Why FFXIV is Impossible to Balance | Xeno Reacts to Interview with Mr Ozma (Lead Designer)

[@ARCWolf7]

I might be in the minority, but I think every Alliance Raid should be the difficulty of The Tower at Paradigm's Breach, and The Orbonne Monastery. Jeuno: The First Walk was a good first step and I hope they stay this route.

[@IssicheaV]

atm most of if not all Alliance raid are just 24 mans dungeon

[@NatiiixLP]

But they must also be designed so that they're comfortable farmable on DR with max ilvl. There are already so many duties that it's impossible to remember every mechanic in every duty that you can get on DR, so having random unique insta-kill mechanics in ARs is going to be kinda cringe in the long run. Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not saying they're too difficult. I never wiped on The Orbonne Monastery in a DR, so I think that level of difficulty is fine. I'm just saying they can't be much higher.

[@Choristoceras]

Nier 3 works ok-ish as first clear experience. But if you get it regularly in roulettes it because a pain, so no.

[@NotExplicable]

Jeuno is almost perfect, and I'll take that for a 1st alliance raid.

[@Choristoceras]

@@NotExplicable Well, Nier 1 was ok-ish too, but then they dropped the ball on Nier 3 XD

[@TheToadmyster]

Fights are too symmetrical I feel. Always gotta be standing on a clock spot, always gotta be a left cleave then a right cleave, always gotta be a pairs or light party stacks. It feels so robotic, why do so many fights have this formula? Theres a clear point when content started doing that.

[@dividedbyzero4]

i get how you feel but some of DT's spreads hasnt been clockspots at least (M4S, chaotic cloud, to name a few)

[@ExiaLupus]

Half of Dawntrail fight design is just half arena cleaves

[@Bankai90]

ye after playing TnL i realised how simple but bit more innovative can be really fun

[@flufkyn]

Personally would also like to see different kind of arenas, I thought the rhalhr arena was pretty memorable

[@xCaLLMeGHeTTo]

Even the mention of a 24 man ultimate makes me shiver. That would bring back MW2 lobby levels of toxicity.

[@mineking298]

with ffxivs playerbase, i feel it is simply impossible to make casual or midcore content, because the second it requires an ounce of thinking, casuals call it hardcore or too hard.

[@Blahblah-oo7lk]

Another issue is that what Japan considers "midcore" (though they don't use the word) is different than players in the West. For example Chaotic, savage, and ultimates have a higher clear rate in Japanese servers than those in NA/EU servers. Their preferred method of communication is different and how the use party finder/duty finder are different too. It is known that the developers read social media in Japanese or translate content to Japanese because it is the only language they know so they have a better understanding of the players in Japan, though many Japanese players complain that the developers listen too much to Western players.

[@astrealove1]

The only thing that make this game hard is finding 7 other players that are as good as oneself.

[@Dyvinell]

As someone who has been raiding since eden’s promise as tank and melee both and am currently a melee main, positionals for sure are super outdated and limit so much potential to make the game more fun not just for melees, but for all jobs, because more interesting mechanics and design philosophies can be implemented without positionals needing to be taken into account. I personally am 100% on team remove positionals

[@1BadAssArchAngelvs14]

job class Viper postinals suck the most forcing you to move consatanly from the side to the rear at a fast pace is really annoying when it rarely matters in terms of damage.

[@Dyvinell]

@ im currently a viper main myself and definitely agree its pretty unnecessary and the job would still be just as fun without the positionals

[@Nina-qd8zu]

​@@Dyvinell The job is such a blast to play in chaotic for that reason. No care for positionals, at least not until the Stygeon Shadow if you are on the platform.

[@Diddz]

if they were to give us a singleplayer ultimate of any kind, watching all the trash players fail to ever clear and be unable to be carried will be VERY VERY entertaining to watch

[@NatiiixLP]

So, like PotD/HoH with actual mechanics? I think it's impossible to make raid-style difficult content for a single player because the biggest difficulty is coordinating everyone, and the difficulty grows exponentially with the number of players when no one is allowed to make a single mistake.

[@xAramil0x]

​@@NatiiixLP bozja/zandor duels are harder than some Extreme and savages if you don't cheese them in my opinion

[@Starrky923]

@@NatiiixLP potd feels like 95% grind 5% difficulty, it's just awful design

[@Th3hUnT3R1]

@@NatiiixLP You would have to make it harder than ultimates, to offset all the missing points of failure yea, but I don't think it's impossible, other MMOs have also done difficult solo content before.

[@Th3hUnT3R1]

@@xAramil0x I love that content in theory, but while I've done the bozja duels I skipped Zadnor just because it was too exhausting and grindy to get in for my taste, I just want to play the encounter not spend hours trying to access.

[@LevaniaMeyano]

I disagree on removing positionals. I find fights in this game a lot more engaging when I'm dancing around the boss to get that extra potency. And I don't believe for a second, based on job designs in this game. That they will give melee dps more interesting rotations at all by the removal of positionals. Adding 1 extra CD or GCD somewhere in the rotation? Great, something I do once every 30s or minute instead of more frequently is not going to be as satisfying for me.

[@D-Havoc]

MNK has less posirionals and now what focused that would have went to "dancing around the boss and dying to mechanics due to tunneling or killing someone else because you didn't want to move" went towards the Nadi system. People cry that they miss the positionals along with the DoT it had, but they can't say the rotation isn't still busy and engaging. And let's not pretend you're doing positionals constantly. There are roughly 2 GCDs on all the melee that are positionals, and the rest are simply building up to that flank or rear attack. DRG is the only exception. They can easily be reworked into personal buffs to maintain instead. VPR is that already. RPR, NIN, and MNK are mostly there, too. SAM is the only pne where people still pretend the positionals are somehow intricate to the job, much like they deluded themselves about Kaiten last expansion.

