/Accuse @ the devs: have you set us up to fail...?

[Tridus]

Continuing our discussion from last week, there were some heavy calls to nerf the Royal Menagerie. And to my knowledge, the fight itself still has not been nerfed at all. Players are starting to outgear that fight, so they typically won't get one-shotted by the add drops - which by the way, is survivable, since you're pretty close to the meteor drops on the 3rd time, when you have to go to the edge between corners. It's not that everything is easy for raiders - it's that we actually took the time to pay attention to mechanics, learn them, and actually worked at getting good in our respective jobs. It's not that hard for regular players to do at least that, even back during the initial 4.0 patch.

Keep in mind that while there were calls to nerf it, there wasn't an epidemic of people getting it in roulette and dropping group. People doing MSQ have always been able to complete it, although it may take a few tries.

Steps of Faith was nerfed because a large segment of the community said "F that" and simply refused to do it ever again, thus forming a wall that newbies couldn't get past. Groups also tended to devolve into yelling and bickering over who should be doing what. To the community's credit, Menagerie wasn't nearly as bad. There were more people willing to help people through it when it came up. I don't know if wanting it to not get nerfed into the ground was a factor or if people were just nicer this time around, but it never formed the same kind of MSQ brick wall. Thus, SE didn't need to act.

It's too bad in that Steps of Faith is a neat encounter, but it's one that benefits massively from a group having a leader explaining who should be doing what, and having people willing to do it. When you either don't have anyone taking charge or have people arguing and refusing to do a given role, it simply doesn't work.

Players should not be stepping into The Royal Menagerie at all until they finish their lvl 70 job quest. If not only for that last job skill, it's to at least get their 290 gear. I really feel like the fight should be completely gated until players finish their last quest. Heck, I'd even venture far enough to be an advocate of gating off Ala Mhigo until then, just for lore purposes. A huge chunk of jobs just aren't complete without that lvl 70 job skill, and the skill completes the job in many ways. Dark Knights get a pretty quick, almost overpowered shield, Paladins get Passage of Arms, hell, SMNs are not complete at all until they finish the Lvl 70 quest.

I agree. Hell, I had my WHM 70 quest done before Doma Castle, because I'm slow at completing the story, lol (not that Plenary Indulgence even remotely mattered at the time). That 290 gear is itself something that matters and it's something the game should try to make sure people do.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I don't know if wanting it to not get nerfed into the ground was a factor or if people were just nicer this time around, but it never formed the same kind of MSQ brick wall. Thus, SE didn't need to act.

Two issues with Steps of Faith prior to its nerf were, as far as I've heard:

1. Missing a single Dragon Cannon basically spelled wipe barring absurdly high DPS
2. There was no way to wipe the party until the duty failed, thus each attempt could range well over ten minutes.

The latter was likely a bigger factor in veterans leaving en masse. Why wipe for a half hour (or longer) when you could eat the penalty and hopefully get Garuda, who basically rolled over? Shinryu had neither problem, which made people were willing to just stick it out.

[Jijifli]

1. Missing a single Dragon Cannon basically spelled wipe barring absurdly high DPS

Ya now you don't even need to use the cannons or killers at all and can still manage to kill it with plenty of time to spare. Hell, in some cases people get mad if you do use the killer because you gotta stop hitting the dragon.

[jameseoakes]

Ya now you don't even need to use the cannons or killers at all and can still manage to kill it with plenty of time to spare. Hell, in some cases people get mad if you do use the killer because you gotta stop hitting the dragon.

I get mad when people miss it and the dragons jump kills everyone >.<