New Unreal is a an all around miserable experience.

[Gemina]

I'm willing to concede Ultimate Weapon may have been under-tuned, but this is straight up awful and i hate it.

Why is it awful? Because you're not clearing it? Because the other players are struggling? Constantly having to repeat P1 and P2 only to get quickly owned in P3, and then not even get past P1 on the next attempt? Things like that?

I hope you realize that not only is the fight a step or two up from the previous Unreal trial, you also recognize that it is only day 3 after the patch, and players are still learning these mechanics. Some of them for the first time.

Four hours last night with nothing to show for it except missing clumps of hair and cracked teeth. Saw repeat of p3 mechanics twice, in 4h, 38% best run. Numerous insta-wipe mechanics, hard to see telegraphs (the ****ing flash before the pillars!). It might as well be 2 entirely separate fights, because p3 has no mechanical overlap with the previous phases.

I know! So friggin awesome!

You may not share my enthusiasm, but to me this sounds like total fun. Grouping up with others. The game providing actual resistance to a clear. Players talking to each other. Passing on strats; answering questions. Struggling, dying, crying, and laughing with other peeps who are also new and just wanting to learn, and maybe get a little better in the process. Dinosaurs like me remember a time when this was the MMO experience, opposed to all the instant gratification given to players today. It is a shame that you cannot acknowledge and also find enjoyment is what is a very unique mmo experience.

Unreal was the one piece of high end content I could do reliably on a weekly basis without wanting to smash my head against my desk. What purpose does this massive ramp up in difficulty serve? Chase off all the people who were doing UW reliably in PF last patch? Because I sure as hell don't want to waste another 4h trying to get a clear, I did Sav in PF last tier where weekly reclears were a complete crapshoot, I have no desire to repeat that.

I think you can find the answers to this yourself. What I can tell you is there is definitely no reason for you to participate in the unreal trial if you do not enjoy it.

Thanks for giving me one less reason to log in. I bet 1mil gil that my fc wont even be able to fill a group next week after last night without 4/8 PuGs. I don't want to do it again, that's for sure.

I'm the only one in my FC running this fight. No big deal. I join a PF and try to bring add a friendly addition and not try to mess up too much. Practice parties to me are like the fruit among the PF foliage. I will always pick these when looking to have more fun, and duty complete parties when expecting a clear. Interesting and saddening that there are already clear parties so soon after the patch. Not even a week. Good grief.

[Tigerlilley]

Comparing Sephirot to Ultima is a real apples and oranges thing. Sephirot was hard in it's own day where as Ultima never was. They probably should have done the HW trials in order for a more gradual step up in difficulty, Bismark and Ravana were not mechanically difficult.

I actually loved Sephirot in HW, it was my favourite trial by far. The music, the dance, so good. But, I can see how much of a shock it would be if you were hoping for Ultima difficulty.

[SassyAssassin]

I can promise you I am terrible at gaming. Each time I join an extreme or unreal, my first reaction is that Ill never be able to clear it.
Five runs and I wonder what was I so afraid of. You got this.

[Issaella]

I know! So friggin awesome!

You may not share my enthusiasm, but to me this sounds like total fun. Grouping up with others. The game providing actual resistance to a clear. Players talking to each other. Passing on strats; answering questions. Struggling, dying, crying, and laughing with other peeps who are also new and just wanting to learn, and maybe get a little better in the process. Dinosaurs like me remember a time when this was the MMO experience, opposed to all the instant gratification given to players today. It is a shame that you cannot acknowledge and also find enjoyment is what is a very unique mmo experience.

Maybe if I felt like i was making progress, maybe if the end point weren't hours more down a lightless PF tunnel. I raided in WoW vanilla-Wrath, no boss fight in those raids ever made me half as angry or feel half as bad at failing as any high end fight I've attempted in this game. I always leave feeling like **** even if we do manage to clear. Especially having done Sav in the PF last tier, because clearing once in no way guarantees a clear the next week. 1-2h per week for a clear were more likely than a 1 or 2 shot group by a mile. I don't enjoy repeated failure and I really don't enjoy repeating the same ****ing phases over and over and over for 6-8 minutes just to wipe 1 minute into p3. Regardless I'm done with it, it's not worth the frustration for 10 weeks just to get a mount or minion, I'm not wasting any more energy on it when it makes me miserable. I'll just hope next patch it's something more reasonable.

I can promise you I am terrible at gaming. Each time I join an extreme or unreal, my first reaction is that Ill never be able to clear it.
Five runs and I wonder what was I so afraid of. You got this.

Having done p1s and p2s, I can tel you I feel exactly the opposite. It's always as bad as I anticipte. And it's not fear, it's pain aversion. The amount of frustration and mental investment for me to clear content like this is massive.

Honestly at this point if you feel so strongly why are you even doing high end content, it’s obvious it doesn’t jive with you

Armor skins I wanted from last tier savage, I managed to stick it out for 6 weeks to get what I wanted then I was done. I did Seph Unreal last night expecting more challenging, but doable in a reasonable amount of time and get my weekly currency. I didn't expect Sav level difficulty and 3 hours of wiping just to see p3 and start progging that for 30 seconds before wiping. With the future being multiple more hours re-clearing p1/2 just to even prog phase 3, then eating enrage for hours more and then maybe getting a clear just like Sav. Then doing it all over again the next week. The rewards just aren't worth it.

EDIT - Daily limit.

