Do encounteres (specifically Extremes) FEEL different now?

[Ath192]

As much as everyone says that the game and encounter design have always been this way, I got to thinking...they don't.

Extremes feel easier now, and less fun. just my two cents. Sophia unreal is a blast to me, much better/fun fight than any recent EX

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Extremes feel easier now, and less fun. just my two cents. Sophia unreal is a blast to me, much better/fun fight than any recent EX

I don't think they are especially easier, I think we just got better. Like, Thordan was "hard", but not mechanically. It was more to do with gear and us still being terrible with HW jobs. Zurvan was regarded as one of the easiest EX fights ever. Sephirot wasn't even that difficult mechanically.


Most of the difficulty came from us, to be quite frank, sucking.

[Ath192]

I don't think they are especially easier, I think we just got better. Like, Thordan was "hard", but not mechanically. It was more to do with gear and us still being terrible with HW jobs. Zurvan was regarded as one of the easiest EX fights ever. Sephirot wasn't even that difficult mechanically.


Most of the difficulty came from us, to be quite frank, sucking.

The hitboxes are too big, and quite honestly the way the arena is used is way more interesting in Sophia, Byakko, Seiryu, Suzaku..... Like, they used to have more charm rather than some crappy puzzles in Zodi and Rubi.

Barbariccia is the only standout so far imo this expac, being decently fun. if I had to choose a second place it would be Hyda.

[RyuDragnier]

They might also just try to give each expansion a new style. In Shadowbringers they started doing the "left, then right" type mechanic a lot where in previous expansion you just dodged once, whereas I haven't seen it much in this expansion. They also made them faster-paced in Shadowbringers.

I've noticed that every Savage tier they tend to overuse a single mechanic. I'm not sure why, but it feels like they attempt to keep a singular "theme' for the mechanics so players can figure out what they're dealing with.

An example, in Asphodelos EVERY boss had a tether mechanic. Abyssos seems to overuse the Out/In mechanic (get out of AoE, then you have to go IN where it was to avoid another hit).

[Jeeqbit]

I don't think they are especially easier, I think we just got better. Like, Thordan was "hard", but not mechanically. It was more to do with gear and us still being terrible with HW jobs. Zurvan was regarded as one of the easiest EX fights ever. Sephirot wasn't even that difficult mechanically.

Most of the difficulty came from us, to be quite frank, sucking.

Really just this. Back in Heavensward, Sophia was harder because you couldn't just use Shake it Off as a Warrior and heal the party. If the healers sucked, then the party was dead. And healers had less heals, so there was a higher chance of needing to use the GCD and manage MP.

There wasn't even Reprisal then except on DRK if they got a proc. You also couldn't use Knockback Immunity except on certain jobs like Paladin. Tanks didn't have a trait giving 20% damage reduction, so if they did use their DPS stance, all the worse for them. And now Warriors can get a free Knockback Immunity every 60 seconds as well. Oh, we also didn't have Shirk.

As an added difficulty, we didn't have cross-world party finder, so I would direct queue and constantly meet tanks that didn't know what a tank swap was and left me to die.

[Ath192]

Really just this. Back in Heavensward, Sophia was harder because you couldn't just use Shake it Off as a Warrior and heal the party. If the healers sucked, then the party was dead. And healers had less heals, so there was a higher chance of needing to use the GCD and manage MP.

There wasn't even Reprisal then except on DRK if they got a proc. You also couldn't use Knockback Immunity except on certain jobs like Paladin. Tanks didn't have a trait giving 20% damage reduction, so if they did use their DPS stance, all the worse for them. And now Warriors can get a free Knockback Immunity every 60 seconds as well. Oh, we also didn't have Shirk.

As an added difficulty, we didn't have cross-world party finder, so I would direct queue and constantly meet tanks that didn't know what a tank swap was and left me to die.

Actually I forgot about this. Maybe the reason the fights are easier now is because there were a lot more technicalities and depth to job management, so players did in fact suck more, but I don't think that its because we've gotten better at clicking the same hotbar we've had (maybe some, but someone who takes raiding seriously can master their job rather quickly so it wouldn't take years). It's just that the jobs being easier and homogenized raised the skill floor so everyone is slight better performing than they would've been with the OG stance dancing, TP + MP management.