Slightly Increase Crystal Tower Series Difficulty

[Chajii]

If we are going for the implementation-likelihood, I think the Crystal Tower problem can be solved by simply increasing the HP of the enemies, to let players get to experience the mechanics that are already in the raids.

[Deejudanne]

what's insane to me is that they even go after the ilvl requirements to prevent cheesing, just go after the job level

[Arrius]

Crystal Tower and Coils rework, please.

Doing the multiple marker stacking on Xande is a bad example which gets you killed everywhere else. Wished it would be nipped in the bud.

[Daralii]

If we are going for the implementation-likelihood, I think the Crystal Tower problem can be solved by simply increasing the HP of the enemies, to let players get to experience the mechanics that are already in the raids.

That would really only affect the second boss of Syrcus Tower. Outside of guaranteed instant kills, none of the mechanics do enough damage to even require a response.

[Chajii]

That would really only affect the second boss of Syrcus Tower. Outside of guaranteed instant kills, none of the mechanics do enough damage to even require a response.

Personally I don't think using guaranteed instant kills everywhere especially at Lv50 is a good idea, maybe adjust the damage number if you really want but instant kills would just make it harder than necessary; even Dun Scaith the raid famous for seeing deaths all over the place doesn't have many outright instant kill mechanics, I am totally fine to let people die after a few failures on mechanics but one seems a bit too much in my opinion.

[AlliciaCapulet]

It would be fixed if it just wasn't mandatory so new players don't get stuck trying to clear it even in its current form.

It would also be fixed if we stopped making every piece of mandatory content extremely easy. The assumption that everyone is incapable of learning a fight isn’t a great direction for the game.

This is a 24-man instance. Even in the more difficult alliance raids, you can easily carry one to three players who contribute very little if the rest of the group knows what they’re doing. At some point the group will still clear, even if a few people aren’t performing well.

Personally, I’d much rather have an engaging alliance raid where a few players might struggle than a completely trivial raid designed to accommodate the lowest possible level of play.

I’m not trying to argue for extreme difficulty here. I’m not asking for mandatory content to reach the level of Extreme trials. But at the very least, the raids could return to something closer to their original difficulty when they were first released.

Right now, a lot of older content has been stripped of its mechanics and challenge, and that’s what makes it feel dull. A bit more difficulty would actually make these raids more fun and memorable again. Devs really should stop carring so much for the wosrt 1% of the player base and think more for the average player of the player base.

[HyperiusUltima]

I'm surprised this is being talked about again outside the Dungeons Sub-Forum.

In general you've got a few solutions already brought here, but generally I think you need a mix of them.

1) iLv Sync. Fix the problem with it, and make it the Minimum Item Level across the board. Will it raise the difficulty? Sure; but it will also keep people from say, scrapping Aglaia's final boss and skipping his major mechanic that's actually really cool.

2) Increase HP for bosses in ARR and HW Alliance Raids. Both Mhach and Crystal Tower suffer from the power creep our abilities have gotten over the years, and they need to have a bump up in the game so they don't get thrown out even by iLv Sync.

3) As an alternative to increasing HP, treat certain mechanics a la Ifrit Invulnerability State so that they are seen and done. Glasya Labolas would probably be the only one to benefit from this one and also have an update to show a progress gauge for him during his major wipe mechanic. Otherwise, the HP Increase is probably more justified.

[Aidorouge]

It would also be fixed if we stopped making every piece of mandatory content extremely easy. The assumption that everyone is incapable of learning a fight isn’t a great direction for the game.

This is a 24-man instance. Even in the more difficult alliance raids, you can easily carry one to three players who contribute very little if the rest of the group knows what they’re doing. At some point the group will still clear, even if a few people aren’t performing well.

Personally, I’d much rather have an engaging alliance raid where a few players might struggle than a completely trivial raid designed to accommodate the lowest possible level of play.

I’m not trying to argue for extreme difficulty here. I’m not asking for mandatory content to reach the level of Extreme trials. But at the very least, the raids could return to something closer to their original difficulty when they were first released.

Right now, a lot of older content has been stripped of its mechanics and challenge, and that’s what makes it feel dull. A bit more difficulty would actually make these raids more fun and memorable again. Devs really should stop carring so much for the wosrt 1% of the player base and think more for the average player of the player base.

