16 hours of cross server zurvan extreme party finder: my thoughts

[Brian_]

Reread your quote. The mention of Alexander is where the implication came from. Even taking that out entirely, Zurvan isn't harder than Sophia.

No, I think you need to reread the quote.

I think it will be more difficult than the extreme version of Sophia. There are many people who have completed the savage version of Alexander, so I wonder if it will be a challenge for them. Of course, the extreme Zurvan battle isn’t only for those who are taking on the high end raids, so it’s not as tough as the raids, but it will definitely be more challenging than Sophia. Since we’re adding the ability to recruit parties across worlds this time, I hope people will make use of that more than Raid Finder.

He is crystal clear about it not being close to A12S. How you can arrive at that interpretation is bewildering to me.

And as for Zurvan vs. Sophia, Yoshida clarified by saying this --

You could beat Sophia if you followed someone who knew what they were doing. This time, you will need to put a bit more effort in.

And yea, he's right. 1 person could carry 7 people in that fight. My static cleared Sophia EX on our second pull because one person had already done the fight prior to our raid-time. We messed up mechanics, fell off the side, and were hanging on with only 3-4 alive at times but because of how forgiving and recoverable Sophia EX is, we still cleared in early-prog gear. That same person also did Zurvan prior to our raid-time and we skipped soar on our second pull but mechanics like seal still took some time to adjust and coordinate. Unlike Sophia, when we messed up mechanics and had multiple deaths, we wiped despite being in full i270 BiS gear.

Where did I say content should be tuned towards the 1%? My only mention of difficulty was Thordan, who catered closer to the MC. You seem to be presuming there are only two options: easy or grueling. I specifically mentioned Nidhogg and even Sophia were decent due to their mechanical variance. Zurvan is weaker than both and you'll skip one of only two major mechanics almost immediately. You don't need Savage gear to accomplish that either. So there isn't any further confusion on what I have actually said, I would have been fine with Zurvan tuned similarly to the difficulties of Thordan, Sephirot or Nidhogg. The latter two aren't overly difficult fights, especially once you've cleared Savage. But they were engaging for what they were. You also weren't going to beat up on them for nearly 50% of their health before seeing a single major mechanic. You could skip plenty, yes, but you'd still see plenty. Zurvan? If you do skip Soar, he does nothing until towers. Maybe you count Southern Cross in that equation.

Thordan EX was not catered to the MC. That just shows how out of touch you are with reality. It was catered to the people stuck on A3S and A4S. That's not MC. Most MC players had quit the raid-scene well before then. A lot of people never cleared Thordan EX when it was relevant.

And you could skip mechanics in Sophia and Nidhogg on day 1, too.

You could skip the first knock-back with proper shielding. You skipped the proximity quasar by pushing the Sophia to <75%. You skipped the first black/white at ~65%. The most threatening mechanic before Sophia is half dead is a single tilt quasar.

In Nidhogg, you could skip the wing and tail mechanics before add phase. You could cheese fang and claw by LBing (though, with high DPS, you trivialized the mechanic anyways). You skipped the entirety of the tower phase by pushing Nidhogg to ~40%.

Even Thordan EX. In Day 1 gear, you could kill before the hardest part of the fight.

Like I said, your PoV is incredibly shallow and self serving and you're basing your sense of difficulty off your own limited understanding of content. To me, all of those fights including Zurvan were the same -- face-roll. To a casual player, all of those fights could just as easily be the same -- way too difficult. The difference between me and you is I don't impose my own sense of content balance on others. I try to consider the full picture.

So, I am not the one presuming there are only two options, easy and grueling, you are. Like I said, Zurvan is a low-rung on that progression ladder. That's fine. It fits quite comfortably into that gap between 24-mans / Alex NM, and the higher spectrum of A11S and A12S. It fits in right next to A9S / A10S as mid-tier content. For an EX-Primal, that seems about right. If this fight was on par with Thordan EX, it'd be in the same tier as A11S and A12S and would further reinforce the dichotomy of difficulties by removing a mid-tier learning fight.

Lower on the totem pole, yes. But my argument is he's too low. He has no mechanical variance, one of his major ones is entirely avoidable and as I said just above, he does next to nothing for nearly half his health.

Too low? You are not thinking about things in relative or logical terms.

Zurvan is harder than A9S right now. IMO, it's slightly easier than A10S.

