The Final Day needs to be ilevel synched

[RyuDragnier]

Same for Thordan, Shinryu, and Hades. And the first two of each set of alliance raids. And the first two tiers of each set of normal raids. It wouldn't be some miracle fix (Thordan in particular has always been a joke), but it would help give the fights some bite back.

Do you want the nerf threads to come back? Remember when the bad players were screaming for Nidhogg to be nerfed? When they screamed for Shinryu to be nerfed? Emet-Selch remembers.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Do you want the nerf threads to come back? Remember when the bad players were screaming for Nidhogg to be nerfed? When they screamed for Shinryu to be nerfed? Emet-Selch remembers.

It's either the nerf threads or the un-nerf threads. We're gonna get one or the other, so I might as well side with the one that at least gives me more fun playing.

[Amarande]

Do you want the nerf threads to come back? Remember when the bad players were screaming for Nidhogg to be nerfed? When they screamed for Shinryu to be nerfed? Emet-Selch remembers.

That is an oversimplification. If it was only the actual bad players, it would be one matter.

The trouble comes in when you realize that we're talking about roulette content, which means you have another class of players that's impacted: ones that are good enough to do the content on their own, but get exasperated anyway because they get paired with bad players too often in PUGs, and end up failing because of them. Even well above average players can be affected by this, depending on the particular content you're dumped into.

Remember that this isn't WoW where a relatively small number of hardcore players are usually enough to carry the whole rest of the group even if they barely know the first thing about video games. XIV is well known by this point for mechanics where most or all of the group have to be on the ball or it doesn't matter how good the best members are - the worst members assure you don't get the clear. In the past, that had been something that was mostly kept (outside of the "lost your tanks/healers" bugaboo) to Extreme Trials and Savage raids; the few exceptions (Lost City normal coming especially to mind) being almost universally dreaded instances to get in roulette.

At some point - especially starting around mid-late through Stormblood - this Battletoads-esque philosophy started to export itself to general DF content. (It might be harping some more, but it seems like this further validates how the culture shifts caused by Discord have been negatively impacting the less hardcore cohorts - Stormblood was around the time when the platform really began to take off to the point of standardization, and the sea change that occurred later on in that xpac is very manifest.) Now roulettes easily become miserable if you have a lot of content unlocked, to the point that even many good players dread getting the more difficult instances (it really not helping either that Trials and Normal Raids have several dozen different fights each if you've got everything unlocked, most of them years old, so even the better players have often forgotten the exact details of the less played ones).

Nerfing may lead to less satisfying fights, but at least it makes roulette far more bearable under these circumstances.

[Jeeqbit]

Remember that this isn't WoW where a relatively small number of hardcore players are usually enough to carry the whole rest of the group even if they barely know the first thing about video games.

That is exactly what happens in this game too. That is the entire concept of dungeons in this game. One good player carries the other 3. It was designed that way from the start, where they wanted dungeons to be easy but for the really good and well-geared players to be able to shine in them by wrecking enemies and knowing what to do.

Of course, although the hard content was optional, they did not know that there needed to be an easy version of all the hard content but started making one by Heavensward.

The mechanics of trials and raids are not hard at minimum item level. They are just more fun because you can actually die in them. But they are not so hard that the hardcore players who got matched into it wouldn't be able to carry them and rez, the way you described they do in WoW.

[Amarande]

The mechanics of trials and raids are not hard at minimum item level. They are just more fun because you can actually die in them. But they are not so hard that the hardcore players who got matched into it wouldn't be able to carry them and rez, the way you described they do in WoW.

That used to be the case, but it's getting spottier and spottier. The root cause is probably the fact that both DPS checks and stack markers (wasn't Nidhogg one of the first fights to elicit complaints on a mass scale, come to think of it? ...) are used more and more often even in story modes.

The trauma conga line is then fairly easy to retrace, and usually goes something like so (of course, Alphascape V3.0 is the poster child):

1. A mechanic that newbies and more casual players actually do often struggle with happens. People, especially later on in content's lifespan (when you tend to get such fights with at least one newbie and a few rouletters trying to recall the details) mess this mechanic up.

2. Now that some people are dead and some people have vulns, the stack marker goes out with greatly increased average damage per player, making it difficult or impossible to avoid further deaths.

3. Before Weakness (often a double dose for a player or two after the above) wears off, the add phase/DPS check goes out, and the raid wipes as the better players are not able (and may not mathematically be able) to cover for this (don't forget that in such cases, Weakness tends to be further compounded by the fact that many classes are also rotationally ruined for a significant period of time after dying due to often having had their job gauge wiped out and their gauge-generating abilities still on CD).

There's also a few glaring outliers here like the 5.3 trial and its (hopefully remaining unique) QTE (which one should note, is the only case of a mandatory 8/8 QTE in any content, INCLUDING hardmodes, thank the Twelve. I'm trying to remember, did it also have the same bugaboo as In From the Cold where you have to not only mash, but mash without hitting anything that's bound to something? I remember it used to just be "don't hit Enter" but now for some reason it's become a lot more restrictive what keys you can mash).

[Jeeqbit]

That used to be the case, but it's getting spottier and spottier. The root cause is probably the fact that both DPS checks and stack markers (wasn't Nidhogg one of the first fights to elicit complaints on a mass scale, come to think of it? ...) are used more and more often even in story modes.

Nidhogg didn't elicit complaints on a mass scale as far as I know. There was usually a wipe the first time, because tanks didn't tank properly or they didn't know they needed to all stack for the stack marker. This is a lot better now that they teach stack markers in ARR, but battle system changes have made it easier too.

The trauma conga line is then fairly easy to retrace, and usually goes something like so (of course, Alphascape V3.0 is the poster child):

Now there were complaints about Alphascape V3.0 to the point that the developers had to have a meeting where they decided to always name casts clearly such as "Left/Right". Every cast like it since then has been Left/Right.

The steps you described would be resolved by trying again and everyone learning from their mistakes, which is intended. It's OK to take more than 1 pull to kill it. It usually wouldn't take very many. They nerf old trials with a buff called The Echo when you die which significantly increases your damage, HP and heal potency.

There's also a few glaring outliers here like the 5.3 trial

The trials do get more demanding for a casual player just doing the story, because they expect they are slightly competent at the game by then. But even that trial grants The Echo and people overlap the flare and stack all the time without a problem. All they need to do is the QTE and The Echo will pull them through eventually. The QTE literally say to press a button in the middle of the screen. It couldn't be more clear.

[RyuDragnier]

Nidhogg didn't elicit complaints on a mass scale as far as I know. There was usually a wipe the first time, because tanks didn't tank properly or they didn't know they needed to all stack for the stack marker. This is a lot better now that they teach stack markers in ARR, but battle system changes have made it easier too.

It was mostly concentrated in a single thread. Or at least, that's the only one I can find via the search function.

[RobynDaBank]

It was mostly concentrated in a single thread. Or at least, that's the only one I can find via the search function.

Woah, some posts read like present-day. The more things change, the more they stay the same!

[Mika_Zahard]

Do you want the nerf threads to come back? Remember when the bad players were screaming for Nidhogg to be nerfed? When they screamed for Shinryu to be nerfed? Emet-Selch remembers.

Shinyu was nerfed. All these people asking for more content nerf are part of the reason why i DREAD doing trial roulettes. Keep that up and ill just spam experts.

[RyuDragnier]

Shinyu was nerfed. All these people asking for more content nerf are part of the reason why i DREAD doing trial roulettes. Keep that up and ill just spam experts.

No, he never got nerfed. The ilvl only caught up a few weeks after launch.