Normal Mode & Hard Mode Dungeons?!

[MeowyWowie]

Correction, it required you having the "right" jobs leveled or you were SOL, which past promivyon meant a ninja tank, a whm and a smn, with a guest appearance made by DRK during the Diabolos fight.

Sorry, but no. Don't mistake your inability to form your own strategies as poor design. I had fun making my own strategies. Most of my CoP missions were completed with DD heavy parties, and I think I only used SMN for promies. Even completed Snoll 1/1 with rdm, whm and 4 DD, the "hardest" fight in CoP as some called it.

All it took was patience, thought (strategy) and being prepared. I'm sorry you had to resort to Wiki or another means of getting someone else's strategy.

The same can be said for nearly every other fight in the game. You didn't need BLMs for Fafnir, didn't need PLD tank for Alexander, didn't need RNGs for Khimaira, etc. The list goes on and on.

If you actually tried to form your own strategies you would have known it was hard, sure, but not impossible.

[RedFox]

No. I do not agree at all with the OP. If anything, maybe have seperate dungeons. And just have some dungeons that are a decent challenge, some that are hard, and some that are /ragequit hard. Its hard to have any fascination or awe or "legendary" feats about Absolute Virtue, if he has an easy mode. So I am not against there being normal, hard , and elite dificulty dungeons, but I prefer then to be seperate events.

I respect your opinion but if you read through the thread you would know I was using Hard Mode/Normal Mode as an example. Where do people get the Idea that I said anything about wanting dungeons/raids being easy mode. No one wants easy modes, not even casuals.

When I speak of dungeons i'm speaking of "Raids" not wow type little heroic dungeons. I'm speaking of Dynamis, Limbus, Promy's etc etc. Not 10 min dungeons that you can skip most of the mobs and fight 1 single NM at the end. I hope there are branching paths that lead to boss fights at the end of each tier. We need as much variety as possible!

[Amsai]

I respect your opinion but if you read through the thread you would know I was using Hard Mode/Normal Mode as an example. Where do people get the Idea that I said anything about wanting dungeons/raids being easy mode. No one wants easy modes, not even casuals.

When I speak of dungeons i'm speaking of "Raids" not wow type little heroic dungeons. I'm speaking of Dynamis, Limbus, Promy's etc etc. Not 10 min dungeons that you can skip most of the mobs and fight 1 single NM at the end. I hope there are branching paths that lead to boss fights at the end of each tier. We need as much variety as possible!

Sorry, just reading your OP, I thought I understood you pretty well. Let me not try to argue against you, but instead just tell you what I want for endgame.

I want nothing but /ragequit hard dungeons to be perfectly honest. And I loved FFXIs variety in the types of dungeons they had, so I would like to see more varied dungeons than these first ones that seem more like western MMOs endgame types. Branching paths, different choices, puzzles, time limits, maze like dungeons, randomized floors, hard and complex boss fights, etc. etc. So If I am understanding you right, we are probably o the same page on those issues......... i think.

However, I still greatly disagree with you about larger numbers, and in fact think just the opposite. Large-scale PvE events are just an excuse to have the skilled players carry the weak players through a dungeon. It also becomes mob-like, and unwieldy. Strategy breaks down more often than not because people don't pay attention. And I find in most cases it just becomes no challenge and just a group of players zombieing or zerging the mob to death with numbers instead of strategy. The link shell that I was in Low-maned everything and it was way more fun than a large group, and I was more loyal to the group because we were such a small and close-nit group. In large groups, you don't feel like a hero, but just another cog in the machine. Low-man groups also can be more challanging because there is less room for error. Also low-man groups have a lesser chance of LS drama and ninja-lotting and not being able to do the event because of no shows (the less people there are the easier it is to meet everyones schedule). So yes make extremely challenging and varied dungeons SE, but keep them as 4 and 8 man dungeons. If I ever see another Dynamis like Large scale event, it will be too soon.

[RedFox]

While I understand where you are coming from and yes I do agree with some of the stuff you're saying. You/Your LS doesn't equal everyone. Please read my other posts in this thread. You guys might be all good players which is great but there is always someone who is not as good as you and your linkshell. If you just want to play with your little group.. so be it. What I suggested is why not make a dungeon/raid for people who want to play with you know... their whole linkshell that consists of more than say 20 members? Small groups are great yes. But big groups can be exciting as well. You're asking for everything hard which is fine but you are only catering to half the people that play.

Why would the skilled players carry the weak? That is a choice my friend, you don't need to invite them if you don't want to. Most players stick to their kind anyway but there is always that moment where it's nice to have new players join you so they can experience the same thing as you.

I would not invite a new player to a difficult dungeon anytime soon but does that mean they should never get a chance to go with my core group?

As far as Dynamis goes i'm speaking on difficulty and terrain. Not on how many players should be in the raid. I'm not expecting or wanting 50+ members in a raid group.

