A12 savage World first 3 days after patch

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Yeah, I remember that interview. I disagree that he doesn't have the manpower to provide 3+ difficulties though.

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Eh even if they re-allocated staff to make 3 difficulty levels do we really want the same content in 3 different flavors?

I'd rather have two tiers and the content be totally separate things, but then the casual "but muh story" people would complain.

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Originally Posted by Pasquale

So today Angered from Ragnarok server got world first A12s 3 days after patch [...] share your feeling about this.

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Ew, Angered again >.>

I agree. The wider community are not hard core. I'm on a break for the next year and can't wait to come back and grind a full normal Alex set and the rush savage. I think some might take this game a little to seriously. Playing for "16 hours" it a total waste of a God given life. This way people can get it out of there system and love a little real life. But seriously itching to try this and the next two patches out...when I get back X)

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Originally Posted by Zumi

A8S was beat 6 days after the patch was out

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Lol. No. A8S was beaten on the first day of the 4th week after the patch (Day 29).

This was the day they were able to buy tome weapons (and upgrade them). From what I have read, they should had at least 6 upgraded weapons and alot other gear on this day.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

Lol. No. A8S was beaten on the first day of the 4th week after the patch (Day 29).

This was the day they were able to buy tome weapons (and upgrade them). From what I have read, they should had at least 6 upgraded weapons and alot other gear on this day.

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A8S savage was cleared in 17 days, its A4S that took around 30 days

With a static and time everything is possible. Practice makes better

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Originally Posted by Eul

Well I don't mind if the savage is easier to clear, because it will encourage casual-tier to do savage and that could increase the clear rate statistics :)

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This is a key part of this discussion that people like the OP don't take into account. Gordias and Midas did a number on the raiding community in this game. That's not a good thing in the long run. That the top 1% of raiders cleared Creator as fast as they did should encourage the midcore people that shied away from raiding this expansion back into it seeing that it's not soul-crushingly difficult.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

even if they re-allocated staff to make 3 difficulty levels do we really want the same content in 3 different flavors?

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If it means people get the see the content they paid for, sure.

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I'd rather have two tiers and the content be totally separate things, but then the casual "but muh story" people would complain.

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It's a valid complain. Else you get things like the Isle of Quel Danas that was basically Blizzard's way of saying "not good enough to raid/don't have a raiding guild? Here's a bunch of dailies for you to do while the true heroes are running Sunwell Plateau. Have fun trolololol".

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Yeah, I remember that interview. I disagree that he doesn't have the manpower to provide 3+ difficulties though. They already have a lot of the work done (setting, animations, graphics etc.). Then, they also spend a lot of resources on content which feels less important (at least to me). For example, Aquariums seem entirely too complex for what should be a simple housing item. Things like LoV, PotD and Diadem are convoluted, unloved and likely took a lot of dev resources. Take those resources and re-allocate. Finally, I'd say that they waste a lot of resources re-inventing the wheel so-to-speak every patch. Each patch the difficulty is off, people complain, the analyze and re-design and put out something new - this is likely resulting in a lot of wasted time.

They also could probably implement a middle tier pretty easily. Design a hard gordias-style savage and then just lower some outgoing damage, lower dps checks and maybe remove a mechanic or two. You don't need to design anything new, just trim some of the stuff that makes it as hard as it is.

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To be fair, the difficulty in coding fight mechanics and aesthetics are substantially higher than Aquariums. It isn't really a fair comparison as the latter requires no balance tuning, situational awareness and just the sheer complexity that goes into even a single fight. I actually doubt PotD or Diadem did take significant resources due to their reuse of assets. Diadem is essentially a zone map with your typical trash mob and occasional hunt-esque bosses. PotD is largely similar corridors in a small cavern setting. None have much intricacy to them. Regardless, they can't just cater to the battle side of content. While LoV and Diadem were disasters, PotD has largely been well-received despite it still needing improvements. People in this game like fluff. Frankly, I don't necessarily think three difficulties is even needed. Alexander is a side story. It doesn't need to be faceroll nor should it. At the same time, it doesn't need to be extremely challenging. Just much more than it is currently.

Honestly, what I think would help people seeking a challenge is if they implemented a ilvl scale mechanic that premade groups could set. Think of it like sliders. You set it to whatever ilvl you desire (in increments of five) and your gear is scaled accordingly. None of this DF nonsense where even scaled gear laughs at low level content. If you said it to ilvl 210, it'll be as those any gear above that level were now the exact equivalent. From there, put challenges for players to accomplish. Beat Gordias/Midas/Creator at x ilvl, attempt it underleveled and so forth. They could build a reward structure around that. Maybe the harder you make the content, the highest chance pigeons or ponies drop.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

A8S savage was cleared in 17 days, its A4S that took around 30 days

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Still more than 6 days and way more than 2 days.

