Thank you for increased difficulty

[Ryaz]

I'm not sure why people are having trouble with the mist dragon. Haven't had one group wipe on him.

[KaivaC]

I'm not sure why people are having trouble with the mist dragon. Haven't had one group wipe on him.

...some people may not be expecting some of the mechanics that the dragon throws at you. Haven't gone in a second time, but the dragon can really catch some folks off guard. Then of course, you have players like me, who are just bad players in general, so there's also that. Hopefully, there is no outcry about it and it doesn't get nerfed.

[Silica-chan]

Hopefully, there is no outcry about it and it doesn't get nerfed.

While I personally don't care if it gets nerfed or not I don't think it will.
Give it a few more days or 1-2 weeks and people will get used to it like it has always been with new stuff so far.
Stuff will become easier over time anyway once people got a few new pieces of gear.

[Ramesses]

Exactly... people just generally have to get more used to the dynamics of the mechanics. Its not really that hard... hardest battle I faced on launch day was actually Alphascape 3.0... that starboard cleave was not funny.

[AeroCry]

I feel like the slight difficulty increase is a step in the right direction it helps players get kind of used to being more aware of their surroundings and if they try savage and extremes they will be better suited for such content.

[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.

[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.

[Lambdafish]

No, because in theory the 4 man stuff is harder than the 8 man. When feast first came out, the practice mode was 8 man and ranked 4 man, for example. This is because its harder with only one healer, one tank, and two dps than with double it. There's less margin for error. It's just SE hasn't made much hard 4 man content much yet. The one they did, Rath EX, they completely randomized the mobs actions, and had a second phase where healing and tanking didn't matter as much. The story mode trials are what teaches you to play harder 8 man content, not the 4 mans.

OK, we are talking about two different things now. Mechanically you may be correct, but only for one person. Its not about margin of error, its about lumping all the responsibility onto one healer. The best setup for accessible learning would be 5 man content (1 tank, 2 DPS, 2 heal). This would eliminate healer burden, and keep the social setting managable for learning.

[TaleraRistain]

I think the problem with the argument about MSQ difficulty is the belief held by some that it's preparing everyone for the optional content. It's not. It's preparing everyone for the next leg of the MSQ. It's the one part of the game that everyone is required to do. And if it's made too difficult, then people aren't going to "git gud". They'll just quit. This isn't 1999 with EQ where it was nearly the only dog on the block. There are a myriad number of games out there for people to choose from that are accessible to all play styles. If XIV wants to remain competitive, they need to keep their content accessible.

While *I* enjoyed the Mist Dragon because bosses with patterns bore me to death so a little randomization I find fun, I can see where that doesn't suit everyone. I staunchly support that sort of challenge in EX trials, in both normal mode and Savage raids, and the 24 man raids. But MSQ does have a requirement for a challenge limit, so it can maintain an adequate accessibility level to keep the game competitive.

[van_arn]

I think the problem with the argument about MSQ difficulty is the belief held by some that it's preparing everyone for the optional content. It's not. It's preparing everyone for the next leg of the MSQ. It's the one part of the game that everyone is required to do. And if it's made too difficult, then people aren't going to "git gud". They'll just quit. This isn't 1999 with EQ where it was nearly the only dog on the block. There are a myriad number of games out there for people to choose from that are accessible to all play styles. If XIV wants to remain competitive, they need to keep their content accessible.

While *I* enjoyed the Mist Dragon because bosses with patterns bore me to death so a little randomization I find fun, I can see where that doesn't suit everyone. I staunchly support that sort of challenge in EX trials, in both normal model and Savage raids, and the 24 man raids. But MSQ does have a challenge limit, so it can maintain an adequate accessibility level to keep the game competitive.

If people can't play their chosen class at the necessary level to handle mist dragon this deep into 70, and they have no desire to improve, I want them to quit.

There, I said it.