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Sierra Nazrin · **08-27-2015, 01:43 PM**

Here i am running Steps of Faith with a duty finder group, this was the result. two gates before the end of the entire run, we took out Vishap during the second burn phase.
[Image: fng9mj0.png]

Sylentmana · **08-28-2015, 10:02 AM**

Whoa, that's crazy! I didn't even know that was possible.

Oli! · **08-28-2015, 10:26 AM**

I believe I once managed that because our entire DPS team was single-target.

It was actually kind of hilarious.

Seriphyn · **08-30-2015, 11:57 AM**

Nicely done, but I do hope they increase the difficulty of older content somehow. The dramatic impact is lost and the gravitas of the battle becomes trivial.

Cato · **08-30-2015, 12:02 PM**

(08-30-2015, 11:57 AM)Seriphyn Wrote: Nicely done, but I do hope they increase the difficulty of older content somehow. The dramatic impact is lost and the gravitas of the battle becomes trivial.

I don't think they ever will, unfortunately. Which means that no new player is ever going to see the likes of Castrum Meridianum or The Praetorium as they were originally intended. Not that they were super difficult, of course, but you can completely ignore mechanics for the most part these days due to how poorly they scale.

Compare it to the likes of The Vault and it's disappointing. The Vault scales brilliantly - the last boss is still a threat since even with better gear you can still count on dying if you mess up even once given how intense the fight can be.

Thankfully it wasn't made easier - I was a tad worried that it would be, especially given what happened to Steps of Faith.

Oli! · **08-30-2015, 12:05 PM**

(08-30-2015, 12:02 PM)Graeham Wrote:
(08-30-2015, 11:57 AM)Seriphyn Wrote: Nicely done, but I do hope they increase the difficulty of older content somehow. The dramatic impact is lost and the gravitas of the battle becomes trivial.

I don't think they ever will, unfortunately. Which means that no new player is ever going to see the likes of Castrum Meridianum or The Praetorium as they were originally intended. Not that they were super difficult, of course, but you can completely ignore mechanics for the most part these days due to how poorly they scale.

Compare it to the likes of The Vault and it's disappointing. The Vault scales brilliantly - the last boss is still a threat since even with better gear you can still count on dying if you mess up even once given how intense the fight can be.

Thankfully it wasn't made easier - I was a tad worried that it would be, especially given what happened to Steps of Faith.

Due to the way that gear is scaled, I feel as if the final fights for 3.0 are going to be just as obsolete as the 2.0 content come 4.0. It's the result of gear scaling, and people are going to want better gear for 4.0 content in order to maintain some sense of progression, especially with the lack of a level-cap increase.

It's become rather accepted now that the endgame gear treadmill is XIV's choice of progression, and as long as that continues with future expansions, previous content is going to get easier and easier unless SE finds a way to rework their scaling system.

LiadansWhisper · **08-30-2015, 05:55 PM**

I do believe they are more focused on getting newer players through those hurdles than they are on making them suffer through the experience of wiping repeatedly on bosses that shouldn't have been difficult in the first place.

If they're not going to ungate the experience from 2.0 to 3.0, they're going to do the next best thing by making the required encounters as smooth and easy as possible so that they don't slow people down.

Caspar · **09-03-2015, 01:20 AM**

I had hoped Steps would be a "wake-up call" preceding a gradual increase in content difficulty. While the overworld is slightly more lethal in HW, nothing has really struck me as terribly hard. The nerfs made me worry for the longevity of the game, a bit.

Oli! · **09-03-2015, 01:24 AM**

(09-03-2015, 01:20 AM)Caspar Wrote: I had hoped Steps would be a "wake-up call" preceding a gradual increase in content difficulty. While the overworld is slightly more lethal in HW, nothing has really struck me as terribly hard. The nerfs made me worry for the longevity of the game, a bit.

It's important to remember that not everyone wants it hard all the time. Some players are more laid-back, and might even have thought that the difficulty increase for HW's mobs was too much. It's important that the devs strike the happiest balance that they can so that chunks of the playerbase don't complain / leave.

Caspar · **09-03-2015, 01:26 AM**

(09-03-2015, 01:24 AM)Oli! Wrote:
(09-03-2015, 01:20 AM)Caspar Wrote: I had hoped Steps would be a "wake-up call" preceding a gradual increase in content difficulty. While the overworld is slightly more lethal in HW, nothing has really struck me as terribly hard. The nerfs made me worry for the longevity of the game, a bit.

It's important to remember that not everyone wants it hard all the time. Some players are more laid-back, and might even have thought that the difficulty increase for HW's mobs was too much. It's important that the devs strike the happiest balance that they can so that chunks of the playerbase don't complain / leave.

Yeah, that's why I'd hoped it would gradually ease into it to allow players to get used to it.

It's mostly a selfish motivation though, lol. I largely want the increased difficulty because a lot of my friends are XI immgrants, and the thing that keeps them from staying consistently subbed and continuing to play with me is the lack of difficulty, which they endlessly whine about.

Warren Castille · **09-03-2015, 12:09 PM**

To sound like a grognard:

I long for the playerbase that meets a challenge and rises to it instead of bitching straight to the developer for nerfs.

Berrod Armstrong · **09-03-2015, 12:10 PM**

(09-03-2015, 12:09 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: To sound like a grognard:

I long for the playerbase that meets a challenge and rises to it instead of bitching straight to the developer for nerfs.

