I think the disconnect with Odyssey is a combination of gear creep and third party assistance.
More people are using increasingly higher quality third party tools, and even those strictly playing vanilla are probably highly benefiting from people who leverage Windower et al. Additionally devs have made us too strong. Better players used to be able to navigate the survival vs. damage dealing spectrum in their gear choices and could highly benefit a group doing so, now there's almost no need as top-end DPS/Idle choices come plastered with DT and MEVA via Gaol and Emp +2/+3 and of course Malignance preceding those.
This is why the design has to get touted as "bad", we've basically pushed developers into a corner where they need to overly limit us or hit us with one shots to even have a chance of us failing. It's our fault to some extent, but having worked to gear up and play properly only to have something one-shot you "just because" still feels bad. I say this as someone who isn't overly harsh of Odyssey, because I think the reward:effort ratio is decent, there's just a level of finicky-ness that isn't really present elsewhere in my opinion. Everything else prior as long as the strategy was known and executed well (with honestly a decent margin for error), you won.
I think pre-ilvl Delve was the most appropriate "difficult" content in recent history. Mechanics were easy enough to understand but still required some thought in group construction. While stunning was a normal "cheesy" way to avoid final boss difficulties, it had the benefit of being released at a time when automating that was more frowned upon (though plenty of groups frustrated with failing would look the other way I'm sure). You could also just use relic RNG on all of them, which again thanks to the time period weren't always a dime-a-dozen. Not everyone would have access to the boss' weapons without mercs of course, but normal plasm weapons were plenty good when taken to max rank and still worlds above anything pre-Adoulin which you could get via simple fodder farm groups so I don't see exclusion as an issue really.
Difficulty In FFXI - A Retrospective
Difficulty in FFXI - a retrospective
Bismarck.Demetor said: »
we've basically pushed developers into a corner where they need to overly limit us or hit us with one shots to even have a chance of us failing
We haven't done anything like that, this is 100% the developers fault. They create these bosses with ridiculous stats and moves, then we respond, then they create even shittier bosses, then we respond. There was a huge outcry back during early Voidwatch days with them making the bosses way too insane, it was fanatics or die.
They actually agreed and toned it down, now only the primary target of an AoE is hit with full effect while secondary targets can resist it easier. Years later, they seem to have forgotten about that discussion and have gone back to "make moar insane ***".
We used to joke that the next boss would have a TP move that's additional effect would disconnect the players or delete their accounts.
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The player-base absolutely shares the blame. Well-meaning or not, the average player taking part in end-game content is "playing" better over time strictly as a result of addons.
This isn't to defend developers either, they could certainly stand to be more clever and the company could try to put decent resources into development, but all our third party stuff has clearly pushed the limits of what can be put in this game.
Mob has dangerous move based on distance? Needs/can be stunned? Needs a specific set? React. Knockback? Anchor (fortunately still frowned in some circles but clearly it's use has become more common place). All while GearSwap makes sure every action is taken in an optimal set from start to finish. Then there's AutoWS-ing, buffer/rebuffers, Auto-Meds, full WHM bots, etc. Again I suspect a lot of people still don't use these, but there's plenty who do because it's included in a GearSwap file or they heard about it from a friend.
I'm not saying any of these things are necessarily evil in a vacuum and everyone needs to play vanilla, just that we have a lot of tools for dealing with the dev's normal bag of tricks at this point and that puts pressure on them when trying to make something difficult. Even something simple like the Lamia or Meeble Ambuscades get automated away instantly by a large portion of players even though you have plenty of time to cast manually and can even afford to miss a few; and once the initial use is justified people probably don't stop using it for everything.
This isn't to defend developers either, they could certainly stand to be more clever and the company could try to put decent resources into development, but all our third party stuff has clearly pushed the limits of what can be put in this game.
