Post-Mortem Discussion: 2.X Series

[Niiro]

(just as it was in leviathan too)

There were only 2 sides of the platform Levi could dive from at any given time depending on his position when he submerged.

If his Tail was in the NE corner before he went under his 1st dive would be from the N or the E, 2nd from the S or the W.

Was probably the better implementation of this kind of mechanic, no camera spinning necessary.

[Seravi Edalborez]

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

Don't forget, Turn 1 (and Turn 5) is still the only arena in all of coil that isn't just a flat featureless circle/square/rhombus.

I would sort of add honorable mentions:

Turn 4: Dealing with waves (on a hard timer if your DPS is low).
Turn 11 trash: As with Turn 1 boss, but with even more separation.

Parts of final coil are kind of designed ok (I like T10/11 conceptually despite how much I don't really like doing them) but there's the thing where they don't just discourage solo tanking, they just make it absolutely impossible due to adds tethering together or whatever. It's kind of an uninteresting design and a very arbitrary limitation. I also somewhat dislike how (relatively) unforgiving T10 is towards wipe recovery where you get the extra "Fuckyou-ga" on top of flubbing a mechanic.

As mentioned before by others, I feel Titan EX hit a good peak (even now with overgearing, to a certain extent) where there were multiple really solid checks for every job. I really think the highlight of my entire XIV raiding tenure is when our static first tried Titan EX totally blind. We saw the first jump, ran out to the edge as if it was hardmode, and collectively shit ourselves when we saw how much arena was knocked out on the first jump. It was magical and the fight itself is one of the best put-together in all of 2.0 because of how (at the time) over the top it was while still having concise and frequent DPS/heal/tank checks.

I didn't personally mind divebombs but in my experience there is always going to be "that one guy" who takes 10x longer to get it down which, while it's totally just a player skill issue, is a pretty annoying way to be virtually forced to wipe/recover in progression.

[Cichy]

So I finally finished the story line and I gotta say it was a huge disappointment to me. I was expecting some huge finale with Nidhogg destroying part of Ishgard with some kind of beam or something in those terms. Not only that but it was a huge let down to me how the missions played out. The Tatarru part was just pointless and what I dislike the most is how you really had nothing to do. Aside of Ishgard defense there were no other fights. You spent bunch of time watching cutscenes and that's it. It was just a really bad note to end on for me especially if they trying to get people excited for Heavensward.

[Arthars]

well.... in all dramas etc, the hero usually dont go all out unleash their fury (except raubahn) when shit happens suddenly

we keep cool and let it play out instead, + the scions did it so we can run

that being said, i dont wanna run, i wanna own shits up because raubahn clearly didnt use his combo right

[Ramset]

Don't forget, Turn 1 (and Turn 5) is still the only arena in all of coil that isn't just a flat featureless circle/square/rhombus.

I would sort of add honorable mentions:

Turn 4: Dealing with waves (on a hard timer if your DPS is low).
Turn 11 trash: As with Turn 1 boss, but with even more separation.


Parts of final coil are kind of designed ok (I like T10/11 conceptually despite how much I don't really like doing them) but there's the thing where they don't just discourage solo tanking, they just make it absolutely impossible due to adds tethering together or whatever. It's kind of an uninteresting design and a very arbitrary limitation. I also somewhat dislike how (relatively) unforgiving T10 is towards wipe recovery where you get the extra "Fuckyou-ga" on top of flubbing a mechanic.

Most of Final Coil's mechanics sucked. Basically instead of giving you puzzles to solve, they forced you into doing things a certain way. Forced tank swaps, forced tank separation, etc. They're not good mechanics, they're just ways of making a fight un-fun.

That's my biggest gripe with FCoB is that the fights just really aren't all that fun. I like Turn 12...and that's about it. I think Turn 10 has decent mechanics, and at least the tank swap isn't mandatory. Turn 11 is awful. Turn 12; I don't enjoy the add phase, but I think that passing brand is a cool mechanic and the tank swap is bearable. Turn 13: no.

The other problem was in Turn 13 they essentially just made it one giant heal check and hope your DPS doesn't suck. Blood of Mercydia having varying damage immunity was a cool idea, but basically every other mechanic is just a heal check. Most of the burden is put on the players with green icons to make sure everyone can finish the fight. Not well tuned.

As mentioned before by others, I feel Titan EX hit a good peak (even now with overgearing, to a certain extent) where there were multiple really solid checks for every job. I really think the highlight of my entire XIV raiding tenure is when our static first tried Titan EX totally blind. We saw the first jump, ran out to the edge as if it was hardmode, and collectively shit ourselves when we saw how much arena was knocked out on the first jump. It was magical and the fight itself is one of the best put-together in all of 2.0 because of how (at the time) over the top it was while still having concise and frequent DPS/heal/tank checks.

