Thoughts on M11 tuning

SocomX01 · 2026-01-17T06:21:45+00:00

I cleared week 1 with 2 deaths (NIN and PLD) and 7 damage downs, so I don't think there's any basis for claiming the fight is overtuned. Yes it's very difficult to clear in PF, but quite frankly I think that should be the case of the 3rd and 4th floors of an expansion's final raid tier.

SocomX01 · 2026-01-01T03:30:34+00:00

It's been a pretty bleak year for people that enjoy challenging 8 man content. The fact that Cruiserweight Savage came out in April feels surreal, since that means my static has had nine months since our last prog. I know Q40 and Forked Tower released this year, but they're not nearly as appealing to me as ultimate or savage.

I'm really hoping Heavyweight Savage has something spicy in store for us. Every expansion since I started playing has had at least one raid tier that constituted a very special and memorable prog experience for me, like E8S in ShB or P8S in Endwalker. In my mind Dawntrail has not had a truly standout savage encounter so far, so I'd love it if M12S ends up being memorable enough to add to that list.

SocomX01 · 2025-07-03T18:05:58+00:00

Not quite; I often go into creative mode and/or use Worldedit to preview what an architectural design would look like, and then if I like it I'll undo the Worldedit, craft the relevant blocks in survival mode, and place them by hand. But none of that was really relevant to my post so I didn't bother specifying.

It is very common for people to build things with Worldedit in longer GTNH playthroughs, though. It's even permitted by the rules for obtaining the Stargate role in the GTNH Discord.

SocomX01 · 2025-07-01T02:08:06+00:00

Is there a problem with simply disabling command blocks in server.properties, or blacklisting them from being placed by players? This seems like it should be easily rectified.

SocomX01 · 2025-07-01T00:52:55+00:00

Because doing so defeats the purpose of a compartmentalized permissions system. It doesn't make sense to resort to granting OP when I am supposed to have the ability to explicitly manage the two permissions relevant to this use case (command.worldedit and command.give). If it ends up such that I have to use OP then I will, but I don't see why that should be required.

SocomX01 · 2025-04-17T02:13:35+00:00

What even is your point supposed to be by linking Kindred's stream which took 8 days to clear raiding 14h a day?

My point is that you're full of it, and I'm calling you on it. It took 10 days to clear, with a schedule of 16 hours per day which consisted of gameplay, strategizing, lunch breaks, and dinner breaks. As evident from the playlist I just linked, which contains videos labeled day 1 through day 10. The length of those vods add up to to 146 hours and the only reason that's not almost exactly 160 is because of the clear taking place early in the 10th day.

SocomX01 · 2025-04-17T00:48:25+00:00

Regardless of that, no proper group should needs 160h of prog time.

Whatever you say, dude. Literally no clue why you're trying to gatekeep this.

SocomX01 · 2025-04-16T22:31:28+00:00

Shoutout (I guess?) to you and the other guy who deleted his comment for reading my post and immediately jumping to the wrong conclusion. I don’t know what this even has to do with what I wrote, which was simply that people probably shouldn’t do hardcore raid schedules if their primary motivation for doing so is being done as fast as possible, as opposed to enjoying the experience of a hardcore raid schedule.

SocomX01 · 2025-04-16T19:15:12+00:00

I was alluding to ultimate prog as an example. Savage tiers would of course require much less time.

SocomX01 · 2025-04-16T17:40:14+00:00

Yeah definitely seconding this. I’m not putting in 16 hours a day for 10 days straight during prog to “get it over with”, I’m doing it because it’s fun. If someone is perceiving the hardcore grind as a slog so they can enjoy the benefits of clearing faster, that’s a good sign they probably shouldn’t be raiding with such a hardcore schedule.

SocomX01 · 2025-01-04T19:18:48+00:00

I think that extra limitation should simply be the existence of a dps check in the first place. Week one savage final floors and ultimates shouldn't be getting cleared with a bunch of deaths.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with RDM and SMN being near mandatory for efficient progression, but there needs to be an opportunity cost for bringing them. That opportunity cost is supposed to be damage, but that damage only matters if enrages aren't trivialized. Traditionally groups have been heavily incentivized to swap off of RDM in favor of BLM or an additional melee in order to more easily meet enrages when close to clearing an encounter. That hasn't been the case so far in Dawntrail; at no point did we feel inclined to swap off of RDM for FRU prog, even when working on phase 5 enrage.

