Request: Please tone down PoTD Solo 181+. My experience and partial rant.

[Angelusdemonus]

I've attempted for the 200 solo clear about 8 times on RDM (my last attempt yesterday). In my opinion, the increase of difficulty from 171-180 to 181-190 is just enormous. I realize in the past it has been said that an individual could clear PoTD Solo if "some luck", but the amount of good RNG you need just to get through 181-190 is, in my opinion, way too much.

181+ is just a cluster of consistantly bad RNG, and I'm sure my fellow runners of maybe light parties, but definitely solo, can back me up on this. You run into multiple floors of no gold chests. I remember vividly two floors where every room had a chest, but it was all bronze or silver. On the same run, you get so happy to finally see 1-2 gold chests, but all of them are mimics. GG.

And this is just 181-190 folks. It doesn't scale down on 191+. I can just imagine what bad RNG the two Japanese players had when they reached that set that they could only get as far as 193 and 194. I wouldn't be suprised if they were pomander starved at 191 because of how much you need to burn to clear out 181+.

I have to be honest here. I do appreciate a really tough challenge, and PoTD Solo, for me, is providing that super hard challenge. But my belief is that the current iteration of PoTD just isn't suitable for clearing without some minor adjustments. I want to stress minor, because I definitely wouldn't want PoTD to get watered down so much that it becomes some cakewalk.

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These are my suggestions on what I think should be done with PoTD, for the solo experience:

- Adjust the chest RNG for 181+

It's just far too much bad RNG on gold chests. It's a solid run killer for most. I think arguably 171+ is on a decent level of chest RNG, because if the chest RNG of 171+ were equal to that of 181+, I think a lot more would be stuck on those set of floors.

- Adjust Mimic Spawn for 181+

This is kind of the snowball effect of bad gold chest RNG. You are getting limited gold chests on 181+ set, but a lot of times those gold chests produce mimics, which further kills your chance at pomanders.

- Adjust DPS Checks on enemies that have them

I'm a little questionable on this one to be honest, but it is really brutal to have to deal with DPS checks in a solo run, when those checks were obviously meant for light parties. Maybe don't remove them completely and make it a bit longer till the DPS check kicks in. Not sure...

- Increase the potency of Sustaining Potions, or add another PoTD exclusive item

This one is more for the jobs that aren't called RDM. One of my biggest, BIGGEST gripe is that this achievement was added, presumably, for any job to try to accomplish. 15 chances, one for each job. But the reality is, you have 14 impossibilities, and 1 extremely long shot. The other jobs just simply cannot get past certain points in PoTD because of their job limitations. RDM has all the tools you need to succeed, in theory anyway. I would love to see all 15 jobs have a chance to clear 200, because I would totally try to do it...but as of right now, that motivation is non-existant, because I just know it's simply impossible on the other 14 jobs.

- Keep monster difficulty the way it is

This one I think is important for me, personally. Yes, RNG is horrible, and yes, you need those pomanders to get through certain enemies, but I would hate for the enemies to get nerfed so hard that the solo attempt becomes a cake walk.

Now, I only speak of RDM, because provided you're not going to get one or two shot in 1 GCD time span, you can cure through the damage. If it wasn't for the bad chest RNG, I think it's very possible to get to 200. Every other job, except healer, however, will need more of a heal or some other damage mitigating ability to survive the damage. Healer specifically definitely need a damage boost, because without the old Cleric Stance, they suffer in damage tremendously.

One major example of this problem for other jobs is the 190 boss. I cannot see any other job, except arguably healer, that can live through the melee > cleave combo. I mean, alright, maybe you can "live" through it, but burn your oGCD ability heal, your potion, and your 2k tick sustaining potion, and maybe your bloodbath, you can't possiblity heal yourself up fast enough to take more damage after that combo. And lets not forget the DPS check of 180 behemoth. RDM is no problem, because you can always cap your HP back up between meteors. But without GCD heals, you're in deep trouble.

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In conclusion, I really enjoy doing this content. This, PvP and crafting are my drugs in FFXIV. But it's really demoralizing when a challenge seems just impossible. Impossible in the sense that up till now, no one has accomplished the goal as of yet. I guess the feeling would be much different if people have accomplished it and paved a road to victory for others to follow. I'm going to say this again...adding a solo achievement should mean 15 chances, for the amount of jobs available, not 14 jobs that will never accomplish it and 1 that seems as if it's hitting a wall. Because otherwise, it would be fair to say the achievement should read "Clear 1-200 PoTD Solo on RDM".


I'll leave with this:

The recent savage content that was added to stormblood was cleared in 1 day~.

Since the ability to solo up to PoTD Floor 200 was introduced, it's been 307~ days and counting that it has yet to be accomplished.

