we need content with difficulties between dungeon and ex/savage

[HyoMinPark]

dungeons are so braindead even my 10 years old sister could do them, meanwhile savage and ex keep getting harder with more nonsense mechanics and longer duration. i want content where i can feel challenged and beat without having to watch youtube videos

inb4 "i beat hades ex first try eyes closed hands tied behind my back"

There is content between dungeons and EX/Savage. It’s called normal mode raids, normal mode primals, and 24-man alliance raids. All three are harder than dungeons (leveling or level-cap); and all three are easier than EX/Savage.

If you were to argue we should have a more fluent increase in difficulty going from end-game dungeons to end-game EX/Savage, then I would agree with you. I think the difficulty jumps can be particularly staggering sometimes, depending on specific pieces of content. But if the argument is simply “we need more content with difficulties between dungeons and EX/Savage”, well that already exists.

normal trials and 24 mans are just as braindead as dungeon.

Are we seriously going to say that the Nier raid is the same difficulty as the Grand Cosmos? My friend tanked the dungeon in our first run—they had 8 vuln stacks during the last boss and the boss still couldn’t kill them with the buster. Meanwhile, 8 vulns and a buster from any of the Nier bosses would be INSTANT SPLAT DEAD.

speaking of ex, why dont they put these in duty finder? not everyone has the time to camp party finder waiting an hour to fill up just to practice

See: Mentor Roulette & EX Primals for why these aren’t in Duty Finder.

That said, Raid Finder/Duty Finder has never been the go-to for high-end content on NA or EU servers. There was a brief period in 3.4 where Sophia EX was done in Raid Finder (because she was relatively straight-forward, and all you really needed was a macro to mark people for Sin & Punishment [black/white circle matching]), but that died off once Zurvan came out to play.

JP actually uses PF for practice and DF for clears/farming, but NA/EU use PF for both. Just the way we operate.

[TheForce]

E4 Normal got you covered

[ErzaScarlet77]

e4 normal is a lot of fun. punishing but keeps you on alert and every mechanics is clearly visible and udnerstandable without watching any video

[Fynlar]

e4 normal is a lot of fun. punishing but keeps you on alert and every mechanics is clearly visible and udnerstandable without watching any video

I have a hard time believing that people doing E4N for the first time without any guide knew what to do with Massive Landslide / ATV mode without either watching/following other people or simply just being lucky.

[ErzaScarlet77]

nah e4n was great. it was clear "blue area=bad" "big glowy rock = bomb = bad" its not some weird "memorize these random attack names/ symbol on the ground/tether color" bs

[Fynlar]

Again, without any sort of prior knowledge, how would you know what to do about Massive Landslide / ATV? There are no markers on the ground and no indication as to what area is the dead zone (especially with regard to Massive Landslide) until you've seen the attack at least once, and any failure with regard to these two attacks is instant death.

I don't think the fight is that bad either... once you know these attacks and where they hit. But that's not quite the same thing as "every mechanic is easily visible and understandable". IMO if someone says that about a fight, the average Joe who goes into it blind should be able to understand what to do as the fight progresses without having to eat any deaths due to not knowing what to do.

[Shurrikhan]

You want a challenge but you don’t want it to be as hard as savage. Hmmmmmmm....



Just do savage?

In effect: You'd like seafood, but preferably not shrimp? Have you maybe considered shrimp?

[Hyperia]

I agree with you. What would you call them?

Side note: Hades is mechanically simple, its just a bunch of DPS Checks that hold people back.

We used to have a better scaling system of: Story -> Hard -> Extreme -> Savage -> (Ultimate was not around then but it is now)

I would like to see a more graduated system as well.

[linay]

Again, without any sort of prior knowledge, how would you know what to do about Massive Landslide / ATV? There are no markers on the ground and no indication as to what area is the dead zone (especially with regard to Massive Landslide) until you've seen the attack at least once, and any failure with regard to these two attacks is instant death.

I don't think the fight is that bad either... once you know these attacks and where they hit. But that's not quite the same thing as "every mechanic is easily visible and understandable". IMO if someone says that about a fight, the average Joe who goes into it blind should be able to understand what to do as the fight progresses without having to eat any deaths due to not knowing what to do.

Some mechanics are meant to be seen before learned. It is "easily visible and understandable" in the sense that you can see what it does and understand it, not necessarily "know" beforehand what it does. With landslide, in particular, it is a "trick" mechanic in that the safe zone is the opposite of previous landslides, at least initially. But once you've seen it, you can understand it.

[Cylestea]

no one says you have to watch videos go in blind. there are still plenty of people who do that to find out what to do by themselves. I.E. Nest. and scottzone and his community