Can we just have the Wrath of the Lich King Raiding Scheme?

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Originally Posted by Dwill

It shows stagnation 2 years and a half later, not 2 months.

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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King — second expansion, released 13 November 2008. So I counted from beginning of 2009. Usually the time it takes after an expansion to see how subs will go.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

In FFXIV, Yoshida has made it clear that casuals will always be able to get the same ilvl of gear (weapon aside) in a catch-up patch, see hunts. With your suggestion of a lower ilvl for normal raids, I'm not sure how they are going to balance the gear, not to mention to placate the cries from non raiders about not having the same ilvl of gear as raiders.

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I believe that something has to give. Casuals have no need to have the same gear as raiders because...well they aren't raiders. I like the prospect of Fendred's idea and it could be implemented easily while simultaneously correcting the item level inflation.

Since we like having item level maximums in factors of 5 we can just do it that way. For example, Allagan Healer Grimoire (i95) is 71 magic damage. High Allagan Healer Grimiore (i115) is 77 magic damage . Crush this number down to i105 and all the current i100 will stay i100 but retain their magic damage numbers. Now for armour, current i100 can go down to i95 and i110 to i100. Every 10 item levels we have now should only be 5 but retain the same gain so i90 Argute Morterboard has 18 MND and 18 VIT, whereas i110 Daystar has 24 MND and 25 VIT. So i90 would remain the same, i95 Daystar would be 21/22, and i100 24/25.

This would all be in preparation for The Third Coil of Bahamut. So you'd have normal mode, and savage. Normal would drop i105 which is ~6 main stat/~7 VIT increase over High Allagan/Soldiery and Savage would drop i110 which would be ~14 main stat/~15VIT over High Allagan Soldiery. Obviously, Savage would be ridiculous in difficulty so that one doesn't simply get a massive stat increase. Also stated previously, have an extra boss at the end of Savage that would give something that normal mode has no way of obtaining without doing Savage.

I'd like to reiterate that casuals shouldn't complain about getting things that raiders have since they don't have the time, effort, skill, or all combined, to do the content that raiders do while putting forth the aforementioned categories in said content. If they (casuals) get their story mode and gear that wasn't completely worthless and allows them to do the next entry level iteration of raid, that should be good enough for them. Meanwhile raiders get the best of the best to show off (which is how it should be).

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Originally Posted by Amberion

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King — second expansion, released 13 November 2008. So I counted from beginning of 2009. Usually the time it takes after an expansion to see how subs will go.

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Still more than two months and we saw the end results: No stagnation until Cataclysm.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Still more than two months and we saw the end results: No stagnation until Cataclysm.

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They went from 12mil to 9mil subs during Cataclysm. Not sure what numbers you are looking at.

Just check the first pic you posted. It clearly shows stagnation during WoTLK and decline during cataclysm.

I completely agree, Skaterger. I don't think that this game should necessarily have addon support, but I feel that it helped people focus more on the screen as a window into the world than as a GUI. If I hide my UI with the scroll lock button and walk around East Thanalan during a Sun Set (or any other zone), it feels incredibly different in a very pleasant way, because I'm finally getting fully immersed in the beautiful aesthetic of the game. Boss fights in WoW were often very colorful in both setting and the abilities boss's used.

Watching a giant slowly wind up its swing with an orange sunset, casting the monster's menacing shadow on some old ruins as players scurry to avoid the incoming attack is something difficult to appreciate when a player's attention is focused only on the UI. I think everyone would agree what I just described is far more appealing than the typical cast bar. Using generic casting animations and forcing players to look for its cast bar is a design issue because it introduces something boring and unimaginative to a game with an otherwise spectacular aesthetic. It's annoying because it turns all the beautiful movement, color schemes, character/monster models, and sound effects into distractions working against the interest of players even though they are meant to be interesting to players.

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Originally Posted by Amberion

They went from 12mil to 9mil subs during Cataclysm. Not sure what numbers you are looking at.

Just check the first pic you posted. It clearly shows stagnation during WoTLK and decline during cataclysm.

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The thing is, though, what you might be looking at as stagnation might actually just be the hypothetical limit of the player base. The game was so popular that literally everyone had heard of it. They might be the only game in history to have come close to really getting every possible player that would ever be interested in playing the game within the regions of its release.