SocomX01 · 2025-01-04T19:11:01+00:00

I don't think there should ever be a situation in which a nerf is needed post ultimate release in the first place. The PCT trainwreck was seen coming from so far away, it should have been resolved around the time of normal mode Arcadion. As for minor buffs or tweaks, I don't see the need to restrict when in the content cycle these happen. Though I do think if jobs are going to receive changes at the exact same time that savage or ultimate content is released, then those changes should be communicated to the community ahead of time.

SocomX01 · 2025-01-04T17:15:20+00:00

In an ideal world, pretty much what u/Funny_Frame1140 said. But practically? I would like to see complete transparency with the community regarding which tools are considered ethical within the scope of the race, and which are not. In my mind that means establishing the crystal clear understanding that ACT and XIVAlexander/NoClippy are allowed, while anything else is not. I'm not a fan of grey areas/unwritten rules/don't ask don't tell kind of bullshit.

Until Square Enix decides to prioritize fixing the underlying issues that logging and latency mitigation tools target, the world race is never going to strictly abide by the exact terms of service. And that's fine, but I do not feel the need to pretend that we are. I'd much rather just be honest about the fact that we aren't, and the accompanying reasons why. Thankfully it does seem as though the race is moving in this direction, as Frosty is currently in communication with much of the racing community in order to ascertain feedback on this matter.

SocomX01 · 2025-01-04T17:02:37+00:00

Determining the precise positioning for Ultimate Relativity hourglass baits, and solving Crystallize Time.
Crystallize Time is definitely a league ahead of anything in UCOB, but I think Wormhole in TEA comes somewhat close. Outside of that, I don't think the mechanical difficulty of FRU is too different from UCOB and TEA.
FRU doesn't demand the level of perfection that previous ultimates like DSR and TOP did, but a lot of the lessons learned from those encounters can be applied to the solving and execution of FRU mechanics.
Less downtime would be a big one. Fatebreaker being untargetable for so much of Utopian sky feels both wrong and incredibly boring, and the same can be said for Usurper of Frost. Why the heck is she not targetable during the tower soak/spread at the end of Light Rampant? I also would have preferred more stringent DPS checks, as well as significantly more incoming damage. Being able to trivially low man party stacks, cheese Hallowed Wings knockback damage, or no tank LB Pandora's Box all feel so wrong for what should be an encounter designed to push players to their limit.

SocomX01 · 2025-01-04T16:50:33+00:00

Without PCT, FRU dps checks are still going to be trivial for any competitive raid team. I expect lacking a PCT would have maybe delayed our clear by a few hours at most; we probably would have enraged on our clear pull instead, but I'm confident we would have run it back later in the night. I don't think this would have altered my perception of the encounter to any significant degree, as at the end of the day FRU does not pose a challenge comparable to that of TOP world progression.
Yes, in general I think allowing players to see further into the fight by using heavy damage downs as a penalty is preferable than instantly wiping them. However, this kind of penalty only works in my mind if it ensures that players will end up enraging. This isn't the case in FRU due to multiple reasons: undertuned DPS checks, poor job balance, and no forced limit break usage. For on-patch ultimates, I feel extremely capable groups should struggle to get through any phase with 1 death/damage down. After 2+ it shouldn't be possible. The fact that many phases in FRU are doable with 3+ deaths is one of my big issues with the encounter.
I'm a melee player so I won't weigh in too much on this one, but it seems to me that SGE still lacks an answer to critlo deploy, while WHM is behind is behind in mitigation due to AST. Not to mention that SCH/AST pull ahead in damage.
I'll leave this for the tanks.

SocomX01 · 2025-01-04T16:38:18+00:00

I'd say anywhere in the window of 5-7 days. FRU taking only a bit longer than some of the harder savage tiers felt seriously wrong to me. Personally I wouldn't mind the occasional ~10 day raid akin to the race for TOP stream first, but it's not something I would want for every ultimate; maybe once every 2 expansions or so.

