Post-Mortem Discussion: 2.X Series

[Damane]

i like/d 14 overall, but it gets boring pretty fast with no coil static.

What i hope to see from haevensward:

- more crossclass/job coszumization that actually matters

- area/instanced based farm zones for 24 man people withno strict path how to clear (think of it like dynamis)

-RNG dungeon with different objectives and the neex to adjust on the fly (think of it like nyzul) i really need this i cant enter anymore dungeons for the 50. time that are allways the same

-more flexible pt setups. for gods sake let people enter stuff with less then 8or4 people let them try to lowman stuff... i cant stress this enough, why do i have to invite random strange people i dont know, same applies to 24 man runs

- tiered "hunt" system for 3-24 people open world with pop items

in general: make stuff fucking more flexible so people can do good stuff with 4-24 peeps
this is the biggest point bothering me in 11 atm

oh and more meaningfull stats on gear that allow for sidegrades. ilvl jumps are good but atm gear gets way to fast outdated. 1year is a good estimation for a jump. fill inbetween with sidegrades and unique stats. when i am away for 1 month it feels pontless to come back and grind gear that is outdated the next month

[Kaslo]

Dumbed down is probably the wrong word, I think it's best to say "homogenized". I guess this is the problem with our current simplistic raid design, everyone needs x DPS and y effective HP for mechanics, the rest doesn't matter... not that it's wrong, just boring imo.

Yep all I have to do in final coil is do my dps and make sure I have enough HP, not also do mechanics also.

[Fievel]

ramuh > titan ex >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the rest in terms of learning

2nd coil is >>>>> final coil in terms of mechanics

1st coil was longest because everyone havent got their story/titan done way back lolllllll

savage still own 99% of the playerbase which is sad because here we are asking for challenge, yet only 1% of us are trying (im only cleared turn 1 lol havent even attempted the rest, except 1 round of turn 3)

maybe if better rewards are thrown in, that 1% might become 10%

Hardest part about savage is finding 7 other people to do it.

ok fine and the fights too

[Baelfael]

Ever since they said they were pounding out the expansion at the same time as making 2.x content, I felt 2.x would be a little lacking. That said, I often wonder if the game is going to be in a constant state of, "catching-up," since the abomination that was 1.0's launch until later in it's series. But unlike most who forget, 2.x is supposed to be our new base for the rest of the game. With that being said, I have this expectation that 3.x will be increasingly harder built upon that. I just hope that now they have more time to put more thought into content before trying to get the next expansion out already. As well as, taking our base and expanding upon that in varying ways. Maybe some non-linear dungeons and non-worthless adds before a raid boss. (Like, two sets of adds and then, "Oh, boss time." It's really lame and feels extremely narrow.)

[Spider-Dan]

I think Titan EX is not really the most complicated primal (that would be Ramuh EX), but it's the hardest relative to release because it's just so unforgiving. Ramuh mistakes can mostly be healed through or raised from, and there aren't as many things that get other people killed. Titan enforces strict choreography whereas Ramuh has a lot of decision making and communication.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Ramuh mistakes can mostly be healed through or raised from, and there aren't as many things that get other people killed.

I dunno, most deaths in final phase are very hard to recover from especially if the death happened after most-but-not-all balls were picked up for tank or tether. Rivals T10 in snowball wipe potential, imo.

[Kaslo]

I'm not sure why people want non-linear dungeons... Someone will figure out the most efficient path and people will be scolded for not wanting to use it.

[Damane]

I'm not sure why people want non-linear dungeons... Someone will figure out the most efficient path and people will be scolded for not wanting to use it.

i dont mean only non-linear, i mean random, like totally random. the way nyzul isle was: Random layout, with random objective, random bosses and random mobs, period.

[Kaslo]

i dont mean only non-linear, i mean random, like totally random. the way nyzul isle was: Random layout, with random objective, random bosses and random mobs, period.

*shivers at the thought of more RNG*

[Eeeks]

Overall, 2.x succeeded admirably. There's nothing about the game that's revolutionary, but considering the context behind 2.x's development, they succeeded in designing a damn fine modern MMO. Now that the groundwork's in place, it'll be interesting to see what the future holds.

My biggest complaint lies with an inflexible endgame reliant on lockouts. For a variety of reasons, I'm among those players who refuse to dedicate themselves to a set schedule with a static raid group. As such, I cannot make any meaningful attempts at endgame content until the removal of weekly completion lockouts. Instead of endgame FCs/linkshells with a stable of raiders, we have isolated static groups unable to run current endgame content with anyone other than their respective statics. This is one of the biggest divides in the max-level community: 'raiders with statics' and 'players without statics who threw up their hands in frustration and play other content'.

