We are missing Content between Normal and Extreme. Wrong Audience for Chaotic

[HyperiusUltima]

Have you tried some Criterion Savages yet?

I have - but I solidly remember how that wasn't content geared towards what I'm talking about here. The issue at hand is that your average person who doesn't raid at high-end is kept out of the loop. Difficulty in dungeons is a good thing. Difficulty in Raids is a good thing. We need content to bridge the gap between them since what may be easy for one person who's raided a long time can be hard for another who's just first stepping into High-End Raids.

Also to note: Criterion Savage for Aloalo was geared literally towards your high-end raiders as is due to the fact that you required BiS to even have a chance to clear. Either way you cut it, one side is losing.

[CidHeiral]

Right, so...I'm just going to come out and say it: Chaotic is not meant for your average player. The problem? Chaotic is coordinated by 24 Players. THAT CAN'T SCREW UP.

While it's fresh, sure - it's rough. But when we get into it? Even after getting past Phase 1 I can directly tell you that this raid is not even built mechanically for people who only do their roulettes and dailies.

An alliance raid for people who only do their roulettes and dailies where everyone can screw up is called normal mode, which dropped earlier this patch.

This content was more made for your people doing Savage/EX already, and there is yet again a nothing burger between Normal and Extreme.

In your post you mention BA/Bozja which are normal difficulty content. If your point is that you want more exploratory zone content, I totally agree and that content is confirmed to be on the way.

If you're asking for them to bring back Hard mode however I would have to disagree. The current pipeline of normal/expert/alliance/extreme seems reasonable to me. If you can handle the latest alliance raid you should be able to handle an extreme. If you can't do that then you're not ready to move up. Creating a difficulty that is marginally different than normal isn't going to help that issue.

[HyperiusUltima]

An alliance raid for people who only do their roulettes and dailies where everyone can screw up is called normal mode, which dropped earlier this patch.



In your post you mention BA/Bozja which are normal difficulty content. If your point is that you want more exploratory zone content, I totally agree and that content is confirmed to be on the way.

If you're asking for them to bring back Hard mode however I would have to disagree. The current pipeline of normal/expert/alliance/extreme seems reasonable to me. If you can handle the latest alliance raid you should be able to handle an extreme. If you can't do that then you're not ready to move up. Creating a difficulty that is marginally different than normal isn't going to help that issue.

Yet the Extremes are ways and bounds more often than not in terms of difficulty compared to Alliance Raids. As a reminder: people praised the Althyk and Nymeia fight. Why? Because of a soft enrage timer. That was the one thing people liked and it felt 'challenging' on content to have something like that. However, we don't get that in our other Alliance Raids - ever. Only in that one instance has an Alliance Raid had an enrage at all. In all other content: Normal, Normal Raids, Expert? We don't get those. Regardless, unless you have a bridge to EX you aren't going to get them even potentially wanting to go to Savage Raids or higher; which is still on the player to decide what they're comfortable with.

[TaleraRistain]

YHowever, we don't get that in our other Alliance Raids - ever. Only in that one instance has an Alliance Raid had an enrage at all. In all other content: Normal, Normal Raids, Expert? We don't get those.

That's not the only one in alliance or Normal raids. With every cast of Void Death IV on Deathgaze Hollow in Dun Scaith a square is taken away as a safe spot. When all squares are marked, Void Death IV will kill the raid because there will no more safe squares. Alexander Burden of the Son has a hard enrage at 10 minutes. Refurbisher 0 in Eyes of the Creator could also be considered to have enrage-like mechanics because if he rebuilds all his body parts his damage is enough to wipe the party. Irminsul in Void Ark gets a damage buff and a tick on a non-visible enrage meter every time an add or a player gets eaten. When it hits 100 on this meter, it will cast Rootstorm over and over until the raid is dead. That one isn't even that hard to trigger. Ignore the adds completely and you will see it. Proto Ultima in Dun Scaith will wipe the raid if his Supernova casts. Wicked Hypercannon on Wicked Thunder is a soft enrage.

And there are dungeon bosses like Halicarnassus in Haukke Manor HM with her third Beguiling Mist if you aren't already dead from the first two.

Some may rarely be triggered, but they're out there.

[OlafQuintessa]

Totally agree and it's been like this for a loong time. The game is in desperate need of some midcore content. The last time there was something that fit the bill was when Ultima was the unreal - it was possible to jump in with a group of any casual players and get a clear before the evening was out. It was awesome! Everyone came away wanting to do it again the next week. That's exactly what midcore is. Something a bit challenging for 4-8 players that you can clear in one evening. Extremes take 3 times as long to clear and don't fit the bill.

The other important thing is making it accessible so you don't need to sit in party finder for hours trying to find learning groups. Criterion was such a huge mis-step in that respect. It could have been some sort of midcore dungeon content for 4 people that was quick to dive in to - instead we got yet more savage content. If they halved the mechanics on each boss in criterion it might be okay. Chaotic and Baldesion offer nothing for casual players either because it takes so much co-ordination to find a big enough group to get in. All in all I'm pretty tired of SE just catering to raiders with battle content and doing the bare minimum for everyone else. They're completely out of touch.

[Supersnow845]

An alliance raid for people who only do their roulettes and dailies where everyone can screw up is called normal mode, which dropped earlier this patch.



In your post you mention BA/Bozja which are normal difficulty content. If your point is that you want more exploratory zone content, I totally agree and that content is confirmed to be on the way.

