ELI5: How are the current dungeons hard?

[JadeCurtiss]

Knee jerk reaction to different telegraphs and increase in pacing. None of it would be out of place in Stormblood.

[Saraide]

Knee jerk reaction to different telegraphs and increase in pacing. None of it would be out of place in Stormblood.

It's basically just several stormblood araid mechanics in a trenchcoat. Things that look like half arena cleaves but actually stretch a little bit beyond that are such a hashmal thing to do. The stream of little dudes/hearts waltzing across the arena is just several tiny water chugs. Round 3 fuse mechanic is literally just the floor time bombs from belias. Seeing delubrum's twice come ruin be changed to thrice come horny is peak comedy. Cant wait to calculate to prime numbers again. The people, they yearn for SB araids.
Some mechanics are designed to catch you off guard like cactuar's expanding aoes or round 3's breath attack but crucially, these dont happen in a way that kills you. Cactuar is carefully teaching you that actually, all of his mechanics expand and the breath attack from round 3 kinda just happens in isolation which doesnt kill. Of course, if someone waits until the orange marker on the floor appears, it's gonna be too late. Which is also a very stormblood araid design choice.

[Post]

I think Stormblood actually had a mostly slow as hell pace for combat, get a load of the first boss of the first dungeon, Eminence EX, or the first raid boss (Alte Roite, both versions). Even savage endbosses were largely categorized in the now commonplace "mechanics soup puzzle every 1-2 minutes with a couple different versions throughout the fight, much downtime between," StB was the first to do that.

When people attribute to StB good combat, I think they remember the increased spectacle attained from leaving behind the PS3 and pushing for memorable moments like the big sword in Susano, the transition in Byakko, o4s or climbing on Shinryu. Creative mechanics like Worker-8's mathematics I feel weren't really unique to Stormblood though; they've always pushed the envelope on surprising mechanics, even if they weren't executed in a memorable way.

What it did have over Dawntrail was more job complexity, only coming down from the peak of punishing job design in HW, sometimes even forcing unnecessary gauges into jobs so that they could each have a unique UI element, sometimes changing their design trajectory. But the job design being diverse and more involved I think in turn made the combat experience more "complete" feeling, despite the slower pace of encounters themselves when compared to HW or DT.

[elshogoso]

I dont get it.

The current set of "Expert roulette" dungeons feels the same as it has always been. Some mechanics might be hard-ish to dodge, but they are very rarely very punshing if you mess it up. As a DPS or healer its mostly no problem to mess up a mechanic 2-3 times during a fight, a tank can probably survive even more mess ups. And even if you should die you can revived and its usally no problem. There is no enrage, and very few mess ups are punshing for the entire party, a mess up will usally just affect yourself. Almost any mess up or subpar play from 1-2 party members is recoverable.

I have over 1500 hours in this game and I think I can count on one hand every time I've encountered someone complaining about subpar play in roulette/duty finder content. Most people dont care if you die 5 times during a dungeon run since the dungeon is still clearable without much issue.

This feels the same as it has always been. I dont get it.

I think a lot of it is just cognitive bias from people who were used to late Endwalker, where everyone was already overgeared and stomping all the duty finder content with obscene amounts of damage. The difficulty gets slightly higher at the start of every expansion, people just forget things quickly. It's new content. It's gonna catch you by surprise a few times until you start doing roulettes everyday and it once again becomes autopilot farming.

Though, some people seem to be REALLY adverse to problem solving of any kind and are going to be surprised pikachu faced when the rest of the party is also new to the duty and unable to carry them first try like they're used to.

[Akonyl]

I don't think they're too hard either, but if I had to nitpick one thing, I think Strayborough boss #1's bind effect could be a bit too long for some. On its own it's whatever, but with the abilities it gets comboed with (exaflares, chasers) it's pretty easy for someone to be bound in a spot where they take 2 or so aoes and fall over dead, where they would've been fine in a different spot slightly to the side. Maybe it could do with being shortened, or it could be turned into a longer heavy effect (so you had some ability to get out of things, just more annoyingly), or it could be esuna-able, or some extra benoggin time, or something.

Although, it's probably fine anyway, as once people get more gear I assume that the wombo combo people sometimes fall into on that boss won't have the chance of total murder it does now.

[Benjo]

Hard would be the wrong word. If you replace it with fun, then it would be correct.

How fun are the current dungeons?
They are incredibly fun.

[TDawnstar]

ELI5: as they reduced reaction times for mechanics, they expose the problems FFXIV's godawful netcode forces on players.

[Arohk]

ELI5: as they reduced reaction times for mechanics, they expose the problems FFXIV's godawful netcode forces on players.

Nothing has changed in reaction time, it is the exact same as it has always been, people just need to pay attention to what the boss does and his cast bar, instead of waiting for a telegraph on the floor.

when a boss casts an ability for 3-5 seconds, you can't tell me there is not enough time to react.

[Jinglypockets]

people just need to pay attention to what the boss does and his cast bar, instead of waiting for a telegraph on the floor.

People keep saying this. We stopped being able to rely exclusively on floor telegraphs at like level 50.

Am I the only one who didn't notice this difference at all?

[TDawnstar]

Nothing has changed in reaction time, it is the exact same as it has always been

Compare the speed of resolution of, for example, the final boss of Malikah's well (the "5 cercles or crosses" part) with the X/O phase on the first boss of Alexandria. Now tell me they are the same.