They are going to add in super savage/ultimate mode, which I'm sure will get cleared in, what, 1 week? 2 weeks? Sorry, but if you wanted "super savage" content, PoTD Solo had been right here the whole time, lol.

[Zojha]

Sorry, but if you wanted "super savage" content, PoTD Solo had been right here the whole time, lol.

I would hope that "Super Savage" is not just trash mobs having their autoattack damage cranked up to 11 with terrible RNG elements added on top. Because from what I've seen from PotD 100+, that's all it is. It's a stat check more than a skill check, which is highlighted by the necessity of healing and reflects in the viability of the jobs. The way traps and pomanders work, it's literally as if a Savage encounter would randomly provide no safe spots for group wiping AoEs.

I don't consider that a challenge, I consider that a mess and am not surprised nobody has beaten it yet. It has nothing to do with skill and is completely miserably designed for solo, because it builds on the foundation of Trinity design to give you the illusion of challenge, i.e. unavoidable damage, rather than mechanics you can actually react to and perform, whether random or scripted.

As such, there isn't much you can adjust here. There is no actual difficulty in the thing, only statistical disadvantages and RNG. Adjusting the former to make it possible for even the least blessed job to clear is just going to make it a cakewalk for those jobs who already have an advantage. Adjusting the latter leads to it randomly becoming easy or impossible, depending on how the dice fall.

Send whoever designed that stuff back to the drawing board I say.

[Airget]

Eh, that's the risk rewards that is meant to get tougher as you progress higher. Lower levels gives you time to gather loot while the higher levels have a bigger risk of traps. It's up to you to maximize your raise pots and other utilities to counter mimic traps. AKA witching potion is a good one if you don't have to use it to counter a mob spawn trap. But it's pretty much the trial and error of a "Mystery Dungeon" like game.

[Angelusdemonus]

Eh, that's the risk rewards that is meant to get tougher as you progress higher. Lower levels gives you time to gather loot while the higher levels have a bigger risk of traps.

But that's the entirety of my complaint/arguement.

If you're talking about a "steady" progression of difficulty, then sure. But that simply isn't the case when you hit, specifically, the 181+ floor set.

I've entered that set of floors multiple times with close to a full yield of pomanders, but that's because I'm able to manage my time and items in 171+, as well as able to explore all the rooms to search for chests. When you play the same strat on 181+, you get a very limited amount of gold chests basically every time...most of which are mimics anyway, and no possible way to get items back even if you are careful. And again, I'm sure the situation is no better 191+.

So, you can say it's the "nature" of a game mode like this, but when you're talking about content that has yet to be cleared by anyone for this long, is there really a path for anyone to complete it at it's current iteration?

It's up to you to maximize your raise pots and other utilities to counter mimic traps. AKA witching potion is a good one if you don't have to use it to counter a mob spawn trap.

The problem isn't about dealing with killing the mimics. They might hit you for 8k-12k per hit with crits, but on those floors mimics are some of the easiest enemies you can deal with.

The problem is the fact that they spawn at a significantly higher rate with a far smaller gold chest spawn. It's a double whammy. Like, keep the gold chest spawn rate as high as it was on 171+, and I can deal with all the mimics...at least I can have chances at pomanders. Also, witching doesn't save you from higher level mimics. You can blow two witching before you kill one mimic.

[Maero]

I can attest to bad rng and such, we made it to 178 and died from... a trap of all things.
Still rather pissed at that, lol

[Sandpark]

I'd like Second Wind to have the same cooldown as Physick but cost a small amount of tp for about the same potency as Physick so DPS jobs have a consistent heal. And not just in POTD but in the whole game. Otherwise just change the saying that high level POTD can be soloed but difficult on any job.

[Tigerlilley]

Deleting my post and apologising because I missed that OP was soloing.

[alimdia]

Having cleared PotD to 200 3x in 3 different groups I completely disagree. 180+ needs to be tackled with full pomanders prepared, someone that can stun and everyone with phoenix downs.

God, this entire forum is people whining that everything is too hard. This is how we ended up with "Savage" raids that take an experienced midcore group a week to clear. Let things stay fun, 180+ is the only fun part about PotD. God forbid they put in anything that's a challenge.

Go try to solo it and type that again.

[Bernkastelx]

Really wonder sometimes if people have even experienced or at least watch some vids to see how hard it actually is before posting. Considering the timesink it takes and the rng that can make you start your 8-12 hour run all over again, yes it is considered the hardest content in the game atm solo wise.

[Mirakumi]

I would like to see it toned down too. I don't have a rdm leveled but I would like to be able to do it on other jobs. Like ninja even increasing the hp sustain potions does i think i can get higher on my previous record. anything helps. ;p