[@addiction4062]

​@@D-Havocthe whole point about kaiten was that it was a fun button to press and looked cool aesthetically. ultimately it made the job feel more fun even though it was basically a nothing button. people arent clamoring for it back because of delusion. the amount of ego behind that statement is insane.

[@JxzzCat]

I agree that positionals need to go. It'll add more ability to design unique boss mechanics.

[@ExiaLupus]

True North

[@JxzzCat]

@ExiaLupus 🤡

[@Dastan117]

@@ExiaLupus Nobody uses role actions. I have tanks in CODCAR that STILL don't use interrupt, dps not using feint/addle, etc. It's like someone told them all role actions are useless trash and you'll barely use them. I really wonder who put that in these player's heads?

[@TheMrSirHenry]

The only thing difficult is memorization. That's all the raiding in this game is on every level outside of RWF

[@Fndlord]

That, and being able to learn and decipher misleading telegraphs.

[@azalli]

You should blind prog then

[@Paraguai123]

For someone that haven't done Ultimates, but always clear Savages and Criterions and what-not, I feel like they just need to adjust numbers and have at least one or two mechanics that scream like *UNIQUE*. All the MXs fights don't have any like, SUPER UNIQUE mechanics to them. The biggest one that I can think of, is Honey B's stacks healing her and powering her up, which isn't super unique but I never seen that being applied in the context of a fight. With that said, every single other fight in Dawntrail so far has been good to excellent, and yes, I'm including Sphene and Chaotic here. Just because the players are bad, doesn't mean the fight is bad.

[@Nodnarb59]

Nah chaotic is bad

[@Paraguai123]

@@Nodnarb59 ur bad

[@TheDool]

Sphene was bad because the fight was very samey every pull imo. Aside from bridges there was never a moment of "now i need to lock in and think about the debuff given to me"

[@Jaxter0987]

@@Nodnarb59 Care to elaborate?

[@Fndlord]

When content creators say something is “Easy” I always take it with a grain of salt. When an average player is still challenged by savage, and the party finder still struggles with clears post week one, it is clear that Savage is still challenging to most people. Even if it is easier, they always do this at the start of an expansion. They always make the first raid tier more “Accessible”, then ramp up the difficulty come the second tier. They ALWAYS do this. Agreed Hippocampus is goated. As a meele, I HEAVILY agree with removing positionals, it’s outdated. You can 100% clear stuff with no positionals.

[@whisperingshadowXI]

Content creators especially raiders have been spoiled by their premades/statics and literally play this game as their job so they have a shit ton of experience. They have no fucking concept of casual content in this game and never will lol.

[@SRFAA]

Another good example of the fun:difficulty ratio is Mysterious Figure in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep in comparison to the secret bosses in the series before him. Mysterious Figure was so ridiculous that most didn't find him fun (cool fighting style and great music though), but he's still the hardest boss in the entire series.

[@bnhearyza4767]

He's not even close to being the hardest boss in the series. People don't like his design because it is genuinely not a fair fight no matter which way you spin it. Ignoring the ridiculous flaws in his moveset, which just amount to you spamming dodge over and over, he invalides an extremely large chunk of your battle actions, even going as far as to be programed to jump over mine fields. While terrible, you won't see really any seasoned KH player claim he is anywhere close to the hardest boss in the series. You spam your dodge until he uses one of the only moves of his that is safe to punish, then use Thunder Surge or some other fast and safe action. That's the entire fight. Compared to many other superbosses, especially those in the most recent title, he is exceptionally easy and simple to take down. But, it is not abnormal for casual players to have this opinion, since MF will generally bring you down to 1 HP in a single hit, even on Standard Mode, which is something casual players are unaccustomed too, leading them to believe it is much harder than it really is.

[@SRFAA]

@bnhearyza4767 He is the hardest. Maybe you could argue that what's his face in KH3 is harder, but no other boss in the series was harder than him. If the most viable strategy is picking Aqua (or Ven) spamming attack dodges, and occasionally using surges because trying to fight him without i-frame abuse is a ludicrous idea, he is harder than the ones that can be beaten with a variety of strategies at any skill level.

[@Cinnamonmilks]

Mysterious Figure is the equivalent to that one kid who cheats by making up some random bullshit

[@MayHugger]

@@bnhearyza4767If you need to spam something that keeps you safe and wait for a single opening after ages just so you can do a safe and quick option in order to win, then they are definitely the hardest. Edit: Actually, seeing some later comments, they made really good points, and I’ve changed my point, they’re right, bullshit does not equal difficulty,

[@D-Havoc]

​@SRFAA He's not the hardest. He's just the cheapest and is poorly designed. The boss is coded to spam Doom if you have too many Cure command action in your deck. That's not "difficult." It's simply unwinnable because you'll die anyway because the Doom counter gets shorter each time it hits.

[@Senbonzakura_XIV]

As a melee I think I still quite enjoy the positionals " optimisation " as much as the uptime one and having both combined is what makes melee quite fun still ( to me ) , but if they were gonna remove it and compensate with more cool ideas on boss fight mechanics then I'm also down for it !

[@ozmintheobserver]

I hope they improve the gameplay feel of classes in the future, yeah they can crunch damage numbers. But I think they need to work more on the combat feel. Too many classes feel stuck between a mix of ARR and Shadowbringers like DRK.

