Is EX/Savage content a battle or a dance number?

As much as I agree with the song/dance routine, the moment they introduce RNG factors into the fight, you end up with Wash Away>Digititis aka the game has chosen for you to die

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

I know my opinion on this is going to be very unpopular, but at this point I just don't care anymore.

Guess what? Same problem happens with EX/Savage. The required skill for the current content is just far to high above the average player to complete it. It's so high, in fact, that even good players often have to spend hours each week working on it. This isn't some quick "hey random-dude-i-hardly-know, can you make me a thing-a-ma-bob?", it's a serious time commitment to get into this stuff. If you are interested in it, but your friends aren't good enough (even if they happen to be interested in it), you're kind of stuck. Even if you bother to seek out a static that is good enough to go for it, you're going to have to resign to reserving several hours per week to your "new" friends giving your old friends the cold shoulder.

The only solution is to quit making content that's well beyond the abilities of an average player.

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Could the bolded statements in this post make the “average player” sound any more like an incompetent fool? Savage content in this game is not some extremely hard thing that can only be done by 1% of the playerbase (the “hardcore players”). A lot of “average players” can and have cleared Savage content. Stop creating a divide between players, and insinuating that the “average player” cannot do hard content. I very much consider myself an “average player” that has some borderline “hardcore” tendencies due to the sheer amount of time I play this game while not busy with school or other life/adult things, and I find it mildly insulting that you think Savage content is something above “the average player’s” skill level (for the record, I have cleared this tier).

Also, seems like a lot of people find more than enough time to run with their statics, and also socialize with friends. Some players are in statics comprised of nothing but their friends. It’s not an impossible feat to deviate X amount of hours to raiding and Y amount of hours to goofing off with your friends.

And with regards to “spending several hours a week” and “its a serious commitment to get into [Savage]”, the same applies to anything in this game: crafting, gathering, leveling alt jobs, level alt characters, role-playing, Savage, etc.. The example/comparison-contrast you’ve given with Crafting and Savage is a very poor example.

Adding to this post so as to not use up another post count:

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And even if you do happen to be fine with fracturing the player base between those who clear savage and those who can't (or chose not to in order to spend time with their friends), you face another problem:

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Again, if you are neglecting your friends to clear Savage, that’s on you. Not because the content demands it.

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Development costs. I'm more than certain that SE has spent more on developing unending coil than they will get from 6 months of subscription time of all the players who will even attempt it between 4.11 and 4.20 (when ilvl is expected to increase) especially since you can't even attempt it without an O4S clear.

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Ultimate was a lot of reused and retuned assets. Some things were new, yes, but not the overwhelming majority. Also, considering when Ultimate dropped, FFXIV had the highest view rating on Twitch that it has EVER had, that is a most definite plus. Because now people are paying attention to the game, and that can bring in new players if they see something they like about it.

Also, 5150 from the JP playerbase received a sponsorship deal with their Ultimate stream.

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There's quite a bit of noise that we seem to be getting less and less content each patch, and if SE continues to try to develop content that most players will never even see, that notion will only gain more and more traction.

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I will agree that 4.1 was incredibly stale in terms of content; if I wasn’t raiding, I would not be logging in. However, trying to say that Savage/Ultimate is taking away from casual content is false. 4.1 was empty not because of Ultimate, but because the developers, once again, delayed Eureka, which is now probably not coming out until AFTER 4.2 (probably in 4.25 something from what I’ve been hearing). So while 4.1 was stale, don’t blame it on Ultimate.

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Basically, I'm not saying difficult games shouldn't exist, but rather that difficult content shouldn't exist within an MMO where a majority of the content can be cleared by casual players.

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“Casual players” can still clear Savage—“casual” does not equate to “bad” or “poorly skilled.” Just means that they may not be as invested in the game time-wise as more “hardcore” players. A lot of casual players complain about the negative connotations behind calling them “casual”, usually equating it with being “sub par”, and yet you’re using “casual” in a negative sense: you are insinuating that “casual players” are not good enough to clear Savage. Which, again, it not some game-breakingly difficult content that only 1% of players can ever clear.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Guess what? Same problem happens with EX/Savage. The required skill for the current content is just far to high above the average player to complete it. It's so high, in fact, that even good players often have to spend hours each week working on it. This isn't some quick "hey random-dude-i-hardly-know, can you make me a thing-a-ma-bob?", it's a serious time commitment to get into this stuff. If you are interested in it, but your friends aren't good enough (even if they happen to be interested in it), you're kind of stuck. Even if you bother to seek out a static that is good enough to go for it, you're going to have to resign to reserving several hours per week to your "new" friends giving your old friends the cold shoulder.

The only solution is to quit making content that's well beyond the abilities of an average player. I know hardcore players won't like hearing this, but do you think Nintendo would sell very many more copies of Mario games if they started tuning the last set of levels in each game to the level that FFXIV's savage content is tuned to? Hell no.

Want to show off your awesome gaming skills? Do it like they've been doing it since at least the days of the Atari... pick something and speed run it, set/break records and record videos of it.

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Mario Odyssey is a 40+ hour single player game with no long term retention. If every bit of content can be easily completed within a day, why even bother playing? The entire point of a theme park MMO is catering to a largely diverse audience; something for everyone. Savage isn't intended for the "average" player, but a demographic who prefers challenging content. Take away that aspect of the game and you severely impact everyone. Who will be buying all the crafted gear, pots and food when each one is rendered obsolete? Telling raiders they're essentially only allowed their fun by speed killing easy fights comes across incredibly entitled. It wreaks of the whole "everyone needs to feel special" mentality. As for pushing aside friends. A friend and I are in two different statics that raid 5-6 hours per week, respectively, yet we still spend hours together doing random stuff or just chatting. You're only giving your non-raider friends the "cold shoulder" if you want to.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

So what is Dark Souls? Devil May Cry? Ninja Gaiden? Bloodborne? Cuphead? Do those just not exist?

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http://www.vgchartz.com/game/72895/dark-souls-ii/
Global Total as of 07th Oct 2017 (units): 1.32m

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/6963/super-mario-galaxy/
Global Total as of 07th Oct 2017 (units): 11.39m

Mario out-sells Dark Souls almost 10:1 in some cases, but I'll give you that the release years are way different, so here:

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/73166/s...ario-3d-world/
Global Total as of 07th Oct 2017 (units): 4.87m

That's still better than 3:1, and Nintendo did that with a console that was basically DOA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._game_consoles
PlayStation 3 Sony 2006 >83.8 million
PlayStation 4 Sony 2013 67.5 million
Wii Nintendo 2006 101.63 million
Wii U Nintendo 2012 13.56 million

The main takeaway from those numbers is that there's simply not nearly as many people interested in (or good enough for) games with such high difficulty. Granted, there's still just enough of a market to justify those games existing at all (and for that matter, I add Battletoads to that list of yours, an old favorite of mine when I want something with challenge), but with a huge difference: They're almost exclusively single player games (sometimes they add local multiplayer like Battletoads). You screw up and die on one of those games, your fault. Random person on your team screws up in FFXIV? Wipe. Your fault? Nope, but you still die. You pretty much have to have a full team of good players to clear such content, you simply can't mix in weaker players even if they are your friend or everyone in the group will just be banging their heads against the wall (and who enjoys that?).

And even if you do happen to be fine with fracturing the player base between those who clear savage and those who can't (or chose not to in order to spend time with their friends), you face another problem: Development costs. I'm more than certain that SE has spent more on developing unending coil than they will get from 6 months of subscription time of all the players who will even attempt it between 4.11 and 4.20 (when ilvl is expected to increase) especially since you can't even attempt it without an O4S clear. There's quite a bit of noise that we seem to be getting less and less content each patch, and if SE continues to try to develop content that most players will never even see, that notion will only gain more and more traction.

Basically, I'm not saying difficult games shouldn't exist, but rather that difficult content shouldn't exist within an MMO where a majority of the content can be cleared by casual players.

A lot of those "dances solved by pressing WASD" can be solved by using player skills/abilities tho. Rescuing the PLD in O1S the moment he's about to be pushed back to keep uptime, gap-closing skills during knockback/draw in mechanics, using movement skills to cancel displacement, optimizing uptime while you're moving to dance (ruin 2, aero spam, other instants). The "dance" is just the framework that you sculpt your entire kit around, and is (imo) nothing but a bare minimum required to clear the fight.

Does anyone else find it comical that the thread creator complains about the poor design of the first two savage fights which litterally everyone agrees are poor design and difficulty levels and yet completely refuses to try the better more designed fights which are the last two because he thinks he knows exactly what to do cause he can watch a video or read a text list of abilities without knowing at all how they work.

and then proceeds to say that no one has any idea what hes talking about. LUL

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/72895/dark-souls-ii/
Global Total as of 07th Oct 2017 (units): 1.32m

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/6963/super-mario-galaxy/
Global Total as of 07th Oct 2017 (units): 11.39m

Mario out-sells Dark Souls almost 10:1 in some cases, but I'll give you that the release years are way different, so here:

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/73166/s...ario-3d-world/
Global Total as of 07th Oct 2017 (units): 4.87m

That's still better than 3:1, and Nintendo did that with a console that was basically DOA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._game_consoles
PlayStation 3 Sony 2006 >83.8 million
PlayStation 4 Sony 2013 67.5 million
Wii Nintendo 2006 101.63 million
Wii U Nintendo 2012 13.56 million

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In your numbers, is that accounting for the amount of people who will buy Nintendo products for the fact they're Nintendo products? Or the fact you're comparing one of the most celebrated publishers against the comparatively no-name FromSoft? It's also worth pointing out that that site has different statistics up here for different consoles: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=dark+souls&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200
Dark Souls 1 (PS3): 2.05m
Dark Souls 1 (360): 0.99m
Dark Souls 1 (PC): 0.07m
Dark Souls 1 (Total): 3.11m

Dark Souls 2 (PS3): 1.32m
Dark Souls 2 (360): 0.75m
Dark Souls 2 (PC): 0.19m
Dark Souls 2 (PS4): 0.64m
Dark Souls 2 (X1): 0.24m
Dark Souls 2 Total: 3.14m

Dark Souls 3 (PS4): 2.1m
Dark Souls 3 (X1): 0.59m
Dark Souls 3 (PC): 0.11m
Dark Souls 3 (Total): 2.8m

They're still outsold, but when you're presenting numbers you should probably take into account multi-console releases, especially if the site tracks their sales differently.

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Random person on your team screws up in FFXIV? Wipe. Your fault? Nope, but you still die. You pretty much have to have a full team of good players to clear such content, you simply can't mix in weaker players even if they are your friend or everyone in the group will just be banging their heads against the wall (and who enjoys that?).

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The alternative is everybody steamrolling everything in their path(and who enjoys that?).

Point here is: Who are you to dictate what other people should enjoy? I, and a lot of the people here, do enjoy smacking our heads against a wall with a group, cooperatively trying to defeat the boss for the sense of accomplishment for defeating it, and the loot given as well. It's helping not just yourself, but your team, develop and grow stronger against difficult odds.

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And even if you do happen to be fine with fracturing the player base between those who clear savage and those who can't (or chose not to in order to spend time with their friends), you face another problem: Development costs. I'm more than certain that SE has spent more on developing unending coil than they will get from 6 months of subscription time of all the players who will even attempt it between 4.11 and 4.20 (when ilvl is expected to increase) especially since you can't even attempt it without an O4S clear. There's quite a bit of noise that we seem to be getting less and less content each patch, and if SE continues to try to develop content that most players will never even see, that notion will only gain more and more traction.

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You mean all the reused assets and minimal development/balancing time that went into Ultimate that the devs have said affected nothing else? Fact is, you don't know and I don't know how much it cost to develop Unending Coil, but the entire fight is reused assets from T5, T9, and T13. Not to mention how, during the Ultimate world progression, several twitch streamers got sponsorships for their streaming progress, which means more advertising for XIV and indirectly more income for FFXIV.

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Basically, I'm not saying difficult games shouldn't exist, but rather that difficult content shouldn't exist within an MMO where a majority of the content can be cleared by casual players.

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Basically, you're saying that people who don't enjoy the game the way you do should run away to other genres.
You said it yourself, the majority of content can be done by casual players. So raiders and people who want a challenge, but at the same time love this game, should absolutely be able to get something harder. Something worth gearing up to do.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Could the bolded statements in this post make the “average player” sound any more like an incompetent fool?

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Let's see, almost 2 full weeks for the first clear of unending coil. I guess we can all spare that kind of time that took, right?

If you're clearing this stuff and you think you're "average", then you're being overly modest. This is what you get when you take some truly average players into O1S:

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/fNG1v...pe=damage-done

That clear came after about 3 weeks of working on it about 8 hours per week (and even then we had to fill in the two healer slots with random people from the PF because we just couldn't get enough FC members for it at the time). Personally, I learned and cleared it in a single night about 3 weeks before the above clear. In that three weeks, I was either in O1S with them helping them to learn it and improve or we were running other things to help them get better gear.

Don't believe me? Take another look:
O1 story 50th percentile (average players can clear this):
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/16...amount&boss=38

O1 savage 20th percentile:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=42&dataset=20

The 50th percentile (average) DPSer from O1 story can't even match the 20th percentile of people clearing O1S. Given current ilvls and such, at this point a full team of all ~20th percentile savage raiders could probably clear O1S, but I doubt they would get a whole lot further than that. Players who tend to struggle to even do 20th percentile numbers in savage often tend to struggle with just surviving mechanics.

By the way, I quickly looked you up on fflogs and you are being entirely too modest when you call yourself average. Even though my performance percentile pales in comparison to yours, even I don't have a right to call myself average.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Let's see, almost 2 full weeks for the first clear of unending coil. I guess we can all spare that kind of time that took, right?

If you're clearing this stuff and you think you're "average", then you're being overly modest. This is what you get when you take some truly average players into O1S:

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/fNG1v...pe=damage-done

That clear came after about 3 weeks of working on it about 8 hours per week (and even then we had to fill in the two healer slots with random people from the PF because we just couldn't get enough FC members for it at the time). Personally, I learned and cleared it in a single night about 3 weeks before the above clear. In that three weeks, I was either in O1S with them helping them to learn it and improve or we were running other things to help them get better gear.

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Are you using anecdote? Really? Your one selective experience is what the entire average player population has experienced?

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Don't believe me? Take another look:
O1 story 50th percentile (average players can clear this):
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/16...amount&boss=38

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A whopping 1,567 parses uploaded for DPS.

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O1 savage 20th percentile:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=42&dataset=20

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28,836 parses.

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The 50th percentile (average) DPSer from O1 story can't even match the 20th percentile of people clearing O1S. Given current ilvls and such, at this point a full team of all ~20th percentile savage raiders could probably clear O1S, but I doubt they would get a whole lot further than that. Players who tend to struggle to even do 20th percentile numbers in savage often tend to struggle with just surviving mechanics.

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Are you claiming that the data pool from o1 story, with 1567 parses, can be compared to the data pool from o1s, with 28,836 parses? I could claim the data is skewed because people generally don't upload outside of Savage and EX.

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By the way, I quickly looked you up on fflogs and you are being entirely too modest when you call yourself average. Even though my performance percentile pales in comparison to yours, even I don't have a right to call myself average.

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Perhaps she means average in that she doesn't dedicate overmuch time to this, or to raiding in general? Her numbers themselves don't necessarily push her out of the average player activity trends.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Let's see, almost 2 full weeks for the first clear of unending coil. I guess we can all spare that kind of time that took, right?

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You mean the content specifically designed for World First/Extremely Hardcore raiders that only reused already existing assets? How about we look at Savage, which was cleared in twenty hours; thirty four for the previous tier.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

If you're clearing this stuff and you think you're "average", then you're being overly modest. This is what you get when you take some truly average players into O1S:

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/fNG1v...pe=damage-done

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This may sound harsh, however those aren't average players. They're simply bad, or inexperienced. Alte Roite is a complete pushover if you put forth a reasonable enough effort to learn what little mechanics he throws at you. How about instead of complaining how difficult the fights are you practice? At this point, it almost seems like you're arguing for a participation trophy. Referencing Story mode is irrelevant as very few people bother to upload parses from it, thus the results will be heavily skewed. Regardless, once again, the whole purpose behind themepark MMOs is diverse content for multiple demographics. Savage aims at appealing towards players who wish to challenge themselves not the "average" player just looking to play for fun. If that were all FFXIV offered, it'd get rather boring since what point would any of the gear, consumable and etc even serve?

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

This is what you get when you take some truly average players into O1S;

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SEND HELP

https://i.imgur.com/orjSXzt.jpg

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Originally Posted by Sunhwapark

SEND HELP

https://i.imgur.com/orjSXzt.jpg

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHSh9rWGR0Q

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHSh9rWGR0Q

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That is amazing.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

They're still outsold, but when you're presenting numbers you should probably take into account multi-console releases, especially if the site tracks their sales differently.

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I even spelled out the point of those numbers and you still missed the point.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

The alternative is everybody steamrolling everything in their path(and who enjoys that?).

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Did you not enjoy clearing story mode for the first time? Sure, grinding it out for weeks after that for gear was boring, but I'm talking about the first clear. The 2nd clear of EX/Savage content basically felt much the same to me.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

You mean all the reused assets and minimal development/balancing time that went into Ultimate that the devs have said affected nothing else?

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Someone had to design the fight, script it, code it, test it, and balance it. Even if the boss/attack/area models and animations were reused, there's still the reward weapons that needed some work.

A single 8-hour day for a junior-level software developer costs a company roughly $175-$225 USD. Even if you assume this whole thing took just 4 man-weeks, that's $3,500-$4,500 USD, and for something that attracts the hardcore community as much as this, you can bet not everyone who was involved with this was some junior-level developer (at least at the concept level, those guys were paid more, and I'm not even tallying in indirect costs such as how much time/pay for supervisors for these developers).

Looking over my numbers, and out-of-thin-air estimate for the development time required, my original comparison was probably a bit hasty as it would only take about 40ish players @ 6 months of subscription time to break even with the costs. Of course, it would also probably be silly to say that someone subbed for 6 whole months just for unending coil. A better metric would probably be to tally up the total number of hours spent by all players attempting/clearing it and compute the average income per hour from the subscription of those players and see if that compares to the cost of adding this content. The problem here is that I wouldn't even begin to know how to estimate that as you'd need to know the subscription level (entry/standard), recurring subscription duration (standard costs less when subbing multiple months at a time), average play time in hours over the subscription period, and the number of those hours spent in unending coil for each player to compute that metric.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

You said it yourself, the majority of content can be done by casual players. So raiders and people who want a challenge, but at the same time love this game, should absolutely be able to get something harder. Something worth gearing up to do.

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Covered this already:

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

do you think Nintendo would sell very many more copies of Mario games if they started tuning the last set of levels in each game to the level that FFXIV's savage content is tuned to? Hell no.

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Basically, Mario wouldn't be nearly as popular today if Nintendo had decided that worlds 1-7 would be straightforward and easy, but world 8 would be insanely hard to where only about 10% of players could clear it. For a player clearing 80% of the content of a game, it's not unreasonable for them to believe the last 20% won't be much different. And sure, while savage/ultimate isn't really story, I think a lot of the friction between player groups on this issue stems from the sheer jump in difficulty between story and ex/savage content. Many players see that content and want a clear of it for the sake of having a clear of it.

To tie back in with the OP's complaint here, the way I see it, the problem isn't quite as much with the fact that savage/ultimate exists, but rather with how it's executed. It depends entirely too much on strict DPS checks for enrage, dodging predictable but unbroadcast attacks, and mechanics where if one person on the team falls, the whole team falls (quite often because this is in combination with the strict DPS checks). Sure, I would agree that you probably couldn't claim anything to be nearly as difficult if you remove enrages and the whole team dies if one person dies type of things from these fights. At that point a core group of good tanks/healers could probably drag four DPS through just about anything, but what that does enable is weak players to 'hide' behind the DPS roles as deaths/under-performance from them could be shrugged off in such fights. In fact, I'd argue that as a healer/tank, dragging a half-dead team through some of the 24-man raids have been some of the most fun I've had.