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Originally Posted by Amberion

They went from 12mil to 9mil subs during Cataclysm. Not sure what numbers you are looking at.

Just check the first pic you posted. It clearly shows stagnation during WoTLK and decline during cataclysm.

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Decline would have been a better word than stagnation. So yes, it stagnated during a good part of Wrath and peaked at 12 Millions. I still have no ideas where you're getting your data about them losing their subs 2 months in.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

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If you do it that way, that means to obtain new gear past i100, every player would need to do normal coil at least, which would not be fair by forcing everyone to raid. I think they need to keep the tomestone/CT/ST route which awards i105 gear, normal raid @ 110 and savage raid @ 115. Then the subsequent normal raid would be tuned for players at i105 to cater for new raiders/normal coil raiders while making it easier for i115 raiders, which would be fine since their ultimate goal is savage mode.

However this does give rise to gear inflation and honestly, I would like to see a mix of horizontal progression and vertical progression. I think a possible alternative to having a higher ilvl for savage coil would be to give gear that drops from savage 1-2 materia slots, and making the materias much more interesting than the bland ones we have currently.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

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No offence, but I find your example pretty hilarious. While I think there are absolutely casual raiders, I think graphical or aesthetically beauty would be one of lowest of priorities for them. I mean look at turn 5, many people are fine with turning off the spell animations of their party members so they can see the divebomb marker more clearly. Same with turn 8 and homing missiles. I think raiding should be taken more seriously, if you are going in there for the lulz and making fights easier so you can enjoy the "scenery", I think you are missing the whole spirit of raiding. There is the sightseeing log for that.

Also, how does putting a focus bar impact your ability to enjoy the graphics of the game? On the contrary, I would argue that having all these addons, flashing signs and irritating alarm sounds would greatly decrease my ability to enjoy the fight the way its meant to be experienced. One of the most important aspects of raid awareness is good UI, by having a minimalist approach to reduce clutter, and what better way than to not install addons which tend to fill up half your screen?

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Originally Posted by skaterger

No offence, but I find your example pretty hilarious. While I think there are absolutely casual raiders, I think graphical or aesthetically beauty would be one of lowest of priorities for them. I mean look at turn 5, many people are fine with turning off the spell animations of their party members so they can see the divebomb marker more clearly. Same with turn 8 and homing missiles. I think raiding should be taken more seriously, if you are going in there for the lulz and making fights easier so you can enjoy the "scenery", I think you are missing the whole spirit of raiding. There is the sightseeing log for that.

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It's a priority that no one thinks about, but is always there. Why don't they play with the spell effects always turned off then? Because they'd never get to see any of them if they did that.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Decline would have been a better word than stagnation. So yes, it stagnated during a good part of Wrath and peaked at 12 Millions. I still have no ideas where you're getting your data about them losing their subs 2 months in.

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[citation needed]

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Originally Posted by Fendred

It's a priority that no one thinks about, but is always there. Why don't they play with the spell effects always turned off then? Because they'd never get to see any of them if they did that.

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Hmm I know many players who do, either because their pc can't handle it or they just want to be able to see things around them more clearly :).

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Originally Posted by skaterger

Also, how does putting a focus bar impact your ability to enjoy the graphics of the game? On the contrary, I would argue that having all these addons, flashing signs and irritating alarm sounds would greatly decrease my ability to enjoy the fight the way its meant to be experienced. One of the most important aspects of raid awareness is good UI, by having a minimalist approach to reduce clutter, and what better way than to not install addons which tend to fill up half your screen?

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Anyway, my point wasn't to attack you or your thinking, it's just that if I were to interview someone who applied to join my raid and they said "graphics" as a priority, err I just haven't met that before.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

If you do it that way, that means to obtain new gear past i100, every player would need to do normal coil at least, which would not be fair by forcing everyone to raid. I think they need to keep the tomestone/CT/ST route which awards i105 gear, normal raid @ 110 and savage raid @ 115. Then the subsequent normal raid would be tuned for players at i105 to cater for new raiders/normal coil raiders while making it easier for i115 raiders, which would be fine since their ultimate goal is savage mode.

