Anyone else concerned by the extremely low skill ceiling?

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Originally Posted by monk-dps

Those raiders also have gotten better since then too so just comparing those results won't tell you the whole story. Point being that I don't think the game has gotten THAT easier since then, yeah we have a bunch of QOL things now but peoiple still wipe in dungeons, people still don't know how to hold hate, people still can't heal. And this is at a time where we have quite afew QOL skills now and people still fail.

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There will always be bad players in any game, but if we had harder content that forced people to learn how to play their class at an average level, they would strive to improve instead of facerolling the content.
Otherwise we will never have players that actually care about the gameplay of FFXIV, but rather just the story or the glamours.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

There will always be bad players in any game, but if we had harder content that forced people to learn how to play their class at an average level, they would strive to improve instead of facerolling the content.
Otherwise we will never have players that actually care about the gameplay of FFXIV, but rather just the story or the glamours.

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I don't think it would honestly. I just see them making fights harder and people quitting over being hard locked out. Maybe I'm that jaded but right now I can't even get into the best raids in the game - the lastest 24 mans- because people cheese them so they don't have to fight thundergod. Who isn't even that hard. But he's hard enough that people instant quit or cheese their ilvls so they never get it. Because of things like that it's hard for me to see the playerbase getting better when actual hard content gets drops. Maybe that 1% of the playerbase will but chances are the 99% will cry for nerfs like they always have and continue to do. Hell we got people saying the one extra combo on gunbreaker is too hard. Pressing buttons has gotten too hard.. we have reached THAT low now. So I guess I'm jaded, I wish I could go - the playerbase will improve with harder content- But I can't.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

people pugged cleared titan week 1. the average raider really does get their clears on the first month

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How does this prove the average raider beats savage in a month? Do you mean to say you assume that every pug is an average skilled player? I have met everything from the truly horrendous to the mindblowingly outstanding while pugging. It isn't only average skilled or less players who pug.

Replying to you again Wegentle as I don't want to give off the wrong idea. I kindof agree with you. I am just speaking from what I've seen on the forums/ reddit and ingame and from my own personal gaming in XIV. And if I'm completely honest.. I'm not anyway near where I want to be. I find a few things really hard that I know you and others will laugh at completely. For one... I all but given up on monk as I can't get over 11k DPS on dummies. I have no idea how to play MCH and I'm flat out scared to play Ninja and any healing class. The only difference from me to what I see is I don't cry for nerfs.. but I suck. And from my own experience I kindof like where we are right now. But that's the selfish part of me talking.

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Originally Posted by monk-dps

So I guess I'm jaded, I wish I could go - the playerbase will improve with harder content- But I can't.

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That's what happens when people get spoiled after years of being able to faceroll the content without putting effort into it.
Imagine if you could get away with only putting 10% of effort into your real life job. It would be really annoying to have to start committing to it eventually. Yet sacrifices must be made.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

How does this prove the average raider beats savage in a month? Do you mean to say you assume that every pug is an average skilled player? I have met everything from the truly horrendous to the mindblowingly outstanding while pugging. It isn't only average skilled or less players who pug.

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It's harder to clear stuff in pugs obviously, but i'm using statics as a metric because it's easier to gauge their performance since you have the same 8 people who play together on a regular basis.
What I'm saying is that if the average group took 500 hours to clear the raid back in pre-Creator days, nowadays it takes them 100. And that's proven by the fact that we have thousands more clears than we did back then, meaning the content DID get way easier and more accessible to everyone.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

That's what happens when people get spoiled after years of being able to faceroll the content without putting effort into it.
Imagine if you could get away with only putting 10% of effort into your real life job. It would be really annoying to have to start committing to it eventually. Yet sacrifices must be made.



It's harder to clear stuff in pugs obviously, but i'm using statics as a metric because it's easier to gauge their performance since you have the same 8 people who play together on a regular basis.
What I'm saying is that if the average group took 500 hours to clear the raid back in pre-Creator days, nowadays it takes them 100. And that's proven by the fact that we have thousands more clears than we did back then, meaning the content DID get way easier and more accessible to everyone.

