SE: Savage Difficulty Spike and PF Toxicity Shows we need Hard Raids

[Oizen]

I'm pretty sure your options for content if you're not a raider are:
-mod the fuck out of the game
-unsub

The last non-raid combat content this game got was in October of 2023 with Aloalo island.
If you don't count that because of Criterion being its end goal then it was in March of 2023 with Eureka Orthos.


I see no reason why anyone who doesn't raid would even remained subbed unless you just REALLY like the second life aspect of this game.

[Taranok]

Can you explain which fights and mechanics you are refering to here please.

Bloom 6 is literally one of the hardest mechanics on principle. You have an extremely fast mechanic with randomly assigned towers in one of 2 orientations that will randomly cleave a given tower and give a couple seconds at best of time to actually figure out which tower needs to be extended. Depending on solution involved, you then either have to cross the arena in 3 seconds of time, or understand that which tower you go into should be based on what side of the arena you're on in an east-west orientation. If any 1 tower is failed, everyone without a tower dies. The entire mechanic from beginning to end takes about 10 seconds to solve of which you have 2-4 seconds of time from telegraph to setting up the solution, with an intense body check.

The part that makes it not-quite-ult is that the holy cleaves that designate which tower is the safe spot isn't an insta-kill attack, meaning that it can be safely ignored and you just kinda stand in 1 of 4 towers and be careful not to attach stuff and oops, mechanic solved.

Take that mechanic and fix the holy cleave part, it would gladly slot in fine to P3 Nidhogg of DSR, even be a bit hard since P3 Nidhogg gives you more actual setup time from telegraph to execution.

The pace is on par with ucob/nael, the difficulty is DSR-adjacent if you specifically ignore holies not doing enough damage to actually require them to be handled, and the ease of messing it up is, easily, ultimate grade.

The only thing that makes it not ultimate grade is if you compare it to other DT fight designs, such as how M7S makes TOP and DSR look like child's play in terms of pace and execution requirement, with DSR and TOP both an order of magnitude above the perfection that is TEA, because this game can't help itself with difficulty creep, and too many players are blind to just how severe it is.

We can also take a look at absolute authority which is almost literally solved the same way as TOP/P2, just stack everyone up. But that's more an example of "When you throw literally everything at the party, there's only so much you can do before it becomes outright fatal when you design too close to the extremes of what your game can handle." Not quite an ultimate mechanic, but the fact that it's about as threatening and is solved the same way showcases the problem of modern fight design all the same. Ironically, because of this major design flaw, it and P2 TOP end up having a mechanic easier than their 'easier' counterpart, such as O12S and Sphene normal.

As the devs increase the pace, how heavy the stick hits on failure, and how little time you have to solve things, we can see this rolling goalpost of difficulty creep that has seen what used to be ultimate mechanics being seen in easier and easier content. One of the most flagrant examples of this, albeit not with an ultimate, is in field station's final boss ripping a mechanic literally lifted directly from ruby weapon EX and P5S. Complete with a similar level of lethality to both versions.

[Gwenkatsu]

I'm pretty sure your options for content if you're not a raider are:
-mod the fuck out of the game
-unsub

The last non-raid combat content this game got was in October of 2023 with Aloalo island.
If you don't count that because of Criterion being its end goal then it was in March of 2023 with Eureka Orthos.


I see no reason why anyone who doesn't raid would even remained subbed unless you just REALLY like the second life aspect of this game.

Content is what you make of it. I never used a mod, I don't even know why I should, or how to do that (one of the reasons why I left WoW for good is that you constantly have to re-invent this game with 50+ essential addons; then a new patch comes out, and 80% of your addons are unusable for weeks... yukk).
In FF14, I just dabble around, and do whatever I like to. Last week I leveled crafter for an alt I will never use for crafting. This week I'm completing the 66 fates in every DT zone. Next week I will do whatever strikes me next.

This is my playstyle, and I get my money's worth, which is all I'm asking for. If you think this is not a worthy way to play the game... well, you know what they say about opinions, right? I for one would not raid in this game, even if someone payed me to do it.

[VeyaAkemi]

<snip>

If you would allow me to chime in, an absolutely brutal mechanic in my eyes in this tier is Arcady Night Encore, and it has rapidly become my most hated mechanic in the game for what it means for a full team, the cleaves during that segment come out absurdly, unforgivably fast, and the saving grace is that you can get some blessed patterns out of it, with a full NESW rotation pattern that allows you to stay 2 cleaves ahead of the boss the entire time being possible, but then you get multiple NS or EW cleaves multiple people in a party die and it just doesn't matter how well you did, I can clear it reliably, but how much is that worth?

[Jeeqbit]

As the devs increase the pace, how heavy the stick hits on failure, and how little time you have to solve things, we can see this rolling goalpost of difficulty creep that has seen what used to be ultimate mechanics being seen in easier and easier content. One of the most flagrant examples of this, albeit not with an ultimate, is in field station's final boss ripping a mechanic literally lifted directly from ruby weapon EX and P5S. Complete with a similar level of lethality to both versions.