Aside from Thordan EX which the devs have established as an outlier, when has an EX Primal been harder than the 2nd fight of a raid tier? Bismark and Ravana weren't harder than A2S. Sephirot and Nidhogg weren't harder than A6S. Sophia and Zurvan aren't harder than A10S.

That didn't happen by coincidence. That happened because EX-primals are supposed to be stepping stones into harder raid content.

And yet Thordan remains a highly praised fight. Hence the crux of my argument. You can make a well designed fight still appeal to high skilled players even if they'll curb stomp it. Zurvan isn't that. You are certainly welcome to disagree, but your opinion is no better than mine.

Opinions are one thing. Spinning falsehoods as opinion is another.

Thordan was a highly praised fight by a vocal minority and included a lot of praise for the fight's music, aesthetics, and atmosphere. Meanwhile, the majority of players in this game didn't clear it. The 3.0 raid tier was a complete failure in terms of tuning and did irreparable damage to the raid scene. We shouldn't be basing anything off of that.

Seriously. Just look at this topic. People can't even clear Zurvan. Like I said earlier, that's factual proof it's not tuned incorrectly. Just because you find the fight boring or under-tuned doesn't mean that it should've been different.

Having a critical opinion does not I mean care only for my own self interests.

The point is where that opinion originates from. Yours originates from your limited and self-centered understanding of the game and ends up reflecting those interests. You clearly aren't speaking for casual or MC players. You also aren't speaking for high-skill players. You are speaking for yourself. Your real problem isn't that Zurvan was incorrectly tuned. It's that Zurvan wasn't tuned for you. That's why I say it's selfish.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Seriously. Just look at this topic. People can't even clear Zurvan. Like I said earlier, that's factual proof it's not tuned incorrectly. Just because you find the fight boring or under-tuned doesn't mean that it should've been different.

Another perspective is it's what creates the complacency we have. If content poses little challenge, people have no incentive to improve. The normal modes should be closer to a stepping stone into harder content; reasonably speaking, of course. IMO, they aren't, especially since most are tuned to widely outdated gear. An underperforming Monk is not going to know their rotation isn't what it should be if they continuously clear content on the backs of better players. Could they look up guides themselves? Certainly. And they ought to be encouraged to do so. That being said, the game should be incentivizing these improvements itself. I don't feel the current direction does.

Likewise, because you disagree it doesn't make your opinion anymore valid.

And just so we are clear. I do not disagree 3.x proved terrible for the raid scene. Going too far in the opposite direction can be seen as equally bad.

The point is where that opinion originates from. Yours originates from your limited and self-centered understanding of the game and ends up reflecting those interests. You clearly aren't speaking for casual or MC players. You also aren't speaking for high-skill players. You are speaking for yourself. Your real problem isn't that Zurvan was incorrectly tuned. It's that Zurvan wasn't tuned for you. That's why I say it's selfish.

Only because your stance leaves no middle ground. I either accept the fight wholesale or am deemed selfish for believing it poorly designed. It's a false dichotomy. I rolled over Sophia and liked her fight just fine. Plenty of my favorite content lacks difficulty, but I enjoyed it all the same. My actual problem is I think Zurvan could have been better-- even were his difficulty kept exactly the same. Granted, I still dislike the tuning, but that is not my only complaint with the fight. You are free to disagree and that is all.

[Brian_]

Another perspective is it's what creates the complacency we have. If content poses little challenge, people have no incentive to improve. The normal modes should be closer to a stepping stone into harder content; reasonably speaking, of course. IMO, they aren't, especially since most are tuned to widely outdated gear. An underperforming Monk is not going to know their rotation isn't what it should be if they continuously clear content on the backs of better players. Could they look up guides themselves? Certainly. And they ought to be encouraged to do so. That being said, the game should be incentivizing these improvements itself. I don't feel the current direction does.

Again, you're only speaking for yourself. Casuals and MC players have plenty to do this raid tier since clearing the Creator is actually a reasonable goal for them. To them, the content is still plenty challenging so they'll strive to improve. Hardcore players never needed more content to motivate them to improve. They're hardcore because of their mentality and approach to the game. Not because of the content. Just look at how they utilize a raid tier. When content is new, it's challenging because they make it about the race. When content gets older, it's still challenging because they make it about the speed and optimization. When content gets stale, they find ways to keep it interesting like no tank runs, full-tank runs, solo healing, <8 man runs, etc.