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FFLOGS was a lot less used back then.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

FFLOGS was a lot less used back then.

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Are you implying there were way more clears back then as well? Are you saying that official data like this one is all false then?

https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/Eorz...N_Census_L.png

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Originally Posted by Wegente

What I'm saying is that if the average group took 500 hours to clear the raid back in pre-Creator days, nowadays it takes them 100. And that's proven by the fact that we have thousands more clears than we did back then, meaning the content DID get way easier and more accessible to everyone.

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You're leaving out some very important points here. Pre-Creator days were totally different to now.

Back then actual raiders were not as common because the game was relatively new so the player population wasn't huge and typically in new games you don't have a wealth of experienced players. I wager most players who raided pre Creator had not raided at that level of difficulty before.

Fast forward to today, more expansions have passed since. Players have had far more time and opportunities to gain raid experience, the player population has risen significantly, and we also have an influx of WoW refugees potentially bringing 5+ years of raid experience with them into the game. On top of that SE have gotten better at making introductory raid content that eases players into the raiding scene, instead of something as overtuned as the first tier of Alex which must have fooled a lot of players into thinking they could never be raid material.

I don't think anyone should be surprised or dismayed that kill rates have increased when there are more players playing, more experienced players playing, and content is balanced in such a way that it draws in more potential raiders. It's a logical progress.

The way you talk reminds me so much of how I have seen many veteran WoW players talk. So many have this idea that the original raiding scene was incredibly difficult, when the fact is it was not compared to now. It was back then because most raiders never raided before WoW, and the idea of playing in such a way was not common in gaming at the time. When WoW's population was growing steadily with each expansion, the kill rate of bosses grew despite the fact that the content became more difficult.

An increase of kill-rate isn't necessarily a sign of content not being difficult enough. Sometimes it's simply a sign that the average skill of the playerbase has risen. Which is a perfectly normal thing to happen if enough time passes.

(and no I'm not saying Vanilla WoW raiding is comparable to Coils, because it is not. I am just pointing out that despite the fact that top-end content became far more difficult in WoW since Vanilla, kill rates increased as time passed)

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I don't think anyone should be surprised or dismayed that kill rates have increased when there are more players playing, more experienced players playing, and content is balanced in such a way that it draws in more potential raiders. It's a logical progress.

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Raids in WoW still take a few weeks to complete nowadays. Sure, they're not taking months as they were back in the day and that's because, as you said, people have gotten better over the years, the game mechanics are better understood by the playerbase, etc.

Still, fights can be made harder regardless. Look at UCOB for example, the first group to clear it took 2 weeks, and that fight came out after Creator and Deltascape which both took less than 48 hours to clear.

What I'm asking for is a slight increase in difficulty, so that the more hardcore players can complete the raid in a week or so while the rest of the population can still clear before the release of the next tier.
That way we wouldn't have a huge population of raiders who only log in for their Savage clears on Tuesday and then log out for the rest of the week, or worse, unsub until the new patch get released, making SE lose potential money.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

Raids in WoW still take a few weeks to complete nowadays.

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WoW often has three times more bosses per raid tier than FFXIV. There are usually at least ten bosses each tier. FFXIV only has four bosses per raid tier, with the exception of one Coils tier that has five as far as I recall.

So yea of course it takes several weeks to complete a raid tier in WoW. There are significantly more bosses.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

What I'm asking for is a slight increase in difficulty, so that the more hardcore players can complete the raid in a week or so while the rest of the population can still clear before the release of the next tier.
That way we wouldn't have a huge population of raiders who only log in for their Savage clears on Tuesday and then log out for the rest of the week, or worse, unsub until the new patch get released, making SE lose potential money.

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That's going to happen regardless of what difficulty of content there is in the game. Even casual players have those sort of logging and subbing habits. That's just how some people are. The game's content is not entirely to blame for that. Not everyone does these things out of a lack of things to do. Sometimes people just want to do something else other than FFXIV. I have seen this happen in every multi player game I have played.

