Thread: Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Wasn't the Coil raids designed the same way? "Do this right or you die"

Yea but it was not as severe as Gordias.

SE now throws some cruddy things in to punish you more beyond dying. Like AS7 if one person dies, the boss gets a stack. Or if one person dies to AS3, it will make the already punishing DPS checks that more severe.

SE wanted to make a more difficult raid, but all they did was make a punishing raid. Midas is in a better place but still suffers from some poor design choices.

Originally Posted by Velhart

Yea but it was not as severe as Gordias.

SE now throws some cruddy things in to punish you more beyond dying. Like AS7 if one person dies, the boss gets a stack. Or if one person dies to AS3, it will make the already punishing DPS checks that more severe.

SE wanted to make a more difficult raid, but all they did was make a punishing raid. Midas is in a better place but still suffers from some poor design choices.

T7 pre nerf :
- One person got petrified and watch his teamates --> wipe
- Bad kitter --> wipe
- healer miss the petrification of Renaud --> wipe
- If Renauds are stacked and one of them is hidden behind other, he will not be touched by Petrification --> wipe
- Depending of the moment, one Renaud killed accidentally --> wipe
- The player with Cursed Shriek took a bad position --> wipe
- The player with Cursed Shriek is petrified by the healer with Cursed Voice or any other player --> wipe
- Two people touched by Fireballs together --> nearly wipe
- Deal asap with Venomous Tail or --> wipe
- Add Lamia are not killed asap --> wipe

I have surely forgotten other ways to wipe on this fight.

The difference between a fight in Coil and a fight in Alexander :
- Coil fights are shorter than Alexander fights (except for the last of each tier where it's equal).
- Coil fights possess fewer phases than Alexander fights (just look at A8S, it's insane) or at least in its overall, Coil fights cumulate phases (or more specifically cumulate progressively mecanics) while Alexander fights change (totally) from one phase to one other.
- Coils fights possess less mecanics than Alexanders fights.
- Coils fights have a dps check less brutal than Alexanders fights.

Concerning the fights themselves (I skip T1-T4) :
- T5 : 3 different phases
- T6 : 2 different phases (2nd is dps and healer check)
- T7 : 1 phase (mecanics cumulated)
- T8 : 1 phase (mecanics cumulated)
- T9 : 4 different phases
- T10 : 3 different phases (with 1st similar to 3rd) (2nd dps check)
- T11 : 3 different phases (with 1st similar to 3rd) (2nd dps check)
- T12 : 3 different phases (2nd dps and healer check)
- T13 : 4 different phases (1st similar to 4th)
- A1S : 2 different phases (both similar)
- A2S : 7 different waves of add, I can't call that different phases but this not similar either (+ one player have to manage the Gobwalker)
- A3S : 4 different phases
- A4S : 5 different phases (with 1st-4th similar)
- A5S : A large number of events in a row...It's a big phase with many things (like T8, I think but it's less obvious)
- A6S : 4 differents phases with different phases inside them
- A7S : Many phases here (6 maybe) but some of them are similar
- A8S : 4 big phases (related to the encounters) with many phases inside them (which some mecanics come from A6S)

My analysis are maybe not totally correct but, I think we can see Alexander fights are designed to be at least as harder as the most difficult fights from Bahamut because of all these phases.
If they want to reduce the difficulty, SE will need to reduce the number of phases, and mostly, maybe stop to do too much different phases inside phases themselves.
But the things I welcome from Alexander are the introduce of the new gameplay : Gobwalker in A2S, a big phase run like A5S, the call of mecanics from precedent turns (A8S use A6S mecanics), fight against different boss (A6S).

What i would like to see them do is go back to one tier again, but add at least 3 more bosses into the setup to sort of ease into the increasing difficulty of each fight

1st boss: Difficulty Equivalent to A4 / M4(normal) could be DF'd [Drops Jewelery and Belts]

2nd boss: Difficulty higher than A4 / M4 but lower than A1S / M1S [Drops Feet]

3rd boss: AS1 / MS1 difficulty [Drops Hands]

4th boss: Slightly Less difficult than MS2 (I hate trash pack bosses so gtfo AS2) [Drops Head]

5th boss: Difficulty mirroring or slightly below AS3 [Drops Legs]

- Might be too much of a jump between these 2

6th boss: M4S difficulty [Drops Chest]

7th boss: Above A4S and M4S difficulty, something only the truly determined can beat [Drops weapons and and item that can augment raid gear to an even higher ilevel considerably better than tome gear]

- The augment might be too much of a stretch due to them having to balance the next raid tier around who and who doesnt have it

In terms of story though in all honesty i dont think anything is going to come close to Coil, i would much rather work for it, but Alexander hasnt really given a story worth working for yet to me