It is true that a lot of mechanics start out in Savage or Ultimate, then trickle down in future content in an easier form that is just less punishing or has more prospect of recovery. For example, needing to stop moving in Baelsar's Wall's second boss was in A10S before that. Limit Cut was put in Holminster. But really the key point is they do comparatively little damage or have less consequence if it goes wrong or there is less going on generally.

They also have adjusted the job design over the years to move the focus away from the rotation and more to the mechanics.

A simple way to prove that this design isn't a problem is whether people have more difficulty clearing the normal content than they do their harder versions. Normal versions are still usually 1-3 tries and in many cases just 1 try, while you still have posts on these forums saying how hard savage is. So it seems like the difficulty is in the right order to me?

[PercibelTheren]

If you would allow me to chime in, an absolutely brutal mechanic in my eyes in this tier is Arcady Night Encore, and it has rapidly become my most hated mechanic in the game for what it means for a full team, the cleaves during that segment come out absurdly, unforgivably fast, and the saving grace is that you can get some blessed patterns out of it, with a full NESW rotation pattern that allows you to stay 2 cleaves ahead of the boss the entire time being possible, but then you get multiple NS or EW cleaves multiple people in a party die and it just doesn't matter how well you did, I can clear it reliably, but how much is that worth?

Yeah, I hate Arcady Nights Encore. I understand how the mechanic works. I understand which frog position means which side it's going to cleave but my brain just can. Not. Parse the information quickly enough. Our static has tried giving me someone with a safety dorito to follow but even that has proven quite ineffective. It's a success if I only get hit once and don't end up hugging the floor. It makes me feel really bad because, apparently, I just...am too slow for raiding.

[Volgia]

The only thing that makes it not ultimate grade is if you compare it to other DT fight designs, such as how M7S makes TOP and DSR look like child's play in terms of pace and execution requirement, with DSR and TOP both an order of magnitude above the perfection that is TEA, because this game can't help itself with difficulty creep, and too many players are blind to just how severe it is.

I love this part of your post, I mean I must assume you're trolling because M7S is probably one of the easiest fights to execute, not only in the whole tier, but out of all the second tier savages I have ever played. O7S felt more busy (And you had to deal with Stormblood clunk and actual aggro managing), E7S feels like it drags until you make a mistake but it's on par with it, and P7S is super chaotic towards the final harvests.

Nevermind the fact that TOP and DSR are the toughest ultimates to execute even to this day.

[-Xenia-]

I love this part of your post, I mean I must assume you're trolling because M7S is probably one of the easiest fights to execute, not only in the whole tier, but out of all the second tier savages I have ever played. O7S felt more busy (And you had to deal with Stormblood clunk and actual aggro managing), E7S feels like it drags until you make a mistake but it's on par with it, and P7S is super chaotic towards the final harvests.

Nevermind the fact that TOP and DSR are the toughest ultimates to execute even to this day.

From what I have experienced in pf, your view is clearly not shared by many. It was unbelievably hard for me to find a group capable of clearing m7s. In fact, I went an entire week ready to clear the fight and could not the entire week because of how bad pf was.

[Jeeqbit]

Shadow of Mhach

So, back then, Alliance Raids were an exception. They could be about 60-75% as hard as Savage because the sheer amount of people with resurrects would mean we get through it. 6 healers, potentially 1 or more Summoners, meant that although people would definitely die they would also be revived.

They did not telegraph things much back then, so if we take the bow and arrow mechanics in the last Endwalker alliance raid, those wouldn't have had any telegraphs.

That raid series had concepts such as "placing AoEs", and those AoEs staying where you placed them, and tanks separating adds and having to interrupt them, and position things well. SE has moved away from most of that now and keeps it exclusive to savage, so in this area they actually backtracked. We no longer seem to need to separate adds and we no longer place things that remain there permanently and are required for a subsequent mechanic.

the Aetherochemical Research Facility prior to that

Although that one is rough at first since the revamp, it's your basic in-out mechanics from every other piece of content. Probably the main thing that makes it feel like High-End content is that they don't telegraph it in advance, and there is a very quick in-out moment, but that's been normal for dungeons for a few expansions now - you're meant to just observe which environmental objects are associated with which attacks or they hit you.

[PercibelTheren]

From what I have experienced in pf, your view is clearly not shared by many. It was unbelievably hard for me to find a group capable of clearing m7s. In fact, I went an entire week ready to clear the fight and could not the entire week because of how bad pf was.

This is kind of the curse of the forums and the Reddit community. The people who frequent such spaces are, usually, people who are really invested in the game. And this means the populations tend to skew towards high-end raiders and are by no means a representative sample of the playerbase. Timmy the Casual isn't here posting about Savage because he's too busy doing his roulettes and maybe farming glams.