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Oh, I didn't think of that. Maybe just keep the next tome gear as i100 but have higher stats. Since I believe item level is only used to indicate ability to enter a particular instance, I believe they could make that number whatever they wanted it and would work it. The issue is they are increasing item level too fast and they will run into the same problem WoW had, so they should slow the item level increase now while they can rather than have to do it retroactively.

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However this does give rise to gear inflation and honestly, I would like to see a mix of horizontal progression and vertical progression. I think a possible alternative to having a higher ilvl for savage coil would be to give gear that drops from savage 1-2 materia slots, and making the materias much more interesting than the bland ones we have currently.

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I think this could work if it's always guaranteed 2-slot materia rather than possible 1, 3, or none. Then you don't increase item level at all but savage gear will be superior to non-savage. Good idea, I like it!

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Originally Posted by skaterger

That's a pretty good strawman argument you got there. Anyway, I added a second part to my post which I clarified a few things, you might want to read that.

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changed my post while you were quoting me to something I thought was a bit more accurate.

No that is not what I was saying. I even said I agreed with you. My point is that there are a lot of more interesting things made to hold a player's attention than the bloody cast bar... like the boss itself.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

The thing is, though, what you might be looking at as stagnation might actually just be the hypothetical limit of the player base. The game was so popular that literally everyone had heard of it. They might be the only game in history to have come close to really getting every possible player that would ever be interested in playing the game within the regions of its release.

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Maybe. But I think that it's unlikely to be the case. The game had a steady increase up until WoTLK. If they had hit or nearly hit the limit, I think the increase would have been a lot slower before subs stagnated.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Decline would have been a better word than stagnation. So yes, it stagnated during a good part of Wrath and peaked at 12 Millions. I still have no ideas where you're getting your data about them losing their subs 2 months in.

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users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

And I only said they lost those extras that joined for WoTLK.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

changed my post while you were quoting me to something I thought was a bit more accurate.

No that is not what I was saying. I even said I agreed with you. My point is that there are a lot of more interesting things made to hold a player's attention than the bloody cast bar... like the boss itself.

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Yeah so would having "BOSS LALAFELL IS CASTING IPWNYOU SKILL FOR 1000000 DAMAGE. MOVE NOW!!!!" in big flashing bold letters and a corresponding alarm sound be in any way less distracting than watching the cast bar?

Fast thread is fast, I totally missed the part where you cherry picked my posts. Wonderful.

While I do feel that your tone is rather aggressive and am feeling relatively miffed at your posts, I'll assume that it's done with a neutral tone, as is this post.

I disagree with your post because Coil is easy. It's mechanically easy, you kill your target, you accomplish your objectives, done. Asking for the bar to be lowered is where I disagree with you because it promotes and permits people being weak and terrible. Now, I don't say it with scorn, but rather pity unless said players intentionally play badly because they're really bad. But players, having been guided by dungeons AND hests from 1 to 50 should know the basic ropes required to get through a raid like Coil.

While I'm all for letting players experience all the content in a game, especially since they pay for it, I believe that content designed for players who have reached the end of their class which they should have mastered to an acceptable degree, should be kept. Coil does that and it does it beautifully. I do agree that CT/ST is easy though, but they have said that they won't make 24 man hard. Probably due to all the chaos that comes from having potentially 23 people who don't know their job/roles with you and all.

Like seriously, I've ran a lotta dungeons with people telling me that they're 50 and geared so they know their stuff but can't perform.

So at the end of it, I suppose I'm saying that players just need to get good.

On your second post quoting me on add-ons and coddling players... They do. Making something significantly easier because a player can't cope with looking at a cast bar is really coddling a player. I view it as such because it stops encouraging, not necessarily discouraging, people from getting better. Bad teams wiping even with the use of add-ons that told them "Oh look, fire on the ground, run!" simply makes them even more terrible players.

Also, people made mods to help the community. It wasn't such a burden on players as you so put it. Some players didn't learn, some were slow, not everyone was up to what was a challenge. A difficult challenge, if we consider WoW Vanilla where Paladins were wearing skirts and healing, but a challenge, not a burden. Course, again, like I said much earlier, difficulty is a matter of perception and understanding.

Take for example Dark Souls and Demon's Souls. Games considered terribly difficult and controller smashing worthy for some. I played it, died a little, figured it out in an hour and started cleaning up demons for their souls left and right. Was it laughably easy to me? Yes. To my friend who threw his controller out the window... not so much. But that doesn't change the fact that it's simple once you understand, and with understanding and practice one gets better.

The end-game raid in this game is the same. All the community, as a whole, needs is learning, understanding and practice. Lowering the bar would circumvent the need for this and make things teh lolz.

My bad Fendred, I could've sworn I read you typing out that they're still gaining subs sans the Wrath part. So my bad on that. /bow

Now that that's done and over with, I'm glad you're not asking for add-ons, though here's another question: How much clearer do you want cues to be?

Major Note: While I post it as Coil, I refer to end-game raiding. I use Coil because it's the current end-game raiding level and you find it to be the equivalent of a Wrath hard mode dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

Normal modes were nothing like Crystal Tower in terms of ease. They posed a significant challenge to players, but the way they were tuned required less time wasted wiping than what the current Coil difficulty is set at, which is more akin to hard mode.

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You had me with these 2 difficulty modes until this.

If normal coil is considered "Hard mode" by WoW. No thank you.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

I would argue that having all these addons, flashing signs and irritating alarm sounds would greatly decrease my ability to enjoy the fight the way its meant to be experienced.

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That is one thing I HATED HATED HATED about Rift. Which they apparently got from WoW. The "You must have this addon that does everything but moves your character for you to raid!"

I do not need an addon that screams at me in 10 different languages to "RUN IN CIRCLES!!!!!!" when I have a debuff that does damage if I'm not moving. I can handle that myself.

For everyone saying that coil is easy, I do have one serious question. Firstly, no this isn't me being aggressive in this point, it is a geniune question.

If coil is as easy as many seem to say it is, why aren't more of the player base getting though it? In this thread alone I've seen posts where it can be learned in 1~2 hours and that it's just dodging. But if that's the case, why is the majority of the player base not though second or even first coil? Even then, why is considering something challenging but not as hard as coil that other players can participate in such a bad idea?

I've seen topics of people asking for harder dungeons, which is a good idea and lead in for stuff such as coil if run at the proper item level for said dungeon. If there was say a 3 tiered level of Third Coil of Bahamut, Normal (drops i120) Hard (drops i125) and Savage (drops i130) would that really be a detriment to the community as a whole? Those in the upper tier of raiding would be doing hard and savage in order to have the best gear out there, those not in the top tier can do normal while getting some gear and experience before trying hard then eventually savage.

It could expand the pool to draw from for people who PUG, it can bring people with more experience than bold face lying when picking up someone to fill in for a static member.

The only negative I can see on this issue would be increased development time and not even that much over all. With this system they wouldn't even HAVE to give the echo buff after six months. Will a system like this be in for 2.4? Not likely. But by discussing this from all angles (not just 'get good and stop being bad') we can help develop content for a larger player base to keep people interested without them feeling like they hit a brick wall of content.

I think content such as coil, which is quite fulfilling and challenging needs to find it's way into the mainstream better. It made sense when they allowed it to be Duty Finder'd but at that time it was so dummy downed and largely there was already a big desynch from the people wanting to do it to those that didn't care to.

I kinda favor'd a previous idea of making the raid content slightly more involved with the main story. If you had a easier version of it, co-exist with a more non-forgiving version, with perhaps no lock-out between the two and slightly better rewards for the harder version, you give big incentive for people to do the content both casual and hardcore.

Largely the fault of Sands/Oils being locked behind coil, is that to complete the content you largely require a static on most servers. Not everyone has that time though, but this is amazing content that the player base largely knows nothing about, which is a real shame.

T9 is by far the greatest fight ever made in this game and I'm sure most would agree that is an incredibly fun one. We need others to see it.

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Originally Posted by Nel_Celestine

For everyone saying that coil is easy, I do have one serious question. Firstly, no this isn't me being aggressive in this point, it is a geniune question.

If coil is as easy as many seem to say it is, why aren't more of the player base getting though it?

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Because they are the same people who say Titan HM is hard. FFXIV has the worst case of "0 skill players" in any MMO I've ever seen. I would be truly amazed if the people who can't manage the "when you see a cast bar run slightly to the left" mechanics have ever actually beaten well... any game besides maybe the 1st level of pac man.