Good times.

I didn't personally mind divebombs but in my experience there is always going to be "that one guy" who takes 10x longer to get it down which, while it's totally just a player skill issue, is a pretty annoying way to be virtually forced to wipe/recover in progression.

Divebombs were ok (read: justifiable) the first time around in Turn 5. Turn 9 was "seriously, again?". Turn 13 was "they really can't come up with anything better?" In fact, I think the only cool part of Turn 13 was the "return" of 'Twintania'. I wouldn't have bad things to say about divebombs if they didn't re-use the mechanic 2 other times. I wish they would have at least switched it up (i.e.: 'divebombs' from SV normal mode where aoe pools drop and you have to dodge strategically and then avoid a random path of divebombs).

Meh.

[Cichy]

well.... in all dramas etc, the hero usually dont go all out unleash their fury (except raubahn) when shit happens suddenly

we keep cool and let it play out instead, + the scions did it so we can run

that being said, i dont wanna run, i wanna own shits up because raubahn clearly didnt use his combo right

first thing that popped into my mind was that we fought Primals, Bahamut, and huge dragons and all of the scions got owned by 6 npcs

[solracht]

today I learned Divebomb is the same mechanic as Cauterize

Spoiler: show

it's not

[miokomioko]

*shivers at the thought of more RNG*

Enter randomized dungeon with 7 other Duty Finder assholes.
*FULL PARTY*
First objective is not the easiest/simplest one possible.
*LIGHT PARTY*
"The tank left."

[Jem]

first thing that popped into my mind was that we fought Primals, Bahamut, and huge dragons and all of the scions got owned by 6 npcs

The disappointing part with the Scions is that we've seen them fend off Gaius before in Futures Perfect. Can you imagine what would have happened if Gaius was confronted with a dozen or so Brass Blades? He'd have fucked their shit up and walked away.

[nekura]

2.1 was the high point for me as well, at least in terms of my desire to play the game. I've enjoyed some of the content since then, but once the 2.2 patch notes hit and the cycle of content and progression going forward was made apparent, I felt boredom set in and canceled my sub, mostly returning for free weekends and a stray month here and there. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Heavensward mixes things up; I don't expect to ever get addicted to a game as deeply as I did with FFXI back in the day (well, maybe once VR MMOs hit ), but I at least want to feel the same desire to play that I did during 2.1. So far there's a lot of things being said that have me interested, but it will depend on the execution.

[Rehn]

Content is most definitely a concern for me. Rehashed hardmode dungeons just aren't satisfying in the way they executed it. If it's part of the roulette, then I can't expect it to be anything challenging other than the quality of people I get.

At the moment, getting gear just to challenge the same content you get gear from doesn't really motivate me (final coil), but this is only coming from a guy whose coil set broke mid-T12. I'm really hoping for more middle-tier content as the top-end isn't likely to be catered to anytime soon. WoD is one such event, but there can't be a single WoD every 6 months: that's just silly.

I assume they spent most of their attention working/building up to the expansion, so I have fairly high expectations to be handed new things to do and try out. Also, WTB interesting gear stats that includes more than just "cap acc > det+crit"

[Ramset]

Calling WoD mid-core is an insult to players who actually fall under the mid-core category. That content is a complete and utter face-roll joke of a "raid". It's a wait for 24 people to waste their time. Where most people don't give a fuck, hardly anyone pays attention, and a small minority carries the rest through content.

Mid-core would have been difficult primal battles like Titan EX when the gear that was dropped actually meant something. As you said, the top-end isn't likely to be catered to, but Square doesn't seem to understand mid-core either. Whether you are mid-core or hardcore, there's not enough content to satisfy an above average player that actually wants to DO STUFF in an MMO.

I seriously hope they rework the tomestone/roulette/bullshit system that exists now. Nobody respects dungeons or 24 man raid. They're a means to an end, and that end is capping tomestones weekly because you have to in order to keep up with the wave. It's basically a waste of development effort. They spend time creating 3 new dungeons for a patch, only to seen them mindlessly blown through and become fodder for tomestones because there's no reason to do the dungeon other than tomestones. Gear...glamour? Come on, why do they even bother to put stats on that shit. They know it's worthless, even casual don't need that gear because they spammed hunts or got carried in WoD endlessly to get better gear. Don't they have a content designer and people that balance gameplay and make decisions about rewards?