Mob has dangerous move based on distance? Needs/can be stunned? Needs a specific set? React. Knockback? Anchor (fortunately still frowned in some circles but clearly it's use has become more common place). All while GearSwap makes sure every action is taken in an optimal set from start to finish. Then there's AutoWS-ing, buffer/rebuffers, Auto-Meds, full WHM bots, etc. Again I suspect a lot of people still don't use these, but there's plenty who do because it's included in a GearSwap file or they heard about it from a friend.
I'm not saying any of these things are necessarily evil in a vacuum and everyone needs to play vanilla, just that we have a lot of tools for dealing with the dev's normal bag of tricks at this point and that puts pressure on them when trying to make something difficult. Even something simple like the Lamia or Meeble Ambuscades get automated away instantly by a large portion of players even though you have plenty of time to cast manually and can even afford to miss a few; and once the initial use is justified people probably don't stop using it for everything.
That's just the normal evolution of everything.
Two opposing forces adapting and oneupping forever.
If there was no horseshit there'd be no addons. There are so many addons there "must" be horseshit.
(But spoiler, there would be addons regardless of the horseshittery, the horseshittery just speeds it up)
Two opposing forces adapting and oneupping forever.
If there was no horseshit there'd be no addons. There are so many addons there "must" be horseshit.
(But spoiler, there would be addons regardless of the horseshittery, the horseshittery just speeds it up)
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Bismarck.Demetor said: »
The player-base absolutely shares the blame.
Absolutely not, zero blame on the players. Players do not have access to source code, do not design content, do not design gear, do not plan battles and do not have a say in budgets or design goals.
The players receive the content, effectively as a black box, then attempt to figure out how to approach the content and then get the cheese from inside of the mousetrap. You absolutely can not blame the rats for figuring out how the get the cheese you put in there in the first place. That line of thinking has a maximum effective range of zero.
The failure is the devs not having a unified picture of what play should look like and how we should approach content. Instead just they throw numbers at the wall and then pass it out as content, thinking "the players will figure it out". The 10s weapon skill wall being a bug is a perfect example of this. How many other content related "bugs" like this are present, how many player strategies have been built to circumvent these bugs that we thing are actually mechanics.
What saevel is saying incorrectly is that the players can only respond. Devs are supposed to fix.
That's a take, sure. The wrong take, but a take.
That's a take, sure. The wrong take, but a take.
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Asura.Saevel said: »
The failure is the devs not having a unified picture of what play should look like and how we should approach content.
So let me get this straight, you want them to design content so there's only one way to win it? The devs have never said "we had no idea how you were going to beat this, we just threw darts and the wall and hoped it was killable." They said things akin to "You cleared it using strategies we didn't see coming"
Which in my opinion shows the strength of the game, not the weakness. The job flexibility and amount of different gear, JAs, spells, and 1hrs, means that there are many viable strategies for most content. This is a good thing and is unbelievably difficult to achieve, and the idea that so many people throw out that SE has no game design and just wanders blindly into balance
Asura.Saevel said: »
has a maximum effective range of zero.
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Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »
They said things akin to "You cleared it using strategies we didn't see coming"
Yeah, they literally just said that with Mboze and I think that's completely reasonable. We didn't do anything wrong and I don't think they really care (though they may take steps in future to pigeon hole us as a result on certain content).
My only argument is that when we are forced to interact with mechanics and we make them trivial with third party tools, they have to get more creative. Like gaze moves, even the lowest end players will throw in react and respond to them perfectly every time so they can no longer use that as an efficient means of increasing difficulty. We've raised the bar but still want hard content, and when they resort to *** we feel its justified to continue automating it away because its ***. Continue ad infinitum like Eiryl said. Can't feign innocence for the playerbase as a whole in these cases.
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »
The devs have never said "we had no idea how you were going to beat this, we just threw darts and the wall and hoped it was killable."
And yet time after time that is exactly what they do.
We aren't creatively beating the content, we are finding ways to circumvent the content. Fight has mechanic A, B and C, we routinely find a way to simply not do A, B or C.
