Either mechanically or creativity-wise.... I really just felt let down this raid tier. I loved Eden's 1-4 but 5-8 felt so... "eh".
There are obvious spoilers below btw if that's not a given. Both for normal and savage variants
E5 - Music was great. Theme... durr hurr what two thunder related things have we fought... IXION AND RAMUH. Sure, whatever, that's fine... At least then we'll see something creative right?... Not really. Even the savage version of this they threw in a random bird to chase the off tank, otherwise its just grab orbs like Ramuh and don't be knocked off. It's not the worst of the bunch but I really never feel like any of the lightning based fights we get ever give me that vibe that I'm dealing with electricity/lightning very much anyways. The one neat idea I did like was fourteen's fury where you needed all 8 players to knock over the staves form their knockback... That in my opinion was neat to think outside the box but was about all as far as creativity goes. The phases of dodging random thunderbolts is cliche and old.... The mechanic in savage where the bolt gets traded to people is "neat" but ultimately nothing that impressive. Overall easy fight to boot.
E6 - Music still good but unfortunately this is where my expectations drop even lower. I was really hoping for all 4 of these to be element driven entirely but sure, put garuda and ifrit together... Surely their designs will be neat at least right?... WRONG. Garuda's just... Garuda, with more wings because it's gotta be something right? Ifrit's just a dude?.... You'd think how it's Eden, based off FF8, and the fact they could've went off the basis of the Amal'ja + Ifrit, they could've made a neat rendition of FF8's Ifrit looking akin to a fire beast. I'm not even asking for a copy from FF8 as FF14 is prone to doing... But maybe not just... a dude... with ifrit texture wrap on him. How do we even come up with that lore-wise?... As far as mechanics go, we all knew they'd fuse, which, sure... Neat. The soccer ball mechanic though to me makes no sense... where in anything Ifrit does, do we remember checking spots for fireballs and him kicking them or anything in that whole area? I do remember Ifrit having multiples of himself and charging through the center, so I'll give them that for having copies of himself but otherwise ??????? They both do a neat tank buster concept and aoe that pushes you into the air and either gets you slammed or pierced through the body which I do think aesthetically is actually pretty cool looking and unique to the fight. When it came to savage, there was a mechanic introduced with tethers, a few of them actually and at the same time, some wind cutters that interact with said tethers. My issue here is how they just... don't encourage anything but "don't do it". I would think they would introduce some neat concept of allowing you to decide whether or not you need to use the wind cutters to snap tethers for something but inevitably it ends up being a "if you go too far and you let them get cut, you just wipe your team
". It was why I enjoyed the tank buster in the later half of savage before they fuse but after the initial 1v1's... the tether could be cut and used in such a fashion to abuse Ifrit's aggro when he performs his tank buster after the two come out together. Never again though, everything from there on is just claustrophobia and the boss wagging their finger "don't do that or wipe " rather than anything creative that actually requires you to think. The most thinking I did for the fight ended up being in the soccer ball conga line and it's not even a hard mechanic to do... just literally process the path and don't be hit.. Nothing that really gave responsibilities to individual members or created a sense of "synergy" in performance.
E7 - Ironically, the one I thought I would enjoy the least, I ended up loving the most. No new music though, just back to E1 and E2. I actually enjoyed this fight very much mechanically and aesthetically... even if it kinda comes out of no where. It was obvious from normal mode that savage would be doing up the portal mechanics and applications of light and darkness debuffs and even then it still ended up being fun to figure out. The tornado at the end is always neat as a tank because your'e taking turns figuring out who should get which orb. The "away with you" teleports are pretty annoying in halting your rotation but when it came down to figuring out the path was random, finding out which one was yours and how your own group could confuse you... I thought that was well implemented and how you needed to use it in savage to dodge aoe's and placement was also very neat. The add phase even was pretty cool to add a third mob that rotates a random direction. Overall, the creativity and fun they had with this fight was much better than E5 or 6 as every mechanic made me calculate/think a little for myself and gave players enough agency to have multiple strategies of their own for each mechanic to decide how they want to position. I love the concept of using the opponent's abilities to your advantage to dodge the other attacks but simultaneously still being something lethal that can kill you It doesn't feel like the boss gives you a key to a doorway that ONLY unlocks with that one key because it says so. Instead it still slams the door in your face but gives you a few methods to find out how to get through, ultimately you're still faced with a challenge and the reward is the satisfaction you get when going "AHA! I DID IT!" rather than "Oh... I didn't get in your perfectly aligned safe spot in time because that's all you're allowing right now". The latter feels too... "planned", which isn't bad if it follows a mechanic to lead into a false sense of security but ultimately it just says I'm going to be playing Simon Says just to survive. Like, of course you want me to stand there and not in any of this area that's marked... that's literally all I can do and that's that... Thankfully, this boss didn't feel like that to me at all even when my group developed a set strategy in savage for each mechanic.
E8 - Ah and then we return to disappointment... probably the biggest one. I'ma mark this as spoilers just in case but I'm not gonna lie... it's not that interesting or unique.
The music is outstanding, again, nothing wrong so far with most of the music. Soken doesn't disappoint. Storywise.... I doubt there was a single person who thought Ryne doing this was at ALL a good idea... just literally out of no where "ya know what, I WANNA BE A PROBLEM" just cuz out of no where... good lord that writing made me cringe for her reasoning in doing this. I knew Shiva would be our final fight but I was really hoping they'd take a much more interesting approach in it.... Memories of Haurchefant and Shiva/Iceheart... maybe a male version of Shiva? Or how about a duo of them both? Maybe just a big ice dragon transformation? No.... We get Ryne but with shiva texture over her and her transformation in savage?... literally just gets naked and wraps a random Hraesvalgr around her. No cool big ice dragon idea for us... nothing at all akin to how amazing titan's transformation was back in E4s. GOD this was so stupid...Mechanically, I felt like I was back in Shiva again... so I guess mission accomplished there. They grew really fond of enumeration mechanics this raid set so of course light rampant was... "fun". The mirrors mechanic was probably the most interesting concept in the fight and honestly... it's not that original/creative(not compared to how Hades handled his mirror mechanic at least). It's as simple as Light + Ice... I get it, but good lord thematically it offered nothing new/interesting and mechanically felt recycled. Very basic "dodge the thing" aoe's but the worst thing about this fight is in the normal mode of it... It's another case of Hades where the first time going through that cutscene was "wow COOL, OKAY I'M FEELING IT!..." and after doing it over 10 times or getting it in roulette again and again... you have to sit through that whole sequence EVERY SINGLE TIME. The only good thing out of it is noticing goth girl is using powers similar to Ultemecia so there's all the more proof/hope that our final raid tier will revolve around her becoming a time witch like in FF8 and maybe some interesting time mechanics that weren't already done in Alexander. For real though, why is Hraesvalgr just summoned in there for no reason.... Just, what a WEIRD CHOICE FOR ALL THE POSSIBILITIES??!?!
Overall.... It's not a "bad" raid tier but I definitely was not as wow'd or impressed as I was with the first 4 we had. Considering how they set things up too, I really had my expectations on creativity and cool/interesting designs based on the WoL's memory. Mechanically taking advantage of the concepts as well but... instead it just feels like a LOT of missed opportunities. Even throwing my FF8 fandom out the window, I just simple went "... why?" to a lot of these things and the mechanics of them weren't all that jaw dropping or gave me that lightbulb that makes me feel accomplished in figuring it out... Except E7, that one was alright.
Continue reading...
There are obvious spoilers below btw if that's not a given. Both for normal and savage variants
E5 - Music was great. Theme... durr hurr what two thunder related things have we fought... IXION AND RAMUH. Sure, whatever, that's fine... At least then we'll see something creative right?... Not really. Even the savage version of this they threw in a random bird to chase the off tank, otherwise its just grab orbs like Ramuh and don't be knocked off. It's not the worst of the bunch but I really never feel like any of the lightning based fights we get ever give me that vibe that I'm dealing with electricity/lightning very much anyways. The one neat idea I did like was fourteen's fury where you needed all 8 players to knock over the staves form their knockback... That in my opinion was neat to think outside the box but was about all as far as creativity goes. The phases of dodging random thunderbolts is cliche and old.... The mechanic in savage where the bolt gets traded to people is "neat" but ultimately nothing that impressive. Overall easy fight to boot.
E6 - Music still good but unfortunately this is where my expectations drop even lower. I was really hoping for all 4 of these to be element driven entirely but sure, put garuda and ifrit together... Surely their designs will be neat at least right?... WRONG. Garuda's just... Garuda, with more wings because it's gotta be something right? Ifrit's just a dude?.... You'd think how it's Eden, based off FF8, and the fact they could've went off the basis of the Amal'ja + Ifrit, they could've made a neat rendition of FF8's Ifrit looking akin to a fire beast. I'm not even asking for a copy from FF8 as FF14 is prone to doing... But maybe not just... a dude... with ifrit texture wrap on him. How do we even come up with that lore-wise?... As far as mechanics go, we all knew they'd fuse, which, sure... Neat. The soccer ball mechanic though to me makes no sense... where in anything Ifrit does, do we remember checking spots for fireballs and him kicking them or anything in that whole area? I do remember Ifrit having multiples of himself and charging through the center, so I'll give them that for having copies of himself but otherwise ??????? They both do a neat tank buster concept and aoe that pushes you into the air and either gets you slammed or pierced through the body which I do think aesthetically is actually pretty cool looking and unique to the fight. When it came to savage, there was a mechanic introduced with tethers, a few of them actually and at the same time, some wind cutters that interact with said tethers. My issue here is how they just... don't encourage anything but "don't do it". I would think they would introduce some neat concept of allowing you to decide whether or not you need to use the wind cutters to snap tethers for something but inevitably it ends up being a "if you go too far and you let them get cut, you just wipe your team
