More Difficult in Upcoming Raids

someone is always going to find it too easy... it doesn't matter how you tune it. "too easy" is subjective I'm not quite sure why you can't grasp this concept...

What's too easy for you is too hard for someone else, what's too hard for you (unless of course you claim to be the best) is too easy for someone better than you.

Let's say they tuned it to your liking and you found it incredibly difficult and then someone came along and said what you're saying now, "this is too easy buff it", what do you say to them then?

Let me guess you eat humble pie, right and go "wow look at that perhaps I'm just not that good", bet you don't, but then again, that'll never happen right, because you're the best..

You keep saying "the skill cap of this game and end game population are low enough to allow that" but don't seem to want to accept that the devs are quite likely already balancing content around what they think are acceptable completion rates.

As for the critical level difficulty, sure it should be difficult and it should be more difficult than level 1 and it is, are you suggesting critical is easier than standard? Less people will already be beating it at critical..

Imagine I came to the forums and argued that elite raids should be extremely hard, they should specifically cater to the super elite players who want a real challenge, they should only be beatable by a small minority, the vast majority (99%) should find it nearly impossible, average players shouldn't expect to beat it until they have the next episode's gear, and so on.

I would probably be chewed out immediately by the two of you and a dozen others. Yet it was the devs who said every one of those things about the first elite raid.

Now, I am perfectly aware that the devs' intentions for elite have become less extreme over the years in response to feedback, data, and past outcomes. They have made elite more inclusive and I'm not against that. I'm not arguing for every elite raid to be like Throne. I'm only saying that going too far in the other direction could be a bad thing.

Please "stick away from the forums" if you're unable to deal with feedback other than your own. I mean did you come to a public forum expecting an echo chamber where all people can do nothing but agree with you?

Thankfully the devs don't accept or decline feedback based on whether you find it acceptable or not right

If you would like to give feedback on my behalf though you are welcome to start paying for my membership, flick me a private message if you want my cashapp.

For the sake of clearing up your comprehension which appears to be struggling based on the expression of your post above. I never said elite content should be easy, I also never said it should be hard.

What I did tell you is that there's always going to be someone that finds the game too easy, so balance is always going to result in someone complaining and equally so someone complaining about content being too difficult.

None of you seem to want to define what an acceptable level of difficulty even is, where's the benchmark, where's the definition of what makes an elite player other than the fact they're beating elite content, which isn't really a definition, because by that definition everyone beating current elite content is an elite player...

How do you expect the developers to work out where to balance the game when you can't even decide where to set it yourselves because you can't outline exactly what the benchmarks and standards are.

Do that and perhaps we could start having a meaningful conversation.

To be honest the only reason I would argue against that is because it's not reasonable, but for the same reason that is why I agree with you that going too far in the other direction isn't "could be a bad thing" it's "would be a bad thing".

The trouble isn't reaching agreement on that, the trouble is deciding exactly where it falls, somewhere in between.

Then my thoughts are exactly as i have listed. You consider yourself an these others elite. Does that mean the devs do? Does that mean i too am to bow at your feet an marvel at your elitness (lol im teasin ya a bit)?
So whats the criteria. You have clearly expressed that for elite content you feel only elite players should have a voice so what makes you elite and me not? What makes me elite and you not? You believe you an your friends are elite so i dont see you being able to formulate a good unbiased criteria. Im betting any criteria you come up with will be so that you check all the boxes.
Drawl me the line in the sand then lets talk

I definitely think that difficulty is subjective. Some will find raids easier than others.

Based on the fact I've had max arts from the BOP dlc and have completed every elite raid since then, I do feel that this current DLC is much 'easier'. Other than Gorilla Grodd in FVE which took a few tries to learn the mechanics, there hasn't been much that feels challenging. If you look at Clocktower, FGS, and even COU, there were quite a lot of challenging mechanics to the point where it was more about survivability than having max arts in my opinion. This DLC doesn't really require much survivability skills and having high arts isn't really a requirement either (literally did FVE with a group that mostly had lvl 100> arts xD).