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Originally Posted by Havenchild

I think content such as coil, which is quite fulfilling and challenging needs to find it's way into the mainstream better.

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WoW and it's predecessors (FFXIV included) ARE the literal embodiment of mainstreaming MMOs. FFXIV raids couldn't get any easier without literally giving you loot for zoning in. You can beat the hardest raid in the game without even being close to ilvl cap.

http://youtu.be/8FpigqfcvlM?t=2m4s Watch the next ~20 seconds of this video. Perfectly illustrates the problem with today's gamers. Except the maker is wrong. People are apparently THAT dumb and it is truly amazing that as he says they can "be"

Short answer : no. The current difficulty is fine, otherwise it'd be Extreme mode-ish difficulty and unless its Titan EX like, it would be very boring in a very short time frame.

Don't get me wrong, I love ST, but that wouldn't be a good thing for Coils.

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Originally Posted by Nel_Celestine

If coil is as easy as many seem to say it is, why aren't more of the player base getting though it? In this thread alone I've seen posts where it can be learned in 1~2 hours and that it's just dodging. But if that's the case, why is the majority of the player base not though second or even first coil? Even then, why is considering something challenging but not as hard as coil that other players can participate in such a bad idea?

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Honestly, I could write a thesis about this, that is how passionately I feel about this topic. But I'll try to keep it short.

The biggest difference in my opinion why many people have not cleared coil is their stance on raiding. People need to realize that raids by definition are the hardest content in the game. As such, it requires commitment, learning and most importantly patience. Yet when I joined my first Garuda HM dungeon back in 2.1 when I first started playing, people would leave after 2-3 wipes. If people are going to use this same attitude to do coil, I'm not surprised that they won't go far. You mention that groups take 1-2 hours to learn and clear raids, yet the reality is that for even the best players, it takes much more, maybe even hundreds of hours to do it. So how far do you think Mr. Casualjoe is going to go if he is going to give up after 2 wipes?

Raiding has gotten significantly easier over the years with the implementation of addons. This is a fact and not disputable. My first experience with raiding was MC in Wow and it would take 2-3 hours just to find people for the raid. For people that has raided a long time, FF14 just feels easy. Why? Because the basic mechanics has not changed much (move out of fire, kill adds, tank swap, push button etc). It becomes easier because the mechanics in ff14 are scripted, so now we even know what to expect before it happens. It's not a matter of being elitist, it is just not difficult, it is how it is. If you have been making sushi for 10 years, you would find it easy too while someone who just started would find it incredibly hard. I would bet my last penny that most of the people you ask who have cleared coil have some sort of prior mmo experience while the ones who are struggling are usually first-timers.

Next, to the issue of commitment. When wrath in Wow, raids in pugs were unheard of. You either had to find a guild or a group of friends to run it with. I remember raiding 4-5 days a week for 3-4 hours each clearing ssc/tk/bt and sunwell. With the introduction of LFR in cata, blizzard gave off the mentality that raids can be easily done in pugs, which is not really the case since it only applied for story mode raids. The heroic raids were just as hard and I feel some people may have gotten the misconception that even the hardest of raids can be done with pugs. My guess is that's why people seem to want to pug in ff14 more than form a team, whereas it was imperative to form a team if you wanted to push the hardest content previously. It was that brutal.

If you would like a more in depth explanation, you can just type "Why did LFR kill Wow" in google.

That being said, I am in support of the OP's idea since it not only gives more people the chance to experience content, but it also makes raiders happy by giving them a slightly differentiated gear.

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Originally Posted by Nel_Celestine

Just want to touch base on this line here, it wasn't me who said 1-2 hours, I was quoting that from another person in this thread. Other than that, I agree with you that more choices are better.



Edit: here we are.

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I think what she meant was learning the mechanics, which should not take more than an hour. Hell, you can "learn" about the fight by watching a 10 min video on youtube. But since the success of the clear depends not only on knowing the fight, but the execution of yourself and 7 others in the party, not to mention fights being as scripted as they are, I would ask that poster to link me her world first achievement since she thinks its possible to down every new fight in a few hours.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

You mention that groups take 1-2 hours to learn and clear raids, yet the reality is that for even the best players, it takes much more, maybe even hundreds of hours to do it. So how far do you think Mr. Casualjoe is going to go if he is going to give up after 2 wipes?

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Just want to touch base on this line here, it wasn't me who said 1-2 hours, I was quoting that from another person in this thread. Other than that, I agree with you that more choices are better.



Edit: here we are.

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Originally Posted by Deviant1

It takes about an hour or two to learn the entire fight, and once learned you should be able to farm the fight regularily. It does take longer to learn the job or jobs you go to this on.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

On the other hand though, you don't want to overstep to the point that there's no challenge at all (like WoW did in MoP expansion). But that's where things like Heroic (Savage) mode comes in...although from what I heard people are suspecting that it's not even possible to meet Savage difficulty's numerical requirements with current gear (could use a citation for this though).

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Savage Coil has been cleared by a JP FC

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Originally Posted by skaterger

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It's a double edge thing really. You want people to experience content on all playerbases, not just the top 10-15%. On the same hand, you don't want to give the misconception that players feel they'll be able to tackle on challenges.

LFR wasn't introduced until late Catacylsm for their end game dungeon. It had difficulty toned down and some mechanics were removed. In return, it gave signifcantly weaker loot, but people were able to experience part of the fight and the story. Normal/Heroic was still left intact, and I can attest that the mechanics are miles different and offers a much better experience for those that can get into it.

Although their next expansion (MoP), I feel they really overstepped in closing the difficulty gap, top that with huge stat inflation inbetween raiding tiers within the expansion. I'll say it right now, a good handful of the bosses had really meh mechanics for the final raid, with very few exceptions. It felt too easy even in Normal difficulty; there wasn't too much of a jump between the two. Now top that off with people be able to recruit cross realms, you could easily pug normal difficulty.

Now the problem with FFXIV like you mentioned is that there's no separation between the content. Titan EX is an incredible wake up call to unsuspecting players with the huge increase of phases, mechanics and the like, even in comparison to Garuda EX. Made all the worse that you can DF it. No amount of Echo or stat boosting will save you from the likes of Landslide or Divebombs.

I've thrown this out a few times for WoW;
LFR = You stand in the fire, you get a slap on the wrist
Normal = You stand in the fire, you die.
Heroic = You stand in the fire, you combust and kill everyone in the raid.

The way I see some raids and trials right now, it fits into the Heroic category. It gates players from experiencing content that people should all be able to get to, but at the same time like I mentioned above, no amount of stat boosting will make it easier because of those mechanics obliterating the raid. It does help with progressing the fight quickly to enter the next phase (no one likes spending 2-4 minutes to get to the conflag phase).

Keeping it the way it is probably isn't going to kill subs, but it's definiately gating the way to getting more if players are able to experience all the content the game has to offer, while at the same time being able to appeal to both casuals and the top 5-10%.

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Originally Posted by Nel_Celestine

Just want to touch base on this line here, it wasn't me who said 1-2 hours, I was quoting that from another person in this thread. Other than that, I agree with you that more choices are better.



Edit: here we are.

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From Devient1's quote my interpretation is that he/she is saying after 1-2 hours you will know the mechanics. As in know what they are and what your SUPPOSED to do not that in 1-2 hours you should be doing the event perfectly.

If that is correct. I'd be mostly in agreement. "Landslides you supposed to side step, fireballs you have to stack to split dmg, vines you have to run apart to break it, etc etc" That kind of knowledge on MOST fights in FFXIV doesn't take long to acquire (with some exceptions of course).

Far as actual learn time. Being one of the top 10 groups to beat T6 on 2.2 release. It took us about 12-15 hours to beat it.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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Short answer. Raids are not supposed to be for everyone. They are for RAIDERS. If you want to experience raids you put in the time and commitment.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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I am barely in the loop for Wow nowadays after I quit at the start of Cataclysm after they nerfed heroics to the ground. I just could not play a game that continued in that direction. Although I heard good things about WOD going back to more of bc and wotlk, so I might give have a look if reviews are good.

