Do encounteres (specifically Extremes) FEEL different now?

[Ath192]

It literally doesnt explain, it makes it more complicated. Limit cut isnt "oh i guess this mechanic has numbers". Please look at what limit cut is. Flood rays is nothing like limit cut.

I mean, It's not that you are completely wrong, but at the same time the ship has sailed and the definition of LC has changed. Now it loosely refers to any mechanic with the dots above your head. The whole tier people have been advertising P6S as "Diamond LC". So arguing this is feels like a losing battle because no matter what, you will not sway the masses away from its new definition anymore.

[Maltothoris]

That is a major thing about the ffxiv raiding community. Anything that involves getting away from the boss is called chariot or anything that involves getting inside the boss' hitbox is called dynamo. If there is any baited cleave coming from the boss, it's called protean and anything that involves the closest and nearest is called double drill.

But indeed there are quite a few things different with today's encounters compared to the past. Example bosses back then used to be able to crit. They could weave their autos with their busters and cleaves as well. They moved away from the later because it was casuing paladins trouble to try and tap their shelltron with the cleave and then the auto would eat the cleave.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

It literally doesnt explain, it makes it more complicated. Limit cut isnt "oh i guess this mechanic has numbers". Please look at what limit cut is. Flood rays is nothing like limit cut.

It's the same reality as older time players calling Doughnuts & PBAoE "Dynamo" & "Chariot" respectively. Or how almost every mechanic that involves passing a debuff around inevitably comes down to "nisi" or "rot", or giant aoes that cover a 1/3rd or more of the arena are often referred to as "defamation".

Certain mechanics just become synonymous with describing basic ideas of how the mechanic executes - while Limit Cut has more nuances to it, the idea of Limit cut being a series of numbers placed over people's heads that resolve mechanics in a certain order is an easier descriptor for people that have been around the game long enough to immediately understand than typing out a long winded explanation of how this specific number mechanic works. Doubly so if the number mechanic works off of odd & even pairs, like Diamond Weapon's & Rubicante's making them mirror the original LC's concept even more.

Considering that Diamond Weapon, TEA & P6s all use limit cut now in their PF descriptions, at this point it's already a part of the collective hive mind terminology, regardless of what any of us thinks.

[Jeeqbit]

Yes, FFXIV players tend to name mechanics after the first duty they appeared in, even if they are technically called something else later on. I think SE forgot about limit cut, but when they started working on TEA they decided to use it everywhere else too, such as the first Shadowbringers dungeon.

I don't see quite so many people call donuts and aoes or ins and outs as Dynamo and Chariot, because that is as old as coils and appears in almost every content in the game. But anything more nuanced than those tends to get its own name from the first content it appeared in.

[Leifei]

I've been doing Extremes and Savage since Stormblood. I think that the difficulty level for the Extremes has been roughly same from SB through EW. Extremes usually have 1 make or break mechanic while the rest is more smooth sailing. As for seeing less extreme fight listings in PF over time, maybe it's because more people are actively doing savage and ultimates? In the past, ultimates were almost exclusively done in statics, but their listing count has jumped. This is just my experience and observation though as I do not have any metrics to back up what I'm saying.

[Absimiliard]

I don't see quite so many people call donuts and aoes or ins and outs as Dynamo and Chariot, because that is as old as coils and appears in almost every content in the game. But anything more nuanced than those tends to get its own name from the first content it appeared in.

It's probably an exposure thing. Most of the people playing today didn't do Nael back then, and going back to smack her around unsynced just doesn't leave an impression. Heck, a lot of the stuff that debuted in Alexander is probably only remembered as such because that entire raid was proof Square-Enix retained the Joker's services as an advisor for the fight design team.

[DixieBellOCE]

Extremes are not Savages, and are not supposed to be Savages.

