Endwalker: An opportunity to rebalance old fights?

[Elkanah]

I was on aether. On Balmung in fact. I never really had lag issues in titan hard, and I did all of my relics lol.

Might've been different on Gilgamesh then. Cause I recall a lot of folks stopping the relic because of the lag killing vs plumes, and EXTREME being nearly impossible due to that same lag

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Might've been different on Gilgamesh then. Cause I recall a lot of folks stopping the relic because of the lag killing vs plumes, and EXTREME being nearly impossible due to that same lag

Yeah, no issues when I did it. And I did it as a squishy, 4600hp PLD. (for hard mode).

EX really wasn't much worse. I died more to misjudging the hit box of the 5-way landslides than I did to any kind of lag.

[Elkanah]

Yeah, no issues when I did it. And I did it as a squishy, 4600hp PLD. (for hard mode).

remember when darklight armor was all the rage? good times lol

[Austere]

The flip side to your argument is that new players get angry and frustrated and quit.

I'm kind of glad we can outlevel things. I've been taking an alt through HW and I was very happy that the Vault didn't behave like it did on launch when I had a DPS who kept wanting to hug the tears. The Vault was a healer check and VERY unforgiving until we started to outgear it.

Shinryu was another block. There was massive outcry against it. SE didn't change it. What happened there is that those who were able to clear it and get the gear that was locked behind finishing it helped others get through it. I voluntarily ran that instance constantly when it came out to give PUGs a reliable healer to get them through. But it's nowhere near an ideal situation that a player's progress through the basic main story is at the mercy of the generosity and understanding of others. I can't tell you the number of times I saw people dip and helped put groups back together from the one or two poor new people who got left behind. Titania seems to be the ShB one everyone hates.

The only new person I've personally ever see complain about the length of the fight was someone in my FC so we tried to adjust and run content in a way that allowed her to participate. A lot of new folks in PUGs I run with are just trying to follow everything and at least haven't voiced complaint if something goes fast or smooth.

I have heard plenty of stories about shinryu on release. Again, the fights don't need to be annoyingly difficult on normal, but difficult enough and have enough hp that you get to actually experience all or most of the phases and abilities the boss does.

I think that is the biggest issue for most of the content I've experienced. Having a bit more hp would be good so people can actually put in the mechanics so people can see the fight. Fights can feel kind of incomplete when they get bursted out weirdly quickly and degrades the experience.

Thordan defs needs more damage on boss mechanics at least.

[Iscah]

Again, the fights don't need to be annoyingly difficult on normal, but difficult enough and have enough hp that you get to actually experience all or most of the phases and abilities the boss does.

This. A good final story boss shouldn't be so hard that you have to start it over and over and lose the momentum of the story, but it should feel like you're in a long and epic battle with them first.

Shinryu still feels epic. Earlier bosses – Thordan, poor Rhitatyn, everyone in the Praetorium – feel like nothing is happening and the boss HP just plummets. Lahabrea barely registers as a fight.

[QueenKairi]

Just commenting here to show my support in hopes they rebalance some fights (mainly HW) to make them more engaging and challenging. I remember years ago being so disappointed all the story build up and then AFK faceroll through it.
It's too late for me to have that first impression but I hope they fix it for little Kairi's that come into Eorzea.
Shinryu was the greatest example of story build up and challenging! (not anymore now though, faceroll aswell) but back then. hell yes!

[Vyrerus]

remember when darklight armor was all the rage? good times lol

I remember having to get full darklight on DRG. My friends told me that if I didn't get full darklight, that I'd get kicked out of stuff like Amdapor Keep. It wasn't quite true, but I farmed Wanderer's Palace until I had Darklight pants and body, and then I bought Wyrm Armlets for my hands. Got a darklight harpoon in Wanderer's Palace, and I felt like a bad ass.

Then I upgraded to Ifrit's Harpoon in PUG Ifrit HM groups. Remember people saying PLD was required to stun lock him with shield bash for every Eruption, because they hadn't implemented stun immunity building yet?

I did Garuda HM, and I remember that there's this portion that's always skipped now where the tornados start, and you have to walk her around the arena. Plume adds come out again with a Satin Plume, and you have to kill them, but especially the Satin, to not get everyone slept.

Titan HM, I remember I couldn't get a PUG that could beat it, but my RL Navy friend had a friend who had a static who already had relics and were 1.0 vets, and they took me on what was essentially a carry run. They told me I just had to live until the heart broke and they could do the rest. I lived past the heart breaking until about 37% and then I did a Jump with dat 3~4 second animation lock when Weights came out and died. They could have raised me, but they didn't bother, but I still felt good about it and got my Gae Bolg. I made it a point after that to never get caught in Weights of the Land again. I mean, I have been hit by them, but never on a jump.

Titan Ex I remember having some issues with the tells and cast bar showing up on PS3, PS3 had some horrendous lag related to its port version and how its code interacted with FFXIV netcode. I went on my i85 WAR, and I died a few times by getting knocked off due to that lag, and I was going with my friend's static, and they actually told me I was a scrub and kicked me out of the group lol. I got'em back later with a hard grilling when I helped them with Coil and their PLD performed poorly, but even so lol... memories, like the corners of my mind.

[Austere]

Just commenting here to show my support in hopes they rebalance some fights (mainly HW) to make them more engaging and challenging. I remember years ago being so disappointed all the story build up and then AFK faceroll through it.
It's too late for me to have that first impression but I hope they fix it for little Kairi's that come into Eorzea.
Shinryu was the greatest example of story build up and challenging! (not anymore now though, faceroll aswell) but back then. hell yes!

heres hoping! some mechanics in the first few fights of alexander doing a bit mroe damage as well would be nice.

[Imora]

They're not going to make story content harder.

And there's nothing "fun" about spending an entire instance timer wiping on something because someone wanted it to be hard.

You want hard, go min ilvl no echo it in party finder.

[Payadopa]

Normals are not meant to be hard anyway, but I agree that they should balance Extreme and Savage when on Minimum IL No Echo

Normal doesn't mean 'I don't have to pay attention and the boss dies within 20 seconds' either.

We should stop equating new players with brain-dead zombies. We already have a system to help out players. It's undersized party and the Echo. The rest is just overkill and makes the game an absolute chore to level up in.