This Savage Raid Tier (Anabaseios) isn't Very Fun: My Experiences So Far

[caffe_macchiato]

Raiding in this game has disintegrated to being “fake hard”. Basically, the only difficulty is dying because your character is two pixels away from the invisible cast zone, or being in the right spot but only one second early instead of three seconds like how this game seems to require (“snapshotting!”). It’s artificial difficulty meant to pad out the length of otherwise short-lived content. It’s similar to the NES generation games like Contra and Battletoads that had to justify the price by making you die a thousand times. I would’ve thought that maybe game devs in 2023 would’ve learned to make better games, but I guess people really like it this way? I guess $60 + $13/mo + MTX is too cheap for such a cash-strapped developer?

It doesn’t really matter if this tier is hot garbage anyway, people will still be absolutely ecstatic to play it. Just throw them any old shit on a silver platter and they’ll eat it up. They’ll never leave FFXIV like they left WoW during Shadowlands.

[Jeeqbit]

Raiding in this game has disintegrated to being “fake hard”. Basically, the only difficulty is dying because your character is two pixels away from the invisible cast zone, or being in the right spot but only one second early instead of three seconds like how this game seems to require (“snapshotting!”). It’s artificial difficulty meant to pad out the length of otherwise short-lived content. It’s similar to the NES generation games like Contra and Battletoads that had to justify the price by making you die a thousand times. I would’ve thought that maybe game devs in 2023 would’ve learned to make better games, but I guess people really like it this way? I guess $60 + $13/mo + MTX is too cheap for such a cash-strapped developer?

I mean if you want that, there is the normal mode. They are making it take more time to clear because that is generally what people mean when they say they want it harder. It's not exactly hard if you are one-shotting it, now is it?

Snapshotting is really just another way of saying when the mechanic goes off. It has to go off sometime. Regardless of when it goes off, we are going to call it a snapshot. And in hard content it's going to go off in close proximity to other attacks to make it more challenging. But obviously some of us will find out exactly when they go off and in what order and that would happen in any game where the fights are scripted.

Snapshotting isn't really an issue, it's just that in order to understand the snapshotting, especially in a fight like P9S, you really have to break it down in slow motion or have a guide do that. Once you know and practice the timing it becomes easy. But "breaking it down in slow motion or having a guide do that" is the case for a lot of mechanics in savage.

When I did P5S blind on the first day we went into the stack and spread mechanic and also devour and just wiped and the easiest way to figure that out was to record it and see what happened in slow motion. Which is exactly what the people making guides do as well. And this analysis in slow motion applies to figuring out the snapshotting as well.

[Kaliesto]

Always had a problem with Savage fights if where 1 person out of 8 of the group dies, so does everyone else during mechanics.

Fine Ultimate I can see because its suppose to push you to the limit, but Savage I feel shouldn't be too punishing in that regard (just my personal opinion) and Ultimately the dangling carrot Savage Raids gear has not been all that important since it gets outclassed later, some people like myself would rather wait till it can be a bit more doable than having to suffer constantly. The only time I'm ever going to fully care about savage gear if we're all the very final expansion of FFXIV and then savage gear might actually mean something to me at that point.

Ultimate gear used to mean something, not so much anymore considering what we know happens behind the scenes sadly.

But we all have our opinions, I'm just not a fan how savage are these days, I tried to like it I really did, but it should not feel like a job.

Too many variables goes wrong with a group of 8, and depending how suffering a savage raid is.

[Paine_Blackstar]