I still think raids in ff14 are not up to Wow's heroic level. I do not think for a second that even T9 comes close to what Yogg Saron with 0 keepers was like in Ulduar. And that was with addons like dbm and powerauras. The problem with ff14 fights is that it has artificial difficulty like 1 shot mechanics and zero margin for error, whereas wow fights imo were more of a test of skill.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

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I can't speak for WoW's difficulty as I quit soon as the 1st expansion hit and it was clear they were going the direction of "handouts to everyone! (yay lvl 61 greens replacing Naxx raid gear!). But the statements about FFXIV are spot on. Only skill involved in FFXIV raids as they stand are "can you follow simple directions like a 3 year old"

Sad thing? The current generation of MMO players can't manage that. Because divebombs are hard yo!

I played WoW, and I feel that regular modes of Coil in this game feel like normal WoW, (maybe a tad harder) whereas Savage feels like Heroic. Right now the main differences are the lockout is shared and there's no incremental loot bonus. I don't care about higher ilvl gear dropping from Savage personally as all that does is create more item bloat, but I'd feel more compelled to do Savage mode if the lockouts weren't shared, because my group still has not seen BiS drops from normal mode after 20 weeks of raiding.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

I played WoW, and I feel that regular modes of Coil in this game feel like normal WoW, (maybe a tad harder) whereas Savage feels like Heroic. Right now the main differences are the lockout is shared and there's no incremental loot bonus. I don't care about higher ilvl gear dropping from Savage personally as all that does is create more item bloat, but I'd feel more compelled to do Savage mode if the lockouts weren't shared, because my group still has not seen BiS drops from normal mode after 20 weeks of raiding.

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I'm going to be absolutely serious here, and I'm not trying insult anyone with the following statement.

FFXIV targets the lowest possible skill brackets available in the gaming spectrum. It's an area that WoW only ever touched during Mists of Panderia, and I immediately quit that game after seeing raid finder (I was used to seeing raid content be a challenge and it just ruined it for me, personally). The problem is the wider the skill brackets between players, the greater the drama becomes. It becomes more socially uncomfortable to try forming statics because more of the people can't make the cut, and that leads to less people trying to make static groups. Thus, skilled players find themselves increasingly locked out of the content made for them because they'd have to be increasingly ruthless in sorting out who can actually run stuff, and no one plays an MMORPG to be a dick.

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Originally Posted by Zarzak

WoW and it's predecessors (FFXIV included) ARE the literal embodiment of mainstreaming MMOs. FFXIV raids couldn't get any easier without literally giving you loot for zoning in. You can beat the hardest raid in the game without even being close to ilvl cap.

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But they(SE) don't really portray this fact when they give off the illusions that you need a static. If there was no direct coil lockout but perhaps just a loot lockout, you would probably see a big increase in the raiding community. Many experienced people will be assisting the other newcomers. With the current way, it's either have a static or struggle to down the content. What if you don't have that time to dedicate for a static?

I don't think it's not so much people don't want to do the content even on it's current difficulty but that the field of raiding is not favorable to the audience this game largely targets. You simply need to remove the burden of forced static progression. If you made two separate levels of the same instance, one being harder with slightly better rewards with a progression lockout (like current coil), and one with a loot lockout but open to the masses (no progression lockout), you introduce the raiding content to the mainstream, while also maintaining the hardcore progression in statics.

You even give the possibility for the masses to climb up to the difficult level and influence them to want to start on the harder level next time.

what? ppl only puged raids on wow during woltk when content was nerfed to hell ....no1 pugged Naxx in 3.0 nor pugged ulduar when was current ...

the gear went from 200 to 251 for 10M or 264 for 25M, ppl pugged 25M and asked for 5k GS as min for ICC lol , on top of that u had the buff 30%

u really want that?

2.4

LFM second coil 105i ,link t9 achivement , no ninja , t9 whm weapon reserved!

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Originally Posted by Fendred

I'm going to be absolutely serious here, and I'm not trying insult anyone with the following statement.

FFXIV targets the lowest possible skill brackets available in the gaming spectrum. It's an area that WoW only ever touched during Mists of Panderia, and I immediately quit that game after seeing raid finder (I was used to seeing raid content be a challenge and it just ruined it for me, personally). The problem is the wider the skill brackets between players, the greater the drama becomes. It becomes more socially uncomfortable to try forming statics because more of the people can't make the cut, and that leads to less people trying to make static groups. Thus, skilled players find themselves increasingly locked out of the content made for them because they'd have to be increasingly ruthless in sorting out who can actually run stuff, and no one plays an MMORPG to be a dick.