If you're asking for them to bring back Hard mode however I would have to disagree. The current pipeline of normal/expert/alliance/extreme seems reasonable to me. If you can handle the latest alliance raid you should be able to handle an extreme. If you can't do that then you're not ready to move up. Creating a difficulty that is marginally different than normal isn't going to help that issue.

There can and should be content that sits between something like juneo and the current extremes, BA is an example from a difficulty perceptive (ie ignore its entry system), launch orbornne is, dalriada is, DRN is

If you still want to call that normal content that’s fine and I’d agree as it’s not that hard. But just because you can nearly sequester dal as casual and extreme as entry to hardcore doesn’t mean there isn’t still an ocean of potential content difficulty between dal and extremes

Yet the Extremes are ways and bounds more often than not in terms of difficulty compared to Alliance Raids. As a reminder: people praised the Althyk and Nymeia fight. Why? Because of a soft enrage timer. That was the one thing people liked and it felt 'challenging' on content to have something like that. However, we don't get that in our other Alliance Raids - ever. Only in that one instance has an Alliance Raid had an enrage at all. In all other content: Normal, Normal Raids, Expert? We don't get those. Regardless, unless you have a bridge to EX you aren't going to get them even potentially wanting to go to Savage Raids or higher; which is still on the player to decide what they're comfortable with.

Nobody praised a fight with an 8 minute enrage timer when a below average group could kill it in about 3 minutes

[CVXIV]

Nobody praised a fight with an 8 minute enrage timer when a below average group could kill it in about 3 minutes

wait the Althyk and Nymeia fight has an enrage timer?

That isn't me trying to be funny or anything, I genuinely didn't know that

as for the other comments yeah, I personally wouldn't consider Dalriada all that difficult or Delubrum Reginae but it's definitely a step up from your average dungeon or raid

[Supersnow845]

wait the Althyk and Nymeia fight has an enrage timer?

That isn't me trying to be funny or anything, I genuinely didn't know that

as for the other comments yeah, I personally wouldn't consider Dalriada all that difficult or Delubrum Reginae but it's definitely a step up from your average dungeon or raid

Yeah it’s that debuff the two get as soon as the fight starts that looks like a purple axe and has an 8 minute timer on it. If it hits zero before either die the two enrage and kill the entire raid

It’s just literally never relevant and would likely not even be relevant if it had half the duration

[CidHeiral]

Yet the Extremes are ways and bounds more often than not in terms of difficulty compared to Alliance Raids.

Depends on which alliance raids you're talking about. The Myths series was a pushover but I'd say Jueno is a great stepping stone to the current extremes.

As a reminder: people praised the Althyk and Nymeia fight. Why? Because of a soft enrage timer. That was the one thing people liked and it felt 'challenging' on content to have something like that. However, we don't get that in our other Alliance Raids - ever. Only in that one instance has an Alliance Raid had an enrage at all. In all other content: Normal, Normal Raids, Expert? We don't get those.

An enrage doesn't make a fight challenging if the mechanics leading up to that enrage are trivial, which was the case with Althyk/Nymeia. People were one-shotting that fight the night of release making any enrage timer completely irrelevant.

Likewise, as far as I'm aware the fights in Jueno have no enrage, but because the mechanics are more involved you regularly see people dropping like flies in there. That's preparing them for Extreme better than any enrage timer you'll never actually see.

Regardless, unless you have a bridge to EX you aren't going to get them even potentially wanting to go to Savage Raids or higher; which is still on the player to decide what they're comfortable with.

The bridge to EX is already there. If someone won't make that leap now then a new slightly different mode isn't going to change that.

There can and should be content that sits between something like juneo and the current extremes, BA is an example from a difficulty perceptive (ie ignore its entry system), launch orbornne is, dalriada is, DRN is

All of that is normal mode content. I'm not saying it shouldn't exist, I've done and enjoyed all of that content, but it's no different than the usual normal mode raid.

Now obviously everyone's perception of difficulty is different and on an individual basis someone could find some of those harder than others but that's going to be the case with anything. You have people on this forum complaining that the normal and expert dungeons are too hard and basically savage fights. That's a lot of why this whole hypothetical doesn't lead anywhere, there's never going to be a consensus. The devs can't make a separate difficulty for every person that plays the game, they have to draw the line somewhere. I think where it currently lies is more than reasonable for anyone genuinely interested in progressing.

[Supersnow845]

The bridge to EX is already there. If someone won't make that leap now then a new slightly different mode isn't going to change that.



All of that is normal mode content. I'm not saying it shouldn't exist, I've done and enjoyed all of that content, but it's no different than the usual normal mode raid.

Now obviously everyone's perception of difficulty is different and on an individual basis someone could find some of those harder than others but that's going to be the case with anything. You have people on this forum complaining that the normal and expert dungeons are too hard and basically savage fights. That's a lot of why this whole hypothetical doesn't lead anywhere, there's never going to be a consensus. The devs can't make a separate difficulty for every person that plays the game, they have to draw the line somewhere. I think where it currently lies is more than reasonable for anyone genuinely interested in progressing.

This is basically my point and what I think is wrong with your argument

Midcore content may be a nebulous term that few people agree on the exact difficulty of but everyone can point to the largest deficit in current difficulty, which is the “harder than juneo easier than extremes” range for people who want content that isn’t a pushover but also doesn’t need PF. It’s functionally irrelevant to the argument that you consider that normal content, it still is a deficit in difficulty that the devs don’t seem to want to touch which is a problem people have.

This doesn’t have to be a unique mode or be a stepping stone to extremes, it just has to be content people want to do and offer some measure of rewards