Having worked directly with game devs (different MMORPG), I can say this is entirely down to the devs designing entirely in a vacuum without a bigger picture involved. And when I say directly I mean we're all on the same discord server discussing preview 1/2/3 of the content on the beta test server. Frequently they make something, we play through it and report back the bugs / inconsistencies / results, they review, adjust and repeat this process. There have been many times where the dev would say "we built content X" and we would reply "well mechanic Y doesn't support that content", they would then answer "oh your right, let us adjust this a bit".
And unified picture doesn't mean "way to play", it means having a framework and structure in place to ensure that each content has a theme and approach that is supported by existing game mechanics and communicates it's own mechanics to the player.
I know you're just reflecting the sentiment of the player base, but I really take serious umbrage with the community deciding on a whim that mechanics are "***" and they can just automate them away because they don't like them.
Anchor and React are total *** in my opinion, people are actively choosing to bypass the mechanics of the game to make it easier, and are justifying it by saying they don't like the mechanics or they're unfair/unfun. Sorry, if you don't think Spinys in SMB should hurt you when you jump on them because Mario is supposed to jump on enemies, it's still cheating if you use a game genie to change the code to remove that mechanic, no matter how much you dislike it.
Anchor and React are total *** in my opinion, people are actively choosing to bypass the mechanics of the game to make it easier, and are justifying it by saying they don't like the mechanics or they're unfair/unfun. Sorry, if you don't think Spinys in SMB should hurt you when you jump on them because Mario is supposed to jump on enemies, it's still cheating if you use a game genie to change the code to remove that mechanic, no matter how much you dislike it.
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Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »
The ACTUAL difficult content in 75 era were things like: Dynamis Lord, Odin, Jailer of Love, Kirin, KB, Salvage. When you look at fights like these an important distinction comes out as well: they actually had mechanics and were not cleared by PUGs.
I'd argue the actual difficult content at lv75 wasn't even instances of specific content but the logistical challenge that came with most if not all of the content of that day. Much of which was walled off to most people not by difficulty but by tons of gruntwork. Something like KS99 was hard only insofar that if you wiped you were absolutely *** in terms of how much time you just wasted farming.
Getting people all the way out to something like Wyrmking Descends, organizing Dynamis parties, taking 870,000 ZNM pictures, hoping when Sandworm decides to pop @4AM local time that people are online to do it were the real impediments to completing content. Basically a test of how much someone could no-life the game. A special *** you to whoever thought sliding down Uleguerand Range to enter a BCNM was legit.
Salvage and Nyzul (among others) made inroads to actually allow people to do endgame content and in turn more people completed the content. Or got jackshit from Poroggo Madame. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The reason most people lament Abyssea is once that content dropped the accessibility showed how much of 75era XI was spinning wheels waiting for something to pop.
[+]
FFXI has always been easy (AV was hard because of ping)
If you ever thought ffxi was hard... It's because you gave up. (lolgitgud)
If you ever thought ffxi was hard... It's because you gave up. (lolgitgud)
Carbuncle.Maletaru said: »
I know you're just reflecting the sentiment of the player base, but I really take serious umbrage with the community deciding on a whim that mechanics are "***" and they can just automate them away because they don't like them.
Anchor and React are total *** in my opinion, people are actively choosing to bypass the mechanics of the game to make it easier, and are justifying it by saying they don't like the mechanics or they're unfair/unfun. Sorry, if you don't think Spinys in SMB should hurt you when you jump on them because Mario is supposed to jump on enemies, it's still cheating if you use a game genie to change the code to remove that mechanic, no matter how much you dislike it.
Anchor and React are total *** in my opinion, people are actively choosing to bypass the mechanics of the game to make it easier, and are justifying it by saying they don't like the mechanics or they're unfair/unfun. Sorry, if you don't think Spinys in SMB should hurt you when you jump on them because Mario is supposed to jump on enemies, it's still cheating if you use a game genie to change the code to remove that mechanic, no matter how much you dislike it.
You can not blame rats for finding the best way to get the cheese out of the mouse trap.
The devs built the mouse trap with a 50 meter long, 10 meter deep moat full of sharks with laser beams. They built a bridge that would appear and disappear at random intervals at random locations. Then manned the bridge with machine guns and even put an unobtanium clad ED-209 to guard it. Taking one look at that, the rats decide their best approach is to use a glider off the nearby mountain to get the cheese.
Whomever designed that BME pain olympics inspired death trap should of been fired, and the content reevaluated to not require the rats to paraglide.
What we are seeing here is the law of unintended consequences. The devs design a death trap with the intention of us gouging out our eyeballs and cutting off our own nuts to get the cheese. They didn't build a winning mechanic because they want us to experience a scene out of Hell Raiser. The players, not wanting to become a cenobite, instead devise their own contraption as a consequence of the dev's poor decisions.
[+]
Here is a visual depiction for those who still insist of blaming the players for FFXI dev's jumping the shark and going full sadistic.
YouTube Video Placeholder
Lakshmi.Sparthosx said: »
A special *** you to whoever thought sliding down Uleguerand Range to enter a BCNM was legit.
Also SE: Haha you fell into the wrong hole, enjoy wasting another 20 minutes running back up the mountain with truesight mobs all over the place.
[+]
the truly elite don’t need invisible
Carbuncle.Nynja said: »
Lakshmi.Sparthosx said: »
A special *** you to whoever thought sliding down Uleguerand Range to enter a BCNM was legit.
Also SE: Haha you fell into the wrong hole, enjoy wasting another 20 minutes running back up the mountain with truesight mobs all over the place.
Oh no, your soo wrong you terrible cheater. I, as the self appointed representative of the Legitimate Player Collective™ , hereby order you to enjoy wasting that 20 miniutes trudging back up the slope. It is the only Legitimate™ way to play the game.
Something like Omen had alright mechanics that anyone with half a brain cell could respond to, I bet that didn't stop a large portion of people from React-ing Pain Sync, Kin, etc. because they couldn't be bothered. Lamia/Meeble again, incredibly easy (albeit boring) and allows for multiple errors, you see React tables posted every time they come around like its nothing. The playerbase got comfortable with a lot of cheating out of sheer laziness long before devs "jumped the shark".
Even with all the belly aching over Odyssey, nearly all V25 A3 have had their first clears within a month (even if the fights themselves are finicky, bullshitty, unfun, whatever you want to call it). I suspect Bumba will follow in the next month, and that's without people even putting serious effort into trying feasible 2 or 3 phone strategies which could make it much more manageable and open to less-than-perfect groups. Maybe recent history says that's long for FFXI but its really peanuts for what it supposed to be the hardest thing in a game. Not calling it well designed, just shows we're so over-tuned that even with all the *** it barely even slows the best players down.
Even with all the belly aching over Odyssey, nearly all V25 A3 have had their first clears within a month (even if the fights themselves are finicky, bullshitty, unfun, whatever you want to call it). I suspect Bumba will follow in the next month, and that's without people even putting serious effort into trying feasible 2 or 3 phone strategies which could make it much more manageable and open to less-than-perfect groups. Maybe recent history says that's long for FFXI but its really peanuts for what it supposed to be the hardest thing in a game. Not calling it well designed, just shows we're so over-tuned that even with all the *** it barely even slows the best players down.
Bismarck.Demetor said: »
React-ing Pain Sync
Also react doesnt work on Kin properly.
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It's already been said but beyond just getting the group together, especially for spawn window type NMs like kings or SW/ixion, the "hardest" thing this game throws is things with a short reaction window due to the awful delay some connections can have, and those have just gotten more strict/require quicker reaction as times gone on while the delay's remained the same, which doesnt really make for a hard fight, just frustrating.
IDK RNG difficulty is kinda been SE's thing lately, fights can go easy or hard depending entirely which SP's, Aura's used, random buffs the boss dispels or just the boss saying "*** you I win".