As for making content slightly harder, I'm okay with that but I don't see it having the effect you desire from it. As mentioned before, people make habits of logging in rarely at times or unsubbing regularly regardless of their skill level or goals in gaming. Everyone is different, and some people like to have a change of scenery more often than others.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

So yea of course it takes several weeks to complete a raid tier in WoW. There are significantly more bosses.

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That's not the reason WoW raids take longer to clear. Most bosses in WoW are cleared on the first day by the hardcore guilds, it's usually the last two bosses that are the roadblock.
Those two bosses alone can take up to 2 weeks to be defeated, and it's because they're really hard fights with extremely tight DPS and healing checks. Something that we haven't seen in Savage fights for years.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

people make habits of logging in rarely at times or unsubbing regularly regardless of their skill level or goals in gaming. Everyone is different, and some people like to have a change of scenery more often than others.

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That's true, but I think most people who play FFXIV to raid wouldn't unsub before at least having cleared the current raid tier, unless they're really bored by the game in general. Having cleared the raid tier in just a few days is the final nail in the coffin for them.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

That's not the reason WoW raids take longer to clear. Most bosses in WoW are cleared on the first day by the hardcore guilds, it's usually the last two bosses that are the roadblock.

Those two bosses alone can take up to 2 weeks to be defeated, and it's because they're really hard fights with extremely tight DPS and healing checks. Something that we haven't seen in Savage fights for years.

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I didn't realise we talking about the progress of literally a handful of guilds in the entire game. I thought we were talking about how hardcore guilds in general fare in progression, given that was what was being talked about when I entered this conversation :confused:

And there are some things you need to consider.

Firstly tiers often last far longer in WoW than in XIV. I have experienced raid tiers that lasted well over eight months. So it makes sense to make the bosses more difficult if you want the content to be able to last long within that time frame for your average raid teams.

Secondly the attitude and methods towards deaths is very different. In WoW you don't have access to essentially endless combat resses due to long cds and that very few classes can combat res. We often called a wipe the second somebody died because, for example, we needed to save the res for later in the fight. In FFXIV this attitude towards deaths is far less common due to ressing having no cd, every class who can res having access to an instant cast, and of course the existence of heal LB3.

What this means is in FFXIV you're far less likely to waste several minutes on a pull only to call for a wipe, because you usually res and just keep going, mechanics permitting. You can even res multiple times and keep going, and even still get a kill. In WoW if someone dies too early in the pull, you often just wipe it and start again. This means more wasted time.

That is not to say raiding in FFXIV is easier, some aspects are harder, but deaths are generally significantly less punishing on both progress and time. And then add to the fact that raid teams in WoW are bigger and the more people you have, the more likely it is that someone will mess up.

There are other differences of course but these are among the main reasons why WoW progression takes longer than FFXIV. It's just a different raid environment. Some stuff is harder, some is easier.

Anyway we're going off on a tangent now. The whole point of bringing up WoW was to show that an increased frequency of kills does not necessarily equate to raiding content becoming easier. Not to make direct comparisons of their raiding environments.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

That's true, but I think most people who play FFXIV to raid wouldn't unsub before at least having cleared the current raid tier, unless they're really bored by the game in general. Having cleared the raid tier in just a few days is the final nail in the coffin for them.

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While that is true, having more difficult content won't change raid logging. That inevitably happens when the amount of goals a player has shrinks due to completing them.

Also raiding can be stressful or intense. Sometimes people raid log during progression to get a break from the game, and then will play other content after they have cleared everything in raiding.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

What I'm asking for is a slight increase in difficulty, so that the more hardcore players can complete the raid in a week or so while the rest of the population can still clear before the release of the next tier.

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You already got Ultimate, let other people enjoy the game without feeling the need to restrict as much content as possible from the general population.

