Alphascape is AMAZING! (Spoilers!)

[Mejingjard]

For my part, I enjoyed that new tier so much that I went back on raiding.
The gears is nice, the fights are pretty awesome.
so far my views on it :
O9n : that random pattern just me scream of joy! finally a bit of random in a fight, and it has a great effect on progress on savage version, I'll come to it later!
O10n : so far my least favorite, I like how Middy throw every dragons attack at the face, and how his swirling animation can lead to different attacks. But I feel it lacking something
O11n : by far my favorite for now, music is fun, omega's animation are awfully funny, she jump around casting hords of missiles and goldorak punches everywhere, and that side laser is making me laugh everytime. I was afraid of what they could have done with Omega, but I was totaaly in awe of that fight.
O12n : a great fight too, but something is missing oin that normal mode, it taste like an unfinished fight, so I cant wait to see how savage version turns out !

For all of those turns, I think difficulty is pretty correct, you actually have a chance to fail if not being carefull for the whole fight, and that's something that was seriously lacking.
Beside, alpha made me cry on various occasion and I felt so sad for Omega and her being lost in the universe due to following her primary mission! Gosh, I wish she could be still alive...

I for now just give one evening in tries for savage and did some progress on O9s, and so far I love how random pattern can makes you learn the whole fight even if you don't go far each time. For now we went blind and figured out Fire, Wind, and Water pattern, and close to complete earth one. Since he will do all of them, once we manage the transition phase, we will be aware of a good chunk of the fight. Debuff system here is really fun and makes you read what hit you.
I Love it ! Otherwise nothing too difficult, but at least we are not on a joke fight like O1s

[Xion136]

For all of those turns, I think difficulty is pretty correct, you actually have a chance to fail if not being carefull for the whole fight, and that's something that was seriously lacking.
Beside, alpha made me cry on various occasion and I felt so sad for Omega and her being lost in the universe due to following her primary mission! Gosh, I wish she could be still alive...

I really wanted us to take Omega-F out and leave her with Cid so she could try and understand, and learn what made them special. The fact all of that was Omega just wanting to go home...

God I wanted to hug her ;-;

[Ilan]

eh, no offense but the raiders would like it, Hyo, It feels tuned a bit more for them. You kind of got your wish for harder casual content, but to me it was a slog, especially the last fight with its mechanics vomit and high damage. I mean come on, 30k raid damage in a casual fight at that pace? I think they mentioned at that dengeki interview or somewhere they gave these fights to the newbies, and had to redesign one, and it shows. I don't see myself bothering with it often.

Lets see i enjoy it and i'm not a raider. What now?

We were 2 people yesterday and we cleared all fights with random DF groups and besides V12 everything went down after max. 2 wipes. Do you have to be aware of your surroundings in there? Yes. Do you have to pay attention to your party members? Yes. Is it to hard for casual players? 100% not. I honestly don't get why people always want content that is just faceroll and start complaining as soon as it gets a bit more challenging.

New players will go in there and fail more or less often but if they are not the ragequitting type they will get enough practice to beat this fight easily.

[RiyahArp]

II guess basically my sentiment is like... let us have this one? Apart from Guardian on release none of the normal raids have had any bite to them. It's really refreshing. I know it's going to put some people off but at least it's different people being put off by it for once.

Have to see how it is long term. The issue is once it's no longer new, people start leaving after one or two wipes. Wait and see I guess, if it works. Kind of worried that it wont age well, usually for normal modes, even Guardian, i feel more motivated to do better. Or at least to replay the content to get it down. This I don't mind skipping, I guess.

I honestly don't get why people always want content that is just faceroll and start complaining as soon as it gets a bit more challenging.

Because we're supposed to repeat it over and over as a form of content. The challenge gets old after so many times.

[Nariel]

+ lets be honnest, there is absolutely not that much totaly new things to do. People finding those obvious mechanism hardcore should maybe stick to dungeon cause its really not.

A bit challenging for the easy mode raid, sure. But its a raid not sastasha.

People stacking themselves with the double share really make me think about how the hell they even get here.

[Ilan]

Because we're supposed to repeat it over and over as a form of content. The challenge gets old after so many times.

The challenge won't be a challenge anymore if you repeat it over and over because you'll get used to it. So unless you'll loose your complete memory of a fight as soon as you log out it will get easier and easier.

[Ameela]

It's perfectly suited. It's basically remixed Praetorium music, it's where you fought the Ultima Weapon, and this thing is Ultima's beefier cousin.