[@allireni1995]

The problem I’ve been seeing for chaotic is prog lying. Join an enrage party for example and people who haven’t even done phase 2 at all joining. :( makes for a bad time in pf.

[@Nina-qd8zu]

Even if you lock it to duty complete, you still get memers....its just a dreadful experience trying to find the one group that can clear and actually sticks around for 5+ clears.

[@Robulite]

I always remember the times in trials where a dps accidentally got a tank buster but then both tanks and the shield healer mitigate this dps player and they live. Fights that are recoverable are a lot more fun to me it feels like an actual fight

[@Wyrsa]

@9:30 Greeding is part of the fun of DPSing.

[@SilverLongshadow]

The only thing I hope for is that the FF14 devs figure out how to keep a tier alive for longer. Doing reclears or late progression through savage content is way difficult right now simply because of numbers. One quick solution would be cross datacenter PF hopefully that can be a thing in the future

[@Artema9x]

I think its good when the positionals are not one after another, so you have something in the middle to press while you move.

[@Lunarowl]

My honest opinion on the Chaotic Alliance Raid is: (1) The mechanics are not hard at all. (2) It requires practices and sinking in how the mechanic works as you go through practices. And here are the problems from my personal experiences: (1) The player base/PF are having a really hard time to be consistent with the mechanics (Yeah, Tower is TOO HARD, imagine that). (2) The player base/PF refuses to be go into a practice party when they clearly needed a lot more practices on certain mechanics. (3) The player base/PF being dishonest about their progging point. (4) The player base/PF uses other's clearing/farming session, as their selfish practice sessions, unhinged and would die on the hill for it. The content itself is fine, the fight is not bad at all, nor was it difficult either. It's just the mindset ppl brought into it, that determines the difficulty of this content.

[@phase269]

I agree but imo i don't think they want to use the Clear partys as their practice session, but as their "Maybe i can get an ez kill without doing much and die alot"-Party. Not all my be like this but i guess a big amount of the player base think that way, who knows may be it is just my experince.

I think the core issue when it comes to designing stuff for this game is that they have to design around the idea that most people are likely gonna do shit with people they have never met. It’s really hard to make super interesting fights when that aspect can easily lead to frustration because of other people. I finally did an ulti (UCOB so I know get the memes underway) and while I was proud of my accomplishment, I realized that ff14 high end content just isn’t for me. Not because of the content being hard, but because of dealing with the absolute dregs of humanity just makes it to where it isn’t fun even if I enjoy the content. It’s really damn annoying joining a prog group just to have people blatantly lying (note: not being bad. Like just blatant lying about their experience) or someone who gets tilted after a single pull. I’ve cleared, I had a pretty alright parse. I know I got what it takes to do basically anything but I just have 0 interest interacting with this playerbase because I know I’m gonna get frustrated at shit I cannot control. I really don’t envy the devs because I feel like this problem is really apparent in their design choices. I was considering coming back to try chaotic until I sat down and though “man I already get annoyed at 7 people, I’m gonna go ballistic if I have to care about 23” and just haven’t bothered to come back. I know that this is an mmo so it’s just a me issue but even then, I do think it’s a major problem that is borderline impossible for the devs to address.

[@Fndlord]

Good point. This is why content like Eureka and Bozja is SERIOUSLY lacking. The raiders have been eating TOO good this expansion. Can’t wait til 7.2, honestly.

[@matt4192]

Thats why statics, Guilds (FCs), Friend groups exist. They are safety nets to help like-minded people group to approach content the way they want to experience / enjoy it. Its difficult to get proper experiences from just raw PF unfortunately.

@ honestly statics have the exact same problem. Every static I’ve been a part of has imploded because of people’s egos and derangement. Reason why I think it’s an ff14 problem and not just a general problem is specifically in how encounters are designed which exacerbate all these issues.

[@Jaxter0987]

Statics do not have the same problem. You can attempt to work out any issues that come up if you're constantly interacting with the same 7 people. People are less likely to go ballistic and put an effort into having higher tolerance for annoyances because they will be raiding with the same people again and again. If statics are imploding often, it means you never found people who truly shared the same mindset and goals. That's not a static issue, that's just people not vetting the players they commit to playing with.

[@shiro12okami69]

The bad experience from raiding comes from the way how ffxiv handles her concept of gameplay/encounters. Since difficulty can only come from Mechanics mostly in ffxiv, u can never rly have a middle line,it’s either hardcore or casual. If it has Bodychecks it’s instantly hardcore since lil Tim can murder whole grp each and every time, if it’s recoverable with Rez,and has 0 Bodychecks it’s an extreme encounter so basically casual content. Midcore can not exist in ffxiv,I could explain it in even more detail but that literally would take way to long. In Short: Mechanical vomit with fail conditions= Hardcore Mechanical Vomit with almost no fail conditions and no snowballing effect=Casual,cause rez spam to victory. So yeah the hardest challenge is your team since consistency. Cheers o7

[@evans178]

IMO any Trial/Raid that needs PF is not casual , regardless of difficulty. In Data Centers where people solo queue extremes i would call it casual (I think they do that in JP datacenters if im not mistaken) , but in the Data Centers that dont do that, i dont consider a casual activity.

