Here we go again

[Mawlzy]

Am I truly so disconnected because I don’t think the dungeons are that hard … like I feel gaslighted

Maybe these people just don’t run ANY content enough? Like none of this is new mechanics. There’s a level 70 dungeon ( the burn drone 2nd boss) which has the same blue spikes coming from the side you dodge

You seem genuinely interested, so I'll gladly offer some speculations from my own experience.

When 7.3 dropped, the peak player count increased by a factor of 3. What were those 2/3rds of the players doing since 7.2? Possibly playing other games. They almost certainly weren't running FFXIV dungeons. Why would they?

I don't recall how many required dungeons there are in 7.0-7.2, but multiply that by two (I ran an alt through to the end of 7.2) and that is close to the number of dungeons I have run in the period from June 28 2024 to today. I spent 99% of my time in PvP and a bunch of other activities.

You mention a level 70 dungeon. I have no recollection of that dungeon, no idea what a burn drone is, and never recall seeing blue spikes. I imagine that is true of many players.

So I think you're onto something. A significant fraction of the player base only runs dungeons when they are compelled to do so. This is probably because they don't much enjoy running dungeons, and spend their time engaged with all the other activities FF14 offers. The mostly likely reason someone doesn't like something in a game is because they are bad at it to begin with.

Thus when confronted with the latest one, which they are required to clear so they can find out what happens in the story, they are primed to be pissed off, completely out of practice, and have no long-term knowledge of mechanics because they simply haven't run many dungeons over the last few years. And in some cases it's doubtless true that if such players just practiced more and ran lots of dungeons, they'd find the latest one easier. But many players do not, because to them dungeons are an irritant that only serve to gate progress.

The consensus in this thread appears to be that such players are not playing the game properly and should just leave. I'm personally fine with that for myself, but it does have consequences.

The first boss in the new dungeon is the hardest. Because he heckles with the mechanics. But he has very little HP and they can't upfront one-shot you. You can only die if you got spanked by 2 or 3 hits at once. The second one is just a vibe check. The third one is almost exactly the same as Mt. Gulgs second boss but replace the water donut with lightning orbital line nukes.

I found the first boss trivial and the second boss impossible. People have different skills.

[BlisteringFrost]

I found the first boss trivial and the second boss impossible. People have different skills.

Do those skills include looking down at the floor?

[Mawlzy]

Do those skills include looking down at the floor?

Do you want to be rude, or do you want to have a sensible discussion?

I'll take the low-probability option and explain to you exactly my experience of the second boss.

I prefer to play MCH, but I tend to survive better on WAR hence I played WAR. For those of you who dislike Wuk Lamat, you'll be pleased to know she died twice because I forgot to put on tank stance. Once we got that sorted out...

Second boss. I figure I can only hit the one I'm tethered to. Lucky guess. Get yeeted in. Okay. I'm dueling this thing.

I guess first are some irrelevant auto-attacks, then objects start appearing. Okay the barrette things produce line AoEs, they come in pairs so there's the jumping into where the first one went off business, then there are spherical things that drop, yip circle AoEs with a tiny avoid area, okay, and some wiggly things that move I need to avoid. Fine.

Died to all this as I figured out what the AoEs were, but that was expected, No worries, go again.

Second time, things are not going great. I've now noticed there's a donut AoE I hadn't see before. Not too sure why SE thinks 4 overlapping AoEs are necessary in a MSQ dungeon but I keep plugging away.

Get one-shot by something. Puzzled.

Third time. Exact same result.

Tab out, watch a guide. Oh there's a spell that needs to be interrupted. Okay. Write the name of the cast on my notepad.

Fourth time. Check I have an interrupt on my hotbar. Yip. Go again. Mistime the interrupt, die. No problem. We're making progress.

Fifth time. Nail the interrupt, immediately thereafter die to the tankbuster. Right, so hold more mit for the tankbuster.

Sixth time. Seem to survive the tankbuster but die shortly thereafter.

By about the ninth time I realize the problem is I'm picking up vuln stacks like a drunk pulling quarters from the fountains outside Caesars Palace. So I put all my focus on doing a better job of avoiding the AoEs. Rewatch the guide at 0.25x. Try to plot a path that minimizes getting clipped.

And I can't do it. I kept going until somewhere between 15 and 20 wipes, and by that point I'd had enough.

So yeah, I was looking at the floor.

[Volgia]

Do you want to be rude, or do you want to have a sensible discussion?

I'll take the low-probability option and explain to you exactly my experience of the second boss.

Man I wish I was at that level to figure out a boss, that sounds like fun. I breezed my way through it, just avoided all the AoEs and was gucci.

[Mawlzy]

Man I wish I was at that level to figure out a boss, that sounds like fun. I breezed my way through it, just avoided all the AoEs and was gucci.

I get that if you enjoy dungeons it must be a downer when they present zero challenge. It's why when I play chess against Stockfish I choose a setting where I figure to lose 90% of the time. I like testing myself.

Wouldn't it be more fun for you if dungeons came with difficulty options?

[Volgia]

I get that if you enjoy dungeons it must be a downer when they present zero challenge. It's why when I play chess against Stockfish I choose a setting where I figure to lose 90% of the time. I like testing myself.

Wouldn't it be more fun for you if dungeons came with difficulty options?

