Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ dungeon difficulty

[Arohk]

What part of P10S was hard?

P10 savage, good question, it was mainly the speed of resolving mechanics, compared with the raids now, if there was one more second of leeway to stack/ spread before the mechanics resolved.
ALso the narrow bridge over the poison killed a lot of people because of the janky movement in Standard Controls, i had to switch to legacy for that boss which i never had to do before.

[nguyentri11]

If anything I feel like P10S is perfect example of why good pacing and challenge makes a fight fun.

[Banggugyangu]

P10 savage, good question, it was mainly the speed of resolving mechanics, compared with the raids now, if there was one more second of leeway to stack/ spread before the mechanics resolved.
ALso the narrow bridge over the poison killed a lot of people because of the janky movement in Standard Controls, i had to switch to legacy for that boss which i never had to do before.

I don't remember P10S having any faster resolutions than any other fight... And that's kinda my whole point... All the fights have basically the same amount of time to resolve mechanics across the whole game. There are some mechanics that have EXTRA time, but I don't know of any mechanics that are really shorter than the majority. From the moment a tell is given until the time the mechanic resolves is typically around 4-5 seconds.

On the jankiness of standard movement, being a controller player, I've always been legacy movement, so I can't comment. I will admit that I did have plenty of times where I dipped my toes in the poo, but it was always my own poor execution when it happened. Now, what I'll admit on that fight that made it a bit more difficult was the jankiness of turret targeting... I can't tell you how many times we'd be lined up, no one moving whatsoever, and a turret randomly targets someone else. I might even have a vod of that still. But I don't factor jank into difficulty, honestly. Jank is something not working as intended. It sucks, and it can absolutely screw prog when it happens, but jank is its own category.

[Arohk]

On the jankiness of standard movement, being a controller player, I've always been legacy movement, so I can't comment. I will admit that I did have plenty of times where I dipped my toes in the poo, but it was always my own poor execution when it happened. Now, what I'll admit on that fight that made it a bit more difficult was the jankiness of turret targeting... I can't tell you how many times we'd be lined up, no one moving whatsoever, and a turret randomly targets someone else.

So if you don't know the jankiness of standard controls, it is like this, you run straight forward with W or holding both mouse buttons, but when you use any skills that attack the boss, you character turns to the boss and you run towards him instead, which results in you running off the edge.

Legacy movement doesnt have that problem because your movement is camera based instead of character based, even though your character turns to the boss when ever you attack it doesnt effect the direction you were moving.

and i can 100% guarantee you that mechanics resolved a lot faster in P10 than usually, especialy when you had the stack/spread mechanic on the side bridge, i always had to stack or spread at the far north of the small platform, and if i didn't move the moment when my debuff ran out i wouldn't make it to the middle for a party stack.

If i compare that to other sack / spread mechanics in the current raid tier, there is a lot of time to adjust, P10 debuffs resolved at least 1 second too quickly.

[Banggugyangu]

So if you don't know the jankiness of standard controls, it is like this, you run straight forward with W or holding both mouse buttons, but when you use any skills that attack the boss, you character turns to the boss and you run towards him instead, which results in you running off the edge.

Legacy movement doesnt have that problem because your movement is camera based instead of character based, even though your character turns to the boss when ever you attack it doesnt effect the direction you were moving.

and i can 100% guarantee you that mechanics resolved a lot faster in P10 than usually, especialy when you had the stack/spread mechanic on the side bridge, i always had to stack or spread at the far north of the small platform, and if i didn't move the moment when my debuff ran out i wouldn't make it to the middle for a party stack.

If i compare that to other sack / spread mechanics in the current raid tier, there is a lot of time to adjust, P10 debuffs resolved at least 1 second too quickly.

You're talking about the two debuffs everyone gets with a spread and either role stacks or buddy stacks? Those debuffs are on you for 41 and 45 seconds. The shorter resolves first. That's still 4 seconds between. If you think it "resolves faster", you're likely waiting for the animation of the first before moving. Move as soon as the debuff icon falls off. You have 4 seconds to get in position. (I just went back and watched one of my old P10S vods to confirm.)

Also... standard movement sounds horribly stupid.

[AnjouMaaka]

I'm on the upper end of competency, though by no means at are near the top. That said, I...didn't find P10S particularly difficult... What part of P10S was hard? Omega was a raid series where SE was coming back from the dumpster fires that were gordias and midas. They went a bit too far in the casual direction with a lot of omega because of this. I personally thing Eden was the best raid series in terms of difficulty curve. It was certainly harder than omega while not being absurd like alexander. Pandaemonium, honestly, I would put in the lower end of things... I'd say pandaemonium was easier than omega, if I were just judging on fight difficulty.