Increase of difficulty will not happen, look at the clear rates from the recent survey, gating too much content towards hardcore will make this game end up like the many other failed MMOs ouut there.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

That way we wouldn't have a huge population of raiders who only log in for their Savage clears on Tuesday and then log out for the rest of the week, or worse, unsub until the new patch get released, making SE lose potential money.

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Right, if it's between the 5% of raiders who might take a break out of boredom, or the 95% other players who might quit out of frustration because they can't make any progress, I wonder what SE would choose.

And for reference what you described already happened, it's called Gordias. And it pretty much killed the raiding scene for a year. Hence why SE eased up a bit on difficulty so everyone could enjoy the content. They won't go bacck to that, this ship has sailed.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

Are you implying there were way more clears back then as well? Are you saying that official data like this one is all false then?

https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/Eorz...N_Census_L.png

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I wouldn't exactly count Gordias as some kind of shining beacon of difficulty when one fight's dps check was severely overtuned to a good 80% of the player base at the time, and the other was mathematically impossible to beat in entry level gear if you executed the fight the intended way. (Several of the world first raiders on Mainpulator were mentioning seeing enrage cast as early as 30s into final phase on the 1st/2nd weeks before weapons were available, or something to that effect.) Midas is a better representation of the post-coil, pre-creator era, and even then it was only a little over two weeks.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today. On top of many, many QoL changes that helped speed up progression (Cooldowns resetting every wipe that was implemented in Creator so you no longer had to do nothing but wait for literal minutes at a time.) better standardized markers (most mechanics that do certain functions (stack, spread, etc.) tend to have standardized markers now, whereas back in the old days it was a relative free-for-all and groups would have to spend more time arbitrarily discerning what certain markers did.) On top of all of that, just plain experience. When Gordias came out, there was only ARR's raid fights worth of experience to build up against. Now, most of the top raiders have been in the game across multiple expansions, having experienced the full spectrum of raid tiers since then.

Outside of creating complex puzzle mechanics, there's not much you can do to slow down the best raiders in this game outside of a large overhaul of the combat system.

Also, all the recent bfa raids took less than two weeks, most of them took less time to beat than UCOB did as a note.

UCOB - 11 days.

Uldir (8 days), Dazar'alor (7 days), crucible (9 days). Only Palace has lasted longer than UCOB at 12 days.

Savage is fine where it is. If people want more challenge Ultimate will keep groups occupied for long periods of time. Even my own group, which had 5/8 people already cleared Ultima Weapon, still took well over three weeks to get our first clear, and we're currently working on week 4 of our UCOB prog.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I didn't realise we talking about the progress of literally a handful of guilds in the entire game. I thought we were talking about how hardcore guilds in general fare in progression, given that was what was being talked about when I entered this conversation :confused:

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I used the world first clears as an example because that's how you evaluate the difficulty of a content. When Gordias was cleared by Elysium after around 1 month, most of the playerbase couldn't clear it even several months afterwards.
Because if the world first players took that long, then the more casual playerbase wouldn't have a chance of clearing it before the next raid tier came out.

On the other hand, if the world first is claimed only 12 hours after the tier release, like what happened with Eden, that means the tier is going to be very easily approachable even by the casual playerbase, especially after they get more gear.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

What this means is in FFXIV you're far less likely to waste several minutes on a pull only to call for a wipe, because you usually res and just keep going, mechanics permitting. You can even res multiple times and keep going, and even still get a kill.

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That's because the DPS checks have become a joke nowadays, and you can clear most fights on the first week even with multiple deaths.
This wasn't the case in Gordias and this wouldn't be the case if the bosses had more HP. If Titan had had its HP buffed by 15% or even just 10%, I'm sure nobody would have cleared the first week, and maybe even the second.

Yet, if the tuning is so lenient, you're going to see clears very early on because you can just ignore mechanics and healer LB3 for example, to get through them.

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today.

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They would, but they would definitely not take just one day to clear.

The CD resets only affected the time you had to wait between pulls when you finally reached enrage, because before that you would chain-pull regardless since DPS was not the concern before reaching the end of the fight.
And defensive CDs like Hallowed could just be swapped around if they weren't ready yet.

The DPS checks and healing checks were harder, mechanics were more punishing and insta-wipe most of the time, like with bosses getting damage up stacks if you failed them.

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

Also, all the recent bfa raids took less than two weeks, most of them took less time to beat than UCOB did as a note.

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That's still more than a week longer than what Savage clears take today, which is one day or two at most. And I'm pretty sure WoW has been out for a bit longer than FFXIV, so people know how to play that game.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

That's because the DPS checks have become a joke nowadays, and you can clear most fights on the first week even with multiple deaths. This wasn't the case in Gordias

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I don't know why you are using Gordias as an example of "better" raiding. It was a mistake. SE even admitted this. The release of content as difficult as that was severely mistimed with Gordias. Coils was no walk in the park but it didn't prepare you for Gordias. None of the HW pre-Alex content prepared you for Gordias. It was so highly tuned that killing one of the bosses was literally impossible without farming for gear first.

It's not good design to be unable to beat a boss with entry level gear even if you're among the best players in the entire game. It really cheapens the idea of a challenge when the wall isn't skill based, but is instead ilvl based. If you lack skill you can keep trying until you improve. If you lack gear then you need to stop, go elsewhere, and come back later. Take a guess as to which one competitive raiders tend to prefer.

But SE didn't completely abandon difficulty and requirements as high as Gordias. We see it with Ultimate now. However unlike Gordias Ultimate is gated behind content that legitimately trains you to be good enough for it. It's in a place in the progression ladder that actually makes sense.

I understand wanting content to be more challenging, and I'm not against this idea, but if you want to be taken seriously by both other players and SE, stop using Gordias as a reference point for good content. It is widely regarded as poorly balanced by both players and the devs.

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

Midas is a better representation of the post-coil, pre-creator era, and even then it was only a little over two weeks.

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Pretty much.

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today. On top of many, many QoL changes that helped speed up progression (Cooldowns resetting every wipe that was implemented in Creator so you no longer had to do nothing but wait for literal minutes at a time.) better standardized markers (most mechanics that do certain functions (stack, spread, etc.) tend to have standardized markers now, whereas back in the old days it was a relative free-for-all and groups would have to spend more time arbitrarily discerning what certain markers did.) On top of all of that, just plain experience. When Gordias came out, there was only ARR's raid fights worth of experience to build up against. Now, most of the top raiders have been in the game across multiple expansions, having experienced the full spectrum of raid tiers since then.

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Cds resetting is a serious game-changer on its own. No more standing around waiting for them to reset for several minutes, even after an ill-fated pull that ended early. Less guesswork due to standardised markers saves a tonne of time as well. These may seem like small things to some players, but they're actually significant changes that eliminate a lot of wasted time.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

It's not good design to be unable to beat a boss with entry level gear even if you're among the best players in the entire game.

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Being able to clear the second or third turn, with multiple deaths, on the first week with no gear is not good design either. It's just a sign of poor tuning.

I know of a group that cleared the second turn of Creator with something like 11 deaths, and they still managed to beat the enrage.
And I've beaten the third turn with 4-5 deaths in Creator and Deltascape as well, in the first week.

I think DPS checks should be a little bit more unforgiving than this, at least in the first week. I'm asking for a middle ground here.

Fortunately for me I'm learning theres more to the game then the combat classes, I'm in the process of leveling my crafters now and my botanist and miner just hit 80. As long as I have other things to do I could care less about losing a couple of buttons.

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Originally Posted by shibeouya

Right, if it's between the 5% of raiders who might take a break out of boredom, or the 95% other players who might quit out of frustration because they can't make any progress, I wonder what SE would choose.

And for reference what you described already happened, it's called Gordias. And it pretty much killed the raiding scene for a year. Hence why SE eased up a bit on difficulty so everyone could enjoy the content. They won't go bacck to that, this ship has sailed.