This game has never been about twitch based clutch execution. The lag and delay is way too bad for that to ever be the case so when things like that appear, people are going to automate, if for no other reason because this game isn't anywhere close to being designed for that kind of fast paced combat.
When it comes to difficulty the V25s don't even sound all that difficult it sounds more like praying to RNGesus for the stars to align. Hoping the bad TP move doesn't go off, hoping to get a good roll on WC, hoping the aura doesn't suck. When they add as much RNG to these fights as they have though, it's hard to really accept anything else because there's so much outside the players control that it doesn't matter.
The fact you can't do anything about the auras is stupid, the fact that you pretty much just have to accept the tank is going to get stripped of buffs constantly is stupid. The fact you have to hope the adds don't use one of five bad TP moves at the wrong time is stupid. If there were more consistent strategies to follow the hoops of the mechanics SE laid out players would do it. We did it for VW and Aby with the proc system, and again in Vagary. We generally do it to remove NM aura in Ody. We are setting up for damage types for the fights in which they restricted them. But then they still feel the need to add an entire layer of awful RNG on top of it.
Players will do mechanics and fights properly if you give them enough of a bone and an idea to work with. But when you obfuscate and put a bunch of shitty mechanics into your fights nobody is going to bother to try and decipher them when there's an option to brute force instead. Of course if there is some serious oversight on something players will also exploit the hell out of stuff like SMN burns, SE + Kclub DRK zergs, Death MB volleys, etc...
When it comes to difficulty the V25s don't even sound all that difficult it sounds more like praying to RNGesus for the stars to align. Hoping the bad TP move doesn't go off, hoping to get a good roll on WC, hoping the aura doesn't suck. When they add as much RNG to these fights as they have though, it's hard to really accept anything else because there's so much outside the players control that it doesn't matter.
The fact you can't do anything about the auras is stupid, the fact that you pretty much just have to accept the tank is going to get stripped of buffs constantly is stupid. The fact you have to hope the adds don't use one of five bad TP moves at the wrong time is stupid. If there were more consistent strategies to follow the hoops of the mechanics SE laid out players would do it. We did it for VW and Aby with the proc system, and again in Vagary. We generally do it to remove NM aura in Ody. We are setting up for damage types for the fights in which they restricted them. But then they still feel the need to add an entire layer of awful RNG on top of it.
Players will do mechanics and fights properly if you give them enough of a bone and an idea to work with. But when you obfuscate and put a bunch of shitty mechanics into your fights nobody is going to bother to try and decipher them when there's an option to brute force instead. Of course if there is some serious oversight on something players will also exploit the hell out of stuff like SMN burns, SE + Kclub DRK zergs, Death MB volleys, etc...
[+]
React and Anchor are cheating. Pay your monthly subs you dirty cheaters. Cheaters and non-cheaters both pay monthly subs and thus deserve to be treated exactly the same. When you make cheesy ambu content and ask people to pick between the shitty option of doing dumb mechanics with 5 other people or the slightly less shitty option, they are logically going to pick what's better for them. You can't be angry at the players for paying a monthly to have fun and do what is more fun for them.
Next people are going to say they're angry at people min/maxing characters in DnD because it breaks the spirit of the game. Get better at freestyling DMs, looks like your idiot party didn't follow your quest. Same ***with this game, Devs do a better job at creating, balancing, and incentivizing content. YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TRIED TO ADDRESS SAVAGE BLADE, YOU LAZY JERKS. (prays to RNGesus for interesting Prime Weapons.)
I'd be more sympathetic to Devs if they made most of the accessibility that non-exploit 3rd party tools provide, but they didn't. The community propped them up and shaped the game play experience. The least they could do is make content that isn't a complete reactionary knee jerk or test their own content. But hey, they got to 20 so they must have done something right.
Next people are going to say they're angry at people min/maxing characters in DnD because it breaks the spirit of the game. Get better at freestyling DMs, looks like your idiot party didn't follow your quest. Same ***with this game, Devs do a better job at creating, balancing, and incentivizing content. YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TRIED TO ADDRESS SAVAGE BLADE, YOU LAZY JERKS. (prays to RNGesus for interesting Prime Weapons.)
I'd be more sympathetic to Devs if they made most of the accessibility that non-exploit 3rd party tools provide, but they didn't. The community propped them up and shaped the game play experience. The least they could do is make content that isn't a complete reactionary knee jerk or test their own content. But hey, they got to 20 so they must have done something right.
[+]
I hold to this day that when Delve was around before the advent of ilvl, this was most challenging (not impossibly difficult) content since I’ve played (from 2006 to now). There was no party size scaling, you needed strong DDs from previous 99 content, you needed items from delve lesser NMs to increase your odds at the greater NMs. When we beat our first Tojil, everything went according to the plan. Stunners stunned the necessary moves, healers were on point, DDs were staying alive while still progressing down the HP so as stunners wouldn’t start getting resisted. Any missed stun, slow cure, or weak DPS could cost the run. That’s when the fate of a win or loss is in the player’s hands, not RNG, not *** you moves, not untargetable fetters. To me, that is a challenge and a good test of skill, strategy, and coordination.
[+]
Phoenix.Iocus said: »
Devs do a better job at creating, balancing, and incentivizing content. YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TRIED TO ADDRESS SAVAGE BLADE, YOU LAZY JERKS. (prays to RNGesus for interesting Prime Weapons.)
I'd argue this is not the case at all. Just look at the 2 newest pieces of endgame content. Both have a "WS Wall", and even post patch while its not outright impossible to use anymore, its still not viable to spam savage, and its use its extremely limited, even on Slashing weak foes like Kalunga.
How is that not them trying to address WS Spam in general, in which Savage is generally the main culprit? Sounds to me like they're diversifying how one can tackle a challenge, and leaning into more mage centered strategies at least.
Because they're redesigning the entire game mechanics every time they make something new instead of just fixing the issue unilaterally.
The bassackwardsest way possible, which really does track.
The bassackwardsest way possible, which really does track.
[+]
Asura.Neojuggernautx said: »
I hold to this day that when Delve was around before the advent of ilvl, this was most challenging (not impossibly difficult) content since I’ve played (from 2006 to now). There was no party size scaling, you needed strong DDs from previous 99 content, you needed items from delve lesser NMs to increase your odds at the greater NMs. When we beat our first Tojil, everything went according to the plan. Stunners stunned the necessary moves, healers were on point, DDs were staying alive while still progressing down the HP so as stunners wouldn’t start getting resisted. Any missed stun, slow cure, or weak DPS could cost the run. That’s when the fate of a win or loss is in the player’s hands, not RNG, not *** you moves, not untargetable fetters. To me, that is a challenge and a good test of skill, strategy, and coordination.
This is so true, delve really was the last alliance content which was 100% skill based, no RNGJesus to pray to. Every aspect of that run, from the clearing of the minibosses all the way to the zone boss was about skill and team work. We had a nice long time period, none of this stupid ultra short "mega buff and win or die in a few minutes" crap. Omen was also pretty skill focused once you could bring more then six. It was a run through floors having to do various objectives then fight both a miniboss and a zone boss, all with different mechanics that weren't "pray you don't get screwed".
[+]
The view of what is difficult is much different depending on what job you are playing. Being a healer/tank in 75 era was harder than being a DD. The game revolved around mp management for hard content. For stuff like PW and AV it was a nightmare of sneaking in one tick at a safe enough time. For sea and sky etc it was still difficult for people who didn’t have g horn and great tank.
Now with 10+ min buffs, whm pants, blm body, triple ballads, convert dmg to mp gear, and parry gloves, mp is rarely an issue. This makes the core thing of staying alive easier than in 75 era. The mechanics can still get you but the attrition battle of slowly getting to zero mp is mostly gone.
