either an ARR or HW trial excluding Tidal Wave, which you see in the first five seconds. You can't skip those trials, so it boils down to some people simply aren't paying attention, or just want permanent easy mode.

[RiyahArp]

Having done both from a tank and healer perspective, I disagree. The super pull is Baeslar's is much worse in terms of raw damage. Not to mention, the archer dots can be brutal.

Eh, the issue was it was unexpected at that time, because few fights broke the aggro table with mobs and it wound up being a psuedo dps check since healers couldn't keep the tank up indefinitely. DPS actually could focus the archers to make it easier, which wasn't really that common. They also never really used caster or bard lb on trash then. Worse came to worse, it was purely optional difficulty, and you never vote abandoned it because of that one stretch.

But i still think if we were all here and it was new, we'd have the same issue of it being considered faceroll. Tsuku hard is, and that one all it takes is one healer screwing up on ahk morn to cause a wipe. Zurvan ex, the common meme was all you needed to do was do a decent opener to skip soar. The only way it will not be is if people start wiping and getting vote abandons on a large scale, to a point where you no longer can just blame the bads.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Eh, the issue was it was unexpected at that time, because few fights broke the aggro table with mobs and it wound up being a psuedo dps check since healers couldn't keep the tank up indefinitely. DPS actually could focus the archers to make it easier, which wasn't really that common. They also never really used caster or bard lb on trash then. Worse came to worse, it was purely optional difficulty, and you never vote abandoned it because of that one stretch.

But i still think if we were all here and it was new, we'd have the same issue of it being considered faceroll. Tsuku hard is, and that one all it takes is one healer screwing up on ahk morn to cause a wipe. Zurvan ex, the common meme was all you needed to do was do a decent opener to skip soar. The only way it will not be is if people start wiping and getting vote abandons on a large scale, to a point where you no longer can just blame the bads.

Let's examine why it was unexpected? Could it be crowd control and priority mobs are so infrequent, people have little experience with it? That pull actually asked for some skill, which can be a shock when everything else is piss easy. Granted, it isn't necessary a good example given you're still having to pull fifteen things to actually take a ton of damage and not have the WHM spamming Holy more than any healing ability.

Why can't you "blame the bads"? You have no business joining an EX party if you cannot perform a basic opener. Frankly, I find it highly disrespectful since you're coming into harder content woefully unprepared and essentially telling me "deal with it and carry me!" The meme arose because Zurvan EX asked very little from you and yet people couldn't do even that. Admittedly, I think Zurvan is a horribly designed fight. Soar shouldn't be skippable, period. At least not the first one. If you do skip, he literally does nothing for half his HP. Zurvan's a meme for a lot of reasons, Soar is only one of them.

Regardless, Zurvan was faceroll. Switching him and Byakko EX around doesn't change the fact both are easy if you pay attention and communicate a little.

As for Tsukiyomi. I've almost solo healed the final phase. Mostly sheer dumb luck, but it's entirely do-able. So no, one healing making a mistake doesn't necessarily cause a wipe. And even if people die, she has a near thirteen minute enrage. You have more than enough time to pick people up.

People can improve to a point, then it gets incredibly hard to go further. And the threshold varies from person to person. At some point you just hit your wall, and its up to you if you want to invest so much in climbing it. And then there comes the cliff, where no effort will ever help. I don't think people here have discussed what they think everyone playing the game can reach, or how realistic is its. I mean, there's never going to be a time in this game where 50% of players complete ex trials when relevant, short of the game shrinking to the hardcore players.

This is a defeatist attitude. Are some people better than others? Absolutely. That doesn't mean they are incapable of improving, especially when the demand isn't significant. We aren't talking about going into Ultimate, but being able to handle simple mechanics while maintaining respectable DPS. Unfortunately, far too many people either give up too easily or echo a similar sentiment you do; that they physically can't improve. Why? Because it's far easier to shift blame to some nebulous belief than actually admit the fault may simply lie with you. Like Dualgunner, I once saw Sophia as fairly hard due to my inexperience. Some two years later and I've progged half way through UcoB and just about done UwU. I've even tanked the former despite having only played melee DPS until late last year. At least in harder content. If I held the belief you seem to, I'd never come this far.

Do I expect everyone to have that same drive I do? No. But I'm not demanding Ultimate skill levels for dungeons. I'm wanting content where I don't spend 99% of my time DPSing on White Mage because I could literally AFKing otherwise, the healing requirements are that low.

[RiyahArp]

Let's examine why it was unexpected?

Because mobs that use high-damage dots and are aggroless is not something we see on trash a lot, mostly. The final long pull was just as many mobs, but wasn't an issue since no archers.

Why can't you "blame the bads"? You have no business joining an EX party if you cannot perform a basic opener.

I think people forget what a "basic opener" was in HW. More to the point, the issue is that people always define anything as basic, and the "blame the bads" was more that no matter what seems to happen, forum culture assumes its faceroll. The only way it will ever not is if it escalates to a point where it simply can't be done.

This is a defeatist attitude. Are some people better than others? Absolutely. That doesn't mean they are incapable of improving, especially when the demand isn't significant. We aren't talking about going into Ultimate, but being able to handle simple mechanics while maintaining respectable DPS.

You and dual gave personal examples. Here's the thing, you weren't ever forced to do it, nor was it someone else's definition of how you should play foisted on you. You chose to improve. But when people talk about this, they are talking about wanting content to force people to get good, not so much optional. And when you combine this with them definining a lot of things as simple or easy, it can backfire.

Also, yeah, i do believe in limits. People can't improve indefinitely, we all have different skills at games. If you step into a competitive game you can get reminded of that real quick. I don't mean everyone is helpless, but you can't ignore it.

I even think sometimes trying to lift people up can be worse. Like the harder content now seems to be making me worse as a healer, not better; i overheal too much, i can't dps as much, burn through mp faster, etc. The way they set up the encounters kind of makes it much harder to do the healer meta we are used to (dps as much as possible, heal as little, rely more on dots/don't keep them topped off always.) If you make it harder, it might paradoxically make people seem worse, because they content is harder and they don't always rise to meet it. I mean, if you do poor dps on these easy dungeons, what happens if you now have to do a hard one?

IDK...i'm not arguing for any nerfs, although i am worried if they boosted the 24 man thats coming too. Just at this point i pretty much expect they'll start making it harder till it hits a point where they will need to course correct again.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Eh, While more teeth is great, I wonder if it's more teeth or just gear checks. I don't wanna be that guy but I think we should wait and get gear before we toss our hats off to SE. If I remember correctly BW had teeth on first release too but that ended as soon as peopel got gear. D: I will say tho the last fight in omega feels like it def has teeth. THo I wonder if it's too late for it cause all I'm seeing is disbands :c

While gear is definitely a factor, I went into Sigmascape full BiS and steamrolled through it without issue. Same with Deltascape. I haven't run The Burn yet to judge it, but Saint Mochi's is pretty decent.

[ko_]

While gear is definitely a factor, I went into Sigmascape full BiS and steamrolled through it without issue. Same with Deltascape. I haven't run The Burn yet to judge it, but Saint Mochi's is pretty decent.

Yeah. I'm remaining on the side until I gear up to test it again. Tho I do agree more teeth is good. I'm just not sure we got that yet. But you know what you're talking about so I'mma lean more towards your opinion.