[@Yokai_Yuri]

I wanna see the world burn so why not brung a raid tier with a difficulty on par or higher than Gordias? Bring back those relentless ultimate-like Dps checks. Make all rhe extremes like Zoraal Jaa/ Golbez/ Thordan. Then, all the ultimates should be like ToP or even harder. What would the ff14 community would do in this situation Inwonder

[@KyoukiJuuno]

Chaotic: Individual mechanics are definitely fine or fine enough, but there are some things that should simply not exist in a mid difficulty 24 man. Fully missing a tower sends out 200k damage (overkill for all non-tanks) to the entire raid, that is way too punishing for something that can hinge on mistakes or deaths by 1-3 players (depending on the tower). The entire raid, 24 players, should never be wiped or put in a near wipe state as a result of a single mistake. In combination with the wonky swap mechanic that almost never works as planned, and as a result causes confusion across the board, the unforgiving towers that come right after form the hard wall that most groups will simply not pass. This still needs an effective nerf right now.

[@GrimMega]

I feel like the pace of the chaotic makes it harder than this raid tier :/ just me?

[@henshimai]

Just you.

[@Shadow_Ronin200]

I think the bird was a great starter for an EX trial but i will admit i think that kind of fights get really boring since its a wall boss but for the second on is fucking awesome weather its mech or boss design idk its just amazing

[@Namriel]

I am under the impression that SE keeps targeting the same audience because they don't actually know how to target a specific niche. Criterion (more specifically Savage) and Island Sanctuary were huge failure not because of the initial idea, but because it wasn't aimed at an existing group of players. Whether it be Extreme, Chaotic, Criterion, Savage or Ultimate, it's the same design that aims at roughly the same group of players, restricted to the ones who understand what they've being asked to do. On the other end of the spectrum, Deep Dungeon is aiming at other mindset but it encompasses such a tiny part of the playerbase that it still isn't satisfying for the extreme part of the players who don't want to engage on Savage and the likes. To solve this, it really is easy though : make content so they become a step onto another one. Have Extreme encourage people to get into chaotic, for example by getting ppl used to having a specific spot and keeping it. This requires a clear tool to explain the spot chosen by the group leder and fortunately, this is a work in progress right now. From there, even the chaotic onto savage could be possible... But it still wouldn't aim at another group of players. Now to encourage other kind of players to enjoy PvE, they really need to create another mindset. For instance, there's currently exactly 0 hard contents that rely on reflexes and reading what's happening during the encounter. Crietrion could allow some players to step into it without preparing anything first, just by having a good knowledge of the game's indicators. Deep Dungeon would need a complete overhaul to satisfy more people (mostly by making it's pace much, much, MUCH quicker) . There could be contents that modify the skillset, modify the stats, bestow momentary buffs etc... I guess the next Field of Operation is supposed to do something alike but considering what little risk they've been taking outside Chaotic (which... Is nothing more than the usual stuff with more people in the instance) ... Don't think it'll be innovative.

[@yep8058]

pure boss rush Criterion would increase the quality already. Good example from Xeems with A6N. I wish we had more boss rushes like this, with breaks in between each arena. I know they wanted Criterion to be a "savage" version of Dungeon content, but it clearly is not attractive as is, regardless of the rewards.

[@MalganisLefay]

16:30 only thing i really find cringe is adding hard Body checks like 24 towers to the fight and stuff to Cloud of darkness, more softer Body checks like the particle beam wild charge seems just... more balanced and fun

[@gfdf511]

Im telling you, granblue relink in terms of combat, classes, and boss design is the direction ffxiv should go. If not, Id suggest taking a page out of monster hunter for how we tackle bosses. Instead of a boring timeline that the boss must follow, just give them a kit that the boss cycles through. It would heavily increase variance negating content becoming monotonous and promote those cool on the fly moments people enjoy. (We saw a little bit of this in the newest normal alliance raid, which Id have to argue in terms of fight design was such a breath of fresh air.)

[@din0chickennuggets]

i agree that Granblue and MH have 100x better boss design than FF, but the community would probably have a meltdown if boss design was dynamic. They're too used to everything being a memorized dance

[@kirinkappa5662]

people wouldn't be able to manage their cooldowns, especialy tanks and healers, so people would often get destroyed if a boss decides to use more tank busters of mass aoe damage. I don't think randomizing the fights would work for FF player jobs.

[@gfdf511]

@din0chickennuggets I agree that it would definitely alienate a portion of the player base, but I think itd be healthier for the game in the long run.

[@gfdf511]

A dynamic moveset ala mh and granblur would single handedly dunk on the issue people have with healing. You'd have to actually be on your toes when healing. Tanks would have to be more cognizant of their CDS and boss positioning. And give the dps breakable parts on the boss altering boss moves. Omg ffxiv is fun now????

[@CulturedDegenerate]

As a lifelong Monster Hunter fan, I think dynamic boss behavior would be fun half the time, but the other half you'd have the FFXIV equivalent of Plesioth hipchecking you 30 times in a row and the parsers would be up in arms because it'd have an effect on uptime consistency

[@1Mrstephen]

I’m sick of 1 room boss fights… it’s all we’ve gotten for a year… ugh..

[@Guigasdm]

I love criterion dungeons, that being said, when i first finished sildih criterion I got a little disapointed that not all bosses were included. Criterion Savage is unecessary in my opinion. Pretty much what Xeno said.

[@Zackarco]

Personally when it comes to positionals I like them and not because they take "skill"(because they don't)but because it makes them slightly more unique compared to other jobs and other mmos in general. Everquest 2, you stand in palce clicking buttons. World of Warcraft, you stand in place clicking buttons. Final Fantasy XIV, you stand in place, clicking buttons but have to move to a rear or flank to get the most out of a couple your skills. I'd rather have an engaging and fun job design over more interesting mechanics for raids and dungeon bosses.

[@D0MONOyt]

"Difficulty" 1 death = wipe absolutely bloody brilliant

[@WolfmanXD]

"never wanna see another uwu, way too easy." I'm currently progging Anni, my group isn't particularly good. We also only raid like 3-5 hours a week, so it's rough going.

[@F3nryl]

I hope ff14 never removes positionals, xeems talking out of his tank box...

[@SionArtwork]

Nah cmon lets be real. Eden verse was a really decent tier. E5 ramuh was fine. E6 the garuda/ifrit fight imho was really fun just for having more than 1 boss which they rarely do in savage these days. E7 is what pulls the entire tier down i feel. E8 was great. This tier was just relevant much longer due to covid and it shows.

[@umbralflow6883]

Any content worth doing is lock behind harder content. The casual content is one and done type of stuff. Duty, Duty Roulette, 24 man normal. So these player dont really have much to do as there is no long term grind for casuals. The rest is dead content. Midcore only has ex and maybe criterion. Then the hardcore has everything as they can do all of it. But because Hardcore makes up such a small precent of the player base more players feel like there is a content issue. Like with the new Chaotic 24 man. Why would casual and midcore play it. They only see it as yet another piece of content that isnt for them. What do these players do? They wait for reset, do the weekly, get their raid coin and log off. Some just stop playing till the next story patch. They should have added the exploration content sooner. At least they would have something to do. Im in the hardcore group so I shouldnt be complaining about it as Im getting the content. But im not blind to how dry the other more important areas of content are. I dont see how the dev dont see that. They just go " This content that was going to be around ex level, we accidentally made it too close to savage. Oh well will just keep it that way." Thats great for the hardcore player but its giant middle finger to the rest of the players.

[@evans178]

IMO the exploration content should either at the end of the base expansion and get more content every major patch or at patch .1 with more added every major patch. Hell maybe even add the relic with it aswell why not , just make sure its is grindy AF

[@phillipg3036]

For me DT is the QoL expansion. Nothing insane content-wise but a lot of convenience that will make future expansions much easier to experience

[@Jon_the_Wizard]

I am of the opinion that they should shoot for the Ivalice raids in terms of 24-man difficulty. I feel those fights are tough but fair. I know people say, "ooh, make them on par with the Nier raids," no. I hate those raids, especially Tower at Paradigm's Breach. Some of the stuff in them is cool (Hobbes in Copied Factory and Superior Flight Units from Puppets' Bunker (a mechanic done way better for the Ark Angels in Jenuo. Unrelated, Mr Ozma on the off chance you ever read this, Ark Angels gave me a hit of nostalgia for the Illidari Council back in World of Warcraft, the fight is stupid fun and I didn't know how much I missed that style of fight.) and Hansel and Gretel from Paradigm's Breach was a good fight) but the later bosses, especially in Tower at Paradigm's Breach, are just too tanky. It isn't as long as I'm making it out to be, but it feels like it takes forever to put the kibosh on the Red Girl and Her Inflorescence in particular and 9S has his moments as well; the multiple intermissions and "boss fucks off to do something else" sections (9S's bombing runs, Engels' charge up and floor smash, having to do a hacking minigame during Red Girl) just make the fights drag. I get that some bosses in the Ivalice raids tend to get some players annoyed (Thunder God Cidolfus has his moments, nobody seems to know how to do Mateus, the Corrupt, Hashmal, Bringer of Order tends to be a thorn in inattentive groups' asses, Construct 8) but that is exactly the level of difficulty they should go for: quick enough if you know what you're doing, but preys on inattentive groups.

[@Jaxter0987]

Tower at Paradigm's Breach is the perfect difficulty. It's just bad players not being able to do damage while resolving mechanics that makes the fights take a long time. Even when players don't die, their damage uptime/ rotations are so bad because they're so focused on dodging. That's also the same reason why Chaotic is such a shitshow. The enrage is actually a joke for competent players appropriately geared but because players constantly take damage downs from getting hit, the dps check is real in pugs. You have players failing diamond platform mechanics after getting through tiles even though they've seen those mechanics a million times while progging up to and through tiles. Bad players getting carried through content is why we can never actually have truly midcore content. Extreme is supposed to be midcore but is casual because bad people just get carried through. The amount of runs I saved in Dawntrail EX1 and EX2 through raising is too high. So then players who've "cleared" these raids think they're ready for real midcore content (Chaotic) and then complain that its not midcore when they fail.

[@Irha021]

the only hard of this game is find people whiling in play raids, statics are a pain in th a** and pf is horrible

[@Fndlord]

Finding a group that aligns with what you want out of content, will forever be the hardest difficulty 😂.

[@index5442]

Normal Extreme Savage Ultimate for all content, 5 ilvl difference. Not a stupid 20ilvl jump. Since people don't do content unless there's reward tied to it.

[@caiuscosades362]

Is this going to bring all the discerning players back?

[@Rasterizing]

Make better 4 person dungeons - a bit like WoW mythic+ BUT..... with a few of the turds removed. Ie, you can choose your level, providing you've completed the previous one so +1, +2, +3, +4, etc. Have more rewards drop from higher versions. Drop some tokens for decent gear at "really" high levels. 4 person content, at the moment it's literally impossible to die. It's a snooze fest and you're just doing it to cap tomes for alt jobs - make it relevant, make it replayable. I'd be happy to do Skynote +10 difficulty and earn some currency to buy some books, which I can then exchange the books for gear - something to make it worthwhile. Release it after savage has dropped and the race is over and give people who have more limited time or just enjoy small party content to get some rewards. Make us actually have to mitigate, kite, stun, sleep, etc. Criterion could have been this but it was just wasted, bland and not worth replaying after doing it a couple of times. Scaling small party content please!