*~*~*~*dramatically turns, his hair flying in the breeze as he looks longingly back at 2.1 Pharos Sirius*~*~*~*

Agreed, and I'm a casual.

However, I do believe Main Story Quest trials and dungeons should be tuned for everyone to complete without too much difficulty. Unlockable side dungeons though.

Hurt me. Hurt me good.

Telluride · **09-03-2015, 12:44 PM**

(09-03-2015, 12:10 PM)Berrod Armstrong Wrote:
(09-03-2015, 12:09 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: To sound like a grognard:

I long for the playerbase that meets a challenge and rises to it instead of bitching straight to the developer for nerfs.
*~*~*~*dramatically turns, his hair flying in the breeze as he looks longingly back at 2.1 Pharos Sirius*~*~*~*

Agreed, and I'm a casual.

However, I do believe Main Story Quest trials and dungeons should be tuned for everyone to complete without too much difficulty. Unlockable side dungeons though.

Hurt me. Hurt me good.

Thing is, there is no one Playerbase, as the above exchange is already showing: Grognard, Casual, PVPer, RPer, Raider... while there are people who fit all the categories, or more than one, many people tend to have much more regard for one aspect of a game than the other, and if a change to one aspect impacts another, the buzzing starts.

I take examples from my gaming past, particularly from LOTRO and SWTOR, as examples, but these are common to every game. In both of the aforementioned games, nerfs were applied to certain classes for PVP purposes, when the changes were completely unnecessary for PVE, and threw off playing strategies for raiders and solo PVE players. The non-PVPers were incensed and lashed out at both the devs and the PVP folks, the latter of whom, of course, lashed back.

It's hard for a single playerbase to rise up when a large part of it feels as if they've been ripped off/screwed/nerfed to satisfy another part of the base, with which the former part hasn't much reason to care about, in their opinions.

I've actually seen LESS of this sort of thing in FFXIV than in, well, just about any other game. We're arguing more over hairstyles than much of anything else at the moment, and if you step back with a wider perspective, that's not too terrible a place to be. As negative as some people may think I am, I look at FFXIV, and then remember when my Champion got nerfed in LOTRO, and when the Orbital Barrage ability in SWTOR got nerfed, and how much of a furious impact THOSE made, and realize that, well, I can live without fancy hair.

Don't neglect those occasions when a playerbase DOES rise to a challenge, and handles it so well that the devs step in and break up their solutions, because exploit, yadda yadda. Sometimes nobody actually has a problem EXCEPT the devs, and those generate nerfs, too.

We've talked about biases, and I have mine - I have some criteria that I like in a game of this sort, and I stick with FFXIV because it's done the best job of meeting those in a good while, even if it fails at some others.

Also, I stand by a personal mantra - just because something is harder doesn't mean it is automatically more fulfilling and BETTER. Give the grognards and the difficulty seekers things to do - that's what all those endgame options are about - but valuing difficulty ONLY for difficulty's sake is, in my opinion, pretty ridiculous, especially when you have a game that intends to stick the same content over and over again in our faces in the form of dailies. Difficulty is not always its own reward.

Caspar · **09-03-2015, 01:15 PM**

(09-03-2015, 12:10 PM)Berrod Armstrong Wrote:
(09-03-2015, 12:09 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: To sound like a grognard:

I long for the playerbase that meets a challenge and rises to it instead of bitching straight to the developer for nerfs.
*~*~*~*dramatically turns, his hair flying in the breeze as he looks longingly back at 2.1 Pharos Sirius*~*~*~*

Agreed, and I'm a casual.

However, I do believe Main Story Quest trials and dungeons should be tuned for everyone to complete without too much difficulty. Unlockable side dungeons though.

Hurt me. Hurt me good.

I LOVED Pharos on release. The unforgiving mechanics. The need for every player to contribute. It's length and non-traditional room shape. For a long time it was that one dungeon tanks feared and disappeared from the moment they queued in, whereas it was excellent practice for me. I used to use Pharos as a kind of training routine where I got better at WAR by running it when others queuedodged it.
However, I understand not everyone can be a masochistÂ like me. It takes a certain mindset and not everyone is keen on it. Also, a lot of XI players like difficulty, but I find their idea is different than mine. They seem to equate tedium with challenge.

LiadansWhisper · **09-03-2015, 06:09 PM**

I liked Pharos.

What I didn't like was doing it in the Duty Finder, primarily because it made the dungeon ridiculously harder than it was intended to be.

Actually, Caspar, you talked about wanting dungeons to be harder. Â I'm sure you'll agree with me that Sohm Al really isn't tough, right? Â I spent nearly an hour in there on the last boss because we had a Bard who simply could not get out of the fire. Â We explained the tactics to him again and again and again, and every time he'd do exactly the wrong thing. Â And I simply couldn't keep him alive through one-shot damage, nor could I afford to repeatedly res him as an Astrologian.

Thing is, when something has to be completed with a random group, there's a fairly hard limit on how hard they can make it. Â Because, well, there will always be that Bard that has no idea what he or she is doing and ends up wiping the group repeatedly until he leaves in embarrassment (mind you, we didn't ask him to leave, and no one was mean to him).

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One heck of a nice run!

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes