Bismarck.Bloodrose said:
»Yeah, I never found the Hard Mode fights for the relics to be as hard as people claimed them to be.
Even when I got my first relic made, it wasn't that bad, though the cries of people demanding you watch the Titan HM fight was HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE.
There were no explanations, and the vids were torqued at 1.5x normal gameplay speed.
Right now, I have 7/12 atmas for my first relic upgrade. out of 4 sets of atmas to find
The difficulty of a battle really comes down to what is the realistic minimum required to defeat something. You could clear CT and ST with a single group if it wasn't for the body count checks. That is the only reason those become so easy, that the content is designed for 3 groups and it basically punishes you if you can't fill in the spots to activate a protection barrier.
Now for something like Titan you really only need a Tank, a Healer, and a DPS or two. The rest can just jump off and get carried. Titan will not punish you if you lack bodies, it just takes longer to defeat and you'll probably want one of your DPS as a bard to recover MP to last the fight.
So difficulty really comes down to what is the minimum requirement, and how much excess we're required to bring along that really only end up making the fight more difficult. You really don't need 8 people running around on a small platform, but with inexperienced players who panic and get others killed, a fight suddenly becomes a lot more stressful.
The fight itself isn't what is stressful, but dealing with players who lack the experience that's appropriate for the content.
Raising the DPS check requires either more powerful DPS who can survive through the phase, or more bodies. More bodies creates clutter, which creates unorganized chaos, which creates panic which gets people killed. Having more players together in a small area blinds you from what you should be focusing on, which is part of difficulty too.
Let's take Leviathan for example. You need to kill the 4 water spheres quickly so you can recover your barrier to live through the storm. This phase is highly dependent on your DPS killing quickly, but not being stupid about it because your healers need to be able to heal through the phase as well, which will wipe many many groups.
Then there is artificial difficulty, aka Turn 7. This isn't difficulty, it's a massive shortcoming of the battle mechanics of the fight. They had to introduce the target % simply because the fight relied so heavily on phases changing based on the HP%. That is just stupid mechanics, nothing more. Without that flaw in the mechanics, the fight is simply not getting your team petrified. It's a simple fight, you just have to pay attention and do your job.
So basically, a Hard Mode fight really isn't difficult when it comes down to the requirement to clear it and the mechanics involved. The difficulty comes into play when you try to run with inexperienced players who die or get others killed for their own mistakes.