So in order to make raids more 'difficult' in the future, I think there needs to be more mechanics that require you to focus and do lots of things at once (e.g. the tentacles and dodging the firepools/one shots in COU).

Put it this way, if half the players aren't on the forums crying that the elite raids are too hard, then I don't think it's hard enough

I do think that they got the elite duo and alert spot on though btw.

I didn't bother reading every post on this thread so apologies if any of what I said has already been discussed.

And by that logic, plz explain why you ARE entitled to an elite raid thats specifically too difficult for certain ppl yet still doable by you?
I mean lets be fair, you only want the raid tuned up to point you can do it but no one with even a shred of lower skill can correct?
Let me ask this, of the 4 or 5 ppl here asking for it to be harder (harder.... wow what a generalization with no clear end point) do you honestly think any of your definitions of harder will be the same? If they tune it up an now 2 of you 5 cant beat it do you think that will make everyone happy or will they now be crying its too hard?
What im driving at is simple, stop generalizing. Draw your line in the sand. Specifically what criteria is there to deliniate an elite player from a non-elite player? Then, of the elite players (per the criteria i have been asking for) is it fair to say the raid should be tuned so they can all complete it and tou will accept that it will still be way too easy for some?
I have said it non stop and apparently need to keep saying it.
I think its too easy now that i know the mechanics. I wish it were harder or more challenging. I wish it wasnt just a case of memorized mechanics an took more skill. I want to be on your side in advocating for a harder instance. I need someone to make a coherant argument based in expressed criteria or i cant get on board.
Of all the players i know in the game, its about 10% give or take that have made it through either raid. Seems like a correct % to me but i dont surround myself with self proclaimed (absent disclosed criteria) elite players. So from your select group its too easy but from my sample it seems plenty hard.
So which is it?

One of my first posts in this thread began with me agreeing that difficulty is subjective. I understand that just fine. However, "too easy" being subjective does not imply that someone will always find it too easy. We've literally had raids where no one found it too easy, so "someone is always going to find it too easy" is just not true.

I don't know why you're ascribing this elitist attitude to me or implying that I've at some point suggested I'm the best. You want my honest answer? I would love if that happened. And if an elite raid came out that I couldn't beat for the life of me, but other groups were, you would not catch me dead asking for a nerf. The more challenging the better. But that's just my opinion. Anyway, whether or not I'm among the best in the game is irrelevant.

Is that something I don't seem to want to accept? It seems like this is the first time it's come up in this conversation. Maybe they are doing that, maybe they aren't. I don't know.

My point is if we're going to have an entire 5 levels of difficulty for an elite raid, it's not unreasonable to ask for just a measly 1 of these 5 levels to be sufficiently challenging for the top players in the game. The argument that some players are just too good to ever reasonably expect challenging content does not hold up.

Someone is always going to find something too easy, especially as Qwantum Abyss has mentioned becomes even more increasingly a perception once mechanics are memorized through repetition, which is all but inevitable in an MMO that revolves around repeatedly grinding the same content end of end for weeks and months.

For the sake of furthering the conversation perhaps list a raid that you thought the bulk of the game didn't find too easy, and why, perhaps list several raids, this might help establish the benchmark that might assist with ascertaining what we need to talk about, this is what is being asked of you.

In terms of existing balancing, let's take any nerf or in fact any buff for example that has occurred, including even in this most recent content, would you agree that it is an unreasonable conclusion to make that the developers are nerfing content simply to "piss of a subset of elite players"?

If you agree with that, then would you further agree that leaves us with a reasonable conclusion that they are applying those nerfs based on feedback? Given any feedback is only likely being received in a small quantity of population sample size would you agree an even more reasonable conclusion is that the developers are applying those nerfs (also known as balance considerations) based on both feedback and in game data such as completion rates?

The developers obviously want a certain number of players participating but on top of that, they also want them completing it, if they see they're not then they're naturally going to ask if its over tuned and adjust.

I don't disagree that if you're going to have 5 levels of difficulty then the top level shouldn't provide the 'most' challenge, to the highest group possible, all I'm saying is that there'll always be someone that won't struggle regardless, that's all I'm saying, I'm not by any means suggesting critical levels of difficulty should be easy.