[@MurakamiTenshi]

So what you're saying is bring back hard modes for 4 mans (yes I fully agree)

[@Paraguai123]

Do not bring mythic+ design to FF14. It doesn't work, like at all for the design of this game.

[@undercoverspy123]

I agree criterion is goated

[@LevaniaMeyano]

@@MurakamiTenshi Hard mode dungeons werent even hard. It was just a slight spin on a dungeon we've already done with different routes.

[@Rasterizing]

@ Sort of.... more like a scaling hard mode whereby you can choose the difficulty providing you've done the previous difficulty. The hard modes didn't really drop anything great, so if they made these drop say "1 coin" on a +5 difficulty and "2 coins" on a +10 difficulty, and then you can exchange X coins for a raid book and buy yourself some gear. It should be difficult enough that you need to use cooldowns, sleep, stuns, etc on trash (at higher levels), like proper crowd control, and there should be plenty of 1 shot mechanics. Dropping some sort of "coin" to exchange for books means you can improve your gear and do higher levels - of course, this should be released after the savage race is doing so it doesn't skew progress with people farming gear.

[@danikame9481]

I mostly agree with Xeno on Chaotic but I think it has some design missteps. The two most glaring problems for content that is supposed to be targeted for more “casual” players, are the body checks and the random spots people get dropped when they fall. First, the towers simply do too much damage. Killing 20+ people cause two or three are dead/mess up is bad design to me. Then if someone in alliance A falls off the map and is then dropped on the other side where they can’t be easily resed or get back into position is poorly implemented. Otherwise, awesome fight.

[@Paraguai123]

Your first point is already wrong: When is it ever said that these are aimed for "casual" players? You can't tell me Extremes and Savages are "casual", because they aren't. As for the towers killing 20+ people, I've gotten FIVE stacks of that shit and didn't die, because people are learning that the damage applied by two towers that missed one person is LESS than one tower that didn't have at least two people on it. That + the mitigation. As for the random deaths spawns, yeah that's the one thing I feel like they should fix. In fact, I think they should've added a bridge or a jump pad on the intercardinals directly next of the add platform.

[@fredy2041]

No brod, it doesnt, chill out with the negativity

[@danikame9481]

I’d say many people consider extreme to be on the upper end of “casual” play. I don’t think “midcore” is a good term cause it isn’t really clear what it is. Ex raids are definitely not hardcore. If you can watch a strat video and then clear a fight in one night I think that would qualify as casual. As for savage, I never said it is casual. I said chaotic is meant to bridge ex and more casual content to savage. As far as the towers, and this seems to be a problem a lot of people on the internet have, separate your personal experience from the data. You cleared with FIVE stacks. Congrats. Most of the data on chaotic says people are failing on phase two. Out of all the mechanics in phase two that have the potential to cause wipes are the towers. It isn’t too big of a stretch to extrapolate that the towers are an unforgiving choke point in the fight. A teleporter or a bridge would be great. The teleport system they went with is terrible.

[@Whitel2omeo]

Why a lot of people think Chaotic is for casual??? where they got this information from????

[@Paraguai123]

@ If you think Chaotic, a content that requires 24 people, which high potential of time and effort to be put on it to get a single clear, is CASUAL, then you are just being a bit of an elitist or you have a distorted view of what casual really is.

[@Vanishou]

I agree with your opinion on the melee positionnals.

[@nodot17]

Valigarmanda and zo raal ja versus zodiark and hydaelyn? DT takes easy I say Versus titania and innocence? Couldn't say I missed those when they were new

[@ruka9700]

Its soooooooooooooo easy and yet pf still can't do sunrise. I'm joining merc parties to sell weapons and the MERCS are fucking up sunrise >.>; I do agree with the chaotic rating. Actually no it's 11/10. We need more of these. This should come out of ever patch. Thundergod please. PLEASE.

[@caiuscosades362]

All this reverence for authority without the seppukku is pretty cringe on Japan's part. All the real men died in WW2.

[@KenjinZero]

One biggest problem of FFXIV is that want please everyone if they stop doing that maybe the game can get good in future has was in lastest patch of SB and ShB.

[@alexander3283]

I do not think FRU is better than DSR and TOP. I REALLY hope the next fight is between DSR and TOP

[@temisu_namisu]

I'll die on the positionals hill with you. I don't really play melee any more because of them. I don't want to care about the positionals and I get annoyed if I mess them up. It gets to the point where I just don't care and use TN when it's up. The best time I had with melee was in Bozja where everything didn't need them. It's an example of a gameplay mechanic that just isn't fun.

[@ExiaLupus]

skill issue, don't ruin the game for everyone else

[@Brenzyr]

I LIKED TOP ! (Mr Ozma made it)

[@Ihasasword]

I hope the next chaotic they do Diabolos

[@l.m.8492]

When there is no longer a good story to play, casual players will want good dungeons and allainces

[@ShivaServer2009]

Gordias....the static killer tier. Hated being a bow mage.

[@wildheaven1827]

Its impossible to balance because theyre out of touch and dont care, and dont want to fund or staff the game keeping the entire parent company afloat.

[@kalremist4898]

FF14 endgame: one raid with a 1 week cooldown xdd

[@carl9283]

its not impossible its easy to fix, everyone told them how to many years ago every expansion, they refuse to listen and get lazier

[@jm7468]

remove positionals and watch dps all stack on top of each other and never move, so many times i have seen this happen.

[@senyagotoku135]

What's wrong with that? I want to multitasking while raiding and I can't do that.