I haven’t done harder Odyssea stuff but never resting turned healing into a bot job rather than something that requires much decision making.
Now with 10+ min buffs, whm pants, blm body, triple ballads, convert dmg to mp gear, and parry gloves, mp is rarely an issue. This makes the core thing of staying alive easier than in 75 era. The mechanics can still get you but the attrition battle of slowly getting to zero mp is mostly gone.
I haven’t done harder Odyssea stuff but never resting turned healing into a bot job rather than something that requires much decision making.
The fact that the majority of multi boxers arent soloing or even attempting odyssey just says enough. The amount of busy work for each job makes it harder for *most* to reliably multi box, I think thats a pretty big win for difficulty. Since Abyssea people have been multi boxing content with all kinds of addons, so I really dont see that as an argument to be had.
Stuff like AW and PW were literally made to be unbeatable. When SE saw the methods people used to beat them, they swiftly nerfed them. The scholars that were testing modus veritas? Nerfed (still to this day is.) KC zergs? pinning tactics? Nothing was good for SE. They literally had to put a timer on it because of media outrage. Those aren't reliable for difficulty discussions in my opinion.
The rest of the content was not hard, especially towards the end of the 75 era when we had everything mostly figured out.
This is so true, delve really was the last alliance content which was 100% skill based, no RNGJesus to pray to. Every aspect of that run, from the clearing of the minibosses all the way to the zone boss was about skill and team work. We had a nice long time period, none of this stupid ultra short "mega buff and win or die in a few minutes" crap. Omen was also pretty skill focused once you could bring more then six. It was a run through floors having to do various objectives then fight both a miniboss and a zone boss, all with different mechanics that weren't "pray you don't get screwed".
I honestly can't believe they think anything from 75 era was to be compared to Delve. I will say, it isn't 100% skill based. Even back then the key strategy was stunning, that could literally end your run if you got *** on latency. So def had some RNG in there. I really miss Delve so much, I personally think it was my favorite era in the game.
Stuff like AW and PW were literally made to be unbeatable. When SE saw the methods people used to beat them, they swiftly nerfed them. The scholars that were testing modus veritas? Nerfed (still to this day is.) KC zergs? pinning tactics? Nothing was good for SE. They literally had to put a timer on it because of media outrage. Those aren't reliable for difficulty discussions in my opinion.
The rest of the content was not hard, especially towards the end of the 75 era when we had everything mostly figured out.
Asura.Saevel said: »
Asura.Neojuggernautx said: »
I hold to this day that when Delve was around before the advent of ilvl, this was most challenging (not impossibly difficult) content since I’ve played (from 2006 to now). There was no party size scaling, you needed strong DDs from previous 99 content, you needed items from delve lesser NMs to increase your odds at the greater NMs. When we beat our first Tojil, everything went according to the plan. Stunners stunned the necessary moves, healers were on point, DDs were staying alive while still progressing down the HP so as stunners wouldn’t start getting resisted. Any missed stun, slow cure, or weak DPS could cost the run. That’s when the fate of a win or loss is in the player’s hands, not RNG, not *** you moves, not untargetable fetters. To me, that is a challenge and a good test of skill, strategy, and coordination.
This is so true, delve really was the last alliance content which was 100% skill based, no RNGJesus to pray to. Every aspect of that run, from the clearing of the minibosses all the way to the zone boss was about skill and team work. We had a nice long time period, none of this stupid ultra short "mega buff and win or die in a few minutes" crap. Omen was also pretty skill focused once you could bring more then six. It was a run through floors having to do various objectives then fight both a miniboss and a zone boss, all with different mechanics that weren't "pray you don't get screwed".
I honestly can't believe they think anything from 75 era was to be compared to Delve. I will say, it isn't 100% skill based. Even back then the key strategy was stunning, that could literally end your run if you got *** on latency. So def had some RNG in there. I really miss Delve so much, I personally think it was my favorite era in the game.
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