I would like a harder mode yeah. But I think the problem with separating it into optional content and making the story mode way too easy it kind of takes me out of my immersion. Like if you spend 50 hours of story time hyping up a looming threat like Thordan and when you get to finally fight him none of his attacks really hurt you and you take him out real fast, it takes me out of my immersion.

The other thing is that while it's nice to have NPCs to do the story mode I think this is an area where if you were with people they would have helped you clear, dungeons are the only time where hardcore and casual players collide.

[Mawlzy]

I would like a harder mode yeah. But I think the problem with separating it into optional content and making the story mode way too easy it kind of takes me out of my immersion. Like if you spend 50 hours of story time hyping up a looming threat like Thordan and when you get to finally fight him none of his attacks really hurt you and you take him out real fast, it takes me out of my immersion.

The other thing is that while it's nice to have NPCs to do the story mode I think this is an area where if you were with people they would have helped you clear, dungeons are the only time where hardcore and casual players collide.

You'll appreciate based on the exchanges in this thread, that's precisely why some of us play with NPCs.

But I totally get the bit about immersion which is why I think MSQ should have optional difficulty settings. You miss out on really feeling like you battled The Big Bad. I come out when I run w/ players after spending most of my time flat on my face, and the Scions tell me how amazing I am.

[FlorineC]

Do you want to be rude, or do you want to have a sensible discussion?

...snip... something about FRU (what's that? thought "CT" was crystal tower?)... usual claim anyone can do anything despite it being clearly false... blah blah.. Oh, actual question:

Pot, meet Kettle.

No and no. If I'm rusty or haven't played a game in a while, I figure it is my responsibility to get up to speed with the content I enjoy. The problem I have had with instanced PvE in 14 is that, not only is it side content to what I actually enjoy doing, some of it is required content, and from my perspective it has changed massively.

...

Into Stormblood, MSQ dungeons weren't the dance you describe.

So why is it not your responsible to get up to speed on instanced PvE content after months off in this case? And if instanced PvE content isn't what you enjoy doing... why are you doing it? There's nothing locked behind this dungeon except for a trial that I'm gonna guess you also won't like. The cutscenes are all on youtube if you want to watch the story

As for Storm Blood, the MSQ very much had dungeon bosses similar to this where you did the same kind of dance. Bardam's Mettle is I think the most obvious example since they're both non-standard fights with a focus on individual responsibility. The first phase has you dodging four alternating sets of checkerboard aoes, not dissimilar to the alternating line aoes from the blades in the current dungeon, while avoiding a gaze mechanic. The second phase has you taking towers, placing/dodging donut aoes, and placing/dodging chasing aoes, before gathering behind the boss to dodge heavy strike and finally dodging a set of aoes dropping meteors. The third phase then has you dodging a donut aoe while two heavy strikes go off on opposite ends of the arena while identifying which meteor doesn't get destroyed so that you can use it to line of site another meteor dropping from the center. These are all dances from just one fight in just one dungeon. You may find that particular dance easier or harder than the second boss of this current dungeon, that's highly subjective I'd say, but the design was there. It's always been there.

[FlorineC]

Get one-shot by something. Puzzled.

Third time. Exact same result.

Tab out, watch a guide. Oh there's a spell that needs to be interrupted. Okay. Write the name of the cast on my notepad.

Sorry for triple posting, but I did want to mention as a word of advice that if a cast is interruptible, the bar will flashing/pulsating, so you can look out for that if you decide to come back in the future.

[Mikey_R]

I guess first are some irrelevant auto-attacks, then objects start appearing. Okay the barrette things produce line AoEs, they come in pairs so there's the jumping into where the first one went off business, then there are spherical things that drop, yip circle AoEs with a tiny avoid area, okay, and some wiggly things that move I need to avoid. Fine.

Died to all this as I figured out what the AoEs were, but that was expected, No worries, go again.

You didn't die to those.

Second time, things are not going great. I've now noticed there's a donut AoE I hadn't see before. Not too sure why SE thinks 4 overlapping AoEs are necessary in a MSQ dungeon but I keep plugging away.

Get one-shot by something. Puzzled.

Third time. Exact same result.

Tab out, watch a guide. Oh there's a spell that needs to be interrupted. Okay. Write the name of the cast on my notepad.

You didn't get one shot by anything up to this point.

Fifth time. Nail the interrupt, immediately thereafter die to the tankbuster. Right, so hold more mit for the tankbuster.

This is the first thing that will kill you without mitigation.


How do I know this? Easy, I tested it.

That video shows 3 runs. The first I used no mitigation and got hit by every mechanic once. The second run, I got hit by everything, but started to use mitigation. I only took one stab at that but it does show that, even at 4 vuln stacks, with just a Damnation, you will survive. I did die shortly after to balls, but I suspect it is possible to live longer, I just didn't want to test further. The last clip is doing the fight, dodging everything and then getting trolled by Wuk Lamat when I went to help her in her arena >_>

Gear wise, ilevel 748, no food or materia #9I show all gear at the start).

I don't mind when people say they struggle, or thy find things difficult. There are going to be ways around it whether that is getting help from others or asking for a new 'easy' difficulty for trusts where you get 1 revive and 25% health increase for example. However, over exaggerating what happened, in this case when you died, does not help your cause at all.