[DGMart]

I agree with many posts in here including the original poster. Most people want epic battles and low manning raids is not epic sorry. If I want to low man everything I would go play wow heroic dungeons. I'm a skilled casual player and would like the option to do a hard mode if there are multiple modes. There needs to be a differentiation between skilled players and not so skilled players with hard mode equipment drops that are clearly higher class as you can say. That creates goals for all players to connect with. I am all for variety and everyone should be as well. Variety brings players together more than not.

[Dreamer]

I'd rather not have modes like WoW, but rather something more akin to LotRO's instance scaling.

[Duelle]

Sorry, but no. Don't mistake your inability to form your own strategies as poor design. I had fun making my own strategies. Most of my CoP missions were completed with DD heavy parties, and I think I only used SMN for promies. Even completed Snoll 1/1 with rdm, whm and 4 DD, the "hardest" fight in CoP as some called it.

You decide to quote an encounter that runs possibly the best with a 4 DD set up, seeing that Snoll was FFXI's version of a DPS race. I was a DRK main, and my class was useless in most of the CoP missions barring stun duty on Diabolos. Jobs like DRG also were completely trumped by WAR/NIN of all job combinations before the 2-hander update. Even in promys NIN and WAR/NIN dominated everything else because of survivability. Could 6 BSTs tackle their way through everything? Sure. Was it preferred or anywhere near accepted? No.

I'm fine with challenge and want normal/hard modes, but also want group comps to not compromise someone's fun just because they are X class that isn't as useful for the content as Y class. I saw it firsthand and it killed a lot of the entertainment for me right off the bat. Sadly, it has a high risk of happening here as well because of the fact people can change jobs.

[DGMart]

I'd rather not have modes like WoW, but rather something more akin to LotRO's instance scaling.

Well WoW has several types of hard modes and that's one thing I have to admit I liked. One was in the Ulduar like someone explained earlier. Example would be fighting XT robot boss where if you took it down fast enough to about 30% he would enrage kinda and do extra damage, create black holes in the ground, and summon extra adds. Normal would just be tank and spank and watch out for a add here and there. Some hard modes are triggered while in fight and some you have to complete normal mode before entering hard modes etc. I'm not sure how lotro worked so care to explain?!

[Amsai]

Most people want epic battles and Large-scale raids are not epic sorry.

FIXED.

Large-scale PvE events only feel epic because of the amount of people involved. In reality, they are easy-mode. If I can take 20 or 30 players and just throw them at a boss mob until it dies, then there is no real challenge and it is definately not epic. Now I won't argue that Large-scale PvE events might be more fun for you, that gets down to your personal preference. But don't mistake fun for epic. Epic means heroic or majestic. There is nothing majestic about having 20 or so other people to fall back on. That implies your weak. And likewise you cant be a heroic when you and 20 or so of your friends are ganging up on something.

Imagine the hardest Large-scale PvE event yo have ever encountered, and then Imagine only 4-8 people doing it. Now imagine that the devs dont lower the difficulty, and yet you can only use a party of 4-8 people and you win. Tell me thats not an epic. Tell me thats not heroic. Now Imagine 20 or so people going to do the same event, and they win.......... How much respect do you have for their skill? I wouldnt have any for them, would you?

[DGMart]

FIXED.

Large-scale PvE events only feel epic because of the amount of people involved. In reality, they are easy-mode. If I can take 20 or 30 players and just throw them at a boss mob until it dies, then there is no real challenge and it is definately
not epic. Now I won't argue that Large-scale PvE events might be more fun for you, that gets down to your personal preference. But don't mistake fun for epic. Epic means heroic or majestic. There is nothing majestic about having 20 or so other people to fall back on. That implies your weak. And likewise you cant be a heroic when you and 20 or so of your friends are ganging up on something.

Imagine the hardest Large-scale PvE event yo have ever encountered, and then Imagine only 4-8 people doing it. Now imagine that the devs dont lower the difficulty, and yet you can only use a party of 4-8 people and you win. Tell me thats not an epic. Tell me thats not heroic. Now Imagine 20 or so people going to do the same event, and they win.......... How much respect do you have for their skill? I wouldnt have any for them, would you?

Really?! You can't be serious.. I love how you like to put words in my mouth because that is not what I said. Do you not understand that they could scale the difficulty of dungeons accordingly to how many players that are in a raid.

Let's just use WOW as an example since everyone compares this game to ffxi and wow. They have 10 man and 25 man raids generally. If you think you are skilled enough to go into a 25 man with less than 19 people then good for you. You know what you get for doing something like that? An achievement! That's what you want correct? To feel heroic that you accomplished something in a smaller group by doing big scale events that are difficult.

By going into a "capped" raid with a smaller group then intended either makes the guys entering idiots or skilled. With that said is it heroic? Possibly. Is it epic? Hardly. Epic can be based solely on content. Fighting a wyrm/dragon for the first time ever can be epic. It all depends on the scale of the fight. A tank and spank is not epic whether with 4 or 20 people in my opinion.

I want to ask you this first, do you have a linkshell and is it a bigger linkshell? Do you want to raid with your linkshell members and do you want to group up with different members occasionally or take the same people all the time?

Lastly why do you worry about what others do? Do you think they care if you respect them or not. If they are having fun and are enjoying themselves that's all that matters.