[@cyanmage1]

isn't this what happens now anyways since people just use true north and stay still

[@Diddz]

​@@senyagotoku135no amount of healer adjusting will move 4 DPS spread maerkers away from each other,the dps are simply COOKED when they each get hit for 80% their max health 4 times each in one server tick, at least not without tank LB3 being available every 30 seconds along with a megachad sage

[@Diddz]

will be very funny to watch if there were a savage or ultimate that keeps track how many times the dps kill each other, and if any individual (dps) died more than 5 times throughout the pull, the boss will go invuln at 10% HP for the remainder of the fight, all without giving any indication that the fight is unclearable

[@senyagotoku135]

i want to be able to play solitaire while raiding ultimates, thats my dream. hopefully square simplifies ultimates.

[@Starrky923]

12:55 ABSOLUTELY

[@Lewdology]

I was happy to see Smileton. I was NOT happy to see Dead Ends. All. The. Time. WIth ilvl sync so I couldn't even go ham. Healer always dying somewhere. Took forever, took all the gravitas out of the dungeon, just left an awful taste.

[@RaYnE0808]

Geeze… anyone else getting an ad a minute? Painful to make it through the video.

[@Somebody374-bv8cd]

3:17 - 3:35 Xeno's baldness? 10/10

[@ExiaLupus]

Positionals existing doesn't limit boss design, because like in the example you showed (Hippokampos) they can simply turn them off where appropriate. As a melee main, removing them would make the game even less engaging and fun. Just standing still pressing my buttons and never having to think about my positioning sounds so boring. I thought people didn't want things to be further simplified and homogenized?

[@MVimah]

I've witness people die on valley girl normal because of stack shuffling lol

[@Ventus777777]

Based Mr. Ozma

[@CaptnMarvelous]

Naw I agree with removing positionals. They're from an old time in the game where melee could more safely dance around the boss and landing your positional was important. If the difference between missing and hitting is about 100 potency, that reward's pointless. Not to mention it leads to annoying situations where you have a melee fuck up and kill someone because they were GIGAGREEDING that side positional. Either positionals have to matter more to make them useful (Which would feel like shit) or matter less. And if you remove positionals, you can give other classes their own unique mechanics to compensate. Maybe Samurai have to hit Not-Kaiten to "sheathe" their katana before a massive hit. Maybe monks get some sort of stance swap maneuver where they can hit out a hundred fists or something. Maybe Dragoons can have more use for their dragon meter. I don't know, I'm just spitballing.

[@hovsep56]

lord of the rings online solved this by having difficulty settings

[@resolutefox2738]

I don't see a problem with positionals. It takes so little to adjust.... (Reaper main).

[@cyanmage1]

they don't really add anything besides making rotations slightly harder for no reason, they were great when the game was slower paced but now we have so much going on all the time its just really outdated and most people just use true north and ignore positionals anyways and can clear content just fine so just remove the pain point and focus on making fights and rotations more enjoyable

[@resolutefox2738]

@@cyanmage1 I disagree. It's not hard to adjust to the spot, and learning how to manage positionals and uptime are part of learning how to be optimal on your job. I choose to play melee because of the minor challenges that come with it. True north has a cool down, and part of learning your job and learning the fight is learning when to use it. Rotations are not hard. The fight pace isn't hard. Learn to be better.

[@cyanmage1]

@@resolutefox2738 I don't play melee I stick to my casters way more fun to manage I can get a cast off vs when I need to use my insta casts for uptime, but removing positionals wouldn't change a thing for the top end players who will always play correctly and will only help the bottom player by removing a rather pointless mechanic that is largely ignored by the playerbase so why keep it so those top 20% can feel better for moving a few steps vs making the game more enjoyable for the other 80% that just wants to press some buttons and see big numbers while doing their dungeons dailys. You said it yourself rotations are not hard so why have it then if its adding nothing for you and actively making the game worse for the people that are not you, just because you find things easy doesn't mean it is easy, you might just be really good at something and forget that people are not on your level

[@resolutefox2738]

@ If they can't handle the optional content, then don't run the optional content. It is that simple. Since you don't play melee, then why do you even care about positionals? Imo playing a caster is a snooooooze fest.

[@sagakun06]

yay more content for the 5%-er of the games playerbase 🙄

[@Mystica84]

The RNG in those EX need to be increase !! It's not normal after 100 tomes we still haven't see 1 single mount!!! Esspecially in Sphene's EX that trial need a big increase of RNG !!

[@leoli1589]

Just farm this after u can skip ice in 7.2 xdx

[@leishuken]

first raid tier was bad- nothing new and the best fight was the first fight

[@Cinnamonmilks]

Good to see some p2s love

[@brachyzoid]

So does this mean we are finally gonna get more than "don't stand on the bad, boss resets to the middle, keep doing damage, keep doing damage, keep doing damage, don't stand on the bad, boss resets to the middle, keep doing damage, keep doing damage"?

[@Robulite]

The dungeons trials etc were way better than the awful story

[@leatherDarkhorse]

13:17 this, positional is the dmb design for tis game, best is just giving melee more gcd or temp immune on paoe.

[@nathavin4337]

Melee positionals are not hard. But they also should not remove them. Unless the devs have something very interesting to replace them with, or new raid design that makes up for that little bit of interesting optimization. IMO

[@xviii5780]

Bro just add gpose ultimate and we're good

[@visoroverwatch3247]

They need to make Savage Raids rewards obtainable thru Doing a ton of Normal Raids. Like 50 Normal Raid tokens = 1 Savage Raid token. That way ppl have a choice.