I think trying to add content at such difficulty levels into this game is like trying to make this game the 'one' game that everybody plays because it has something for everybody. Could you imagine SE trying to draw in hardcore RTS players to buy and subscribe to FFXIV just because the gold saucer has Lord of Verminion? Of course not, that'd be silly. The key difference between GS stuff and savage/ultimate is that GS is basically solo content... do it if you like it, improve at your own pace, but even in PvP (tournaments and such), you're still using your own skill to compete. Additionally, GS is presented as a side distraction that 'anyone' can do (as in, a person wouldn't have to be the hero of light to walk in there), so it feels like something you can do (or not) at anytime when you have time to 'waste'. On the other hand, the basic concept of an MMORPG is to be the hero (well, one of many, but that depends a bit on the storytelling), that goes out, kills the big, bad monster, and saves the world. Even though the savage/ultimate tier isn't story content, to some it feels like SE has dropped in some kind of unkillable monster.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Point here is: Who are you to dictate what other people should enjoy?

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I've not tried to do this. I'm trying to be realistic here. I see it all the time where a player plays FFXIV, enjoys the story and such, gets to the point where they unlock current ex/savage content, hit that wall with their face, and quit. Most of the time, they don't come back even when the MSQ is expanded in a later patch.

If you want an MMO with that level of difficulty, be consistent. Make the entire game about that same level of difficulty. You'll get a less friction from your subscribers that way because they'll know from the start what to expect through to the end. If you have trouble getting enough subscribers for such an MMO, then that's probably a sign that the kind of content you're looking for just isn't feasible in an MMO format.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

snip

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I'm really loving how BlueGreen totally ignored the response that I wanted him to respond to. I made it all nice and presentable.
I'm not irritated...nope, not at all.

*veins in forehead*

I'm going to leave this to you to shut this down. Can I trust you? :)

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Originally Posted by Sunhwapark

SEND HELP

https://i.imgur.com/orjSXzt.jpg

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lol, exactly. I know I saw at least 1-2 such wipes with the group I helped clear in my FC. That much time to clear a single savage mode fight was just too demanding for them. Yes, we cleared it, and yes there was some joy in that, but the end result still crushed the group and they just didn't even try O2S after that. So sure, average players can probably be eventually improved to the level to clear savage content, but said average players would probably need above average tenacity to not quit before they've spent enough time to get good enough.

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Originally Posted by Velthice

Honest question: If someone has trouble memorizing mechanics, then aren't they already kinda experiencing an rng fight that you seem to covet? If you can't react to the stuff on the fly, what makes you think you would fare better if it were truly designed that way?

I'm also curious as to what a fight would be without mechanics to fail. IMO that's called a target dummy, and they're not very fun to beat up on.

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It would be like EQ fights. Straight up tank and spank. I miss those days.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Basically, Mario wouldn't be nearly as popular today if Nintendo had decided that worlds 1-7 would be straightforward and easy, but world 8 would be insanely hard to where only about 10% of players could clear it. For a player clearing 80% of the content of a game, it's not unreasonable for them to believe the last 20% won't be much different. And sure, while savage/ultimate isn't really story, I think a lot of the friction between player groups on this issue stems from the sheer jump in difficulty between story and ex/savage content. Many players see that content and want a clear of it for the sake of having a clear of it.

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That's a false equivalent fallacy. Mario is a single player game where every piece of content is static. It only appeals to the individual person and has no interest in long term player retention. FFXIV needs continual subscriptions, which will not persist if everything can be steamrolled in a few hours. Furthermore, Savage is essentially a scaled up Normal mode whereas all Mario worlds are a one off. Basically, Savage is designed exclusively for players looking for a little more. Welcome to theme park MMOs.

Now if you want to keep citing Mario sale statistics, I'll bring up Call of Duty WWII that sold $500M. Guess FFXIV should become a FPS. Ironically, CoD has harder difficulties.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

I even spelled out the point of those numbers and you still missed the point.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

They're still outsold, but when you're presenting numbers you should probably take into account multi-console releases, especially if the site tracks their sales differently.

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I even spelled out why I made the correction and you still missed the point.

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Did you not enjoy clearing story mode for the first time? Sure, grinding it out for weeks after that for gear was boring, but I'm talking about the first clear. The 2nd clear of EX/Savage content basically felt much the same to me.

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I don't enjoy being taken out of context, that's for sure. That quote is in direct response to

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

You pretty much have to have a full team of good players to clear such content, you simply can't mix in weaker players even if they are your friend or everyone in the group will just be banging their heads against the wall (and who enjoys that?).

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But don't worry, this quote will come back on the other end of you taking me out of context.

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Someone had to design the fight, script it, code it, test it, and balance it. Even if the boss/attack/area models and animations were reused, there's still the reward weapons that needed some work.

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They need to design the fight, script it, code it, test it, balance it, and design assets for the boss monster and arena for every other savage, extreme, non savage, non extreme, dungeon, and 24 man. You pointing out that there is still work does not negate me saying there's not as much work.

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A single 8-hour day for a junior-level software developer costs a company roughly $175-$225 USD. Even if you assume this whole thing took just 4 man-weeks, that's $3,500-$4,500 USD, and for something that attracts the hardcore community as much as this, you can bet not everyone who was involved with this was some junior-level developer (at least at the concept level, those guys were paid more, and I'm not even tallying in indirect costs such as how much time/pay for supervisors for these developers).

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Source on this? Which company? Is this a japanese company? What's the conversion rate? What is Yoshi P's salary? Koji Fox's? What are the names of everyone who worked on Ultimate, and how long exactly did they take? Your estimates using random numbers produce random results, so congratulations on that I guess.

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Looking over my numbers, and out-of-thin-air estimate for the development time required, my original comparison was probably a bit hasty as it would only take about 40ish players @ 6 months of subscription time to break even with the costs. Of course, it would also probably be silly to say that someone subbed for 6 whole months just for unending coil.

A better metric would probably be to tally up the total number of hours spent by all players attempting/clearing it and compute the average income per hour from the subscription of those players and see if that compares to the cost of adding this content. The problem here is that I wouldn't even begin to know how to estimate that as you'd need to know the subscription level (entry/standard), recurring subscription duration (standard costs less when subbing multiple months at a time), average play time in hours over the subscription period, and the number of those hours spent in unending coil for each player to compute that metric.

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You really haven't proven to me that that would stop you before. Up till the bolded point you were very happy to make wild assumptions regarding your...ahem...estimates.

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Covered this already:

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I think Nintendo could sell a bootleg that they titled "Mario" and make tens of millions at this point, especially since right now Nintendo is the only service that's not bogged down by the Lootbox bull that's plagued so many recent games.

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Basically, Mario wouldn't be nearly as popular today if Nintendo had decided that worlds 1-7 would be straightforward and easy, but world 8 would be insanely hard to where only about 10% of players could clear it. For a player clearing 80% of the content of a game, it's not unreasonable for them to believe the last 20% won't be much different. And sure, while savage/ultimate isn't really story, I think a lot of the friction between player groups on this issue stems from the sheer jump in difficulty between story and ex/savage content. Many players see that content and want a clear of it for the sake of having a clear of it.

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard
It wouldn't be the name of the trope if Nintendo wasn't well known for it.

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To tie back in with the OP's complaint here, the way I see it, the problem isn't quite as much with the fact that savage/ultimate exists, but rather with how it's executed. It depends entirely too much on strict DPS checks for enrage, dodging predictable but unbroadcast attacks, and mechanics where if one person on the team falls, the whole team falls (quite often because this is in combination with the strict DPS checks).

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No. OP's problem is mechanics are a dance and do not test his actual healing ability. He's stressed this several times that it's not about actual fight difficulty, just that he finds the dance boring.

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Sure, I would agree that you probably couldn't claim anything to be nearly as difficult if you remove enrages and the whole team dies if one person dies type of things from these fights. At that point a core group of good tanks/healers could probably drag four DPS through just about anything, but what that does enable is weak players to 'hide' behind the DPS roles as deaths/under-performance from them could be shrugged off in such fights. In fact, I'd argue that as a healer/tank, dragging a half-dead team through some of the 24-man raids have been some of the most fun I've had.

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I'm glad you have fun dragging a half dead team through 24-mans. I really am. I have a lot of fun when the whole team coordinates well, and defeats a difficult boss through careful planning and working off of each other's strengths. Are you fine if we both can find our fun in the same game?

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I think trying to add content at such difficulty levels into this game is like trying to make this game the 'one' game that everybody plays because it has something for everybody. Could you imagine SE trying to draw in hardcore RTS players to buy and subscribe to FFXIV just because the gold saucer has Lord of Verminion? Of course not, that'd be silly.

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Can you imagine Halo removing campaign just because people love multiplayer more? No, that'd be silly. That's basically what you're advocating for when you say nothing should be raid tier in this game.

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The key difference between GS stuff and savage/ultimate is that GS is basically solo content... do it if you like it, improve at your own pace, but even in PvP (tournaments and such), you're still using your own skill to compete. Additionally, GS is presented as a side distraction that 'anyone' can do (as in, a person wouldn't have to be the hero of light to walk in there), so it feels like something you can do (or not) at anytime when you have time to 'waste'. On the other hand, the basic concept of an MMORPG is to be the hero (well, one of many, but that depends a bit on the storytelling), that goes out, kills the big, bad monster, and saves the world. Even though the savage/ultimate tier isn't story content, to some it feels like SE has dropped in some kind of unkillable monster.

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I've not tried to do this. I'm trying to be realistic here. I see it all the time where a player plays FFXIV, enjoys the story and such, gets to the point where they unlock current ex/savage content, hit that wall with their face, and quit. Most of the time, they don't come back even when the MSQ is expanded in a later patch.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

You pretty much have to have a full team of good players to clear such content, you simply can't mix in weaker players even if they are your friend or everyone in the group will just be banging their heads against the wall (and who enjoys that?).

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Here's the other end of you taking me out of context. You condescendingly asking "And who enjoys that?" in reference to players banging their heads on a wall trying to help otherwise lesser experienced players beat content infers that nobody can; I know many people who do enjoy specifically helping non-raiders raid. In fact I recall Vidu from the forums talking about how she would help people out in the party finder just to help new people beat Extremes, in a thread about raid finder.

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If you want an MMO with that level of difficulty, be consistent. Make the entire game about that same level of difficulty.

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Why should it? FFVII has a story mode, which is relatively easy, and then after you beat the game there are bosses which drastically ramp up the difficulty. Actually it's a bit of a staple to have a challenge mode that's very loosely at best connected to the story. Game difficulty can work on any curve it wants.

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You'll get a less friction from your subscribers that way because they'll know from the start what to expect through to the end. If you have trouble getting enough subscribers for such an MMO, then that's probably a sign that the kind of content you're looking for just isn't feasible in an MMO format.

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How about you make your dream raidless MMO and see how that works out. AFAIK, WoW is still the best MMO...and it has harder raids than XIV.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I'm really loving how BlueGreen totally ignored the response that I wanted him to respond to. I made it all nice and presentable.
I'm not irritated...nope, not at all.

*veins in forehead*

I'm going to leave this to you to shut this down. Can I trust you? :)

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XD I can make no promises to shut anything down, only that I'll present my case as best as I can. But I definitely empathize :)

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

Umm...I'm definitely an average player. I've gotten my clears on O1S, O2S, and O3S without members of my wonderful FC, a static, or even a particular group. All of my clears and weekly page runs have been done with complete randoms since Day 1 of Omega Savage. It's not as hard as you think. Join or make a learning party, prog for your own sake, and when you're comfortable doing the whole fight, join a clear group or make one. Having friends or an FC is better, but these fights are definitely doable, so long as you understand the fight and actually know how to do your job. Besides, it is called Extreme/Savage for a reason. These aren't meant to be faceroll fights, nor should they ever be.

As for your Mario comment, I seem to recall that Super Mario Bros. had a punishing level towards the end with the Hammer Bros. And SMB3 had quite a few difficult as hell stages. I'm not sure why you brought Mario into this discussion. Please explain.

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Here's her post, if you'd like to make a response.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Guess what? Same problem happens with EX/Savage. The required skill for the current content is just far to high above the average player to complete it.

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Themepark MMOs are built around carrots. You need that carrot to keep the masses occupied even if they can't quite reach it. Look at all the F2P mmos out there, plenty have arguably more engaging gameplay than FFXIV, yet the high end player base retention is typically awful because of the lack of a PvE endgame.

If you made your point during Gordias/Midas I'd be more inclined to agree, but Creator's clear rates were the highest seen yet which I guess fuelled the design brief for Omega.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Someone had to design the fight, script it, code it, test it, and balance it. Even if the boss/attack/area models and animations were reused, there's still the reward weapons that needed some work.

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The fight was choreographed by Sudo, it's safe to assume he had a couple of 'pet' 2d/3d interns at his beck and call for designing Endless as well as moderate usage of the internal testing team. Given the difficulty of the encounter, it's safe to assume that it was tested and developed in the same manner as A4S (Aka designed, balanced and tested mechanic by mechanic) to reduce the workload. HD asset creation is the expensive part of any game content, I can tell you this first hand. Unending required very little beyond recolours (weapons included, it's just an extruded glow and recolour if that's the right term?), so compared to Omega, it cost absolute chump change. Whilst clear rates are understandably low, there are still plenty of endgame teams beavering away at it that would have simply run off to Destiny2/WoW long ago without, between that and the Twitch marketing it achieved, I'll be very surprised if they don't view it as a success.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Basically, Mario wouldn't be nearly as popular today if Nintendo had decided that worlds 1-7 would be straightforward and easy, but world 8 would be insanely hard to where only about 10% of players could clear it.

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Now you have a much better and really quite valid point here and it's something that SE has fallen short on pretty much since 2.1 and beyond. Namely there simply isn't a difficulty curve to build players up to Savage/EX content. The current answer seems to be to make Savage itself the curve which I don't think sits well with the progression community. Rather, there should be smaller scale content such as dungeons that ease players into the mindset required to take on stuff like ShinryuEX or O3S. As is, there's too big a difference in the skill and attentiveness needed between 'expert' dungeons and the raiding endgame.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I'm really loving how BlueGreen totally ignored the response that I wanted him to respond to. I made it all nice and presentable.
I'm not irritated...nope, not at all.

*veins in forehead*

I'm going to leave this to you to shut this down. Can I trust you? :)

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Two whole pages were added to this thread from the time I joined in until the post I'm writing now. It's not that I ignored you, but rather that I simply didn't see your post. I double-checked, and the below post seems to be the one you want a response to (please correct me if I'm wrong, but the only other post I saw from you within this time wasn't a reply to me, but to the OP instead):

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

Umm...I'm definitely an average player.

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While there's not as many parses for you on fflogs, from what I did find, you at least know what you're saying for your DPS classes. I'd venture to say that you might actually be somewhat above average for when you play healing roles, but healing/tanking involve way more metrics to quantify them than just DPS.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

Having friends or an FC is better, but these fights are definitely doable, so long as you understand the fight and actually know how to do your job. Besides, it is called Extreme/Savage for a reason. These aren't meant to be faceroll fights, nor should they ever be.

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It's an MMO. You get online, you meet people, make friends, and do things with those friends. Without them, you might as well be playing some single player game with top-notch AI (to replace the other players). Of course, what you could say that FFXIV has that most single player games (if not all) have is that FFXIV gets regular updates and expansions to the story. Granted, for as much as you pay to play FFXIV (that subscription sure adds up quick), you should hope to at least get that much.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

As for your Mario comment, I seem to recall that Super Mario Bros. had a punishing level towards the end with the Hammer Bros. And SMB3 had quite a few difficult as hell stages. I'm not sure why you brought Mario into this discussion. Please explain.

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I remember having some difficulty with some parts, too, but I also remember being like 5 or 6 at the time as well. I'm also talking about the newer Mario games and not as much the older ones. In the *new* Super Mario Brothers, do you know what happens when you play multi-player and someone gets hit when they're small mario (or the equivalent of)? They don't die... they get trapped in a bubble that can be broken by another player without costing anyone a life. Basically, the whole team has to wipe before anyone loses a life in multi-player. It's kind of hard for it to be challenging at that point.

Anyway, I brought it (and indirectly, stuff like dark souls) into this discussion to point out something about them: They're consistent. Start to end they play roughly the same with an expected level of difficulty throughout and a learning curve that shouldn't surprise anyone at any point after the first few levels. Some Mario games even have a challenge mode added to them of sorts (that usually consists of playing the same levels again, but with the goal of collecting a set of special coins hidden in each level).

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

Besides, it is called Extreme/Savage for a reason.

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Yup, because they're harder than the base game. Extreme/Savage/Challenge, call it whatever you want, but the idea is the same. So yes, the current ex/savage/ultimate content fits that basic description, but I'm pointing out that the learning curve on those doesn't fit in with the rest of the game.

Finally, it's late and I need to get some sleep. If there's anyone else wanting me to weigh in on anything, don't expect a reply soon (if at all).

BlueGreen:

Savage content is not hard enough that it is only clearable by the 1%. Maybe not every single person in this game’s nearly 1 million active characters can clear it, but for a game that caters majorly to the majority with piece after piece of casual and leisurely content, why is it so bad to include one thing for the hardcore players that want more? Take away Savage, and all the people who want more, who want a little bit of a challenge, would leave. This would include myself; I started doing Ex primals, Savage, and improving myself because I needed more. Sure, I enjoy crafting; I enjoy gathering; I like to goof off with my friends and be silly and run dungeons with Emperor’s gear glamoured; but when they aren’t around, I need more. Otherwise, why log in?

If people are neglecting their friends for raid, that is entirely on them for poor time management. As it has been stated multiple times by a few people in response to you, people can raid and still hang out with their “non-raider friends”. I have a lot of friends who don’t raid and I still talk to them when they’re online. I have friends in other statics that raid at different times from me, and I still manage to talk to them and run content.

Savage is entirely optional content; same with Ultimate, and same with the Ex primals. It’s there for people who want the challenge. If you want the challenge but cannot rise up to it, practice and practice and get better. Referencing back to the logs and percentiles you posted before, did you dig deeper into those to see why they were below 20th percentile? How many deaths were there from the group? Why? What went wrong? What were the comps (I recall one comp having double BRD, BLM, and RDM... a very, very BAD comp)? All of these and more contribute to low numbers and low percentiles. How many of these people tried to do better later? Or did they just throw their hands up in the air and say “I can’t do this content that is completely optional, but I want the shinies from it; the developers should remove this content from the game just because I can’t do it”. If the developers were to listen to complaint about removing content just because a few people can’t do it, or don’t like it, then why haven’t they listened to my abhorrence of Perform?

Also, you cannot compare V1S and it’s nearly 29,000 uploaded parses to V1N, and its puny 1,500 parses. That is an extremely skewed and inaccurate comparison—the data pools differ too much for it to be a good comparison at all.

Savage has gotten easier compared to previous tiers, thus why the hardcore raiders—that 1%—begged SE for more. So SE gave them Ultimate, and there has been resoundingly positive responses from raiders about this piece of content—the only negative things people have to say about it are the side of the playerbase who do not raid, to which I ask them all the time why they care so much. A lot of them (the raiders) were glad that it took more than 20 hours to clear, which is how long it took for a world first group to kill Deltascape Savage as a whole. Deltascape took 20 hours; Creator Savage took 36 hours; Midas took 2 weeks; Gordias took 5 weeks.

Gordias only took so long because the fight was massively overtuned for the maximum ilvl available at the time, and the developers acknowledged that that was their fault for not properly testing the content. It wasn’t because the content was hard, per say (A4S is considered probably the most boring fight in this game because it’s nothing but a glorified striking dummy), but that it was poorly tested and tuned.

I’m probably rambling at this point, but my main point still remains: Savage is not content that is so hard that only 1% of the entire playerbase can clear it. This game caters majorly to the leisurely, casual side. Let the people who want more have more for once rather than complain that everything needs to be made for the “Average Joe” player. I highly doubt that people are unsubscribing just because of Savage and Ultimate existing, but I feel fairly confident in saying that people would unsubscribe if FFXIV were to become Baby’s First MMO and remove all traces of a challenge.

I do want to add that I do think the increase in difficulty/learning curve in this game needs some work. I feel like some of the harder content gives players little or no preparation for them in any of the “easier tiers”. But, that being said, I do not think that it’s unreasonable to have Savage/Ultimate content in the game; not all content needs to be easy.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

While there's not as many parses for you on fflogs, from what I did find, you at least know what you're saying for your DPS classes. I'd venture to say that you might actually be somewhat above average for when you play healing roles, but healing/tanking involve way more metrics to quantify them than just DPS.