P10S is absolutely trash. Tank buster tower killing tanks, wing people cleaving each other, ping issues with role stacks on any bonds mechanic, where if 1 high ping person happens to be ever so slightly late, still visibly with us, we still all die to the stack because the game thinks they were not with us yet, turrets are cancer, one of the worst mechanics I've ever seen throughout savages and ultimates, I am getting sniped left and right because some people shoot the lasers in the direction of the next turrets or just shoot it straight. Damn Wings 2, imagine Somehow cleaving the wing person from the other side of the arena because you want to greed gcds, the mechanic of building the web wall is absolutely horrible, if you're a little misaligned with any of the web aoes on the wall, the wall will just not be built, guaranteeing a wipe on Harrowing hell which is my segue. Harrowing hell was horrible to learn how to deal with but the second time I did it, it was fine. I healed this fight, took something like 10 hours to prog and kill for the 1st time in week one, but reclearing this fight on week 2 was one of the most miserable experiences I had in this game, the large majority of party finders for it are useless, and I was hardstuck on the fight for 7 hours, thats almost the time that it took for my 1st kill, for a reclear. Healing the fight is kinda mid because of how annoying it was to try to reach people sometimes due to forced distance for certain mechanics, executing the mechanics overall is just not that satisfying, the fight feels like it takes longer than p7s and then wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe, the clear is almost an alien concept. I always say this fight is the new p3s, and the fact that I feel that way legitimately makes me want to quit the tier because I anticipate that I'm gonna despise reclearing this fight on the upcoming weeks for gear. For the record, I have a lot of patience since I've hundreds of clears logged on both last tiers, but f*** p10s for real, there is no single fight that I hate more than this one. Currently I'm learning p12s which is quite hard actually, but somehow not annoying like p10. I think p9s is mid, p10s is absolute bottom of the barrel trash, I like p11s it just feels good to heal, greed, smooth to execute every mechanic and it's just fulfilling to do it, also has an amazing soundtrack. P12 so far up until superchain seems to be the best fight of the tier and thats like the 2nd real mechanic. I wasn't very impressed on p2 from youtube vods I watched though, and I hate how short the ost is and loops there aswell. It's reasonable to sink a big amount of time into progressing fights, but it's not reasonable to expect anyone to go through hours and hours on end through trial and error between party finders just to get a clear of a horrible fight, at this point I can't look at the boss's face without getting on my nerves just from the ptsd memories it brings me already.

[Jeeqbit]

So far my experience with 10 is if you lookup what to do it's really easy to get in a few pulls. It doesn't look like it when you watch it, because it looks like there's a lot to remember and execute really fast, but it's just a dance and once you're used to it in a few pulls, it's easy to be mostly consistent with. The turrets look like something PF would never achieve, but after a few times getting there the mechanic clicked and was kinda easy. The PF wall issue has always been an issue with lots of fights though. Even a lot of the extreme farms end up as gales2 or double meteor prog.

[Absurdity]

I think Pallas Athena was a much more epic final boss compared to Oracle of Darkness, although I am kind of getting worn out after 3 doorbosses in a row.

I'm not so much tired of door bosses, I'm tired of door bosses that are simply an entire extra savage fight, I'm tired of dealing with a 7+ minutes slog every time I want to get to the actual final boss, I'm tired of final savage fights the length of an ultimate just with a save point in-between.

Exdeath was probably the only door boss that I actually enjoyed, 4 minutes of high intensity and you're done. It doesn't completely overstay it's welcome and become a chore every reclear.

[ForteNightshade]

I'm not so much tired of door bosses, I'm tired of door bosses that are simply an entire extra savage fight, I'm tired of dealing with a 7+ minutes slog every time I want to get to the actual final boss, I'm tired of final savage fights the length of an ultimate just with a save point in-between.

Exdeath was probably the only door boss that I actually enjoyed, 4 minutes of high intensity and you're done. It doesn't completely overstay it's welcome and become a chore every reclear.

The issue I find with door boss is they've seemingly settled on "puzzle" phase two bosses that just... feel like half finished fights. Pallas does practically nothing for two minutes. Her only two "big" mechanics are Caloric Theory and Classical Concepts 2. Pangenesis can be considered her "third" but has a very simple "pass/fail" check that lets you completely ignore the paragraph long debuff description. So much less Hephaistos II, she's kind of a ho hum fight just with a few "gotchas".

If they're going to insist on door bosses, then Exdeath is by far the best iteration of that design. Although, I'm almost prefer they just commit to five fights and maybe shorten the length of the fight two if they're concerned about overall fatigue. A10 still remains one of the best second fights they've ever designed and it's a mere six minutes.

[GaiusDrakon]

Raiding in this game has disintegrated to being “fake hard”. Basically, the only difficulty is dying because your character is two pixels away from the invisible cast zone, or being in the right spot but only one second early instead of three seconds like how this game seems to require (“snapshotting!”). It’s artificial difficulty meant to pad out the length of otherwise short-lived content.

These aren't big problems at all in modern raids.

I mean if you want that, there is the normal mode. They are making it take more time to clear because that is generally what people mean when they say they want it harder. It's not exactly hard if you are one-shotting it, now is it?

Lol a lot of modern raids are only hard because everything one-shots you, not because the mechanics are actually that creative or hard.