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This is the right answer. We already have low tier (dungeons), mid tier (Ex/Savage), and high tier (ultimate) content. The dev's shouldn't be balancing the game around the top 5% of the playerbase. That will lead to failure.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

Fortunately for me I'm learning theres more to the game then the combat classes, I'm in the process of leveling my crafters now and my botanist and miner just hit 80. As long as I have other things to do I could care less about losing a couple of buttons.

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Good for you.
But that does not erase the problem for people that have reached that point where they have finished crafting, mount farming or whatever the game can offer as side content. Or people that spend most of their time on high end content because that's what they like. Or people that are open enough to consider the problem even though it does not impact their playing experience.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

I know of a group that cleared the second turn of Creator with something like 11 deaths, and they still managed to beat the enrage.
And I've beaten the third turn with 4-5 deaths in Creator and Deltascape as well, on the first week.

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I know players who consistently hit 90% + percentile dps on any class they play but that doesn't mean I'm going to start calling the act of dpsing too easy to do.

Judging something based on how exceptional people perform is flawed. You need to look at everyone. You might know of one group who blazed through Creator crazy fast, but you can't say this is even remotely close to how the average static progressed.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

I think DPS checks should be a little bit more unforgiving than this, at least on the first week. I'm asking for a middle ground here.

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It doesn't seem this way considering you are using a famously overtuned and poorly balanced raid tier as an example of good content, and exceptional players as an indication of how difficult content should be.

It appears you want raid content to be designed around a tiny percentage of players. Raiding is for everyone. That's why there is a gradual progression ladder that starts from the very easy normal modes to the brutal ultimates. It sounds like you want all of savage to be as difficult as end-tier. Sure SE could do it, but not without alienating a huge part of their playerbase. They already did that once and the result was not good.

Again I'm not against raiding being tuned upwards a little, I just doubt that this is what you want given that you use the exceptional as a reference point.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

That's why there is a gradual progression ladder that starts from the very easy normal modes to the brutal ultimates.

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But the problem is indeed in the progression ladder which is not gradual at all, since the last boss of the Savage tier only lasts around 12 hours whereas the Ultimate encounters can last up to 11 days like UCOB.

The disparity is too large there. That's why I ask for a middle ground and a harder Savage raid progression.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

But the problem is indeed in the progression ladder which is not gradual at all, since the last boss of the Savage tier only lasts around 12 hours whereas the Ultimate encounters can last up to 11 days like UCOB.

The disparity is too large there. That's why I ask for a middle ground and a harder Savage raid progression.

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Really? Up to now you have been saying you want savage to be more difficult because you think it's killed too quickly. You haven't mentioned the transition from savage to ultimate since I entered this conversation, until now.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Really? Up to now you have been saying you want savage to be more difficult because you think it's killed too quickly. You haven't mentioned the transition from savage to ultimate since I entered this conversation, until now.

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I do think that current Savage is being killed too quickly, since what SE said back when Savage was first introduced in 3.0 was that since people wanted to experience the story without stressing out, they would get normal mode raids instead for that.
Savage was meant to be something that requires effort and dedication to clear, and that not everyone can aim to clear. And that's how we got Gordias, and Midas after that.

Then apparently people weren't satisfied anymore with just clearing the normal mode raids and also wanted to take on the challenge of Savage and clear it, so raids were made easier as a result to accomodate those players.

Now we've got Ultimate as well, which is the real challenge for those who seek one, but Savage doesn't really prepare people for it because of the disparity in difficulty.
And my fear is that Ultimate itself is going to be tuned down as a result, since the next step is for people to start complaining that they want to clear Ultimate as well, and want it to be made easier. And so the cycle will repeat itself.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

People getting clever is an expected outcome to utterly overtuned fights. Problem with the current discussion is people forget the context of fights like that but remember the challange think "Ah yes, the good ol days." It's literally the "old man" syndrome - how everything was better before the modern era, but conveniently forgetting that people had shorter life expectancy, more disease, less food, crappier quality of life, and a lot more struggle. In here, people are forgetting all the garbage that people had to put up with. Never mind that for anyone who did clear that content and actively participated in it were literally trialed by fury and hellfire and therefor their standards are skewed as it were.