You're operating under the assumption that all players want challenging content though, some are literally just here for the story, or if they DO want harder fights, they don't want them in their 24 mans (otherwise Chaotic would be popping off all the time) and prefer doing it in other pieces of side content or content specifically designed for the hardcore crowd, of which Dawntrail is bursting at the seams for it if that's what you're looking for.

Personally I don't care for doing alliance raids, and hated having to do even Crystal Tower with Mhach, Ivalice and especially Nier confirming that alliance raids was content I didn't want to do anymore to where I was more than happy to never use the alliance raid roulette again and will gladly pass right over whatever alliance raids EW and DT offer, never unlocking them or even finishing Nier.

Dying all the time and having to be dragged across the finish line was not something I would call "engaging, fun, or memorable" (doubly so when some people would prefer to kick me for failing and dying too much, as what happened to me with Ivalice) where I was left wishing I could just get done and leave already, and I did just that with Puppet's Bunker after a bunch of people thought it would be "HAHA SO FUNNY" to turn it into PVP during one of the boss fights and were keen to target my party in particular when they realized I was the only new person there and needed to be "hazed" or whatever.

You can have your super-hard Crystal Tower when they remove it as a requirement from the MSQ so new players don't end up stonewalled on it, or feeling like dead weight forced to be there for a veteran player's amusement.

[AlliciaCapulet]

You're operating under the assumption that all players want challenging content though…

As I said earlier, I’m not asking for Extreme-level difficulty. I’m simply suggesting bringing alliance raids closer to their original difficulty when they were first released. That level of challenge was still far below Extreme trials and nowhere near something like Chaotic difficulty.

I don’t mean this in a negative way, but aside from Chaotic, 24-man alliance raids really aren’t that difficult. Most bosses only have three or four mechanics to learn. There’s a bit of pressure, but once you understand the mechanics and react properly, it’s very manageable.

If someone feels like they’re constantly being dragged across the finish line in that kind of content, it might just mean they need a bit more time to learn the mechanics and pay attention to what’s happening in the fight. Designing content around the idea that there should be almost no difficulty at all ends up making it boring for everyone else.

Also, the fact that alliance raids continue to pop regularly shows that players are still running them. And aside from the ARR and HW ones, most of the later alliance raids are already around the level of difficulty I’m talking about. If that difficulty were truly a major issue, the forums would likely be full of posts asking for them to be nerfed — which really isn’t the case.

So I think a small amount of challenge is reasonable, even in older content.

[Jeeqbit]

You're operating under the assumption that all players want challenging content though, some are literally just here for the story, or if they DO want harder fights, they don't want them in their 24 mans (otherwise Chaotic would be popping off all the time)

There are two reasons why Chaotic doesn't pop all the time.

1. It's not in a roulette.
2. It has a phase which is a bit too rough, where "casual prog" statistically ground to a halt for many players.

Nobody is asking for it to have a phase that is hard to carry players through; just a phase where a certain percentage of the players have to do well. For example, Alliance Raids have often required the tanks to do well with interrupts and add positioning - so that's 3 players that have to do well in many alliance raids. What if only 6, or 9, players have to do well? The rest can just get carried through for story and that's fine.

Orbonne was a good example of this because it had pads and a certain number of players had to stand on them, but they made an allowance where a certain number of players didn't have to, in order to account for new players. They eventually nerfed it once the majority of people doing it were new players (due to it not being current).

Dying all the time and having to be dragged across the finish line was not something I would call "engaging, fun, or memorable"

It's not guaranteed that you'll be dragged across the finish line. It largely depends on if you use your eyes and figure things out correctly or not, which is particularly easy in an alliance raid where you can just see what everyone else is doing and follow them. And again, in many cases, it can be designed to account for players who ignore the mechanic, such as the pads mechanic.

With no risk, there is no fun. Yoshi-P realized this right before Dawntrail and admitted it publicly. If players don't ever die, they'll conclude that the game is easy, and then tell everyone who doesn't play yet that the game is easy. And if they've gone through the entire story without dying once, then, they're not wrong in telling everyone it's easy.