ELI5: How are the current dungeons hard?

[Jinglypockets]

Yes, and it's totally counterintuitive and amounts - once more - to how FF netcode works. It was okay-ish until DT, but in some places it starts to show.

It's very counterintuitive. I want to be clear: FFXIV's netcode is terrible, and it makes the game feel weird and janky.

However, it's still perfectly *functional*. If you play exclusively around telegraphs and completely ignore everything else, then everything about the game, the netcode, and the timing feels 100% consistent and fair.

It doesn't mean their netcode is *good* or that it wouldn't be better to be able to rely on the boss timing instead of the telegraph timing, but if you can flip that switch in your head it'll start to feel natural and you'll be dramatically more successful.

[EiraWoqiso]

For what it's worth, I don't think the castbar determining if you were in the AOE or not has anything to do with the netcode (except for the fraction of a second at the very end if you're trying to greed, or just have awful ping). As Jinglypockets said, the netcode in the game is definitely subpar, but being able to go into what was an AOE right after the castbar finishes isn't netcode, it's game design. Maybe it's game design to get around a different netcode issue, but it's not directly netcode related. It is counterintuitive and a little obnoxious to get used to, especially when some of the animations can take a couple seconds in some of the flashier fights, but once you adapt to it it's hardly noticeable and feels like second nature.

[Jinglypockets]

The most obnoxious thing about the netcode is that the game calculates and assigns how much damage you're going to take from a hit before that damage is actually applied -- usually about 0.5s before the damage actually takes effect, so the timeline looks like:

00:00.0: Boss starts casting Raidwide with a 4-second cast time.
00:03.5: You get assigned 10,000 damage from Raidwide.
00:03.6: You receive an absorb shield for 10,000 health.
00:04.0: Boss finishes casting Raidwide.
00:05.0: You receive 10,000 damage. 0 of the damage is absorbed by the shield, and you still have that shield despite it being applied before you took any damage.

Any mitigation you try to use for a big hit has to be applied *before* that damage gets calculated and assigned, otherwise it does literally nothing.

Which is why my Spreadlo frequently gets wasted if I'm just barely too slow with it, and things like Tank immunities have to be applied well in advance of tankbusters if you want them to actually work.

[Jinglypockets]

For what it's worth, I don't think the castbar determining if you were in the AOE or not has anything to do with the netcode (except for the fraction of a second at the very end if you're trying to greed, or just have awful ping). As Jinglypockets said, the netcode in the game is definitely subpar, but being able to go into what was an AOE right after the castbar finishes isn't netcode, it's game design. Maybe it's game design to get around a different netcode issue, but it's not directly netcode related. It is counterintuitive and a little obnoxious to get used to, especially when some of the animations can take a couple seconds in some of the flashier fights, but once you adapt to it it's hardly noticeable and feels like second nature.

Yeah, people are generally using "netcode" as a shorthand for "How the timing of things works in this game because of the workarounds the dev team has had to put in place as a result of their netcode."

[Caitamm]

Yes, and then you eat a vuln stack because for the server you are not in the same spot. Is it doable? Yes. But it's annoying as hell, and it stems not from the fight design but from how the client and server interact. A lot of other MMORPGs don't have that issue.

I've....never had that happen? Are you sure you're not getting hit by the side/frontal cones that sometimes overlap the mechanic and are misattributing it to the X/Os?

[jdtuggey]

I've....never had that happen? Are you sure you're not getting hit by the side/frontal cones that sometimes overlap the mechanic and are misattributing it to the X/Os?

Can't say I've had that happen either.
I've often seen people conflating "game is unfair or broken" with "I don't understand how to do this" though.
This behavior is all over gaming communities. :P

[CidHeiral]

Yes, and then you eat a vuln stack because for the server you are not in the same spot.

That's not how that works. You either legitimately failed the mechanic or your ping is absolutely abysmal.

[Jinglypockets]

I keep coming back to the "More nonstandard telegraphs" thing because it seems like a myth. Nonstandard telegraphs have been in widespread use for a really long time.

Here are bosses with nonstandard telegraphs I can think of off the top of my head just in base Endwalker:
Tower of Zot:
First boss: Watch cast names and locations of projectiles to find the safe spots on Transmute Fire and Transmute Bio
Second Boss: Manusya Confuse and the orbs around the outside of the room.

Tower of Babil
First boss: Negative/positive polarities, frontal line aoe where you have to watch boss facing instead of ground telegraph
Second boss: Frog/shrink mechanics, bombs with cross AOEs
Third boss: Lunar Nail, suck with continuous AOE in the center of the room

Vanaspati
First boss: Spinning you around, arms raised for half-room aoe, listening to mouths to find safe spot
Second boss: bubbles for safety from raidwide
Third boss: Symbols for safe squares, meteors for safe lines

Ktisis Hyperboreia
First boss: Footprints to find safe spot
Second boss: Heads to find safe spot for breath, orbs with cross AOEs
Third boss: Quadruple, Find safe meteorite without cracks, find safe side by watching the outside of the room

Aitiascope:
First boss: Watch arms for safe quadrants, watch spokes to avoid rebound
Second boss: Rock timing for safe spot from line AOE, AOE expands to clusters
Third boss: Thundaga wedges, Curtain Call, Firaga half-room AOEs

Dead Ends:
First boss: Wind moves the Miasma AOEs
Second boss: Order to Fire spokes
Third boss: Prance, watch wings for half-room AOE, watch butterflies for safe lines

Smileton
First boss: Red/blue faces
Second boss: Watch facing of adds to avoid AOEs
Third boss: Bomb conveyor belt arrows to find safe spot

Stigma Dreamscape
First boss: Guided missiles
Second boss: Numbers for line AOEs
Third boss: In/out AOE, forced movement

The only dungeon boss I can think of in 6.0 that doesn't have anything like this is the last boss in Zot, which I'm assuming is *very* challenging for the folks who are struggling with things like Alexandria.

[Arohk]

Compare the speed of resolution of, for example, the final boss of Malikah's well (the "5 cercles or crosses" part) with the X/O phase on the first boss of Alexandria. Now tell me they are the same.

Even if i admit that it is maybe a bit faster, how does that make it worse? The biggest challenge in those old dungeons is to stay awake, also a lot of people die to the Storge laser, even though it is telegraphed for a good 5 seconds before it fires and it is the same animation from Alexander. I say it again, people don't move because they wait for an orange circle on the floor instead of looking at the boss.

Stop taking the telegraph on the floor as the hint when to dodge, its only purpose is to show you the size of the AOE, not when you must move.

All mechanics in the game can be resolved by just moving, you don't even need sprint for any of them, one of the most difficult mechanics to dodge was probably Triple Apocalypse from Gaia.

[EiraWoqiso]

I keep coming back to the "More nonstandard telegraphs" thing because it seems like a myth. Nonstandard telegraphs have been in widespread use for a really long time.

Hell, look back to Cutter's Cry. Chimera was all about non-standard tells in ARR well before ARR's level cap.