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Sorry bit far back raided after posting comment and went straight to sleep after, yea i'm under no delusion of past raids some felt good to clear and some were just awful, no raid tier has been immune to issues. Midas's A7S beam +DoT tick could kill someone before you could react due to server ticks lets also not forget the buggy mess of A6S where your could straight up wipe for no fault of the players, phase pushing of Creator was a problem. Delta's glorious Alte Rolte who was easier than extreme Susano on their respective launches, Sigma's Gaurdian who my group firmly believe Kefka pilots due to it randomly start targeting a tank for beam before doing a complete 180* turn killing every non tank as it fired, Alphascape's Middy who no one seems to like as a savage fight to the length of A12S.

Currently a big problem I have with savage fights(some Exs too) is the random Enrage timer, some pulls get longer some get shorter due to whatever pattern the boss decides to do (It has been an issue since Gordias Jigglybutt was the 1st time i really noticed it), i think this should stop period, they should have a set time only and the boss stops casting/doing its pattern the moment its enrage timer has gone over and wipes the group.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

Are you implying there were way more clears back then as well? Are you saying that official data like this one is all false then?

https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/Eorz...N_Census_L.png

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Ah i remember this my group was part of the 38k A2S people, we were both happy and worried seeing that number, it felt like we were part of a small club but at the same time it worried us that if anyone was unable to make it we were unlikely to find pugs to replace and this drove morale down hard both looking at A3S/A4S clear rates due to our 2 day a week/3 hrs per day schedule, we eventually got A3S down in patch 3.1 and we tried A4S but ultimately decided not to bother as we felt we weren't going to kill it before patch 3.2 launched.

What also didn't help Gordias was that the weapon was ilv 210 which was equal to the upgraded tomestone weapon/relic weapon at the time so the only real incentives for A4S was BiS and a mount.

They treat savage now differently compared to ARR or heavensward raids. They can turn the difficulty down, just because ultimate exists, that's their excuse basically. And people are happy customer if they can clear fast.
Though, if it gets too easy, the same will happen like with PvP, where you lose the "good" playerbase and replace them with mostly casual players. There is nothing entertaining when everyone performs the same, if you look at it from the outside, and when the skill ceiling is too low. Thats why Idk if it's worth to have a worldfirst race for savage tbh, they are all so close together at the top.
To me the most fun raid experience I had was probably Baldesion Arsenal, if they could create content like that for 8,16 or 24man grps and make it difficult, I would prefer that over every trialboss, which we have in savage raids. It is a way more pleasant experience for raiders to have multiple bosses and larger areas to discover, than to be stuck at 1 boss for weeks/months. If that would be a thing, I would be okay with upping the difficult for the endboss of such a raidtier.

If the world best group clears a tier in 24hrs, that means 3 weeks for a midcore static(3days a 3h) with equal skill. They are not equal skill though, so its gonna be more like 4-5weeks, guides are gonna start being a thing. But then you have a big chunk of casual raider who maybe only raid 2 days a week and aren't playing so well. They gonna take months for it. It seems okay to me. They just shouldn't simplify jobs too much or savage is gonna end up being a meme.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

Good for you.
But that does not erase the problem for people that have reached that point where they have finished crafting, mount farming or whatever the game can offer as side content. Or people that spend most of their time on high end content because that's what they like. Or people that are open enough to consider the problem even though it does not impact their playing experience.

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That's not my fault if people don't pace themselves. What I'm saying is that there's more to the game then high end content. If you burn through the other stuff and still feel dissatisfied then why are you still playing?

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Originally Posted by Wegente

I do think that current Savage is being killed too quickly

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But you use exceptional players as an example for this. You can't use only these people as an indication for how difficult content is. You need a far larger pool of players than less than 1% of raiders. What you're doing is akin to looking at a medal winning Olympian athlete to gauge the average running speed of a human who merely jogs to stay fit and beat personal records.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

Savage was meant to be something that requires effort and dedication to clear, and that not everyone can aim to clear.

