Feedback: Alexandria Dungeon needs adjustments

[Saraide]

This is my own personal feedback as someone who has been healing since 1.0 as a white mage. I've noticed the big ramp up in dungeon difficulty and mechanics, some of them have been enjoyable, others not so much( lvl 95 final boss I'm looking at you). But I've been able to work with my FC and learn the mechanics and progress the story and dungeon. However on the final dungeon, Alexandria, making to the first boss. We died, continuously, over and over and over again. After about 20 different tries and dying each time, we threw in the towel. I don't mind learning mechanics and trying to get better but this is beyond my abilities as a healer. We understand the mechanics of it however there is not enough time to get between locations. Not everyone's reaction time is as quick others nor can you expect them to be. There is not enough pause for a healer to even mitigate the errors in the party. Upon dying, I lose all my lily stacks which gives me only tetragrammaton and benediction for instant heals in case of emergencies during these constant runs to the circles and avoiding the crosses and the bosses big conal attack. I can't try to save people with heals unless my lily's are up during these runs. I can't even use swift case because I have to save it in case someone falls which was happening to our tank because even having a couple stacks, fully healed and a tank mitigation popped, it was one shotting him. This was our tank, geared up to what he could get at the level and stacked with materia. There is not enough down time between all that happening to even heal the party to survive a hit with stack markers coming right afterwards. As a casual player, I don't do much raiding, I have done some in the past but not something I've personally enjoyed doing but this gets to the point its alienating the casual audience, people with disabilities, slow reaction times, etc from even progressing. Maybe they need to bring back Hard mode dungeons and stick this in there and readjust the MSQ's dungeons so this isn't so bad. Something is off with this dungeon and it needs reworked. Eventually we did make it through the dungeon after trying it another day and a few tries but still, it needs adjusting.

If you think there isnt enough time then you didnt understand the mechanic correctly.

No need, I know how provoke works and the issue with tanks vs enmity has already been brought up by SE.
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6321a515d36909

The post you linked is talking about something entirely different. I suggest actually reading what it's about because it's not about provoke. If your tank isnt first in aggro after rezzing them then they havent used provoke, plain and simple.

[EponaTBHSMH]

And if you read what I said, I stated we completed the dungeon and I still think it needs slight adjustments, at the very least the first boss. The first boss of the final dungeon shouldn't be harder than the two bosses after it or the final trial of the MSQ.

The fact that you completed the dungeon means you have a better understanding of the mechanics, and yall are improving, keep running it with your FC members and soon enough you'll get used to it, nobody will get hit, and you most likely won't think it needs adjustments anymore.

[Minali]

Because this is apparently a good point to dismiss criticism: I have never touched a single piece of hard content while it was current content. (I take the liberty of excluding things like learing Garuda Ex unsynced on lvl 90 solo in 18 seconds. xD) The "hardest" thing I did so far were Variant Dungeons (not criterion, not criterion savage), where the final boss fight is somewhat on par with the Dawntrail dungeons, and the Bozja duties, that are partially somewhat on the level of the Lvl 100 optional dungeons. I am not a bored triple legend calling TOP "mid" or something. And I really liked the dungeons in Dawntrail, please keep them coming!

That said, I do know some people struggle with it, it is tougher than what we got in Endwalker, but if you all wipe 20 times to a mechanic that has been around since Bozja, just shorter, there seems to be a problem with a fundamental understanding of FFXIV battle design. I wonder if some of your FC members don't get how snapshotting works / that it's safe to move on to the next place before the animation is through. The animations of an attack don't matter at all, never have. Once that orange area marker disappears, you are good to go. The cone AOEs at the side are a bit of an outlier because the silver grizzly things qualify as AOE markers, but you can see on the boss' castbar when it actually goes off and it doesn't matter if you stand in it beforehand. You can see this very clearly in the video Arokh made for you and linked you on page 2.

I played it three times or so so far, first time as scholar with an all new team, with no guides around because it was early access. Of course we wiped at first because we had to figure out what goes off first and what mechanic to prioritize, but once we understood this, it was doable. And at my second and third run a few days later, one done as DPS, one again as scholar, it was a lot smoother with more people who have been in the same situation already. And unlike White Mage I daresay Scholar doesn't have that many "oh shit" buttons, needs some more thought and educated guesses in what might come next as big damage etc. (That said, level 100 has Seraphism and although I hate the transformation with a passion, I will not deny it's big gameplay healing boost. However, at my first run I just got that skill like five minutes earlier and kind of forgot it existed, and the other time it was clunky use of it at best, because it's new.)

Go in with your FC again, record it yourself and then analyze who does what and if there is some big misunderstanding in a fundamental thing. Because 20 wipes on level 100 sound like that.

[Sora-Ta]

No thank you

[Zyvex]

I literally play expert roulette one handed most of the time while eating or watching a video on 2nd screen... I'd have never expected people actually manage to struggle there, how much more do you need than literal arrows pointing you where to go?

[Ppj_Ninek]

Sorry, but this issue is not with the dungeon, but with you and your tank. The dungeon is perfectly doable, even in random groups.

Maybe basic gameplay concepts are missing?

[Mlem]

Just add an Easy Mode to Duty Support.

"Doable" is much too hard for the MSQ, which is a story driven experience that most people only do once where repeated failure just interrupts the narrative and detracts from the the storytelling the game is trying to do. Nothing that literally every single subscribed player has to do a single time will ever be remotely interesting to dedicated players running it day in and out for currency. Just add an easy mode.

[Supersnow845]

An easy mode would only be worth it if it was just like

1) you take 1/4 damage
2) the NPC’s can rezz you
3) the mechanics took twice as long to go off

Actually redesigning fights or mechanics in a very easy mode really isn’t worth it for how few people struggle with them, even the very easy solo duties are actually partially redesigned (in from the cold gives more med kits and the monsters have smaller vision cones, lakshmi your blessing power to destroy her orbs is twice as large), doing that for every dungeon with duty support is way too much resources

[Mlem]

An easy mode would only be worth it if it was just like

1) you take 1/4 damage
2) the NPC’s can rezz you
3) the mechanics took twice as long to go off

Actually redesigning fights or mechanics in a very easy mode really isn’t worth it for how few people struggle with them, even the very easy solo duties are actually partially redesigned (in from the cold gives more med kits and the monsters have smaller vision cones, lakshmi your blessing power to destroy her orbs is twice as large), doing that for every dungeon with duty support is way too much resources

Yeah and maybe half knockback distances to help out around Maulhead. There doesn't need to be bespoke buffs for each and every dungeon. Just a massive generalist buff that's copy and pasted into each Duty Support. The only objective is so that literally everyone can clear the MSQ every step of the way without frustration and clear the final quest and start crafting, exploring, flying around, doing whatever they can then handle. Simple and easy.

In time, I suspect there will need to be a discussion about how much casual combat content there should be each patch because this is clearly divisive; there's clearly a demand for "True Casual", as it were, and that will ultimately compete with "Hardcore Casual" for dev resources but as a quick and dirty fix that gets people a game to play for another four months, it's super easy.

[MementoKoishi]

This is pretty sad to hear, if you honestly don't have a physical or mental impairment/disability, then you should really consider not being this lazy and actually learn the fight.