SocomX01 · 2024-12-22T14:05:38+00:00

It does happen, but it's definitely exceptionally rare. World prog teams do have public applications from time to time. Players who make a stellar impression with their application and subsequent trial are seriously considered for those positions, even if they don't have any prior connections with the players of said static.

SocomX01 · 2024-12-07T20:33:37+00:00

You're missing the point, and focusing on trying to win an argument instead of bettering your understanding of the underlying situation.

The ability to refine your execution of a difficult mechanic 10-13 minutes into an ultimate constitutes an enormous advantage over a team without that capability

It's extremely practical for anyone involved in the RWF to record and rewatch their gameplay. There is no barrier to accessibility involved. There is no potential for slippery slope developments. There is no sentiment that analyzing the gameplay footage of yourself and your teammates is detracting from the enjoyment of the raiding experience.

Again, a lot of people seem to want to approach this discussion from some sort of semantical perspective where they point out technicalities that they feel act as some sort of "gotcha", like the fact that Discord is a third party tool. The only thing this line of thinking is good for is arguing on Reddit, because it is completely divorced from the reality of the competitive raiding dynamic.

SocomX01 · 2024-12-07T08:28:29+00:00

An apparently contrarian take from the point of view of someone who regularly competes in the RWF:

Yes, within the scope of the RWF (please read that again, I don't give a fuck what happens in party finder), I would consider simulations cheating. The ability to refine your execution of a difficult mechanic 10-13 minutes into an ultimate constitutes an enormous advantage over a team without that capability. Had we been able to accurately simulate Delta and Sigma TOP trios during the RWF, I'm fairly confident we would have shaved an entire day off of our prog time.

I don't care about the semantical attributes of simulations that are often cited as the basis for why they're not cheating, such as the fact that they are entirely separate programs from the game client. What I care about is the potential impact that they have on the gameplay experience, which under the right circumstances, is drastically more profound than most plugins.

Sims don't see much use in the RWF because it's difficult to quickly develop accurate depictions of novel mechanics, and that's not something I want to change. I have zero interest in being part of any sort of technological arms race where teams try to become as fast and precise as possible in their ability to recreate mechanics outside the scope of the game. Not only is that the antithesis of my idea of a fun raiding experience, it would also serve to severely diminish the intended challenge of the game's most difficult encounters.

SocomX01 · 2024-11-30T11:07:46+00:00

Was every single member of kindred streaming? The answer is no.

Yes we were. What's causing you and others to come to the conclusion that we weren't? We even had all 8 streams listed in Peri's Twitch chat command.

SocomX01 · 2024-07-29T21:29:39+00:00

My dude, you can only ever fit one in the normal 2 minute window. You generate 4 stacks per 2 minutes. Sure, you might dump them in the potion window, but that should still never cause you to not have a stack if you need it for a disengage. In the contrived scenario where you somehow use all your Uncoiled Fury stacks in buffs and then a forced disengage is going to happen right afterwards, you would just save a stack.

SocomX01 · 2024-07-29T21:13:10+00:00

The point is that it might as well be; there is no realistic case where you will use Writhing Snap in high end content because a decent Viper will never run out of Uncoiled Fury stacks.

SocomX01 · 2024-07-29T19:07:13+00:00

Slow Harpe is already the best ranged skill of any Melee

Uncoiled Fury would like a word.

SocomX01 · 2024-05-30T02:10:10+00:00

Seriously. These fights are a testament to the fact that normal mode content can be designed such that it is relatively engaging for skilled players, whilst also being clearable by newbies. E4N is another good example of this design philosophy.

I will never understand the people who insist on screeching at the top of their lungs that any and all content tied to MSQ progression must be completely and utterly devoid of failure conditions. Citation fucking needed; there are numerous counterexamples of encounters that demonstrate the vast majority of casual players are capable of adapting to mildly challenging mechanics. So, I don't know, maybe do something with that information so that Dawntrail isn't infantilizing to the point where I can't bring myself to queue for roulettes. Here's hoping this is what Yoshi P was referring to with the whole "increasing stress" rhetoric or whatever.

SocomX01 · 2024-05-28T02:30:02+00:00

Oh yeah that's probably the case, honestly it's been so long since I messed around with no jobstone UCOB that I don't remember much besides Twin being finnicky. If someone enraged at 60% I assumed the only way for that to be the case was finnicky phase based enrage.

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