30th expansion raids NEED to be harder

I'm not disputing any of that, it was still a hard raid after it was tuned down, it was certainly the hardest raid I had ever done up until that point, on live or TLP (I quit live in 2008 after Beta Testing SoD).

Just saying, I really don't think it was intended to be that hard. There was nearly no testing on it. Then they moved the 75% phase to 25% and left it the same (no idea if there was anything else on beta no one saw, they didn't list the event run downs at that time) when it was first hit.

Within days of people being flagged for it, there was a nerf for it on test patch notes. Meaning, they had started nerfing it the day people first hit it and realized how bad it was, since it was beat like 5 days in or whatever.

I don't think "hard" events are ever intended (plane of war being exempted), its just they don't develop events well or balance them well. Every beta there are some awesome events that are *hard* and work just fine. By the end of beta, they become a joke due to nerfs. They don't want hard raids.

But we really just need ONE final raid so it doesn't block other guilds, then nerf it after X months to be the easy mode many guilds want.

Again, I bring up MMO Minion, which you conveniently have ignored when I have brought it up before. FFXIV players have their helper tools as well.

I 100% agree with you there, I think expansions should launch with 1 hard raid final & the rest tapered downwards in difficulty to where the 1st 2 raids are "standard" difficulty that most guilds can beat with some practice.

Many Guilds love the sense of achievement from beating a hard event & it really only needs the 1 final raid to be hard to offer that kind of challenge & kudos.

FFXIV discourages addon useage. you can be suspended for using any dps tracking addons. you can be banned outright for using those addons and then disparaging others in game about their dps due to that addon.

you WILL be banned if they catch you using MMO Minion. its not the same kind of addon that Gina is which is really no different from a text to speech program. MMO Minion is a straight botting program. It will play parts of or the entire game for you. Shame on you for even trying to bring it into this or any conversation on these forums.

Don't try to shame me, the OP keeps trying to make GINA out to be something that it is not (and you are correct, it is just a text to speech). DPG discourages the same type of stuff that FFXIV does, yet people in both games still use them.

I'd like to see the events

It was easier than plan of war. But it was still very rough.

Raids don't drop different tiers of gear now, so there isn't really a T1/T2/T3 thing now so judging difficulty between tiers seems unimportant.
It would be nice not to have 700 rotting range items before we get to the 2nd unlock though.

Man, I feel like them shoe horning 3 'types' of each slot is the dumbest thing they keep holding on to. Either make the items different (-1 hsta and +1hdex is not different) or dont make 3 types.

Not really. Using addons to harass other players will get you suspended. Having the addon isn't a problem.

Depends on the guild & the class composition maybe, some guilds likely found Plane of War Harder than Mearatas and some the reverse.

If you have a raid force stable enough to guarantee a force to be there and ready for the developers testing whenever they ask you probably have a raid force stronger than most in the game.

And nothing stops other guilds/raid forces from copying over and testing raids without a scheduled developer day other than not being able to afford giving up farm time on live.

I've been there. That isn't bashing. Being able to set a raid time and just engage exactly then most of the time is an amazing luxury. And it's a luxury not every guild has.

No beta testing is going to give an advantage nearly as huge as being able to count on full or near full raids every scheduled day, without boxed alts filling in necessary roles as well.

Being 5 minutes past raid time and not engaged is late for us. I never imagined that kind of force prior to merging into IL. It is an amazing luxury not to be taken for granted.

I would like a few difficult raids as well. None of the EQ raids have any real challenge imo. Their difficulty comes from tediousness, over reliance on RNG, lag, broken mechanics/poor testing, class design that means some people will barely contribute anything even if they play well, and systems that needlessly punish the player. There's some old raids I still avoid helping people with cause even at 120 I'll get resisted constantly and it just isn't any fun. Which is the biggest reason people would quit. Lack of fun and not the "difficulty".

I'm giving this from the perspective as someone who raids multiple raid forces that range from #1 in the game to top 10, mid to low tier, and a true open raid force (literally will take whatever class and not only does not participate in beta but if you raid elsewhere and even mention anything regarding the event let alone suggest strats will get you life time banned. Same with boxing which obviously I do all the time just for fun ) I preface this because if the tenor and tone of what I am about to say comes off elitist it will be because I am in roi regardless that I have gotten to see this expac raids from just about every "range" of how we rate guilds on every archetype of class.

If anyone thinks the content was challenging at all; they are delusional. Anything specific ideas or suggestions at this stage of the game is most likely going to fall on deaf ears. A t3 event should not be able to be beaten by 24 characters. That same 24 man force had no problem beating multiple events this expansion. Yet, if we go back two expansions to cov that same raid force would have issues on a t1 event like klandicar. I was recently in kael going back 3 expansions on my raid geared paladin and running no mitigation was surprised to see hits of 50k+ still. How is a t2 group mob hitting harder than current raid content adds.I have taken 1800+ hits as a tank on pit fight and the average hit was in the low 40ks (granted I was running proper mitigation discs). Another example, group mission zlandicar at 120 still has max hits over 100k. Back to current expansion raids, it is certainly plausible to do the bridge raid with 3 tanks. No even taking into account the 30 seconds of flash/deflection of taking no damage; you could literally have two sks or 1 warrior/1sk (with caveat of a second sk epic click) tank both waves. Depending on dps, this is doable without even having to use dragon scales. Firefall, I have been on wins where there have been 5+ emote failures...For the people who don't like the one person failing shouldn't be an automatic wipe; I guess you don't play the game for a challenge. And, perhaps that how they have conditioned the player base. That raids can be beaten on day 1 is a symptom of a few things that people constantly bring up: beta (knowing the event and mechanics- ok that's true but you still need to execute), that the new content is under tuned that being in last years raid gear is more than ample to win. I mean at this point why even call it progression? Sure, there is always going to be the top end guilds who will probably win day 1 but thats more a by product between the level of play between player 10 and player 40 being closer in regards to fully utilizing their classes abilities and the right adps composition that isn't being put together by sheer luck. Where as in other guilds the difference between player 10 and player 20 could literally be miles apart, and there is nothing wrong with that inherently. With that said, the scaling of difficulty per tier needs to seriously be looked at. In fact, if you're a guild doing a beta raid with a dev; the player feedback has to have some part of the equation or why even do it. Tuning content is obviously not a simple task and what one person see's as unbeatable another looks as something to work towards. Unless of course, everyone is so conditioned and entitled that they should be best in slot by mid year and every one of their alts should be fully raid geared in current expac gear. When I first started raiding in Cov and we wiped for weeks on defenders; finally adjusting a few things and getting that win felt like a real accomplishment and something to be proud of.

In a perfect situation I'd imagine something like this:
T1: One easy fun burn event that should be winnable on day 1 by just about every guild in last expansions raid gear. So even the most casual guilds can at least farm that event weekly. The other two events could be tank and spanks. The last one of the tier can be the hardest and maybe the consequences involved on a mechanics level is mob placement (if you're too busy watching netflix to not be on the left side of the dragon when the emote goes out, then guess what you should probably die. If the tank doesn't do their job then guess what it should be a wipe.) Adds should hit hard enough that without running any mitigation disc the chances of being one rounded is pretty high. That's one of the only ways I can think of to actually make tanks hit buttons because there is so much ae healing that they can take full round damage and have more hit points than even the max hits and get healed up immediately. An example on a current t1 raid like shiknar: I see routinely max hit around 110k on adds and avg hit somewhere in the mid 50's to mid 60's 2h tanking. Even if i take all 4 rounds of 110k were pushing what close to 700-800k hp? Knights running mantle/guardian should be able to tank 2 or 3 adds with solid healing behind them on this tier.

T2: The events become a bit more complicated. They have a ton of past raids/events with mechanics that they can use in this tier to add more difficulty. Adds should hit harder via melee and also do other stuff. I imagine % based adds spawning and each add does something different. Whether is takes less caster damage or it has an insane frontal ae. This kind of difficulty makes it where you can't just log in and expect to win. Perhaps the hardest event in this tier is something similiar to aaryonar. Where it's not necessarily a dps race. In fact maybe the event has penalties for over dpsing. An example: if you do more than 10% dps in a set amount of time; you spawn extra adds. For some guilds; they might be able to do dps and take the penalties because they are better equipped to handle them with strong tanking and healing. A level of difficulty more than tank/spank and heal through whatever the ae damage is. Maybe, some guilds will be able to heal through said damage. That's what would make this game fun again. Having to figure out a way to make it work with your raid force has. Some guilds won't win day one whether it's due to not following mechanics properly or they haven't "progressed enough" via upgrades with new raid gear. Whether that's helping tanks survive or dps classes getting their important focii. A hard dps check at this tier wouldn't be outrageous. I remember struggling on crusaders because we couldn't burn dragon two down. But guess what, eventually zerkers got new 2hers, ranger got new bows, mages got pet ears, necro's got arms etc and we were able to finally burn dragon 2. Literally the definition of progressing.