[@adammarsh6074]

I think removing positionals and instead adding things like vipers blade gages or red mage magic bars would be great to where keeping track isn't super important most of the time but if you do keep track you'll be able to do so much better

[@TajinQ]

Fighting for uptime is what makes encounters fun and rewarding for me. It gives another layer to the fights

[@TheNade]

This game was only good in 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0. It's been absolute dog shit since. coils, gordias and deltascape were amazing, its been downhill ever since, just getting easier and easier until its just smooth brain slop.

[@jf4156]

Absolutely based take on positionals, always hated that shit

[@DonLopezs]

baldge

[@VantaBlack216]

Combat became boring with more homogenization and the bi polar balancing.

[@cheezedogg6794]

better than tea is a wild take the first 5 minutes of this fight are almost as boring as top

[@wmolockjr]

Melee and Range should be punished for standing in front of the boss, additional 20% damage taken, unless the boss has an omni positional setup or if boss mechanics call for it.

[@DerkaDerkaMohammadjihad]

Its not impossible to make a good DLC story .. -cough cough- dawntrail

[@shiznaztm]

Him talking about Midas is such a relief. We really need to go back to that era of design.

[@Zoeila]

No raid has ever topped E3S

[@suarez6969]

Goddamn whats up with youtube putting an ad every 20 seconds its getting just as bad as twitch. Holy, barely at 13 min in an already seen more ads then xeno speaking.

[@Nodnarb59]

You're out of touch with Chaotic raid rating, but you're also a streamer so guess it was made for you

[@ZephyrFate]

It is that difficult though. He’s completely correct.

[@davidstubbs2361]

Bald.

[@klausernstthalheim9642]

Well DT endcontent is expectionally good especially midcore such extreme and chaotic

[@Nodnarb59]

Chaotic ain't midcore

[@cyanmage1]

@@Nodnarb59 midcore can be anything since everyone defines its differently I say ex trials are midcore then someone else will say nah that is casual content then again another group will say savage raids are midcore while other say its hardcore its really such a stupid premise since it changes so much depending on the player and what they enjoy doing give me more isle sanctuary and deep dungeons and I'll be happy, I hate this super hard content but others love it and hate my braindead easy content and this right here is why midcore is such a stupid concept to begin with

[@klausernstthalheim9642]

@ Well since i cant determn the average skill set, i have to take my skills as base. For me chaotic, extreme and chaotic are midcore.....is chaotic harder than extreme...yes....is unreal easier than extreme....yes. Im not a hardcore raider so me doing chaotic and finishing it means its midcore. I also enjoy the island sanctuary and hope we get more content after cosmic exploration (like in interview hinted). Is CAR fun, of course it is difficult, of course it is.....but i wont say its on savage level nor ultimate. It is more random yes since i do it over partyfinder.....i dont have a static. I cant wait for cosmic and occult exploration, cant wait for hildi.....contentwise DT is great and will get better with each patch. Also its unfair compare base DT with all post-msq EW. So far i enjoy chaotic, still doing my island as my personal project, upgrading my gear and work towards mounts. FF14 is a theme park just pick what you enjoy or test if you would enjoy it.

[@evans178]

@@cyanmage1 one thing that worked with my FC(we have all sorts of players) to help with that was : Is your Data Center solo queuing for that content ? If Yes its casual , if not then that means you need PF putting it atleast on Midcore territory.

[@cyanmage1]

@@evans178 I would be okay with this one kinda falls into how I feel about it

[@tenroy6]

I am officially scared for the field operations content. COD showed me theres no midcore content tier anymore at all in DT. The MSQ was bad enough, and the midcore content of the field ops I can already see it as hardcore unclearable content / given up content by the masses :/

[@ZephyrFate]

What? They have Bozja and Eureka as the blueprint. Why would they suddenly make those Savage difficulty?

[@umbralflow6883]

@@ZephyrFate Because the combat Designer might make it that way on accident again.

[@ExiaLupus]

Chaotic is midcore. If you mean there's no casual content, then you'd be right.

[@umbralflow6883]

@@ExiaLupus I would say it would be midcore if it didnt have the body check. Putting that in chaotic which is a 24 man. means that all 24 has to be on point. That something that is expected of hardcore. If a Tank is down and boss does the alliance wild charge that a wipe on that alliance which means going in to phase 2 with a down alliance is a wipe. Player misses towers = wipe. In theory it should be mid core as the mech arent that hard but all 24 players have to at that point. So the room for error is high and that is what makes it Hardcore. I could say eating soup is easy with a spoon. But someone is going to try to use a fork. Precise movement and many players always leads to trouble. If it was midcore many more players would clear this.

[@Bahamut9999]

FRU: P1 vs Top P1 is harder P2 vs ToP p2 is harder Intermission vs Top p3 transition is harder P3 vs Top p3 is harder P4 vs Top p4 is harder P5 vs Top p6 is harder

[@altair4849]

Dawntrail having the best endgame content? 😂 what a bad out of touch joke

[@Alexander-o2k7t]

DT Endgame Content is exceptionally good

[@SuperFlandre]

Bozo comment

[@Rasterizing]

Spot someone who hasn't cleared the tier or EX trials >.>

[@blcky1545]

​@@Rasterizing Arcadion specifically really isn't anything special. M4 is alright for a final floor and M2 is pretty good. M1 and M3 not so much.

[@EmberGT3]

The content is great wdym? There just isn't enough right now.

[@ElPincheDruk]

If they wanna reduce frustrations, they might as well flush the whole community down the toilet, because so far, that's the biggest most stinky zit in the face of ff14, at any playstyle and level of content