I remember the first time I considered trying a Savage (E1S), the big thing that got me was how they remove the telegraphs. You might get some of the Normal mode attacks, but you have to either look at what the boss is doing, the name of the spell being cast, or remember a set pattern. This is distinct from Normal content and Extremes I'd done up until that time, which might be rough but at least provided telegraphs so players could see what was going on. You might die, but generally could see what killed you, like Innocence's star explosion being knicked by the person with the AOE laser or you standing in the wrong color of Susaku's platform as the firebird flew around the outside setting the different segments off.

Barbaricca was around the same level of difficulty as WoL and Hades EX.

It was a return to what extreme difficulty is, but it did release during a primary patch cycle which means we didnt overgear it like we do during the off numbered patch cycle extremes.

I've been doing Extremes and Savage since Stormblood. I think that the difficulty level for the Extremes has been roughly same from SB through EW. Extremes usually have 1 make or break mechanic while the rest is more smooth sailing. As for seeing less extreme fight listings in PF over time, maybe it's because more people are actively doing savage and ultimates? In the past, ultimates were almost exclusively done in statics, but their listing count has jumped. This is just my experience and observation though as I do not have any metrics to back up what I'm saying.

The playerbase are just getting better over time, atleast the part of the playerbase that does high end activities.

Extreme hasn't got harder, most of the fights are just much easier this expansion and when an extreme like Barbaricca returns to the normal level of difficulty, its a shock to the people who become used to the easy content.

[Renathras]

On the Limit Cut thing:

"Towers"

What does "Towers" mean?

It's common jargon. People that do Savages know it. Most people that do Extremes know it. But what does "Towers" tell you if you DON'T know it?

...nothing at all. In fact, I called them "meteors" (like World of Darkness) for the longest time because I thought of it like someone catching a meteor to prevent it exploding from a hard landing on the ground, and many incarnations of the mechanic have a ball slowly descending to the ground as the timer before the mechanic goes off. The first time I heard "Towers" I was really confused because I saw no towers anywhere. I think "Towers" originates from Coils (going to say Nail's fight, but I forget which one) where there are circles on the ground but they also have little Alllegan monolith things (like the stones in the PvP map Seal Rock) in the middle of them, and the monoliths were called "towers" for short. But honestly I don't know. "Towers" says nothing meaningful at all to a new player that doesn't know what they are, and isn't even DESCRIPTIVE of them, since almost no modern incarnation of the mechanic has the monolith structure to be a "tower" in the middle of the circle.

And yet, the name stuck, didn't it? No one goes around telling people "Don't call them Towers!", because everyone's kind of just accepted the meaning and that the general definition of "Towers" is "circles formed on the ground in the arena that require either one or two (or rarely 4) players to stack on them, often in some combination of Tank/Melee Healer/Ranged-Caster before the timer on the mechanic expires".

"Limit Cut" is the same thing. Yes, there's a "well ackshually" behind it, but there is for Towers, too. And "Light Party split" (though at least that one KINDA makes sense from the name). And the name of that thing where doritos have to stack together to not take damage (never remember the name of that one, but you know the one). Or the "get away (often) Tank targeted AOE" that we call "Flares" even though most versions of it aren't "flares" at all, it's just that was what it was in...what, the Megadeath fight, maybe? The one with the giant head? Clearly you aren't getting angry at people for calling that mechanic (the blue arrows pointing three directions away from the target signaling other players to get away from them before it explodes) "Flares" even though they "aren't flares", right?

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I kinda hated the name Limit Cut when I first encountered it myself (which was DiamEx) because it describes literally nothing of the mechanic or how to deal with it, but I've accepted it's the term and know the general meaning - something to the effect of "places a number of dots from 1-8 on players and then does a wide cleave attack targeting them one by one in that order which often places a debuff on them but will basically kill any player caught in two of them, and will require some form of player cycling through designated spots of being hit to prevent cleaving the party and causing a wipe" - just as I have for "Towers" and "Flares".

You can fight that battle if you like, but I'm not sure it's a hill worth dying on. I still call "Towers" "Meteors" from time to time (and people understand what I mean by that, too) or "Everyone get to your circle", which works just as well, but I recognize the community accepts the word/term "Towers" for that mechanic.