P11S: This fight genuinely feels more like a ShB raid. Themis even has a couple savage exclusive voice lines including a specific line where he references Emet-Selch and uses one of Hades' signature attacks. This one is a satisfying dance of ins and outs that feels very akin to the fan favourite E11S, and while it isn't the most difficult, it is really enjoyable and the triumphant, sweeping piano is a welcome change from the grungy lo-fi tracks that have been the signature of Pandamonium.

In what world are these positives ?_? I agree with P9 and P10 being great, P12 was fine, P9 has a pacing issue (needs 2 more Levinstrike difficulty mechs imo), P10 was creative, but P11 is an absolute snoozefest. I'm literally so tired of fights that are just protean partner light party in out zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

E11s was also a very boring fight. That tier was saved by E12S p2. If 11s is somehow a fan favorite I have no hope of this game making great Savage fights ever again. We need more second coil, A6S/A8S/A10S/A11S/O3S/O8S design, not ShB/EW

Also the music is literally so tiring, this is like the 190680989th Amaurot theme.

P10S is absolutely trash. Tank buster tower killing tanks, wing people cleaving each other, ping issues with role stacks on any bonds mechanic, where if 1 high ping person happens to be ever so slightly late, still visibly with us, we still all die to the stack because the game thinks they were not with us yet, turrets are cancer, one of the worst mechanics I've ever seen throughout savages and ultimates, I am getting sniped left and right because some people shoot the lasers in the direction of the next turrets or just shoot it straight. Damn Wings 2, imagine Somehow cleaving the wing person from the other side of the arena because you want to greed gcds, the mechanic of building the web wall is absolutely horrible, if you're a little misaligned with any of the web aoes on the wall, the wall will just not be built, guaranteeing a wipe on Harrowing hell which is my segue. Harrowing hell was horrible to learn how to deal with but the second time I did it, it was fine. I healed this fight, took something like 10 hours to prog and kill for the 1st time in week one, but reclearing this fight on week 2 was one of the most miserable experiences I had in this game, the large majority of party finders for it are useless, and I was hardstuck on the fight for 7 hours, thats almost the time that it took for my 1st kill, for a reclear. Healing the fight is kinda mid because of how annoying it was to try to reach people sometimes due to forced distance for certain mechanics, executing the mechanics overall is just not that satisfying, the fight feels like it takes longer than p7s and then wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe, the clear is almost an alien concept. I always say this fight is the new p3s, and the fact that I feel that way legitimately makes me want to quit the tier because I anticipate that I'm gonna despise reclearing this fight on the upcoming weeks for gear. For the record, I have a lot of patience since I've hundreds of clears logged on both last tiers, but f*** p10s for real, there is no single fight that I hate more than this one. Currently I'm learning p12s which is quite hard actually, but somehow not annoying like p10. I think p9s is mid, p10s is absolute bottom of the barrel trash, I like p11s it just feels good to heal, greed, smooth to execute every mechanic and it's just fulfilling to do it, also has an amazing soundtrack. P12 so far up until superchain seems to be the best fight of the tier and thats like the 2nd real mechanic. I wasn't very impressed on p2 from youtube vods I watched though, and I hate how short the ost is and loops there aswell. It's reasonable to sink a big amount of time into progressing fights, but it's not reasonable to expect anyone to go through hours and hours on end through trial and error between party finders just to get a clear of a horrible fight, at this point I can't look at the boss's face without getting on my nerves just from the ptsd memories it brings me already.

I'm unironically glad P10 is filtering PF trash. Not you necessarily but the people who can't hack 10 will get hardstuck and that's a good thing. I'm sorry you are trapped with them but I'm honestly sick of Savage fights being obviously designed so that JP can macro its way through it in PF. It makes for very uninspiring and overly surgical raids. Any Savage fight where statics have a huge advantage is a good thing. Because communication and inter-player synergy SHOULD be important in raiding. We shouldn't be just robots repeating what the macro says.

Also, in an ideal world second floor should take 20 hrs to clear in PF IMHO.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

This thread has made me think about and wonder if people would prefer more difficult mechanics but with vulnerability stacks, or simpler mechanics, but if you do mess up, its a death and/or wipe.

[GaiusDrakon]

more difficult mechanics but with vulnerability stacks + increased boss damage + attrition so that healers actually have something to do

aka HW raids aka utopia