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Hmm? I have recent parses? I thought my last one was way back in October? I don’t understand FFLOGs, so I don’t mess with it. And you have multiple quotes…the bane of my existence on these forums. Ugh…I hate multiple quotes lol. Lemme give this a shot.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

It's an MMO. You get online, you meet people, make friends, and do things with those friends. Without them, you might as well be playing some single player game with top-notch AI (to replace the other players). Of course, what you could say that FFXIV has that most single player games (if not all) have is that FFXIV gets regular updates and expansions to the story. Granted, for as much as you pay to play FFXIV (that subscription sure adds up quick), you should hope to at least get that much.

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I do end up doing some things with my FC, but in regards to what we are currently talking about, all of my clears save for maybe one or two recent runs on Savage have been randoms. I don’t agree with the sentiment that not having friends means that I’m essentially playing a single player game. If I make friends, fine. If not, it doesn’t mean I’m playing single player. When people play Call of Duty multiplayer, are they playing a single-player game if they don’t friend up? When people go into WoW and join a guild, only playing with them for raid reasons, are they only playing a single-player game with supposed top-notch AI (which we know isn’t true a good portion of the time, otherwise we wouldn’t have the behemoth that is Tales from the Duty Finder).

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

I remember having some difficulty with some parts, too, but I also remember being like 5 or 6 at the time as well. I'm also talking about the newer Mario games and not as much the older ones. In the *new* Super Mario Brothers, do you know what happens when you play multi-player and someone gets hit when they're small mario (or the equivalent of)? They don't die... they get trapped in a bubble that can be broken by another player without costing anyone a life. Basically, the whole team has to wipe before anyone loses a life in multi-player. It's kind of hard for it to be challenging at that point.

Anyway, I brought it (and indirectly, stuff like dark souls) into this discussion to point out something about them: They're consistent. Start to end they play roughly the same with an expected level of difficulty throughout and a learning curve that shouldn't surprise anyone at any point after the first few levels. Some Mario games even have a challenge mode added to them of sorts (that usually consists of playing the same levels again, but with the goal of collecting a set of special coins hidden in each level).

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Admittedly, MSQ did not prepare players for Savage. I remember the difficulty steadily increasing as I went through HW, but I felt that most of 4.0 was a faceroll. Then you run into Shinryu and it’s a surprisingly difficult fight that you were not prepared for, considering it’s a story boss. Consistency is definitely a problem that we are seeing with SB. Yet still, all it takes is a few runs to understand that this is going to be a tough fight, and O1S doesn’t really have many mechanics that are different if you’ve gone through MSQ.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Yup, because they're harder than the base game. Extreme/Savage/Challenge, call it whatever you want, but the idea is the same. So yes, the current ex/savage/ultimate content fits that basic description, but I'm pointing out that the learning curve on those doesn't fit in with the rest of the game.

Finally, it's late and I need to get some sleep. If there's anyone else wanting me to weigh in on anything, don't expect a reply soon (if at all).

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Hahah, I have the advantage of being a graveshift worker, so I am wide awake and this place stimulates my need to do something. Like I pointed out above, SB was horrible as gradually scaling up difficulty. Players still need to be able to adjust to the punishment. Yea, it’s a huge step up, but take my example – I didn’t need friends or a static to clear it. I didn’t even need to spend ‘hours upon hours’ to clear it. The basic were explained and I cleared the fight in the same week.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

In otherwise... target dummies that require little more than class awareness to overcome.

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There is no reason to live in a world of extremes. Thinking there are too many role agnostic mechanics in no way means that there should be none at all.

Current Ex Primals and at least O1S and O2S are very easy. Thats a result of the huge amount of crying "you don't pay my sub" babies here in the forum.

Even O3S and O4S are not what Savags was originally meant to be.

If you want a challange, go for Ultimate. There is nothing else left.

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Originally Posted by Aramina

There is no reason to live in a world of extremes. Thinking there are too many role agnostic mechanics in no way means that there should be none at all.

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It isn't extremes though. The OP is complaining about how much of a "dance" O1S and O2S are when they barely have any mechanics. Reducing them any further would make them target dummies that prog. Not in the literal sense but it should be fairly obvious how I meant it.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

It isn't extremes though. The OP is complaining about how much of a "dance" O1S and O2S are when they barely have any mechanics. Reducing them any further would make them target dummies that prog. Not in the literal sense but it should be fairly obvious how I meant it.

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Fair point. I was speaking in a more general sense, not about any specific fight.

All this back and forth is just dancing around a pretty simple fact that you don't want to admit you are not as good of a healer in this game as you seem to think you are.

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Originally Posted by AppleJinx

All this back and forth is just dancing around a pretty simple fact that you don't want to admit you are as good of a healer in this game as you seem to think you are.

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'sarcasm'

That is unfair, didn't you know that you that ones skill at their role should not be predicated on their ability to press movement keys while performing said role.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

Just seeing what others think. I recently dipped my toes into Savage content and discovered it not to my liking. I'd like to think I'm a good astro, and can rock casual content quite well. So, I got to thinking, why is EX/Savage not engaging for me? It's not difficulty. I love a challenge, and beating my head against A8N until finally getting the clear remains a highlight of XIV for me. So, I thought a bit more and it hit me.

Now, I realize my opinion is my own, I'm not going to say SE should change things, because there are obviously people out there that like it in it's current incarnation. But I figure I could at least express my disappointment and see if there was anyone else out there that felt the same. There is nothing savage about Savage. It's actually quite formal and civilized. All you need do is learn how to dance each dance.

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I know you probably checked out of this thread, but I hope you respond to this.

My biggest gripe with Savage raiding is that everything is pass/fail. There's absolutely very little organic gameplay. I think this is maybe what you're getting at.

Let's use O1S as an example. Failing an ice slide -> Levinbolt, generally kills 2 people (unless one is a tank). Nothing in the encounter ever forces this to change. You simply always go to a safe assigned spot. Same thing with fireballs.

What if fireballs spawned randomly in the arena (like O4S black holes) and outside of the arena and Alta Roites location was also spawned randomly. What if in addition to flapping the fireballs away, he could vacuum them in? What if Levinbolts also went off at different times? What if a player got hit by a fire orb (since it was harder to dodge now), instead of just killing them unless they outgear the content, now it leaves a puddle of fire on the ground that persists permanently. If another fire orb hit it, maybe it enlarges the puddle slightly (to add a little RNG). The idea would be that instead of a mistake just instantly killing someone it makes the room smaller and harder to navigate. Each mistake would make subsequent phases/mechanics more difficult to manage, not reset the fight.

Now, with that said, I URGE you to try O3S/O4S. They're great fights and O3S last phase is an absolute treat.

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Originally Posted by Awha

That is unfair, didn't you know that you that ones skill at their role should not be predicated on their ability to press movement keys while performing said role.

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What would you say define one's skill at their role? What would a good healer be? I can spam Cure III endlessly on Almagest to make sure people barely get scratched by it. That doesn't make me a good healer at all.

