Been seeing a lot of doomsaying in forums/in-game lately

[Broken_Wind]

The thing is, Ultimate is far removed from the rest of the game. Casual content such as dungeons and 24 man simply don't prepare players for Extremes and Savage even in their comparatively watered down state vs what we used to have.

Casual content shouldn't prepare people for endgame. That's not its role.
Not that I don't disagree it should be tougher then it is

[Sebazy]

Casual content shouldn't prepare people for endgame. That's not its role.
Not that I don't disagree it should be tougher then it is

It shouldn't be murdering them like the endgame does, but it should at least give them an idea of what to expect IMO.

A great example of this was ARR's endgame dungeons and the way in which they snuck in baby training wheels versions of the Hardmode Primals that followed.

Meanwhile now we get dungeons where it's often best to flat out ignore the bulk of the fight and just beat the boss up. 24 man is even worse with zero reason to put in any effort or care beyond your own pride or OCD.

[IdowhatIwant]

It shouldn't be murdering them like the endgame does, but it should at least give them an idea of what to expect IMO.

A great example of this was ARR's endgame dungeons and the way in which they snuck in baby training wheels versions of the Hardmode Primals that followed.

Meanwhile now we get dungeons where it's often best to flat out ignore the bulk of the fight and just beat the boss up. 24 man is even worse with zero reason to put in any effort or care beyond your own pride or OCD.

Extremes are good stepping stones into savage. Specially the EW extremes, they are not very difficult. Truth be told though, there isn't much of a point in adding these baby steps any more. The games community is more divided than it used to be in ARR and HW. Now it seems casual players for some reason resent all difficult content, boycott it, and opt out. I see this repeated a lot now on the forums, "raiders don't pay bills" and a lot of casual players telling players that prefer raid content to flat out quit or leave. When the casual player base has no interest in progressing into harder content, those baby steps become more meaningless. Mean while players that choose to opt in will just dive in head first.

[Deceptus]

Extremes are good stepping stones into savage. Specially the EW extremes, they are not very difficult.

These two statements conflict with each other. EX is supposed to be midcore content, how can they midcore if "they're not very difficult"? They need to be moderately difficult, not simply follow the Dorito.

[Havenchild]

Name one Savage or Extreme in Shadowbringers > Endwalker that compares to Kefka, Living Liquid and Thordan. Savage absolutely has gotten easier. When was the last time we saw a third tier fight take world progression teams a week to clear?

Living Liquid was nearly 8 years ago, God Kefka was over 4 years ago, Cruise chaser was a joke if your group had any idea how to hold and push DPS to skip key phases, oh and it was over 5 years ago. E4S Titan? Nearly 3 years ago and no, it don't agree that it was a particularly challenging fight either. Fatebreaker? Sure that's more recent but ehh the hardest part was right at the end and again, large parts of it could be skipped with gear.

People keep giving Alex some unrivaled amount of focus as if it was so incredibly difficult to do. Most of Alex difficulty was attributed to slightly more complicated game systems and an extremely novel playerbase with relatively no experience. Were talking about a playerbase that struggled to clear Steps of Faith and complained about it till they nerfed it 3x times. If Alex was released today with the current experienced playerbase, it would get stomped just as fast as a current tier savage, and Living Liquid in particular would go down just as fast as P3S at all player levels. No savage content from here on out will EVER take a week to clear, especially not a Tier 3 fight. To not understand that point is straight folly on anyone's part.

The toolbox strats, the marks, the ACT queues, were all huge items that didn't exist much at the time to oversimplify all of those mechanics. Hell when I had the chance to go back and do the BLU achievement, the strats available now diminished those fights even more than what was available at the time.

It shouldn't be murdering them like the endgame does, but it should at least give them an idea of what to expect IMO.

A great example of this was ARR's endgame dungeons and the way in which they snuck in baby training wheels versions of the Hardmode Primals that followed.

Meanwhile now we get dungeons where it's often best to flat out ignore the bulk of the fight and just beat the boss up. 24 man is even worse with zero reason to put in any effort or care beyond your own pride or OCD.

You REALLY reaching here. When was the last time you went into an ARR dungeon? They are all braindead the same as current ones. The ONLY dungeon that was truly dangerous was Aurum Vale (pre-change) and only really the first room because you can get roped into battles with other mobs mid pull. Nothing present in that dungeon prepares you for the EX's (of the time). You have a worse example when you go into post ARR dungeons. All of them are MORE easy than current ones. The second and third Nier raids destroy people left and right to this day. You don't need much reason for any 24-man nor is it a stepping stone for extremes or savages. It's simply not meant to be.