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That is a major thing about the ffxiv raiding community. Anything that involves getting away from the boss is called chariot or anything that involves getting inside the boss' hitbox is called dynamo. If there is any baited cleave coming from the boss, it's called protean and anything that involves the closest and nearest is called double drill.

Plus side on those is "Point blank/PB AOE" and "Doughnut" describe the first two well and are both often used and entirely descriptive. I don't hear Protean often, I usually hear that as "targeted cleave" or, in the cases it's on all party members and everyone goes to their clock position, some variant of "death pizza".

Agreed on those being some of the changes (that you mentioned), too.

Barbaricca was around the same level of difficulty as WoL and Hades EX.

It was a return to what extreme difficulty is, but it did release during a primary patch cycle which means we didnt overgear it like we do during the off numbered patch cycle extremes.

This could be part of it, but note that WoLEx and HadEx both were regarded as the MOST DIFFICULT Extremes back in ShB. I think WoLEx was the last one I actually cleared (thankfully got an EXTREMELY uncharacteristic for me luck of getting the mount on the second clear, so while I did it a few more times with the party until everyone was ready to stop, I didn't have to do it AFTER that - I did it so many times I was literally typing mechanics in /party by the end of it. Think I spent...15 or so hours straight one Saturday? I was determined to get that clear! And that was after having spent the evening Friday on it. Just took a while to get a party that could get the mechanics, and every time we got CLOSE to a clear, someone had to go and we had to train a new person all over again - THAT is the PF experience, btw, and why Extremes shouldn't be like Savages...). So suggesting that's "the same difficulty" doesn't really speak to it being standard for Extremes since you're comparing it to arguably the most difficult Extremes at patch in the game's history. Ones that, at the time (and by people today) are often considered Savage level of difficulty (especially HadEx at level, but WoLEx is right there with it). And as you noted, was before people could cheese the gear a bit.

So if BarbEs is like that, then that IS Savage level difficulty.

I'll also note that, like BarbEx, WoLEx was a favorite of...the raiding community, who felt it was a "challenge" to them. Meaning more like Savage and less like Extreme, not to put too fine a point on it.

Though I highly disagree with this:

Extreme hasn't got harder, most of the fights are just much easier this expansion and when an extreme like Barbaricca returns to the normal level of difficulty, its a shock to the people who become used to the easy content.

Presumably, by "getting better" making them easier, I'd have felt that HydEx was easier than TitanEx. I felt the exact opposite. I also felt BarbEx was harder then RubEx.

The fights have gotten harder, and BarbEx isn't "the normal level of difficulty", as you're comparing it with the most DIFFICULT Extremes in the game's history, not the normal. Normal Extreme difficulty would be something like Ruby WEAPON or Susaku maybe. It's not "people who became used to the easy content". Other than WoLEx and HadEx, which I did have to come back to, I did all the other Extremes in ShB at level in ShB. I've also done all the Extremes at level (including Endsinger) here in EW. The EW ones all felt harder to me other than RubiEx. And if we've "gotten better over time", I should feel the opposite way.

The implication is, despite getting better (and I have), the content/fights are also harder, and harder enough that even me getting better feels like they've gotten more difficult than the gap of how much I've improved. If I improved from a 5 to a 7, they got harder from a 5 to a 8 or 9.

Sorry, but I generally hate the "stuff is easy, people just got lazy/used to easy" counterpoint to literally anything. It's ALMOST always false, and in the rare cases it has truth to it, it's often missing some nuance that is important and makes it not so cut and dry.

[DixieBellOCE]

On the Limit Cut thing:

It's common jargon. People that do Savages know it. Most people that do Extremes know it. But what does "Towers" tell you if you DON'T know it?