Here's a novel idea. What if instead of creating 3 new useless dungeons, they made 1 large dungeon for 8 people that required a brain and provided better rewards. Oh you mean like a mid-core raid dungeon? Holy shit...you mean a way for people to collect gear without grinding tomestones or doing Coil-tier raid? And this gear could help with progression? And people would have to know what they're doing? Stop, stop, you're making too much sense.

I don't think I have all the answers, and I'm not running their business, but I can't understand how they thought they were making good decisions with this crap. Sure it's not all bad, and I keep playing the game but they can do way better. Current strategy is lazy.

[Spider-Dan]

ITT: Titan EX was "mid-core"

So what was hardcore in i90 era... T5 and nothing else? I mean, if you want to say the entire game is easy, fine, but T-EX was (at worst) the second hardest fight in the game, and a giant content wall for the vast majority of players.

[Rehn]

I don't really care what you want to call it, Ramset, but we both agree there certainly needs to be more in-between content because as of now, their only solution is the CT raid series, which just isn't enough. When they announced the hardmode dungeons in the very beginning (2.1?), I was pretty excited to see how challenging they can be, only to see them fall in line with content just about everyone can do (very easily).

Unfortunately the structure of ilvl prevents them from adding alot of content for the same ilvl since it'll be outdated next cycle. But they are the ones who chose this path, so it's on them to get clever with it to keep us occupied.

[Ramset]

ITT: Titan EX was "mid-core"

So what was hardcore in i90 era... T5 and nothing else? I mean, if you want to say the entire game is easy, fine, but T-EX was (at worst) the second hardest fight in the game, and a giant content wall for the vast majority of players.

I'll give you that, I knew it was a bad example I just didn't have s better one at the time. Primals in general are more mid-core. Imo

[Damane]

I don't really care what you want to call it, Ramset, but we both agree there certainly needs to be more in-between content because as of now, their only solution is the CT raid series, which just isn't enough. When they announced the hardmode dungeons in the very beginning (2.1?), I was pretty excited to see how challenging they can be, only to see them fall in line with content just about everyone can do (very easily).

Unfortunately the structure of ilvl prevents them from adding alot of content for the same ilvl since it'll be outdated next cycle. But they are the ones who chose this path, so it's on them to get clever with it to keep us occupied.

a solution to this might be to lvl cap the content to keep it challenged and ad gear as reward that scales with your mainhand ilvl? think of it like rajas ring, gear that has stats that improve corresponding to main weapon ilvl equiped. that way you can keep the content challenging with an ilvl/lvl cap but still rewarding with the scaleing gear until some point. this is assuming they add some different 2. stats.

for example you could add gear that scales from ilvl 130 to ilvl 160 according to your main weapon ilvl. it can never exeed the ilvl of the weapon

[Ramset]

The Rajasring idea sounds like a little bit of a stretch, but I could see something like that working.

Definitely need more gear options at the higher/highest ilvl, and a way to keep gear more relevant. Perhaps some sort of combination of upwards scaling gear drops combined with stat RNG (randomized secondary stats [but always at stat cap because fuck grinding for "perfect" stats]). I dunno, just something needs to be done to keep things relevant and increase build/gear variance.

[Fiye]

Fuck that. Wildstar pulled that shit with slots (You'd get a random 2-4 slots) and people shredded Carbine for that. They've since changed that however.

We don't need more grind. The halfway steps (ilv80, ilv100, ilv120) needs to not be laughable content. Which is what Alexander (Normal) will hopefully be. Lets say you get AF2 (ilv150), Dungeon Drops (iLv160), Uncapped Tomestones (iLv170), Alexander (Normal) (iLv180), and ultimately Alexander (Hard) (iLv190)

Now, who knows what they do with your weekly allowance of higher grade tomestones. Honestly I just hope they stop it with the "Fuck you, we're full" statics that've plagued 2.x. And I think that finding NMs with airships will just be Hunts 2.0

[Spider-Dan]

a solution to this might be to lvl cap the content to keep it challenged

A thousand times, no.

Why levelcap outdated content that drops now-useless gear? The only reason to do, say, Ifrit EX now is to experience the content. Why roadblock people unnecessarily?

[Taint]

Remove the caps on secondaries and you have unlimited side grades per ilvl.

3.0
Dungeon i150 Secondaries cap at 50
24 man raid i150 secondaires cap at 75
Tome gear i160 cap of 70

3.1
new Dungeons i150 cap of 70
Alexander i170 cap of 90
Hard Alex i180 cap of 130

3.2
Airship battles i160 cap of 100
New Dungeons i150 cap of 80
Carbontwined takes tome cap to 90


Bam you constantly have useful ilvl gear but tons of ways to get it and get it better.