T3: Feel like I've written a novel already so i'll try to keep this short and sweet. The events should go in a forced order and in fact make them all in one zone (so zoning times are taken out of the equation please; if not it's ok because the meme's that will come out of it will be worth it). If it is all in one zone for launch day the very first time through; make it where you can't just invis and run on over. Make us clear to each event and throw some curve balls that no one will see in beta. Hell it might even make monks valuable for pulling! (Shoutout astralx the goat of ma).... I'm not even going to give suggestions or examples. Just please make t3 content an actual challenge if at minimum the first time its done since everyone isn't fully geared out etc. Tune the content to not be winnable day 1 in last years gear and simply showing up. However it is done; please do it. I'm not advocating that only 5 guilds can beat it ever. But, at a bare minimum t3 raids should not be beatable by 24 toons being boxed by 6 people. For the people who say that's not good for the longevity of the game; why not just go play on fv and buy your raid gear. I personally don't think it's good if only a handful of guilds can beat it in general.But, I also don't think it's good that casual raid forces with no knowledge of the events can walk in and one shot a t3 event. Make the consequences be brutal. You failed an emote or didn't get to the right aura in time guess what; you just spawned 10 adds or your group is silenced or 2 minutes. Make the final event have the harshest penalties, most complex mechanics, and make the the damage output actually mean something where you need to build a strategy. Spoiler: before design lock throw in some stuff that no one gets to see on beta.

Lastly: Make winning all 9 raids mean something like unlocking the ore on the vendor. Or better yet, when you progress and win all 9, put some unique items that can only be bought with raid currency. I know people go back in 2023 to get the bifold/rod of dark rites, shield/poison cure clicky. That would feel like an actual reward for winning hard content. And for those who say well my guild will never unlock that; i don't have the perfect answer for you. The op banner will unlock eventually, your guild will get better, or you will move to a guild that aligns with what you want out of the game. They can always nerf an event; they will never make an event harder ex post facto.

Similarly, it's probably too late at this stage of the game but make the achievements hard if the raids are going to be easy mode. Looking back at egl, I see guilds who beat eok when tbl was out or tds when tbm was out and guilds who didn't even beat tbl t2 but tov, tol, and nos basically beat it the first week they raided. I didn't play eq then but how did it go from guilds grinding it out and not even beating the expansion in era to the point where the last two expac's vanquisher handed out close to 300 heroics to basically anyone who showed up with a pulse.

Vanquisher achievements at least the "harder / hardest" ones should literally change the way the event has to be done. Whether its an artificial difficulty by just having to sit there and wait for x amount of adds to spawn... to actually making you do the event different (max echo, killing all 3 dragons within 30 seconds, that eok raid where you have to make the boss go into enrage. Sorry I don't have many other examples but I don't have much experience in the raids pre dating cov.)

Having tanked VZ for the only prenerf Plane of War wins and UEE for the serverwide first and second Mearatas wins, I would say Plane of War was way harder. VZ was an beater:
1. You had to summon tank or die.
2. You were snared so you had to strafe summon tank or die.
3. You had to spam your /stand /attack on hotkey while strafe summon tanking or you lost aggro and everyone died.
4. You HAD to have a bard in the tank group for selos while strafe summon tanking or die.
5. You had to save flash for when VZ summoned and stunned you right in front of him or die.
6. You had to manage all of your defensive abilities, aggro abilities, stances, clickies, etc. while strafe summon tanking and spamming /stand /attack on.

I would say in my 11 expansion wins, second place expansion finish, and 4th place expansion finish, pre nerf Plane of War was the hardest event I've ever tanked.

The nerf arrived before the win I was part of (we were working on it) but yeah, agreed.
Bind every button I regularly hit to /stand + that button

I don't want overly hard raids, I don't want easy raids, I want fun raids. I want raids I'm going to still enjoy 9 - 11 months after they have been released.

My favourite recent raid is the TOFS Wedding/divorce and the Vampire one after it.

We are getting less raids this year so kindly take it easy with this 'have to have hard raids' thing.

I agree with Yinla. Fun raids please!

if you use the dps addons and tell nobody, nobody can know you are using them.

if you are an idiot streamer and stream yourself using one, you run a high risk of a suspension. many streamers have been suspended for using one when someone from square watches their stream. the smart ones block off that part of their screen with an overlay.

the games aging and declining population does not support making end game activities at any tier inaccessible to all but the top single-digit percentile of players.

if those asking for harder raids only know raiding from this game, then i suggest you branch out a bit and look at what inaccessible harder end game raiding has done to other, more popular western games.