Lack of End Game Content

[LadyKairi]

Though why do you really seek out the challenge and want to improve? Is it because you take pride in your play, or you want to do better than some of the other players you hear about? Out of all the others, you are the only one that did not mention anything that drastically jumped out more on the competative side, other than compare to your superiors. And many not only want to learn from their superiors, they want to surpass them.



And LadyKairi is a fine example of why a handful of dungeons or raids should be designed to be released at an initial dificulty of savage/ultimate, and then retuned for the other dificulties. Titania - Titania Ex, and Innocence-Innocence Ex kinda showcase this slightly. To me, it seems like Titania was done from low to high, where as Innocence was done from High to low. If LadyKairi has done both, I'm curious as to which they she preferred.

My desire to improve comes from my early days here, really. When I first started out, I really didn't know how to play an MMO, or any game really, well. I didn't really realize it until I came here. I used to get berated for being "bad" and it made me feel terrible. So much so I chose to improve and not be considered 'bad'. Then I kinda just got addicted to trying to optimize, and now it's just habit. It helps me to feel better about myself and its something I pride myself. Plus its something to do besides just clearing a fight and simply farming it.

I found the normal modes quite easy. Both extreme modes have their challenges. In Titania, mechanics were pretty easy/self explanatory. There is wayyyyy too much healer downtime imo. People mostly had an issue passing the dps check. Innocence, however, was a headache for me. Now that I've practiced it more, I have it down. It's just that darn mechanic that targets two random people with sword aoes, then add the rotating floor aoe on top of it... oof. It makes me feel "nooby" since I had such a hard time. I would get myself killed every time, because I didn't go away far enough to dodge safely. I enjoyed how Innocence at least seemed to have more random aspects to it, and I really thought the star mech was interesting. Innocence has been far more enjoyable for me than Titania mechanic wise. That's just how I view them personally.

[Hawklaser]

I found the normal modes quite easy. Both extreme modes have their challenges. In Titania, mechanics were pretty easy/self explanatory. There is wayyyyy too much healer downtime imo. People mostly had an issue passing the dps check. Innocence, however, was a headache for me. Now that I've practiced it more, I have it down. It's just that darn mechanic that targets two random people with sword aoes, then add the rotating floor aoe on top of it... oof. It makes me feel "nooby" since I had such a hard time. I would get myself killed every time, because I didn't go away far enough to dodge safely. I enjoyed how Innocence at least seemed to have more random aspects to it, and I really thought the star mech was interesting. Innocence has been far more enjoyable for me than Titania mechanic wise. That's just how I view them personally.

I was kind of expecting Innocence EX to be the preferred one if you had done both. I personally have not done that one yet, just seen the guide for it. But the guide instantly made me think that Innocence was intended to be at the EX level and not the normal level, and that it got watered down to the normal level for the story, while doing Titania EX it felt like everything else had just been slapped on top of the normal mode with shorter indicators, a couple of extra moves tossed in, and a memory aspect to it. Nothing hard, just tedious. A big part of why I do think some content should be designed around savage/ultimate initial releases and then re tuned for the lower tiers. It allows for much cleaner mechanics like the Innocence Stars on the harder versions, instead of the more clunky layer everything on top of each other like Titania.

You guys are also starting to make me feel like I may have really missed out by not really being able to do Eureka. Had a nice gap between ARR(was up to Titan Hard and Crystal tower hadn't dropped yet) and Stormblood, then a pause in the Stormblood patching stuff after getting somewhat caught up, then getting caught back up again for Shadowbringers.