It's really the one part of the fight that actually made perfect sense to me.

Ehh, not really.

Maker's Ruin is more of the Warrior of Light's theme, considering it also plays in the fight against the Ascian Prime in Heavensward which had nothing to do with Ultima (plus, it's in the name: Maker's Ruin > God/Eikon Slayer) and Omega doesn't really have that much connection to Ultima aside from the fact that they were both used by the Allagans to hunt down primals, but Ultima was an Allagan creation repurposed by the Garleans years later while Omega is an alien thousands of years old merely found by the Allagans after it crash landed on Hydaelyn looking for Midgardsormr.
I dunno, the track uses Maker's Ruin, which again is what the music I associate with the WoL, Torn from the Heavens, which is the most iconic track in FFXIV I'd say, and the Prelude, which is the most iconic song in the entire series. It feels like it was made for an encounter with a bit more... finality? Or maybe relevance? Omega doesn't really play that large of a role in XIV's overall story and I feel like Omega M and F were originally meant to be data versions of the Warrior of Light or something, although I guess you could say it's fitting since it's essentially Omega using our own tactics against us.

I'm just picking nits at the end of the day but still, it's something that ended up making my head churn with ideas of what could have been I guess.

[Fynlar]

Maker's Ruin is more of the Warrior of Light's theme, considering it also plays in the fight against the Ascian Prime in Heavensward which had nothing to do with Ultima

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...nstallmentWins

Regardless of how many times it came up later (which is really not enough times for it to be considered the WoL's theme), it's definitely most associated with the Ultima Weapon fight because that's where it plays first.

Omega doesn't really have that much connection to Ultima aside from the fact that they were both used by the Allagans to hunt down primals

They have been closely related stronger/weaker cousins of each other in just about every FF game they're both featured in. They have usually even looked pretty similar. Omega raids as a whole have been about paying homage to some of the more infamous adversaries of the series.

And as far as similarities go, "ancient machina employed by the Allagans to capture primals" is a pretty big one.

It's really not that big of a stretch.

[MoroMurasaki]

Have to see how it is long term. The issue is once it's no longer new, people start leaving after one or two wipes. Wait and see I guess, if it works. Kind of worried that it wont age well, usually for normal modes, even Guardian, i feel more motivated to do better. Or at least to replay the content to get it down. This I don't mind skipping, I guess.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to wind up like Shinryu - a thing where some people apparently see all these wipes and disbands and I'm just sitting here wondering how that happens.

I will acqueise that if you get a party that is just too weak o12 might become impassable. Honestly the same can be said for any content, the threshold for what constitutes a party that is 'too weak' is just a hair broader in this case. While I regret that this means some people are going to have a hard time with it I feel like the vast majority will be fine especially as the playerbase as a whole learns the mechanics and gears up. Right now the supeecasual people that might be finding this to be a wall for them are also in the worst position in terms of gear, some attempting the fights at more or less minimum item level. Gear won't ever fully supplant mechanical knowledge or experience but it can go a long way. Look at Shinryu now.

I think it's important to note that the challenge frankly isn't going to exist for many of us after a few weeks of doing this, especially if we farm the minion. While this is an amazing normal raid it's still a cakewalk compared to almost any savage encounter (looking at you Alte Roite) so the idea that the challenge won't age well is kind of moot. The challenge dies.

On the up side many will still be doing it for Crystalloids for a long time to come and if you roll through here in a month or two when there are a bunch of raiders in your party decked out in gear I think you'll find that the challenge is significantly reduced. No matter how cool the fight is it can't stand up to the gear nerf. You'll get your easier version, just wait a bit.

[Raenori]

None of the non savage modes are hard but the theme for the content this go around is increased individual player agency in parties which makes the new dungeons feel like slogs as they all have mechanics that allow one terribad to effectively wipe the party.

It might only be day 2 but I feel like Alphascape is going to be an abandoned toxic cesspool within a couple weeks. Frustration with wipes, inability to carry people, and lack of reward for the effort is going to set in really quick. Every week is going to feel like progression with the way it's tuned and it's not worth it after the initial gearing surge. The Burn and Saint Mocianne's are likely going to quickly get old because of similar, despite being great dungeons.

In short, the content is great but it's absolutely an uptick in difficulty from previous content intended for this specific playerbase and people are already getting flustered. Many of the mechanics are recycled with a minor twist and it's very much a "you get it or you don't" akin to Shinryu.