Thanks for telling me you're teasing a bit, I might've got a little defensive lol. I don't have a set of rigid criteria for classifying elite players. I mean how could I?

Also, I think you're making what I said some pages ago sound a little worse than it was lol. I never said only elite players should have a voice, but yes, I did say the feedback of elite players should be more useful to the devs than that of average players (and I explained why). As to how the devs could possibly determine the skill level of the people leaving feedback, I have no idea. I'm sorry I don't have more answers for you.

I actually noticed you say this earlier in the thread but it wasn't to me so I never had to respond to it.

You'd be wrong in making these assumptions about me. Maybe they are true for some people, but I am not one of them. If you look at the comment you replied to, I deliberately said "just like every single player in the game" and I meant what I said. I am most certainly included in "every single player in the game," which means that I am not entitled to an elite raid that is beatable by me.

I do not want anything to be tuned to my difficulty sweet spot. I could not care less about who else, below me (in skill) or otherwise, is beating elite. Nor would I have a problem with an elite raid that is too hard for me to complete.

Now that that's out of the way, what I do want are elite raids that are challenging to me. This might sound self-centered at first, but wait. Replace the word "me" in that sentence with "you." Now replace it with "player X," now "player Y," now "player Z." I believe that there can be and should be raids that are challenging to everyone (yes, even the best).

Look, I'm not sure what I can give you as a line in the sand, but let's go ahead and use what I just said as something to roll with for now.

My line in the sand is that everyone finds the raid challenging. Instead of using players as the unit, let's use raid groups as the unit since it makes more sense in this context. If there is even just one raid group that finds the raid too easy, then it should be tuned up.

I think one of the main disagreements between me, and you and Proxy is about the feasibility of this. I think it is feasible, or at least a lot more feasible than you guys think. And if it turns out that it isn't feasible for elite raids with only one difficulty, then this 5 levels of difficulty thing seems like a great solution to me (it seems like a great feature regardless) and I hope we see a lot more of it in the future.


@Proxy, if you're reading this, I'll be responding to you after I sleep lol

Elite hasn't been "elite" in years. There has always been at least one easy raid for people to farm renown in. They need to just take the "elite" tag off the raids/gear and call it just plain old "level 2" or something

Easy elite duo - fine
Easy elite alert - fine
Easy First stage of One elite raid - fine

The Last stage (5) Extremly difficult (the difficulty of this should be based on MAX stats!) maybe similar scaling to SM to a degree is needed for the last stage.

Second Elite raid needs to very difficult too as hard as stage 5 of the first Elite raid (based on max stats again) with this BOTH sides have enough elite content and the „noobs“ get enough elite content despite having low skill and/or low stats/artifacts.

Obviously difficulty also has different factors such as design and other things but the stats (CR) of the enemys is the first step to create difficulty etc with the raid community feedback that obsidianchill started we hopefully can see better Designed raids in the next Episode and beyond.

Ok now we are getting somewhere. The issue with what your saying is a few things. I will try an be as short as possible
1) you say elite voices on elite raids should carry more weight but cant lay out criteria for what would qualify one as an elite player..... you see the issue correct?
2) you have clearly expressed (unless im misreading) that you believe an elite raid can in fact be tuned up to make it challenge for anyone (even the literal best).
I agree it can be done, i think that’d be a colossal mistake tho. The forums would lite up with all the “normal ppl” sayin its too hard but also the self proclaimed elite would explode in a tizzy too. You may be the exception for the record but i would bet almost anything that most of these “elite” players dont really want it to be more challenging. They only want it to be too challenging for ppl with less skill then themselves.
One of the chief complaints (in general) is non-elite players getting renown. Its mentioned repeatedly.
But tuning a raid up that hard would mean only a select couple ppl would be able to complete at all an that’d receive massive backlash.

I see no criteria or evidence or proof in any way that the elite raids r too easy. Too easy for some of the elite players sure but not too easy in general.
A claim of too many ppl having the gear/renown doesnt mean its too easy. It getting cleared day 1 by some of us (myself included) diesnt mean its too easy. These things mean we had the rite group an figured it out.
Its amazing how easy some of this stuff becomes when u simply cut on the mic an talk through it an plan.

