New Unreal is a an all around miserable experience.

[AwesomeJr44]

Because Ultima was never an EX fight. They essentially beefed up a hard made back in ARR. Hence why it never got the Extreme moniker.

Thordan EX is a minstrel's ballad fight. THORDAN EX. So is Nidhogg, Tsukuyomi, and Hades. A fight having 'the minstrel's ballad' in the title isn't a sign of the fight being easy/just a harder version of normal.

[SnowVix]

You have Sav, Ultimate, and Ex. Why can't we have 1 piece of content that people can do without hours upon hours of misery?

Unreal is literally an old Ex leveled up to current level. This is how Sephirot Ex was when it came out.

[ForteNightshade]

He was a minstrels ballad fight, a moniker given to most story "extremes"

Admittedly, I forgot they started that with Ultima. Regardless, the moniker is entirely misleading because Ultima is nowhere close to the difficulty of those who came before or immediately afterwards. Even the oft mentioned "easy" EXs in Garuda and Shiva were noticeably harder than Ultima.

[Issaella]

Admittedly, I forgot they started that with Ultima. Regardless, the moniker is entirely misleading because Ultima is nowhere close to the difficulty of those who came before or immediately afterwards. Even the oft mentioned "easy" EXs in Garuda and Shiva were noticeably harder than Ultima.

Would it kill them to scale the Unreals to a uniform or even similar difficulty when they upscale them? If UW is so faceroll compared to the rest then all it did was lure people in and then punt them back out after one patch. It's not like people are going to magically be able to handle Seph Unreal unless they can already handle current Sav. At which point Unreal just becomes another piece of content that only <20% of the population gets to clear.

[Reimmi]

You have Sav, Ultimate, and Ex. Why can't we have 1 piece of content that people can do without hours upon hours of misery?

Uh, you mean all the normal versions of stuff?

[Tlamila]

Would it kill them to scale the Unreals to a uniform or even similar difficulty when they upscale them? If UW is so faceroll compared to the rest then all it did was lure people in and then punt them back out after one patch. It's not like people are going to magically be able to handle Seph Unreal unless they can already handle current Sav. At which point Unreal just becomes another piece of content that only <20% of the population gets to clear.

The whole point of Unreal fights is to experience old EXes as they were originally, just with current cap kits. And they actually DID nerf Sephirot, it's originally harder. So idk why you expect them to be all the same, since they've never been all the same. Even current EXes aren't all the same.
And people who did Ultima Unreal probably also did the previous ones, which were nothing like it, and if they ddn't they should know they existed.
Also there's literally no obligation to clear Unreal, it's something you do for fun. The rewards are quite grindy and you can get them with much less effort with gil, from the mb, since they're tradable. Why do you even wanna do them if you don't like them? Same with everybody else. It's not fun for you, just don't do it.

[Issaella]

I liked UW, I could do it without feeling brain-friend afterward. I felt I was being adequately rewarded for my time even if the rewards were somewhat random/grindy. I could clear it on my main an alt in 90min total each week. I could carry as a healer and not have to worry about the braindead DPS eating every mechanic. I could make a mistake or misjudgement without immediately dieing or wiping the party.

Seph might as well be a Savage in terms of personal responsibility. One f-up by one person missing a mechanic is frequently a wipe. And with how tight the DPS check is, 3-4 deaths in p3 is a wipe to enrage so you might as well just wipe and reset if there are any deaths and save the time.

[SamsonBlacke]

Welcome to Sephirot.

[Seera1024]

I liked UW, I could do it without feeling brain-friend afterward. I felt I was being adequately rewarded for my time even if the rewards were somewhat random/grindy. I could clear it on my main an alt in 90min total each week. I could carry as a healer and not have to worry about the braindead DPS eating every mechanic. I could make a mistake or misjudgement without immediately dieing or wiping the party.

Seph might as well be a Savage in terms of personal responsibility. One f-up by one person missing a mechanic is frequently a wipe. And with how tight the DPS check is, 3-4 deaths in p3 is a wipe to enrage so you might as well just wipe and reset if there are any deaths and save the time.

You have Sav, Ultimate, and Ex. Why can't we have 1 piece of content that people can do without hours upon hours of misery?

There's plenty of content in this game that's doable without hours upon hours of misery. What I think you mean is you want more content that's at Unreal Ultima level difficulty added to the game.

What you want you will not be able to guarantee with Unreal fights given their purpose. It will always be dependent on how the fight was when it launched as to how easy or hard it will be.

Hopefully the upcoming Criterion dungeons will be that for you for at least one of the modes being added.

[Issaella]

Which is made all the more frustrating because for a whole 4 months there was content that I enjoyed doing that was difficult without having to invest 100% of my brain power for hours every week. Now it's back to a) mind-numbing Normal/Expert or b) meatgrinder Sav/Ex for a whole patch cycle again. Only this time around there nothing drawing me into Sav because I don't like the armors nor do I like the weapons for Ex4.

With how the end game is currently being designed as two difficulties; "coloring book" vs "spinning plates, while dancing the tango and calculating advanced math" I am really losing hope the Criterion Norm/Sav will be any different.