I just wanna say how much I hate a lot of the Masked Carnivale stuff

[grinkdaboy]

wouldn't be as bad if they didn't stop you from cheesing it with final sting/self destruct

[JBee]

Agreed 100%.

They are meme/gimmick fights designed as a puzzle. And thanks to the limits of the game engine (server ticks, etc), and the design choices, it's on par with shoving a rusty nail up your fingernail sideways. It's bad content. I suffered the 30 level of it for only one reason - because the BLU rez is locked behind it. I wanted to have that to be able to help FC mates get blu skills, to give a little breathing room, just in case.

I actually screamed obscenities so loud at one point, my neighbor checked on me. Wish I was joking.

27 was far and away the worst for me out of all of them. Even doing it correctly, the auto-fail condition fired multiple times. As in it was quite literally impossible to win. Others didn't have as many issues with it when I asked around... but when I told them what mine was doing, not a single person said they experienced the same issues.

I finished it, and I will never, ever do them again - unless some form of content or spell is locked behind them again. And then I will do it JUST ENOUGH to get that, and then it's dead content again.

What Blue Mage does well, it's really fun. But the way it's still half-thought through and regulated to side content to stall for subscriptions during quiet parts of patch cycles is a joke.

[Nestama]

Regarding lag, I've not really experienced it. I live in Australia, play on an American server and average around 150-200+ ping o:

Fight 29 is designed to force you have specific spells, such as Diamondback to survive the DoT, Esuna to dispell Throttle, heal (White wind or Healer stance+Pom Cure to save MP), damage, and silence. And on top of that, there's no new mechanic in Masked Carnivale.

What DoT? Did I somehow skip a mechanic in #29? or is the DoT from Big Splash?

[KageTokage]

Big Splash is the only mechanic that required Diamondback to survive out of the new stages as far as I can recall.

Said skill is honestly one of the most broken utilities BLU has access to as almost nothing in the ARR/HW instances can actually kill you while it's active short of instant death mechanics so it's always on my bar.

[Lastelli]

Honestly, they're so easy and quick to do and figure out that it's not such a big deal...

I agree that the design is lacking, though. Considering the diverse kit of the BLU, I was expecting several possible strategies to work for each turn.

Tackling old savages with a full BLU party is way more interesting to be honest and I'm glad they didn't add more than 5 new carnival stages.

[grinkdaboy]

pick up a guide beforehand, i probably wouldn't have bothered with it otherwise

[Alleo]

I was interested in the carneval because I wondered what great solo content they brought to us..well I agree with you OP. Its not that great imo. Not only do you need certain skills to even beat some but those long fights are also not fun since any mistake can mean that you have to start again..and its not even that hard..its just tedious. If you do not have the strongest skills you will take a long time to decrease the life of the boss..just spamming those skills again and again while hoping that you wont make one single mistake or have a lag and thus get killed..

Honestly I would have more fun with having something similiar to PotD but for Blue mages. Random floors that you can fight your way through while maybe even using the envoirment for your advantage.

[KageTokage]

Honestly I would have more fun with having something similiar to PotD but for Blue mages. Random floors that you can fight your way through while maybe even using the envoirment for your advantage.

Heck, they should just let them in PotD/HoH but have a distinct reward for a solo full clear so as to not cheapen the value of the current solo clear title and don't allow them to party with non-BLU.

[Zeich]

Maybe I'm the odd duck here, but I actually enjoyed the Carnivale. I like the idea of puzzling it out step by step and figuring out what I need, then going back in and seeing more progress each time - to me, it's more fun than facerolling it and being done, like so much of today's content is. I like figuring out mechanics, or how the "intended" way to beat a fight goes. I often go in with a set kit as well, to cover different situations: Diamondhide (for those big attack moments, though I was surprised only 29 needed it), Flying Sardine (Silences are common), White Wind (which got replaced by Healer + Pom Cure, so much more efficient!), and as of this last update, Exuviation. To me, that covered all of my defensive points to survive various mechanics, and got me a lot further, requiring only minute adjustments for most things. 26 I needed Eerie Soundwave, which I discovered after the first run, the rest was just figuring out survival. 27 I had to add in Snort after the first try, and Water Cannon after a few more (easier to beat the explosive), but then I literally only needed those two spells once I figured out how the bombs slid. 28 was just a timing change for cures and setting flamethrower to murder adds easier, and 29 was simply a matter of learning the dance, much like any EX or higher. 30 was... shockingly easy, though going back to get Champion of the Blue was much more challenging.

That being said, while I like it, I do agree that there are definitely frustrating points to it. I think one thing that would make it more palatable is a "hint" in the form of a match description for each Act in a fight. For example, 26-1: "The Mirrorknight likes to hide itself behind a defensive layer of feathers that reduces damage to almost nothing." Okay, we know that it has some form of shield or defensive mechanic. Either we need to break it, or remove it - that would make it easier to plan our sets out. Leaving 25/30 alone would be fine (they are the "ultimate" fights, after all), but I do think that a match description would definitely help plan out our kit.

[Mansion]

I don't really like Carnivale, but I think they said that the raising of level cap would be a way to add more difficulty to the Carnivale because previous stages were not that interesting. So in a way, I'd be happy for harder solo stuff. But then it's all the same, as people said above : "find wich action you need to avoid the one hit kill and you're done". While it can work sometimes, I don't think it's interesting game design. I believe people have more fun tackling content with 8 blue mages.