"Limit Cut" is the same thing. Yes, there's a "well ackshually" behind it, but there is for Towers, too. And "Light Party split" (though at least that one KINDA makes sense from the name). And the name of that thing where doritos have to stack together to not take damage (never remember the name of that one, but you know the one). Or the "get away (often) Tank targeted AOE" that we call "Flares" even though most versions of it aren't "flares" at all, it's just that was what it was in...what, the Megadeath fight, maybe? The one with the giant head? Clearly you aren't getting angry at people for calling that mechanic (the blue arrows pointing three directions away from the target signaling other players to get away from them before it explodes) "Flares" even though they "aren't flares", right?

Towers were indeed from Nael van Darnus in T9.

Limit cut and Flood raid are two completely different mechanics that use the same number system, so i understand why people get them confused and just refer to the whole thing as Limit Cut.

What we see in Rubicante and P6S is Flood Raid, Not Limit Cut but the community has just decided its going to be called Limit Cut.

People wont get that confused when you call something 'Meteors' until you do Warrior of Light and there are both towers and actual Meteors happening at the same time

Its the same problem people have when you say 'Exaflare' like P7/P7S, people that have never done Coils/uCoB most likely don't know what an Exaflare is unless they actually look up a common terminology guide for raiding.

I normally just send this to people who want to get into raiding.
https://phookas.com/files/Markers.png

Presumably, by "getting better" making them easier, I'd have felt that HydEx was easier than TitanEx. I felt the exact opposite. I also felt BarbEx was harder then RubEx.

That is like saying Sastasha is on the same level as Tower of Zot, your comparing an extreme from 9 years ago to a current expansion extreme fight.
Fight design has changed a lot in 9 years.

That is not even remotely close to a relevant assessment of difficulty levels.

Lets do a more relative comparison by patch releases with ShB.

Titania > Zodiark
Titania on release was (personally) harder than zodiark, Zodiark was on farm day 2 of the expansion.

Innocence < Hydaelyn
Hydaelyn hands down, much harder than innocence, that fight was on farm day 2 with a solo healer.

Hades > Endsinger
Hades. No comparison in difficulty there.

Ruby < Barbariccia
Barbaricca was obviously harder than Ruby. Not much of a comparison.

Memoria Miseria
(No comparison, we didn't get an extra trial this expansion, gotta love cut content!)

WoL > Rubicante
WoL hands down, Rubicante was on farm day 1 once the spins were made redundant by a set pattern (Bad game design there)

Emerald = Golbez
????

Diamond = ???
????

Going based off this the difficulty is just swapping every patch.
Shadowbringers 1,3,5,7 not including memoria miseria were harder than the endwalker counterparts, where as 2,4 and most likely 6, will be harder than the ShB counterparts.

[Semirhage]

EX, Savage, occasional Ultimate difficulty

Echoing a bit of what I said in the other thread, I don't think it's the relative difficulty of the Extremes that's gone up over time. There's been a pretty wide spread of EX difficulties in every expansion, but Endwalker's have averaged on easy side (apart from Barbie). I think what's mostly changed about EX trials is a few design decisions made in the last several years that significantly change how the party interacts with mechanics. The teleporting of corpses after fall deaths, for example, has made raise-dragging players through the harder EX trials easier. The "Akh Mornening" (TM) of targeted mechanics so players can't run things off edges, as they'll simply retarget someone at random has made things more strict; body check mechanics have become much more frequent as a result, just because one person dying can ping-pong around the party and kill everyone. Bosses with gigantic hitboxes making fights easier on the melee. Bosses teleporting into the center for most of their mechanics rendering positioning irrelevant. Most mechanics involving ridiculously long cast times and dramatic animations that result in 20+ second dead zones where nobody needs to prepare for anything or heal anything up. Strict fight timing scripts instead of HP threshold triggers that render "skip Soar" no longer a thing. Making bosses ignore players to do their mechanics so you can't spin Nael anymore.

All of the above things contribute to modern Extremes "feeling" different.

What part of P7S has exaflares??

Twice. Once in the beginning and once in the middle. Where the party has to go left or right, toward the wider safe zone, and where the boss knocks the parties away, does light party stacks, and you have to collapse back around to the south to avoid them. "Exaflares" are how the community refers to walking circular AOEs of any variety.