I feel as if there's a gross over-simplification of how mechanics are employed in this game. Everything can basically be summed up on checks (be it DPS, Tank or Healers) that are paired with reaction tests - with each fight having different levels of execution/coordination difficulty. Dismissing this as "just press movement keys - this isn't skill!" is wrong on so many levels. This is the same thing as saying people who can kill bosses in difficult action games without taking a hit aren't skilled because they are just moving and adjusting to the patterns thrown at them.

Considering everything (even RNG) in this game is scripted sure it feels like a dance I guess. Although one look at OP's logs gives a better indication to his reasoning imo. Unless it's a player vs another player (pvp) then everything is going to feel like a "dance" as you say. Even then, it's still not too different. That's kind of how games work... The only difference in raiding is how fast you can complete it and the numbers you put up. Everything else is the same dance for any raid/dungeon/etc in general.

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Originally Posted by Xerek

EX/Savage content isn't harder battles.

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Just a tip: You might get more enjoyment out of it if you didn't play as only a heal bot all the time.

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Originally Posted by Estelle9lives

What would you say define one's skill at their role? What would a good healer be? I can spam Cure III endlessly on Almagest to make sure people barely get scratched by it. That doesn't make me a good healer at all.

I feel as if there's a gross over-simplification of how mechanics are employed in this game. Everything can basically be summed up on checks (be it DPS, Tank or Healers) that are paired with reaction tests - with each fight having different levels of execution/coordination difficulty. Dismissing this as "just press movement keys - this isn't skill!" is wrong on so many levels. This is the same thing as saying people who can kill bosses in difficult action games without taking a hit aren't skilled because they are just moving and adjusting to the patterns thrown at them.

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My fault should have put a sarcasm tag before my post.

The comment was in regard to a comment the OP made where he said that he feels as if he is a good healer, and one should not judge his ability to heal around a dance number. Something along those lines.

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Originally Posted by Awha

My fault should have put a sarcasm tag before my post.

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I was wondering if you were being sarcastic as well (hard to tell on the internet!), but considering some remarks I've seen in this thread...

My point still stands though.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

Basically, Mario wouldn't be nearly as popular today if Nintendo had decided that worlds 1-7 would be straightforward and easy, but world 8 would be insanely hard to where only about 10% of players could clear it. For a player clearing 80% of the content of a game, it's not unreasonable for them to believe the last 20% won't be much different. And sure, while savage/ultimate isn't really story, I think a lot of the friction between player groups on this issue stems from the sheer jump in difficulty between story and ex/savage content. Many players see that content and want a clear of it for the sake of having a clear of it.

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I feel like this argument would make more sense for the Coil days when the raid had unique fights and story. And indeed, as someone that wasn't good enough to clear t9 I was frustrated by that wall at the time.

These days Ex's and Savages are harder versions of existing fights and presented as retellings by the Wandering Minstrel or simulations. To my knowledge the last time a difficult fight was treated as a real event in the story were Bismark Ex and Ravana Ex in Heavensward. Those were also the last time the associated quests required you to beat the fights to complete them instead of just unlocking them.

As someone who has only cleared V1S I don't feel like I'm being left out of content. It's more like I've chosen to play a game on Normal or Easy instead of trying Hard.

No opinion on whether fights are too scripted or should have a better learning curve. I'll leave discussions like that to the people that actually run the content while it's relevant.

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

I feel like this argument would make more sense for the Coil days when the raid was a unique fights and story. And indeed, as someone that wasn't good enough to clear t9 I was frustrated by that wall at the time.

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I think the difficulty jump argument is still relevant, personally. Speaking for myself, I would like to try out Savage content, but there's no real way for me to dip my feet in the water before diving right in. I'd have to commit wholeheartedly to gearing my White Mage up as much as possible; I'd have to find a static party needing a Healing role; I'd have to research the mechanics and optimize my rotations. That's a lot of work to do before I even set foot into a Savage instance.

Now, I personally don't mind that much. I'm fine puttering around doing more casual things. But I do think the lack of an in-between difficulty level causes unnecessary and nontrivial friction.

As for the 'are fights too scripted' question, my opinion is that yes, without a doubt, they are. The jump-rope nature of fights is a really terrible way to manage difficulty; playing at an elite level needs to mean more than being an expert at moving according to pattern. What I'd personally like to see done is introduce a new type of difficulty, one that emphasizes a proper mastery of abilities. For example, for DD, this might be the boss creature becoming especially vulnerable to certain types of attacks. For Healers, it might be attacks becoming aspected to a certain element (coupled with the much-needed introduction of elemental strengths / weaknesses). For Tanks, this could look like erratic enmity behavior requiring a specific type of management to overcome. For those who played FFXI, this could be a similar sort of system to proc'ing monsters in Abyssea - only instead of primarily impacting drops, it would impact only the fight. This type of difficulty could be layered on top of existing scripted behavior, and the punishment for failing a 'dance move' could simply be lessened.

The net effect would be to keep enemy behavior predictable, weaken the reliance on knowing a monster's patterns and being able to flawlessly react to all moves, and increase the emphasis on being able to adapt one's rotations and react quickly with required abilities.

Unfortunately, I doubt SE will ever move in this direction. It would almost certainly require the introduction of additional complexity to player toolkits (elemental resistances and strengths; more of an emphasis on support-style moves like Heavy, Slow, maybe add in more abilities for Blind and Paralyze, etc.), which they seem loathe to consider. I maintain, however, that this would probably be the best way to change the style of difficulty of FFXIV, without resorting to lazy (and potentially problematic) RNG.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

I think the difficulty jump argument is still relevant, personally. Speaking for myself, I would like to try out Savage content, but there's no real way for me to dip my feet in the water before diving right in. I'd have to commit wholeheartedly to gearing my White Mage up as much as possible; I'd have to find a static party needing a Healing role; I'd have to research the mechanics and optimize my rotations. That's a lot of work to do before I even set foot into a Savage instance.

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This is not what Savage is now. You can perfectly well enter OS1-OS3 in minimum item level requirement gear (up to item level 320) without melds, food or pots. You can watch a guide but you don't really have to study any of those, and you're likely to beat OS1 and OS2 either in a few pulls or at least within first lockout. In OS1 and OS2 you need to barely heal at all. OS3 may take a few parties to beat and there you'll have to plan your healing a bit. OS4 is the only one where it may take some time for you to beat, but it's also the easiest last raid tier fight in this game ever. You do not need a static for any Savage floor.

It's so easy to say "Oh, this is nothing more than a dance! Where is my test as a healer!?" when you're facing content at a far higher level than when intended. Already, others have pointed out that os1 and 2 are unrepresentative of what savage can really be. I wonder if OP would not feel overwhelmed in healing the tanks during the apanda's appearance during its initial release. Keep in mind those things must be taken down quickly or you simply would not meet the DPS check.

Another thing, I find it funny how OP's oblivious to the subtext of his opinion. It implies artificial difficulty, and thus, artificial skill. Still, I shall be the bigger man and forgive OP, for he knows not what he says.