I think you assumed a lot from what you read. I did not personally struggle with the difficulty of p10s. But watching it crap all over party finder for 50 weeks because of how terrible my luck is with 2nd raid loot pretty much made it obvious that this raid is far too difficult for the vast majority of players that do savage in party finder. I am sticking my nose out here for them, not for myself. Just cause I didn't personally struggle doesn't mean I am incapable of seeing how hard it is for others. I am currently progging UCOB so you could probably throw me into the "ultimate raider" category at this point, but I still consider myself a midcore player. Overall, as I implied with my overview, DT dungeons are not that difficult, and I highly doubt anyone complaining about it does anything that's not required for MSQ. But, it makes me wonder how they could struggle with DT dungeons after doing Storm's Crown, which is required for MSQ.

Shuuchi has the right of it on being okay to wipe, but there is a limit to that. Wiping to trash mobs is embarrassing and really shouldn't even happen outside of those beginner ARR/HW dungeons, but we have healer mains in NA that apparently think it's okay to have a vendetta against dark knights where it is considered griefing to even choose playing the job in the first place. I'm sorry, but if the self-sustain on warrior is considered balanced by the devs, then why is dark knight still lacking so much defensively? This question is rhetorical and aimed at SE so you have no obligation to answer it. We also have tanks that just don't use their cooldowns because the game doesn't teach you how to tank dungeons. You are expected to learn through trial and error on that, which I think is good cause I strongly dislike it when a game holds your hand through everything.

[Carin-Eri]

Which is why when I was greeted with Dawntrail and it's new difficult curve I gotta say it's pushing me away. I can handle the mechanics after a spot of failure up until the optional dungeon Strayborough Deadwalk. This single Dungeon has exhausted me not only because of it's sheer difficulty spike but because it's uninventing, its unfriendly and downright far too punishing for for casual content. Even if I can get behind the mechanics, even if I get them down and can push through with my disabilities it's so exhausting to play through on a daily basis if I do get it because I don't just have to worry about myself but other new players, other casuals or players with disabilities worse than my own.

What am I met with when I bring up how unfun this content difficulty is? "Use Trusts" "Get Good" "You don't need to do this content lol." even when I do offer actual criticism. This difficulty is misplaced, it's not welcome by quite a number of players, players that are worried that the upcoming Raids will be just as harsh and unforgiving. We've had Extreme and Savage difficulties for so long now, why are we bothering to put this level of difficulty into the casual side of the game? Funny thing is I actually agreed things should be made more difficult, ShB and EW Extremes were easy as it is... but that's where the difficulty should be, not in our daily Expert Dungeons.

Personally I hope this content gets nerfed, I hope it becomes more accessible to more players because if they double down on the difficulty you'll be seeing a lot more casuals drop the game over time.

I have to say, I've had Strayborough Deadwalk come up on roulette quite a few times recently and I've noticed a trend toward negative reaction when it pops. I've had an instance where two players quit as soon as they realised what it was, a few where the team-chat turned into a discussion about how dismayed everyone was that it was THAT dungeon, and one where it was a total slog as the Monk on the team died on the annoying 'head' boss and didn't want to accept a revive, resulting in a vote kick which replaced said Monk with a rather unenthusiastic (but not terrible either) Ninja.

[PurpleDragonLady]

I am late to respond but I fully agree with you. My husband does too. We are not "hardcore" players and we are older and slower to react. This is one of the reasons why we are unsubbing for the first time in years. We resub JUST in time to keep our house...but we are waiting for this to be more casual player friendly.

We quit World of Warcraft when they focused on Mythic Raiding and ignored the casuals. I don't want FFXIV to follow that route. We need normal and mythic dungeons.

This game use to be fun...now it's just a chore.

I have played for 7 years and been through all the good and the bad. This is the WORST. The quiet majority are going to sit back and hope for 8.0 to fix what they broke. Until then...I have returned to World of Warcraft after a 3 year break.

[Jaxtaro]

I mean..I kinda predicted this...the "cores" (hardcore, midcore) will burn through content, do it a few times and shelve the game for the next challenge on another game, and the more casual types will bail from the feeling of futility, and like clockwork...queue times go up to ridiculous levels and you have a collapse. This is exactly what happened in Everquest with Gates of Discord, and WoW with Cataclysm. It's the oldest story in MMO's, and the sauce that worked great was Legion in WoW, where plenty of content was available for everyone.

[Arohk]

I mean..I kinda predicted this...the "cores" (hardcore, midcore) will burn through content, do it a few times and shelve the game for the next challenge on another game, and the more casual types will bail from the feeling of futility, and like clockwork...queue times go up to ridiculous levels and you have a collapse. This is exactly what happened in Everquest with Gates of Discord, and WoW with Cataclysm. It's the oldest story in MMO's, and the sauce that worked great was Legion in WoW, where plenty of content was available for everyone.

With all respect, FFXIV is not anywhere near the difficulty of Cataclysm.
If they did what Blizzard di back then, you would actually have a reason to cry here.

FFXIV has no DPS checks and no RNG in normal fights, if you can't react to a 3-5 seconds well telegraphed bossmechanic that is always exactly the same and always at the same moment of the fight, what are you even doing with your life.