Literally all you’re doing every single time we’re saying the raids are not hard enough is calling people elitists, stating that 99% of the players in this game are casuals, or that there is an extreme minority of people that find the raids not hard enough, you even stating that every player and groups should be able to complete the hardest stages.

Yet I’m the person that does not take criticism, have you wondered why this game has 50 viewers on twitch at high peaks? Have you asked yourself why it is possible to do some of the hardest raids with 4 players instead of 8?

Do you know not a single raid in the game have complex mechanics at all, that don’t even require a single person to talk or do raid calls wich is mandatory in ANY single decent MMO in the market?

You know every single raid in the game can be solo healed, every single raid can be solo tanked ? Yet you’re the guy that want the game to do not become harder and more complex wich could please ASWELL the more dedicated leagues that uses microphones in all raids, the leagues that would be very pleased if there was complex strategies in some of the raids? But no you want every single raid to be able to be done without any sense of accomplishment, without much teamwork, without particular communication.

Go on man I indeed the game does not need raids like paradox and nexus or fos2 no it needs to please yourself, your audience and no one else.

Cheers man when every single hardcore oriented league will leave this game, don’t ask yourself why, you have your answers above but stay on your carebears planet thinking that MMO shouldn’t have content that can be done only by groups putting maximum effort to complete it. You clearly NEVER EVER played another MMO than DCUO in your life, that is why you are out of touch, and that is maybe why the devs want to experiment raids with harder stages so type of player can be happy and not only the casuals leagues and players.

And please don’t call me an elitist I’m nowhere near the best player in the game, I’m running FFE s4 everyday because I like it I like to struggle and I like the accomplishment , and if there was a stage 6 that would be impossible for me to beat during a whole month trying it hours per day, I would not cry on the forum like some here asking for nerfs, I would just try to get better until I figure out how to complete it, that is the difference with your « I want everyone to be able to do everything server on a silver plate » mentality.

Now I’m done arguing here it’s a waste of time, hope we get some raids that every single player in the game can finish without effort. Wow so fun

I DO NOT WANTall the raids to be extremely hard I would be very stupid to think like that, but there are normal raids which are very easy, there is FFE stage 1 that is barely harder than FFE normal, FFE S2 isn’t hard, and now you aswell want FFE stage 5 to be able to be done by anyone, see why your logic is wrong. Devs are going in the right direction, so first elite difficulty can be done by casual players, BUT the Hardest stages should be doable only by the groups who have a more in-depth knowledge of the game, who are using voice communication and putting much more effort to complete it.

None of this is even remotely what I've said But carebear planet does sound fun for what its' worth

My 5yo would love care bear planet

When I see this kind of person complaining that the game is not hard enough for you, it's for me quite ungrateful people, the difficulty, there is and especially inequality, moreover, I see that you displayed 600 skill points, it goes without saying that with so many SP your overview of the difficulty will be clearly different for players who do not have as much SP.

Also, if it's to claim difficulty like COUe, personally, I'm totally against it, because this raid is made without being thought of the different gameplay of the powers of the game, playing Lantern, I never suffered as much as with this raid, the dangerous boss attacks are too frequent, without forgetting some attacks where we barely have, sometimes not even time to dodge and when you have a power where most of the spells are beams, sometimes long and sometimes even to maintain for a while, it makes the game extremely unfair for some player/power, not to mention the shocking difference in ease of gameplay between a power player and a precision player, this raid makes all this clearly visible.

With this difference in gameplay we have a disrespectful community, as players playing the easy powers and gameplay have an easy tendency to mock players with sometimes more complex powers to play, adding more difficulty will in my opinion, add more inequality towards players and most certainly increase more mockery of this type.

Elite is supposed to be difficult deal with it.

"if it's to claim difficulty like COUe" LOL this raid is not even hard lmao, i talk about to get more raids like FGSE my friend not like this easy raids coue,fve,ffe