Thornmarch Hard Mode critical bug, SE thinks there's insufficient information.

[Fynlar]

EDIT: Was watching the video.... the guy recording who dies only has 3,800HP which is barely over half what everybody else has. Like, seriously, he put no effort into even getting any Ironworks gear, which is buyable the moment you ding 50 (and there's a good bit of MSQ between Praetorium and Thornmarch, easily enough time to get some Ironworks gear). Heck the Praetorium run you go through the first time should be enough to buy at least 1 piece, and then the roulette would give you enough to get 2-3 more, and that's just the first day you ding 50. Not to mention adding Trials roulette to that, too. Also, they could buy some Lv50 craftables, too.

Definitely a player problem. Maybe they should just simply raise the I-level required to 100 or something.

Ironworks gear didn't even exist when this fight first came out. That alone should be enough of a clue that something is wrong here.

Also, there's just 15 quests between The Ultimate Weapon and You Have Selected Regicide. They send you into three duties, Qarn and two guildhests, none of which are going to give you poetics. You're also assuming players even figure out by this point what the poetics are even for. I see it as easily possible for someone just chugging along with the MSQ (like people will continuously advise newer players to do), especially upon seeing the huge smattering of "!" quest markers in Revenant's Toll upon completing 2.0, to not even realize what the poetics are for or that there is a vendor for them there.

It's seemingly really hard for some people who've been around for a while and have more poetics than they know what to do with to put themselves in a newer player's shoes.

[kaynide]

So wouldn’t the easy fix be to just raise the iLvl requirement? Say iLvl 90? 100? I think you also get the 90 set just from finishing your level 50 artifact armor quests. That with some ironworks jewelry or weapons should get you there fast.

I mean yeah, it USED to be you got the 50ish artifact armor, then had to grind out darklight set and eventually grind the i90 artifact set or crystal tower etc. but now it just hands you a i90 set..so shouldn’t that be a fair baseline?

[Fynlar]

So wouldn’t the easy fix be to just raise the iLvl requirement? Say iLvl 90? 100?

It would be the "easy" fix, but it wouldn't be the professional one, considering 90 already puts it at the minimum requirement for Steps of Faith/Chrysalis (the story trials way further ahead in 2.5) and there's still several other primal fights in the story inbetween Thornmarch and those that have much lower requirements.

In order for such an ilvl increase to actually make sense and not look like an unprofessional hack job, they would also need to up the requirements for Levi, Ramuh, Shiva Hard (among other things; probably several solo MSQ instances as well) so that the fights actually follow the general sense of level/stat progression that this game encourages.

[Vaer]

3800 is pretty much you didn't kill the moogles in time mechanic fail hard enrage damage for p1. The "pass" damage is supposed to be around 800. Should be fixed for the off chance you somehow end up with a lot of people at min ilvl but not a huge deal otherwise and some people will die but since they nerfed the rest of the fight and echo exists anyway so it will still clear.

[EnigmaticDodo]

3800 is pretty much you didn't kill the moogles in time mechanic fail hard enrage damage for p1. The "pass" damage is supposed to be around 800. Should be fixed for the off chance you somehow end up with a lot of people at min ilvl but not a huge deal otherwise and some people will die but since they nerfed the rest of the fight and echo exists anyway so it will still clear.

Just ran it right now with a bunch of overgeared people. We for sure passed the enrage mechanic for Phase 1, if one even exists. He just comes out and drops a 3.4 - 3.8k on your head. Im talking when he FIRST comes out and NOT when you just try to Zerg kill him without killing Moogles when he's present.

[Vaer]

Yeah, that's what the thread is talking about. When the mogs spawn one at a time at the beginning. It was possible to fail it at one point by not killing enough of them before you time out. They become untargetable if you run out of time. The King then spawns, and he wipes you if there are too many alive. It's just not seen anymore due to overgear.

Looking at the current damage, it really looks like they created a bug when they changed the fight recently, it's not counting moogle kills to adjust the first Memento damage.

It just doesn't matter as much anymore since they set a fixed amount of damage they thought would wipe the group back then but now since you overgear it by i70 ilvls everyone except the newer players with lower gear live, scrape them off the floor and life goes on.

It's possible they changed it to just be half of what overgeared people have as HP and left it at that, too but that would not be a good experience for newer players. Would be pretty easy to change if it's just a set amount of damage if they cared enough if that is the case.