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Not sure what you quoting from me and your statement have in common?

FFXIV was designed to cater mostly to casual players and Yoshi-P has said as much numerous times. Coil is like the one thing that is NOT targeted towards the "lowest possible skill bracket". This is the one piece of content that the minority of skilled players has to challenge themselves, and even then it's made incrementally easier when it's no longer cutting edge so that people that couldn't previously do it can try their hand at it.

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Originally Posted by Zarzak

I can't speak for WoW's difficulty as I quit soon as the 1st expansion hit and it was clear they were going the direction of "handouts to everyone! (yay lvl 61 greens replacing Naxx raid gear!). But the statements about FFXIV are spot on. Only skill involved in FFXIV raids as they stand are "can you follow simple directions like a 3 year old"

Sad thing? The current generation of MMO players can't manage that. Because divebombs are hard yo!

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Dude, not sure what game you were playing but the raids in vanilla were not hard at all. Most of the difficulty was trying to find 40 people that were online at the same time that wanted to raid. Most of the bossses in MC and naxx were tank and spank with very simple mechanics and the trash took hours and hours to respawn and clear. The only real hard fight was c'thun pre nerf. The real difficulty was in BC imo. It was also considered as the hardcore patch of Wow if you did a google search. If you didn't like vertical progression I respect that but I think wow did a pretty good job balancing both forms of progression with interesting ways to customize your gear with professions and talent trees, at least in the earlier part of its lifespan.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

what? ppl only puged raids on wow during woltk when content was nerfed to hell ....no1 pugged Naxx in 3.0 nor pugged ulduar when was current ...

the gear went from 200 to 251 for 10M or 264 for 25M, ppl pugged 25M and asked for 5k GS as min for ICC lol , on top of that u had the buff 30%

u really want that?

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If it generates more interest in the end game scene and makes more people interested in raiding, why not? Right now raids are reserved for a small handful and the line between casual and hardcore is getting further and further each patch. Many have not cleared T5 and patch 2.3 is coming out. And keep in mind the OP is not asking for LFR faceroll mode, just a slight decrease to current raid difficulty, while making our current raid even harder and drop better quality gear!

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

LFM second coil 105i ,link t9 achivement , no ninja , t9 whm weapon reserved!

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Tbh, this is what we are seeing already currently, and the requirements are so absurd that no one even bothers to sign up for fear of getting blacklisted and kicked. By having a lower tier of raids, people at least have a chance to go in and experience the content and decide if it is for them.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

what? ppl only puged raids on wow during woltk when content was nerfed to hell ....no1 pugged Naxx in 3.0 nor pugged ulduar when was current ...

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No on pugged Naxx in 3.0? Yeah that's because everyone beat it within the first 6 hours of being level 80. It was the biggest joke end game raid ever released. WotLK end game started with Ulduar.

Although I don't see much of a difference between what you are saying and what's currently happening.

I'm all for tiered difficulty that works. Echo really doesn't work that well on some of the fights.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

I'm all for tiered difficulty that works. Echo really doesn't work that well on some of the fights.

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It's funny you should mention that actually because I did a Titan EX fight today that became more difficult the higher the echo buff. In such tightly scripted fights things quickly went haywire when damage became way higher than the fight was designed for forcing his phase changes before we had time to deal with all the mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Clicked

No on pugged Naxx in 3.0? Yeah that's because everyone beat it within the first 6 hours of being level 80. It was the biggest joke end game raid ever released. WotLK end game started with Ulduar.

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You really need to put a massive asterisk next to that statement that has the phrase "provided you had sunwell gear" attached to it. You weren't clearing naxx 3.0 in lv80 greens.

The people who still had their sunwell gear were the ones who cleared Naxx soon after hitting 80. Everyone else either had to gear through heroics (hi2U RNG gods) or use crafted gear as a way to meet raiding reqs (hit cap, expertise cap, defense cap for tanks, etc).

you want me to be honest?

i want coil remain as it is now

its made for ppl above average ( semi hardcore )

ppl need to put effort in learning not everything in life is easily handed