The Stormblood Capstone fight pretty much killed my enthusiasm with the game.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Endsinger is said to be easy yet I see people dying to the planet phase all the time.

[Claire_Pendragon]

to be fair, shinryu isnt actually hard, outside of being a healer. And thats only if ppl refuse to dodge ground aoes.
I started to queue up for the fight as RDM, so i could just focus raise the healer/tanks, and even if the fight drags on longer that way, with 3 DPS dead, and me having no MP, it always leads to a win.

there arent really any "mechanics" to the fight, unless u do the EX version, to which the unique mechanic is looking at cast bars in the enmity list. (not really unique, so much as the number of cast bars) in normal, its just "dont stand in bad"
unlike the prior capstone fights, u cant stand in bad, and survive. so ppl complained it was super hard. now iLv allows some ppl to stand in it, and most ppl know to stop standing in it now, which makes the fight go by much quicker.

[Theodric]

It doesn't change, unfortunately. The latest end of expansion boss - and the very same one meant to end a decade long story arc - has an entire phase devoted to mindlessly flailing around just like Thordan.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

It doesn't change, unfortunately. The latest end of expansion boss - and the very same one meant to end a decade long story arc - has an entire phase devoted to mindlessly flailing around just like Thordan.

Please. Endsinger is MUCH harder than Thordan. The planet phase has caused so many deaths.

You're looking at this from the eyes of the Hardcore. Most of the playerbase are Casual and don't play anywhere near optimally nor research fights ahead of time.

[Theodric]

Please. Endsinger is MUCH harder than Thordan. The planet phase has caused so many deaths.

You're looking at this from the eyes of the Hardcore. Most of the playerbase are Casual and don't play anywhere near optimally nor research fights ahead of time.

Hardcore? Nah, I'm very much a casual player in this game. The planet phase may catch some people out but then so did some of the mechanics in Thordan in the brief window of time before the fight was very quickly out geared. Some people get knocked off of the platform during the water phase during the Shinryu fight, though once they figure out the mechanic it's smooth sailing.

Endsinger's second phase really just is a prolonged flailing session which wasn't satisfying to me as a finale.

[Post]

Sorry, OP. You are 100% correct about this. I love this game yet it's impossible to defend this aspect of it BECAUSE these types of trivial encounters were so climactic and well designed on launch.

Really, they still are, but for a game that's so set on keeping their whole storyline as part of the appeal they haven't done the vital task of maintenance on them to ensure they don't lose too much of their luster. And as others have said, all they would really need to do for the most part is impose an ilvl sync -- something they introduced in HW, 8 years ago, for the ARF dungeon immediately before Thordan, and you can see how well that works for Ascian Prime by comparison.

Yes, I'm aware they also reworked the bosses in the dungeon recently and tuned it for 6.x potencies and direct hit existing while they were at it. They could easily retrofit these adjustments once and for all across all jobs for all old content by using traits that buff your basic attacks available at all levels only to the appropriate amount for whatever expansion you're in.

I actually think Shinryu in particular was so important to my enjoyment of Zenos as a character and ultimately StB overall because I definitely wasn't feeling him in the two forced losses in those easy solo duties earlier on, and it was a final boss that wasn't afraid to be a final boss, crack a few skulls and take a few tries to beat.

I hope someone from SE's team sees that your experience is becoming a more common one rather than the exception and starts doing something about it, because at the very least they wouldn't have to do much. If they want to pretend their game has a decade of content to enjoy, they must do a better job of maintaining it for the average player that doesn't have an audience or huge group of friends ready to join in on a dime, ESPECIALLY because the game has made it harder and harder to start forming those relationships without going out of your way when you're following the MSQ and minding your own business as a first timer.

[Lauront]

Hardcore? Nah, I'm very much a casual player in this game. The planet phase may catch some people out but then so did some of the mechanics in Thordan in the brief window of time before the fight was very quickly out geared. Some people get knocked off of the platform during the water phase during the Shinryu fight, though once they figure out the mechanic it's smooth sailing.

Endsinger's second phase really just is a prolonged flailing session which wasn't satisfying to me as a finale.