As for bridging the gap between easy content and mid-tier content, like I said earlier, content like Zurvan is appropriately tuned for that purpose. It's a pretty straight forward test of your opener. If a group of 6, 5, or even 4 DPS can't skip soar, that's a clear indicator that you need to improve.

Now could this game offer more resources for improvement? Sure. Supposedly that's coming in the future.

This isn't about disagreement. It's about reality. Your opinion isn't valid because the reality backing it is false.

Only because your stance leaves no middle ground. I either accept the fight wholesale or am deemed selfish for believing it poorly designed. It's a false dichotomy. I rolled over Sophia and liked her fight just fine. Plenty of my favorite content lacks difficulty, but I enjoyed it all the same. My actual problem is I think Zurvan could have been better-- even were his difficulty kept exactly the same. Granted, I still dislike the tuning, but that is not my only complaint with the fight. You are free to disagree and that is all.

You said Zurvan was poorly tuned based on people who vastly out-skilled and out-geared content that was clearly not meant for them. Post by post I detailed why that point of view was wrong. If this was about you liking and disliking content, I wouldn't have said a thing. It was about the reality of content progression and how it doesn't make a lick of sense to make Zurvan harder when countless people here and in game are struggling with it. That is all.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Again, you're only speaking for yourself. Casuals and MC players have plenty to do this raid tier since clearing the Creator is actually a reasonable goal for them. To them, the content is still plenty challenging so they'll strive to improve. Hardcore players never needed more content to motivate them to improve. They're hardcore because of their mentality and approach to the game. Not because of the content. Just look at how they utilize a raid tier. When content is new, it's challenging because they make it about the race. When content gets older, it's still challenging because they make it about the speed and optimization. When content gets stale, they find ways to keep it interesting like no tank runs, full-tank runs, solo healing, <8 man runs, etc.

As for bridging the gap between easy content and mid-tier content, like I said earlier, content like Zurvan is appropriately tuned for that purpose. It's a pretty straight forward test of your opener. If a group of 6, 5, or even 4 DPS can't skip soar, that's a clear indicator that you need to improve.

Now could this game offer more resources for improvement? Sure. Supposedly that's coming in the future.

This isn't about disagreement. It's about reality. Your opinion isn't valid because the reality backing it is false.

At no point have I suggested or insinuated people don't have enough to do. I simply criticised Zurvan's overall design and tuning based on the sheer amount of groups insisting on 5-6 DPS. That is not unique to hardcore players. Even casual ones-- who haven't touched Savage-- seem more inclined to bring another DPS. I don't find it good design when an Extreme primal has so little going on you're omitting off tanks or healers this early when you aren't necessarily midcore, let alone above it. This has nothing to do with hardcore player optimization. I also don't think Extreme Primals is where people should be learning their openers. Normal modes ought to challenge what is ultimately a core mechanic of the entire game.

You said Zurvan was poorly tuned based on people who vastly out-skilled and out-geared content that was clearly not meant for them. Post by post I detailed why that point of view was wrong. If this was about you liking and disliking content, I wouldn't have said a thing. It was about the reality of content progression and how it doesn't make a lick of sense to make Zurvan harder when countless people here and in game are struggling with it. That is all.

Actually, I said it was poorly tuned because you'll see one major mechanic for nearly 50% of his health. If you do skip Soar, he does virtually nothing until Towers. Hence why even more casual players opt to bring a fifth or sixth DPS. It's one thing for raiders to cheese easier content for the very reasons you have mentioned. It's another when casual players purposely drop a dedicated role because it makes the fight easier. That isn't giving them incentive to improve, it's allowing them to gimp a fight. It's rather telling when guides meant precisely for less experienced players mention potentially dropping said off healer or tank. That is my issue with Zurvan. It never had anything to do with my own skill, though I will concede Thordan was a bit overreaching. Better mechanical variance and/or having Soar trigger regardless and leave its appearance later as skippable would help. Then you're actually having people learn the mechanic, not trying to skip it by bringing an extra DPS or two and tank LBing the second one.

A friend sent this:



I somehow doubt the devs had this in mind for Zurvan.

[loreleidiangelo]

Watched some friends farm this fight over the past few nights now (I'd join but still in 3.3 gear lul before anyone calls me an armchair raider) - WTF precisely is so difficult about this Soar mechanic that people are so eager to eliminate it? Isn't it the part where he basically divebombs and you get the orange fire circles at the same time, so you have to dodge both? Or is that some other move?