But just to remember what Yoshi P did say some time ago about the difficulty of creator savage:

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Y. Firstly, the DPS checks for Gordias were too high so we shifted the difficulty of Midas by "making the players dance" and we overdid that too. Regarding Midas, Let's just say the level cap was still 50 and you could use the level 50 rotations. I think the clear rates would have been way way higher. After checking the data and logs, we noticed "Understanding the mechanics,judging,dodging and maintaining the level 60 rotations on top of that" is what created the enormous gap between players. There are a lot of buffs you need to manage and maintain and not only that, but the phase transitions or enemy mechanics disturb that rotation. This led to requiring players to flexibly judging in certain situations. Back in binding coil of Bahamut, there were some harsh mechanics, but the difference in rotations directly slashed the gap in difficulty. It's too late to change the rotations during the 3.x series so we'll lower the difficulty of the final tier of Alexander instead.

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Source

In a later Interview he also clarified, that "Savage" is content for the 1 digit percentrange and not for everyone.

The balance of creator savage is more like a band aid fix because of the rotation issues, they cant fix before the expansion. From what he did say, they don't have plans to repeat this in 4.0.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Yeah, I remember that interview. I disagree that he doesn't have the manpower to provide 3+ difficulties though. They already have a lot of the work done (setting, animations, graphics etc.). Then, they also spend a lot of resources on content which feels less important (at least to me). For example, Aquariums seem entirely too complex for what should be a simple housing item. Things like LoV, PotD and Diadem are convoluted, unloved and likely took a lot of dev resources. Take those resources and re-allocate. Finally, I'd say that they waste a lot of resources re-inventing the wheel so-to-speak every patch. Each patch the difficulty is off, people complain, the analyze and re-design and put out something new - this is likely resulting in a lot of wasted time.

They also could probably implement a middle tier pretty easily. Design a hard gordias-style savage and then just lower some outgoing damage, lower dps checks and maybe remove a mechanic or two. You don't need to design anything new, just trim some of the stuff that makes it as hard as it is.

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Firstly its possible that the skillset required doesn't simply translate across.

More to the point all the content you mentioned is new things they have been trying and the playerbase as been very frequently asking them to try new things. Whenever you try something new there is always a chance it will flop. Diadem and LoV did. I suspect LoV is why they haven't added anything else to the Gold saucer since. I would argue that PotD is quite popular, at least from my corner of the community. Quite a lot of my FC do it, particularly when levelling alt classes/jobs.

Unless we are assuming that YoshiP is outright lying, I would say that the situation isn't that easy to fix. I am no game developer but from hearing IT friends talk there is a hell of a lot more that goes on behind the scenes.

We need to remember that players operate from a limited perspective and have little to judge the overall community attitude to content released or how used it is. SE has actual metric data as well as multiple sources of feedback. They would have staff who's whole job is to analyse this data and help draw an impression of the usage of content among the playerbase and the over all playerbases attitude toward such content.

wait a sec i love my new aquarium.... one of the best housing items in the game.... anyway The devs felt they want there content to be enjoyed by mid core players as well. If you want hard core content then in all honesty FFXIV is not the game for you.... SE does not have the man power to dedicate that kind of content for just a small percentage of players at least for now.... who knows maybe lowering the difficulty is a smart move on the devs part. If they can get more players to run this content and then slowly raise the difficulty in the next raid content then more players will be that much stronger for it.

Sometimes you have to take a step back and see where things are going wrong. Sometimes you have to slow down to get ahead. Think of this as an opportunity to get more groups together to run this content. And if done right we could double or even triple the raiding population.

Who knows maybe by patch 4.2 the raiding community could make up 25% to 50% of the game's entire population.... And who knows maybe then the dev team could raise the difficulty up on those raids....

Well idk but i have a bad feeling, first time A9s and our casual static cleared it in about 2 hours without any knowledge of the fight... with a killspeed of 6min30 while 1 DD was 2-3 minutes offline cause he dc'd.

Cooldown reset speeds it up no doubt, but still....

Grats I guess. But do you get a medal for being first in the world ?

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

Personally, the thing I have liked least about FFXIV raids is that 1 person making a mistake or dying means the entire team dies. I like challenging content, but I am happy that this is more forgiving than the previous tiers.

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Sephirot Extreme PTSD and to an extent Minstals Ballad Thordan.
"What's that? One or two people died and you want to recover quickly and turn the battle around? Too bad, start over" if 3/4's of your party is down that's understandable but not 2 people >.>

I believe most people do not want to do really, really difficult and ultra punishing content. That is not fun for them. Maybe for some players, sneezing one way that results in a party wipe is fun. Most players do not want to stubbornly grind and get frustrated at each other for making mistakes. Maybe the top groups already have the cream of the crop, so they make less mistakes than other groups and play at a much higher level of efficiency.

I do not mind Gordias Savage or Midas Savage difficulty, but not everybody is a masochist like me I suppose. I do not blame them for wanting something less anal. It is probably better for the game in general.

Most people, like me, spends 2 hours raiding per day, 5 days a week. That's 10h a week if you've raided all days (wich sometimes, you just can't)
Most people doesn't have others crafting their full ilv250 gear fast as server starts.
And most people doesn't spend 16h+ a day raiding.

With that said, I'm not saying the new raid should be harder or anything, I'm saying that if you have a full group of people with free time and others helping you with crafted/melded gear, everything is possible.
You shouldn't compare normal raiders with people aiming for the world first, just like you wouldn't compare somebody that aims to be the world first at lvling to 60, since normal players takes their time to watch cutscenes, do optional quests etc...

Normal raiders have to craft their gear, raids 2h a day aprox, does other content and may have different kind of players in the group who may learn faster or slower.

Difficulty is always relative. Back in FFXI I had a lot of free time and did some first kills like Cerberus or Bahamut, and we spent over 20 hours of constant combat. I still remember fighting Hydra for the first time, we didn't know how to kill it so we had to switch members so they could sleep, to maintain it claimed for us when we woke up, and it was a 36h~ish long combat. I had the free time and we had teammates able to play for that long, too.
Combats weren't easy, but having free time and dedicated members helped a lot. While others took weeks/months to kill Cerberus and Bahamut, we did it in few hours, and it's still relative because people usually never spent that much time doing that content.


So yeah, I don't think this raid sucks or anything. SE made the raid so anyone with ilv250 could beat it if you did everything right, instead of putting an artifficial difficulty such as gearcheck.

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Originally Posted by Pasquale

Always. Gordias took months - most of people didnt clear - midas took like 1 month and more people cleared - fcob took like 7 days or less - most if people cleared . 47 hours to clear content = everyone will clear it ez

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Actually, you just prove that the metric was never the top groups.
Alex was split into Story/Savage because the majority of people couldn't clear Coil
Midas Savage was made easier because the vast majority of people, including the majority of raid groups who actually tried savage raiding couldn't clear Gordias.
Creator was made easier again because the majority of people is still not trying Savage raiding.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

It's almost like the community isn't a hive mind, and different people have different opinions!

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I'm pretty sure you can find several people that complained about both.
Be careful what you wish for at its finest :p

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Originally Posted by Yasuhiro

Sephirot Extreme PTSD and to an extent Minstals Ballad Thordan.

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My previous static leader was so affected that every time one people died, he made us wipe...while we were still learing Seph EX mechanics :confused:

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Originally Posted by Rikku1987

Well idk but i have a bad feeling, first time A9s and our casual static cleared it in about 2 hours without any knowledge of the fight... with a killspeed of 6min30 while 1 DD was 2-3 minutes offline cause he dc'd.

Cooldown reset speeds it up no doubt, but still....

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This is exactly what i mean , casual static clearing in 2 hours with no knowledge with people offline.. Maybe is this thing is really really so easy? No some people still say that's the way . Next time let's make a fight where u don't even need an healer -.-

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Originally Posted by Pasquale

This is exactly what i mean , casual static clearing in 2 hours with no knowledge with people offline.. Maybe is this thing is really really so easy? No some people still say that's the way . Next time let's make a fight where u don't even need an healer -.-

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or how about a fight where u just watch a cutscene and get loot? :P

btw pasquale have u killed a9s yet? :P

These are my feelings, just way too long for an FF14 Forum post...

http://pastebin.com/Mf3Lu8Ak

http://puu.sh/rsIWW/d1ca0da2a3.png

Just kinda wanna throw this in here, because these kinds of threads always crop up and make me think about it again.

Gordias tried really hard to kill my server's raiding population. Midas, for many servers, finished the job. Watching static after static die, seeing people transfer off server to greener pastures with more concentrated communities because the people who wanted to do that content weren't able to find the numbers anymore as others lost interest and quit. It was like WoW in 2008 all over again, watching guild after guild devour each other or disband because they were trying to steal each others Shamans for M'uru.

Nothing about that is healthy. At least with easier content you'll get a wider pool of players invested and interested in raiding again and you can grow from there. Neither extreme is healthy long term, but one kills your population much faster than the other.

Congrats to the groups who cleared though!

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

SE made the raid so anyone with ilv250 could beat it.

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And this is good?

Currently I do ask myself, whats the matter to meld my crafter gear to be 4 star ready. Currently I've spend 16 kk of gil and still need 30 points of control I have to meld into slot 4 and 5.

4 star food and pots? Nobody needs it.

Crafted gear? This will die faster than you can think.

Furniture? There will be a higher demand with Ishgard housing. But the issue is: the same time they will be not specialist anymore.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

And this is good?

Currently I do ask myself, whats the matter to meld my crafter gear to be 4 star ready. Currently I've spend 16 kk of gil and still need 30 points of control I have to meld into slot 4 and 5.

4 star food and pots? Nobody needs it.

Crafted gear? This will die faster than you can think.

Furniture? There will be a higher demand with Ishgard housing. But the issue is: the same time they will be not specialist anymore.

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yes its good , it means one can play with one'S friends , who are as not as gifted as u are :P

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Originally Posted by Khemorex

yes its good , it means u can play with ur friends , who are as not as gifted as u are :P

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It's not like the game is offering other things for that?

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Originally Posted by Khemorex

yes its good , it means one can play with one'S friends , who are as not as gifted as u are :P

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No its not. Beside the players, who did enjoy the challange, its a hit in the face of all crafters, who did spent way more gil than me to prepare for the patch, because the demand for the new stuff will die way to fast.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

And this is good?

Currently I do ask myself, whats the matter to meld my crafter gear to be 4 star ready. Currently I've spend 16 kk of gil and still need 30 points of control I have to meld into slot 4 and 5.

4 star food and pots? Nobody needs it.

Crafted gear? This will die faster than you can think.

Furniture? There will be a higher demand with Ishgard housing. But the issue is: the same time they will be not specialist anymore.

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It's good because it's a difficulty not based on gear, but skill. Meaning there's no artifficial difficulty just to prevent an early kill.

Just like you can kill bosses in Dark Souls naked because some skilled players can do it, and others will need gear, shields etc in order to complete it because they need that extra help.

ilv250 crafter gear is useful. You end up saving 4-5 weeks of farming Alexander normal mode, plus you can penta-meld it. Also it's pretty cheap to make (I crafted my gear spending 0 gil, took me like 6h of farming/crafting).

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Also it's pretty cheap to make (I crafted my gear spending 0 gil, took me like 6h of farming/crafting).

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You also did calculate the meldings to meet the 4 star cap into your "spending 0 gil"?

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

You also did calculate the meldings to meet the 4 star cap into your "spending 0 gil"?

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Well, I melded that on the last patch and made enough profit crafting stuff, so in the end I never lost a pen, but kept increasing gil thanks to the melded gear.

It was worth because I could buy the Esoteric materials NQ for just 40 esoterics, and craft mats HQ! So I recovered the money from V's materias, and the IV materias were free due to the ixal dailies.

I'm not really a crafter enthusiast. I geared up just to craft my stuff and help static mates, and still made some money >_>


Anyways I get your point, everything will drop, but that's because there are more crafters now and the demand is decreasing.
Maybe we'll get a patch where crafters will be needed again, just like the relic patch!

I don't know if other people said this already, but honestly I feel that the best way to balance savage content would be to increase the item level gap between the previous content and the current one (e.g. instead of going to i240 to i270 as the highest attainable item level, it should be from i240 to 290 for example).

This way they could tune the DPS checks for the later turns way higher for the first few weeks so that the hardcore groups can have a challenge as well.
Then the midcore to casual groups would be able to clear the first 1-2 turns and then wait a few more weeks/months to get their "OP" weekly tomestone gear (since it would be a massive +40/50 ilvl boost) before being able to clear the later turns relatively easy with that gear.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

I don't know if other people said this already, but honestly I feel that the best way to balance savage content would be to increase the item level gap between the previous content and the current one (e.g. instead of going to i240 to i270 as the highest attainable item level, it should be from i240 to 290 for example).

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It would just be artificial longevity.
It's like if they forced ilvl 260 to even enter A11. Would everyone suddenly be proud that Creator would only be cleared after several weeks ?

It's pretty simple.
The current raid design annoys (maybe) 10% of the 5% of the player base who cleared the former raids.
While doubling or trippling the overall clears at least.

It's much better to enable 10.000 people raiding 4h a week and clear all in 3 month, instead of focussing on not losing those 100 who clear it in 2 weeks.
Even if they need 6 or 8 weeks... that's 100 ppl subbing a bit longer and 10.000 who cannot attemp it at all again, because of time/skill/static needed.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

It would just be artificial longevity.
It's like if they forced ilvl 260 to even enter A11. Would everyone suddenly be proud that Creator would only be cleared after several weeks ?

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Of course it would be artificial longevity, but aren't DPS intensive fights artificial longevity by definition?

The problem here is that you need to find the right balance for this artificial longevity. It can't be too much like in Gordias, but now it feels that there is none of it.
And tackling a fight, while knowing that you can have 2, 3, even 10+ deaths in the fight (like what happened in the A10S clear of the original poster of this topic) and still manage to beat it without reaching the enrage completely removes the point of doing mechanics correctly.
A mechanic is too hard to execute? Who cares, just die to it and get revived. It's sac strats all over again, but in ALL the fights this time.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

It's much better to enable 10.000 people doing 4h a week and clear all in 3 month, instead of focussing on not losing those 100 who clear it in 2 weeks.

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The target of the developers was that world first should need around 5 days and "people that meet 2 times a week" shall need around 2 month.

Now the world first was in 2 instead of 5 days. We will see, how different it will be for "people that meet 2 times a week".

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

Now the world first was in 2 instead of 5 days. We will see, how different it will be for "people that meet 2 times a week".

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Pff, Yoshi just forgot that there is also CD reset now, so people need 30-50% less time for practice runs. :D ;)

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Originally Posted by Wegente

Of course it would be artificial longevity, but aren't DPS intensive fights artificial longevity by definition?

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Well...no. DPS intensive fights are demanding, but if you can clear them with the gear available right from the start, it just mean you need to improve your rotation. It's not a very good difficulty, but it's not fake. Releasing a content unclearable even at the best of skill is fake.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

The problem here is that you need to find the right balance for this artificial longevity. It can't be too much like in Gordias, but now it feels that there is none of it.

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For me, the right balance is having something difficult, but that you can still clear in a fresh runs by reacting properly. Unfair mechanics that will kill you before you even know what they do are fake difficulty, and only forces you to read a guide before raiding.

If you feel Creator is actually "that" easy, then go blind and discover the mechanbics by yourself. It will makes it more fun :)

Interesting...
Just something you may havnt noticed:

If you have time to train a content over and over again 16h a day, then just imagine what happens if you repeat saying in game forums "it is too easy" over and over again for 16h a day? Doesnt it look like the "overall" playerbase seems to have it too easy or is it just an illusion because you cant hear the others?!

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Originally Posted by Yukiko

If you have time to train a content over and over again 16h a day, then just imagine what happens if you repeat saying in game forums "it is too easy" over and over again for 16h a day? Doesnt it look like the "overall" playerbase seems to have it too easy or is it just an illusion because you cant hear the others?!

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You, sir, have opened my eyes...
Now, it's clear...
I've been touched by the light...
I finally understand...
...
...
...
This is why we have daily post limits :p

I don't think raids are harder at all. (None of them) the problem here is not the difficulty the problem in here is people's time to practice. An average static practices between 2/3 hours every 3 days a week. In 2 hours you won't clear the whole thing. A DAY full on practice can get you a clear at least 2 turns. 3 full days of practice can get you the whole thing.

The problem in my view is not the difficulty of the game is the limited time people got to practice .

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Originally Posted by Ibi

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It would be quite interesting to see what the FFXIV team would do if they had the resources/manpower to produce more content within a 3-5 month period. Not sure if it is the amount of money they make off FFXIV or SE simply not providing the resources, but I hope that they are properly funding the game that got them back in a healthy state in their company.

Really all this complaining is going to do is become detrimental to the game itself. People cried for harder raids, and they got them, which in turn nearly destroyed the raiding community. Population of servers dwindled while the bigger ones became over crowded. You call this the GIT GUD days, I call it the days this game nearly fell apart for the second time. Sure people can spend a month clearing this content. However, this gives them the opportunity to do more with the game. Instead of being obsessed with trying to clear a raid and clearing it 5 months into the raid cycle going at it for 3 to 5 days a week 2 hours a day. That's unhealthy. Nobody lives your life. Everyone has their own schedules, their own goals, and their own playstyles. And really they should. Every bit of this game is not intended for specific people, it's intended for everyone even based on their schedules. So don't bring the community down with you because you're unhappy that's unfair.