[Supersnow845]

Maybe if I felt like i was making progress, maybe if the end point weren't hours more down a lightless PF tunnel. I raided in WoW vanilla-Wrath, no boss fight in those raids ever made me half as angry or feel half as bad at failing as any high end fight I've attempted in this game. I always leave feeling like **** even if we do manage to clear. Especially having done Sav in the PF last tier, because clearing once in no way guarantees a clear the next week. 1-2h per week for a clear were more likely than a 1 or 2 shot group by a mile. I don't enjoy repeated failure and I really don't enjoy repeating the same ****ing phases over and over and over for 6-8 minutes just to wipe 1 minute into p3. Regardless I'm done with it, it's not worth the frustration for 10 weeks just to get a mount or minion, I'm not wasting any more energy on it when it makes me miserable. I'll just hope next patch it's something more reasonable.



Having done p1s and p2s, I can tel you I feel exactly the opposite. It's always as bad as I anticipte. And it's not fear, it's pain aversion. The amount of frustration and mental investment for me to clear content like this is massive.

Honestly at this point if you feel so strongly why are you even doing high end content, it’s obvious it doesn’t jive with you

[SassyAssassin]

Having done p1s and p2s, I can tel you I feel exactly the opposite. It's always as bad as I anticipte. And it's not fear, it's pain aversion. The amount of frustration and mental investment for me to clear content like this is massive.

People still clear Sephiroth Ex with less usable skills, pugging the mentor roulette and it can still work with enough cooperation and understanding.
If its so frustrating maybe you are just in the wrong group.
Countless times I tried to clear hard content without being able to after numerous tries only to join a different group and clear it first try.
For anyone that is healing but gets frustrated I really suggest sticking to dpsing until you properly learn the fight. A healer that isnt accustomed to the mechanics can make the run near impossible for everyone in the end.

[Neoyoshi]

oh yeah. It IS a marked difference than ultima.
Everyone has to be on the ball here.
especially during the debuff phase.
And my condolences to the healers. xD
a trick if you just want to learn the mechanics, do the EX fight unsynced and let him do his mechanics so you can practice it.

Yep, thats a great learning tool right there.

[Gemina]

Maybe if I felt like i was making progress, maybe if the end point weren't hours more down a lightless PF tunnel. I raided in WoW vanilla-Wrath, no boss fight in those raids ever made me half as angry or feel half as bad at failing as any high end fight I've attempted in this game. I always leave feeling like **** even if we do manage to clear. Especially having done Sav in the PF last tier, because clearing once in no way guarantees a clear the next week. 1-2h per week for a clear were more likely than a 1 or 2 shot group by a mile. I don't enjoy repeated failure and I really don't enjoy repeating the same ****ing phases over and over and over for 6-8 minutes just to wipe 1 minute into p3. Regardless I'm done with it, it's not worth the frustration for 10 weeks just to get a mount or minion, I'm not wasting any more energy on it when it makes me miserable. I'll just hope next patch it's something more reasonable.

Content like Unreal Trials that are advertised as being more difficult and around the level of EX fights at min ilv should be hard to clear. Players should wipe over and over and over again. You may very well go a whole week without getting a clear. There isn't a guarantee. That is challenging content. You are rewarded IF you when. Not WHEN you win. It makes getting Rowena's Lanner all the more sweet when you obtain it. This is called delayed gratification

Sephirot wiping the floor with his contenders is an experience mid content players need. Humbling those who grew complacent in the 'break' in Unreal difficulty with UW, and those who think additional skills will trivialize the content and somehow make them better at mechanics. The strict requirements I am seeing in PF are also a testament to this very frustration I speak of. Don't get me wrong, I don't find enjoyment in players not having fun; but players who can't handle it when they've hit a little bit of an incline are provided a service I feel is long overdue.

The energy expenditure griping about the matter is enough to help multiple players get better at this trial, and your choice on how to spend this energy doesn't benefit anyone. Even yourself. Just think about that for a minute. If you truly choose to bow out of this content since you feel it is the best direction, then definitely leave it behind you.

[RamenJD]

As a veteran who has done all the unreal since it was released in ShB, I think you have some misunderstanding about what is unreal.

Unreal is upscaling the ilvl of an old extreme fight to the current level 90 ilvl. What you experience in an unreal is pretty much what you’d experience if doing a fight on minimum ilvl.

That being said, Ultima has always been the easiest extreme trial even on min ilvl. It was also the very first extreme trial the game released, in which the difficulty and gameplay is far out of the scope of the current fight design.

Now about Sephrioth, the extreme version was indeed a step up when released in HW compared with other HW extreme released beforehand. Compared with Ultima unreal, it’s nature to feel the difficulty ramp in Sephrioth unreal. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. The fight’s design is a lot closer to the current fight standard. It also helps players to understand things like mitigation & cooldown usage, personal responsibility, and adjustment.

In case you wonder how difficult is Sephiroth unreal comparing with every other unreal, it is slightly easier than Titan unreal (which is still the hardest). In Titan unreal, you cannot get rezzed if falling, and there’s constant dps check on the gaol every few minutes. Then Sephiroth unreal is a bit harder than Shiva unreal. It has tight dps check and some personal responsibility (like the knockback marker during the bow phase). Then we have Levithian unreal. It wasn’t a super difficult fight, but still has mechanics that wipes the party, which is the adds. It is also challenging to healers who need to keep an eye on healing off-tank which can give them a stackable debuff.

In the end, I would say if you expect Ultima unreal to be the standard (or slightly below the standard), then you’re pretty wrong about that. All other extreme trials are far difficult than Ultima ex (the only other easy extreme I can think of is Bismarck ex), not because most extreme trials are usually super difficult, but it’s because Ultima ex is way too easy.

[dapperfaffer]

why game so hard *waves pitchfork*