The only thing that has changed really, is the classes themselves and the balancing of them in relation to the content. Anyone's opinion can go either way on the subject. The forums would have you believe every change they make to a job is terrible, but the larger portion of the playerbase has welcomed most changes among every job.

[Havenchild]

None of those fights are remotely challenging to an Ultimate raider.

To be fair, Ultimate is tuned for the best of the best. The only piece of content that will be "difficult" to people who down ultimates is literally other ultimates. They have implemented challenging things before though. Like the title achievements to Palace and HoH. You could know how to execute around the RNG and still get played by a single bad GCD or Trap and ruin a whole run. Not alot of Ultimate raiders have that achievement. Perfect example of something that is difficult but people turn a blind eye to.

[Sebazy]

People keep giving Alex some unrivaled amount of focus as if it was so incredibly difficult to do. Most of Alex difficulty was attributed to slightly more complicated game systems and an extremely novel playerbase with relatively no experience.

Eh, fights were faster paced, healing was much more reliant on cast times and there was plenty of janky mechanics that were ready to wipe you if you weren't absolutely on the ball. Even cheese mechanics such as Throttle haven't been seen again. Was it a cheap trick to inflate the difficulty of the fight? Sure. Sudo wasn't afraid to get dirty.

Sure it's fair to say that we were less experienced back then, but we were no less sharp. Whilst the scrubs were whining about Steps of Faith, the people I ran with were merrily 7 manning Coils, Thordan etc for sales without any of the modern day account sharing BS you see now.

The toolbox strats, the marks, the ACT queues, were all huge items that didn't exist much at the time to oversimplify all of those mechanics. Hell when I had the chance to go back and do the BLU achievement, the strats available now diminished those fights even more than what was available at the time.

Sure toolbox wasn't a thing, but that didn't stop the theory crafting and strategising. Solitude and Exordium's Strats were both things to behold. ACT trickery was every bit the thing back then too, the difference is that you couldn't just go and download a readymade solution for everything like you can today. You had to knuckle down and do it within your FC.

You REALLY reaching here. When was the last time you went into an ARR dungeon? They are all braindead the same as current ones. The ONLY dungeon that was truly dangerous was Aurum Vale (pre-change) and only really the first room because you can get roped into battles with other mobs mid pull. Nothing present in that dungeon prepares you for the EX's (of the time). You have a worse example when you go into post ARR dungeons. All of them are MORE easy than current ones. The second and third Nier raids destroy people left and right to this day. You don't need much reason for any 24-man nor is it a stepping stone for extremes or savages. It's simply not meant to be.

I think you're missing the point here sir. ARR dungeons aren't a challenge with today's toolkits and inflated ilvls. They absolutely were much more of a test than any dungeon we see today in so many different ways. Lets look at a few of the points I'm trying to refer to.

First off, Aurum Vale. Remember Coin Counter? Glower was the training wheels version of Landslide that shared a similar lack of a clear telegraph. The key difference being that it punished you with paralysis rather than trying to throw you off the side. He also cleaved his tank buster.

Next up, Demon Wall, remember doing that in ilvl 60-70 gear? The Bees were a serious threat and the dance had to be respected because healers couldn't sustain fools through the debuffs for long back then. I'd argue that the line dance further reinforced the notion that you needed to take ground markers seriously or you were going to die.

Lastly, Anantaboga. A honest to goodness Dungeon boss that would merrily one shot you if you tried to ignore mechanics and had a juicy enrage if you didn't have the damage. Hiding behind pillars to avoid a central 2hr style AoE in the middle? Don't forget Plague Dance, a mechanic that punished you for dropping it close to other players or statues. It was pretty much a more obvious version of Friction. Yep, Garuda says hi /

I whole heartedly agree on endgame dungeons beyond 2.1 though. SE lost their nerve on them after Pharos Sirius. The thing is, modern dungeons might well be more complex than what we used to see but does that complexity really amount to anything when you can simply ignore the vast majority of it right from release? Take Stigma-4. Let every single add self destruct, ignore the lot of them. It's the quickest way to clear. Meanwhile, simply ignoring adds back in 2.0 dungeons in relevant gear would get you overwhelmed and wiped sharpish. Because they actually did damage. Sure we get the occasional modern outlier such as PeaceKeeper, but bosses that will merrily one shot people who aren't paying attention irrespective of how much overheating their healer is willing to throw at them are a distant minority now.

Going back and trying them now isn't even remotely close to how they were in Darklight gear at best back in the day.