". It was why I enjoyed the tank buster in the later half of savage before they fuse but after the initial 1v1's... the tether could be cut and used in such a fashion to abuse Ifrit's aggro when he performs his tank buster after the two come out together. Never again though, everything from there on is just claustrophobia and the boss wagging their finger "don't do that or wipe " rather than anything creative that actually requires you to think. The most thinking I did for the fight ended up being in the soccer ball conga line and it's not even a hard mechanic to do... just literally process the path and don't be hit.. Nothing that really gave responsibilities to individual members or created a sense of "synergy" in performance.E7 - Ironically, the one I thought I would enjoy the least, I ended up loving the most. No new music though, just back to E1 and E2. I actually enjoyed this fight very much mechanically and aesthetically... even if it kinda comes out of no where. It was obvious from normal mode that savage would be doing up the portal mechanics and applications of light and darkness debuffs and even then it still ended up being fun to figure out. The tornado at the end is always neat as a tank because your'e taking turns figuring out who should get which orb. The "away with you" teleports are pretty annoying in halting your rotation but when it came down to figuring out the path was random, finding out which one was yours and how your own group could confuse you... I thought that was well implemented and how you needed to use it in savage to dodge aoe's and placement was also very neat. The add phase even was pretty cool to add a third mob that rotates a random direction. Overall, the creativity and fun they had with this fight was much better than E5 or 6 as every mechanic made me calculate/think a little for myself and gave players enough agency to have multiple strategies of their own for each mechanic to decide how they want to position. I love the concept of using the opponent's abilities to your advantage to dodge the other attacks but simultaneously still being something lethal that can kill you It doesn't feel like the boss gives you a key to a doorway that ONLY unlocks with that one key because it says so. Instead it still slams the door in your face but gives you a few methods to find out how to get through, ultimately you're still faced with a challenge and the reward is the satisfaction you get when going "AHA! I DID IT!" rather than "Oh... I didn't get in your perfectly aligned safe spot in time because that's all you're allowing right now". The latter feels too... "planned", which isn't bad if it follows a mechanic to lead into a false sense of security but ultimately it just says I'm going to be playing Simon Says just to survive. Like, of course you want me to stand there and not in any of this area that's marked... that's literally all I can do and that's that... Thankfully, this boss didn't feel like that to me at all even when my group developed a set strategy in savage for each mechanic.
E8 - Ah and then we return to disappointment... probably the biggest one. I'ma mark this as spoilers just in case but I'm not gonna lie... it's not that interesting or unique.
The music is outstanding, again, nothing wrong so far with most of the music. Soken doesn't disappoint. Storywise.... I doubt there was a single person who thought Ryne doing this was at ALL a good idea... just literally out of no where "ya know what, I WANNA BE A PROBLEM" just cuz out of no where... good lord that writing made me cringe for her reasoning in doing this. I knew Shiva would be our final fight but I was really hoping they'd take a much more interesting approach in it.... Memories of Haurchefant and Shiva/Iceheart... maybe a male version of Shiva? Or how about a duo of them both? Maybe just a big ice dragon transformation? No.... We get Ryne but with shiva texture over her and her transformation in savage?... literally just gets naked and wraps a random Hraesvalgr around her. No cool big ice dragon idea for us... nothing at all akin to how amazing titan's transformation was back in E4s. GOD this was so stupid...Mechanically, I felt like I was back in Shiva again... so I guess mission accomplished there. They grew really fond of enumeration mechanics this raid set so of course light rampant was... "fun". The mirrors mechanic was probably the most interesting concept in the fight and honestly... it's not that original/creative(not compared to how Hades handled his mirror mechanic at least). It's as simple as Light + Ice... I get it, but good lord thematically it offered nothing new/interesting and mechanically felt recycled. Very basic "dodge the thing" aoe's but the worst thing about this fight is in the normal mode of it... It's another case of Hades where the first time going through that cutscene was "wow COOL, OKAY I'M FEELING IT!..." and after doing it over 10 times or getting it in roulette again and again... you have to sit through that whole sequence EVERY SINGLE TIME. The only good thing out of it is noticing goth girl is using powers similar to Ultemecia so there's all the more proof/hope that our final raid tier will revolve around her becoming a time witch like in FF8 and maybe some interesting time mechanics that weren't already done in Alexander. For real though, why is Hraesvalgr just summoned in there for no reason.... Just, what a WEIRD CHOICE FOR ALL THE POSSIBILITIES??!?!
Overall.... It's not a "bad" raid tier but I definitely was not as wow'd or impressed as I was with the first 4 we had. Considering how they set things up too, I really had my expectations on creativity and cool/interesting designs based on the WoL's memory. Mechanically taking advantage of the concepts as well but... instead it just feels like a LOT of missed opportunities. Even throwing my FF8 fandom out the window, I just simple went "... why?" to a lot of these things and the mechanics of them weren't all that jaw dropping or gave me that lightbulb that makes me feel accomplished in figuring it out... Except E7, that one was alright.
Continue reading...