If it's the fire circles and divebomb thinger, doesn't it come up later in the fight anyway? The hell is the big deal about skipping the first one specifically?

[LunaFaye]

A friend sent this:



I somehow doubt the devs had this in mind for Zurvan.

I love these pf announcements, every time you join one of these parties, it's the party leader that can't follow a simple mechanic and dies right at the start or at least 30 times during the fight. If you then tell them, that lowest link needs to be kicked (as stated prior via pf description) and he need's to remove himself, guess what, all hell breaks lose and he start's insulting other party members. Trying to blame them for his failure on nearly or every mechanic. There's a reason I mostly join raid finder and not pf's, especially now since it's cross world, it was a good idea however SE forgot about these kind of people, that make it miserable for new comers to enjoy fights as well as for actual good people to join pf's without ending up in a trap partay! Had a good laugh at that screen shot tho... thx for that.

Watched some friends farm this fight over the past few nights now (I'd join but still in 3.3 gear lul before anyone calls me an armchair raider) - WTF precisely is so difficult about this Soar mechanic that people are so eager to eliminate it? Isn't it the part where he basically divebombs and you get the orange fire circles at the same time, so you have to dodge both? Or is that some other move?

If it's the fire circles and divebomb thinger, doesn't it come up later in the fight anyway? The hell is the big deal about skipping the first one specifically?

There's nothing difficult but it's the same with T5 or T9 in the good ol' days. People just can't follow a mechanic where they need to pay attention for 3 seconds. Moment they get a dive marker above their head (old coil) or in this case a little burning mark that indicates an aoe circle underneath them, they run like chickens around the arena, on top of that they then try to dodge the incoming dive and it always results in a wipe. Worse when you have fights, with mechanics that end in falling off some platforms. While it's funny for me to see, especially since it's not only one person tunnel visioning the mechanics/fights, it seems that it's contagious. Therefore skipping most mechanics of a fight that people think are too "difficult" has always been a good tactic/method. Sadly to say, that are these people, that think they are above everybody else because they could beat fights with skipping mechanics... wohoo.

[Vaer]

Watched some friends farm this fight over the past few nights now (I'd join but still in 3.3 gear lul before anyone calls me an armchair raider) - WTF precisely is so difficult about this Soar mechanic that people are so eager to eliminate it? Isn't it the part where he basically divebombs and you get the orange fire circles at the same time, so you have to dodge both? Or is that some other move?

If it's the fire circles and divebomb thinger, doesn't it come up later in the fight anyway? The hell is the big deal about skipping the first one specifically?

It's not hard, just gets annoying with space/people lazy not calling out spots. 2 overlap on non tank kills people.

People tank LB2 to avoid the second soar from killing people or just kill it before it even happens.

[Mejingjard]

Funny of this threads remind me of T2, when everyone was waiting 15 minutes in front of the boss with 3 healers, to heal through the weak enrage of the ADS instead of dealing with Allagan Rot.

The fight is not poorly designed because it is too easy, it is poorly design when players that can't handle a simple mechanic like Soar can avoid dealing with it with such ease (and mostly failing at it even with 6 dps ) and still get away with a win.
There were no way to avoid Ravana's attacks, yet players managed to manage them.
Reality is, sometimes, players need to face delusion to realise they are on the wrong way. When there is a path to avoid difficulties, you don't learn how to handle thoses.
We'll see again PF full of this kind of groups who will fail at first trouble.

Logic is : first you learn how to deal with a mechanic and then you can push through it or skip it, because when you miss the alternate path, you still know how to avoid the wall. And that's how you progress.

[DinahDemiurge]

Funny ...

this needs to be screamed from the tops of mountains. SE really screwed the pooch on this fight, just like they are screwing the pooch on content in general. Brain dead easy is not a good way to have players learn how to play the game. That's the bottom line. If SE had content that actually gated the harder/rewarding stuff then players would learn how to play because they would be motivated to get to the good stuff. That's the addiction factor of a real MMO, getting to the good stuff. Coil being an exclusive and really important story was the driving factor for a lot of players to do the coil content. "Normal" raids need to be thordan difficulty or higher. Previous primals need to be defeated before being able to do the new primals, etc. The softcore players till have their easy glam endgame, and mid-core have a reason to get better, and hardcore gets to have really rewarding content. It's that simple.

[aleph_null]

Someone should make PF for "skip first lameprix" a10s or "skip lapis" a11s for weekly clears.