[kaynide]

It would be the "easy" fix, but it wouldn't be the professional one, considering 90 already puts it at the minimum requirement for Steps of Faith/Chrysalis (the story trials way further ahead in 2.5) and there's still several other primal fights in the story inbetween Thornmarch and those that have much lower requirements.

In order for such an ilvl increase to actually make sense and not look like an unprofessional hack job, they would also need to up the requirements for Levi, Ramuh, Shiva Hard (among other things; probably several solo MSQ instances as well) so that the fights actually follow the general sense of level/stat progression that this game encourages.

I’m not sure I really follow this. I had already leveled everything past 50 when they implemented it, but as I understand it as soon as you ding 50 and do the job quests to get the artifact armor, don’t you automatically just get the i90 set? So therefore shouldn’t the devs be able to reasonably expect all new players to at the very least have i90 armor (maybe 80ish due to accessories/weapons). They are spoon feeding a huge jump in iLvl...why would they need to balance as if that armor wasn’t given?

[Fynlar]

I’m not sure I really follow this. I had already leveled everything past 50 when they implemented it, but as I understand it as soon as you ding 50 and do the job quests to get the artifact armor, don’t you automatically just get the i90 set? So therefore shouldn’t the devs be able to reasonably expect all new players to at the very least have i90 armor (maybe 80ish due to accessories/weapons). They are spoon feeding a huge jump in iLvl...why would they need to balance as if that armor wasn’t given?

The answer is simple here; they're not simply assuming everyone is going to drop the MSQ right at 50 to get that i90 armor, even if that's what players really should be doing.

But like I said, the whole "just make Thornmarch require i90" is a sloppy! solution, because then it doesn't make sense for all the rest of the 2.1-2.4 trials to require much less than that and dish out far less damage with their ultimates, meaning they would all need to be adjusted too or they'll just look weirdly progressed.

Plus I'm also not really sure DPS/healers will necessarily survive this "new and improved" Memento Moogle even with just the i90 armor, to be honest. Maybe if their entire kit was i90, perhaps, but not just the armor. 3800~ damage is still a damn lot for an ultimate at that level.

Can we just face facts here and admit that Memento Moogle is Not Working As Intended and ought to be fixed? DPS/healers that have the "audacity" to try to progress the 2.1 storyline without Ironworks gear should not be barely surviving (or dying to) this attack even with the mechanic (killing the moogles) handled correctly. This is not, and should not be treated as, some kind of Savage-tier encounter -- this is a "cooldown" fight almost immediately after the big climax of 2.0's story. It's a silly fight and shouldn't be this potentially punishing.

[KageTokage]

I’m not sure I really follow this. I had already leveled everything past 50 when they implemented it, but as I understand it as soon as you ding 50 and do the job quests to get the artifact armor, don’t you automatically just get the i90 set? So therefore shouldn’t the devs be able to reasonably expect all new players to at the very least have i90 armor (maybe 80ish due to accessories/weapons). They are spoon feeding a huge jump in iLvl...why would they need to balance as if that armor wasn’t given?

While you do get a full set of ilvl 90 left side armor, it's still not enough for casters to survive the AoE even if it's accompanied by whatever weapon/accessories the MSQ rewards (Which are ilvl 70).

The tuning of normal modes in general is designed such that you can comfortably survive all unavoidable damage in min ilvl stuff, so they should maintain that philosophy.

[Crushnight]

I’m not sure I really follow this. I had already leveled everything past 50 when they implemented it, but as I understand it as soon as you ding 50 and do the job quests to get the artifact armor, don’t you automatically just get the i90 set? So therefore shouldn’t the devs be able to reasonably expect all new players to at the very least have i90 armor (maybe 80ish due to accessories/weapons). They are spoon feeding a huge jump in iLvl...why would they need to balance as if that armor wasn’t given?

As niche as it is, people like to do min ilv runs of content, this hard mode trial would be a wall.

That said i've taken gladiators through this (promptly reminded them of their class/job quests and not to use duty finder if intended to continue as gladiator) which means no job gear, they were lucky they were a tank because splat on the floor they would be otherwise.

This also sets up a bad expectation as this is the 1st new duty after 2.0 of ooh things hit harder and everything after this trial is tissue paper in comparison.