For the modern-day 'casual' player, there's now sufficient available content to play with that justifies the subscription fee. It's impossible to produce and release enough content to satisfy the no-lifers, so they're largely irrelevant. I do hope there's more diversity and accessibility in future high-level battle content.

And one last thing: the crafting system is magnificent, but they clearly dislike omnicrafters and wish to impose forced specialization (for example, desynthesis). Please stop doing this. It's not the omnicrafter's fault that the stupids cannot find ways to craft for profit or level crafts without spending considerable gil. I'm ambivalent towards systems that favor a specialist over an omnicrafter, but please stop with the arbitrary hard caps as exist with desynthesis. Despite its inefficiency, I quite like being able to source my own materials and craft anything I might need (assuming I unlocked the recipes).

[Cocoa Coala]

Yep all I have to do in final coil is do my dps and make sure I have enough HP, not also do mechanics also.

x DPS and y effective HP for mechanics

HP for mechanics

mechanics

.

[Kaslo]

Except that is specifically tied to HP specific moves, not actually doing mechanics.

[Niiro]

*shivers at the thought of more RNG*

Big difference between random rewards and random challenges.

[Jem]

In fairness the bulk of the mechanics in FCOB for DPS fall under

A. Stand in designated waymark when X happens
B. Dodge shit
C. Infrequently, combine the above
D. Remembering whether to spread out or stack together in downtime between the above

I mean there isn't a whole lot more they could make us do but imo the hardest part of FCOB for DPS was hitting DPS checks before gear made it a non-issue.

[layoneil]

I'm not sure why people want non-linear dungeons... Someone will figure out the most efficient path and people will be scolded for not wanting to use it.

that's not what a good non-linear dungeon is. and it's not even pure randomness like Nyzul.

it should have options.

one path can drop a TT Card, the the other has a chest with a minion.
you can have paths with stuff that can be slept/silenced.
you can have paths with 5 big mobs or another with 30 small ones. if you have two MNks, you probably want to go left.
you can have a path with a key that you can get that you can't use till you come back in.
you can have a detour that for whatever reason reduces the boss' damage by half or you can just tank/heal through it.

dungeons should have more things in it besides getting to the end and get out. have the players make decisions where one is not always better than the other.

you want the Hard Wyrm Hide for the new crafting recipe, make sure you go and light all 10 torches or the HQ version of the boss won't spawn. if you don't want it, good, i'll go and sell mine for more gil.

[Ramset]

In fairness the bulk of the mechanics in FCOB for DPS fall under

A. Stand in designated waymark when X happens
B. Dodge shit
C. Infrequently, combine the above
D. Remembering whether to spread out or stack together in downtime between the above

I mean there isn't a whole lot more they could make us do but imo the hardest part of FCOB for DPS was hitting DPS checks before gear made it a non-issue.

In my opinion...

Good/fun raid mechanics:
- Turn 1: Splitting enemy/dps race on multiple targets. This forced groups to smartly divide their DPS while still handling other mechanics. Was cool. Simple fight, but cool. Would like to see more of this in the future, even as simple as having 2 bosses to right at once as opposed to 1 boss and X number of adds.
- Turn 2: Different path through raid affect boss mechanics. This is cool.
- Turn 7: I liked almost everything about this turn. Everyone had to pay attention. Positioning was important. Adds were a threat. Arguably the most well designed/raid-like fight in the game.
- Turn 8: Varying sets of mechanics, and lots of good coordination required.

Bad raid mechanics:
- Divebombs

[Jem]

I'm with you on divebombs. I think reaction mechanics that involve shit that isn't even on your screen are just terrible. Especially when they're almost guaranteed death. They're not hard but having to rotate my camera around non-stop to find out what direction they're coming from is stupid (just as it was in leviathan too). They should have either allowed us to zoom out and see the full battlefield or have it some sort of indicator to show where it's coming from (minimap/arrow/etc)

There's also massive discrepencies between players on those mechanics. Divebomb/Leviathan dives were infinitely easier to find on PS4 with a large TV than my widescreen laptop despite me playing at max zoom range.

[Ramset]

Well, there were methods to every turns Divebombs, but they all sucked. Plus, they draw you out of combat which is stupid. They're breaks in the fight for resource recovery to compensate for the saga of an encounter that turns 5,9, and 13 were. Dumb.

As for Leviathan, I have to respectfully disagree. Dashes in that fight are made trivial once you understand the patterns and you should almost never get hit.

[Dammerung]

Divebombs are fine. T5 is just move when the thing appears, T9 is interesting because it requires you to determine proper placement, and T13 is mostly easy just need to pay attention.

[Jem]

Oh I know the pattern and rarely got hit. My point with them is that there was a massive difference between tracking it on a PS4 and a laptop.