As much as gameplay mechanic and lore segregation is a thing, there's a point where I find it jarring how disconnected some MSQ trials are from how potent the threat involved. I'm not too fond of the MSQ story content being sanded down because EX is an option, since that tends to be a non-canonical made up story version anyway. The MSQ will, by its nature, involve some of the most potent beings in the storyline (an elder dragon, the two most powerful primals, unsundered Ascians, various other powerful primals or similar beings, and a being that is supposed to be taken seriously as a universe-wide threat) and I do wish the trials better reflected it at times. The .3 ones tend to be a bit better at this, but I wish they'd find better ways to accommodate varying skill levels than what they currently do. I hoped they might use trusts for an easier version, to allow the DF stuff to be a bit less anaemic, but instead it looks like all that's done is the DF versions are now designed around trusts. It frankly leaves me disappointed.

[Jeeqbit]

As much as gameplay mechanic and lore segregation is a thing, there's a point where I find it jarring how disconnected some MSQ trials are from how potent the threat involved.

I've thought about this a lot over the years. What I came to think is that in SE's lore, everyone has a weakness. If you try to attack enemies far away from you, you expose the area behind or under you (donut aoe). If you try to attack enemies nearby, you don't really affect the enemies far away (run out aoe). In SE's lore, this goes for everyone - even the most powerful gods, even Ascians. And in SE's lore, those orange telegraphs either aren't really there and the Warrior of Light is just that good, or the Echo provides them foresight somehow.

I'm not too fond of the MSQ story content being sanded down because EX is an option, since that tends to be a non-canonical made up story version anyway.

I think the way they do it is clever, because they are saying that the extreme or savage version is just your exaggerated memory of the event or an exaggerated story told by someone else, but it allows you to believe it was what really happened if you want to. I choose to believe it was what really happened.

[TaleraRistain]

To kind of explain the discrepancy a bit, they went through and modified the original ARR ending and reworked a lot of the fights, turning some into solo engagements instead of how they were previously trials. That's why things from Rhitahtyn onward feel so much more epic. They retooled the dungeons in HW and SB (and they're finishing the last bit with 6.5 for post-SB dungeons) but besides instances like Steps of Faith where they made a former trial a (rather engaging now) solo instance, the trials they left alone. I think they have plans to consider them later but their focus was on the dungeons to help the MSQ be appealing to those who wanted to go solo through that content if they chose.

Thordan was unfortunately easy even on launch. Shinryu was not. And while I do feel some ilvel scaling could be good, they'll have to be careful with it. He was a major roadblock with the ilevel available at the time of launch. Once we started getting through the fight and then had access to the gear you can get after clearing it, it started to become easier as people with higher ilevel would get it in roulettes and help sprouts through it. But setting ilevel at the maximum for an expansion seems to be a bit too much. So hopefully they would be able to find a good middle ground area so fights like Shinryu don't become a bottleneck and we also don't get situations like we have with the latest fight where neat things happen but sprouts don't get to see it because the fight ends too soon. I always point out when we have a sprout in roulette and remind everyone to watch their dps at "that spot". Some are like that guy you had in your chat but for the most part at least people on Aether try to preserve the sprout experience. It doesn't hurt us to wait a few seconds so the sprout can get the same dopamine hit we saw when we first ran it.

There is also the factor that some of the difficulty in these fights comes not as much from the ilevel sync as not knowing the mechanics. And once everyone knows the mechanics that will always make things go smoother, whether they're synced down or not.

[Lauront]

I've thought about this a lot over the years. What I came to think is that in SE's lore, everyone has a weakness. If you try to attack enemies far away from you, you expose the area behind or under you (donut aoe). If you try to attack enemies nearby, you don't really affect the enemies far away (run out aoe). In SE's lore, this goes for everyone - even the most powerful gods, even Ascians. And in SE's lore, those orange telegraphs either aren't really there and the Warrior of Light is just that good, or the Echo provides them foresight somehow.

I think the way they do it is clever, because they are saying that the extreme or savage version is just your exaggerated memory of the event or an exaggerated story told by someone else, but it allows you to believe it was what really happened if you want to. I choose to believe it was what really happened.

Yeah but I don't think this really helps. For one, it's ultimately an arbitrary level of mechanical complexity that is applicable to MSQ content, rather than anything lore-based, because these considerations don't really constrain mechanical complexity in content outside the MSQ. For another, even if that were the explanation, I'd find it shoddy. But it's just a case of gameplay/story segregation that, unfortunately, does not work for me.