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It still does...just because you and your buddies clear things quickly doesn't automatically invalidate how difficult something is.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

Now we've got Ultimate as well, which is the real challenge for those who seek one, but Savage doesn't really prepare people for it because of the disparity in difficulty.

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You could say the same about normal to ex, normal to savage, even ex to savage a lot of the time but I don't see you complaining about this at all. Maybe it's because in other content you do expect a significant increase in challenge when you do a different difficulty, but you somehow don't when going from savage to ultimate. Hmmm.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

And my fear is that Ultimate itself is going to be tuned down as a result, since the next step is for people to start complaining that they want to clear Ultimate as well, and want it to be made easier. And so the cycle will repeat itself.

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Players always complain that they can't clear something regardless of difficulty, and SE have not given in every time. If they did the game would have little more to offer than Haukke Manor normal. SE changed how they balanced raid content during and after Alex because Gordias was an unbalanced mess that they learned a lot from.

But I don't think any amount of talking to you will change your mind. You have it in your head that top-tier raiders are somehow an appropriate reference point to how the rest of the raiders are doing. Oddly enough, you just make it look like that you're selling yourself short. It almost looks like you really don't know how skilled you actually are compared to most decent players.

I don't see why the game should prepare you for ultimate. It's a difficulty meant for the people that enjoy a challenge, not something you can expect to just roll into. Personally I wouldn't mind a bit less difficult savage (in particular on the dps checks), and super difficult ultimate for the 1% that enjoys that.

i remember when people asked for nerfs to weeping city of Mhach and the devs essentially dug their heels in and told everyone to 'get gud' as they were not changing its difficulty, this was a excellent move as it allowed them to make 24 mans a bit more hectic and they tried to force the playerbase to improve. I highly doubt they will reduce Ultimates' difficulty it is specifically designed with max gear available on their release something this game lacked until 4.1, also it kept the more skilled players around longer be a bad idea to let an extra month's sub money from 5% of the playerbase(very hyperbole not actual numbers) go.

Also even people complained UcoB died too quickly and i'm like >_> have you killed it, no, then don't speak of difficulty and those that did kill it were generally happy with its difficulty only its length was an issue, so why would they lessen the difficulty of the playerbase they are targeting when the targeted playerbase is happy how hard it is.:confused:

If the skill ceiling is that low we must all be lalafells then :v

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...28/NOT_YOU.png

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Originally Posted by Penthea

But you use exceptional players as an example for this. You can't use only these people as an indication for how difficult content is.

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Difficulty is indeed subjective, and that's why I am comparing the difficulty of current Savage to the difficulty of pre-Creator Savage, so that we can have an objective analysis on the matter.
If clear rates increasing more than twentyfold and clear times decreasing from multiple weeks to one day for the world first groups aren't a clear sign of the content getting easier, I don't know what would be. It looks pretty obvious to me.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

You could say the same about normal to ex, normal to savage, even ex to savage a lot of the time but I don't see you complaining about this at all.

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That's because the total amount of time needed to clear the rest of the content is so small it's almost irrelevant.

For example, if clearing Titania normal takes 15 minutes on average and Titania extreme takes 2 hours, although that's eight times as much, it's still just 2 hours in the end.
On the other hand, if clearing Titan Savage takes 15 hours and UCOB takes 100 hours, that's only seven times as much, but the total amount of time needed is much greater, and will scare away most of the playerbase because they are not used to investing that much time on a single fight.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

most of the playerbase because they are not used to investing that much time on a single fight.

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How is that a problem? Most of the playerbase is not the targeted audience for ultimate.

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Originally Posted by aiqa

How is that a problem? Most of the playerbase is not the targeted audience for ultimate.

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Because it wouldn't be the first time SE nerfs the difficulty of something after the playerbase complains about it.
Steps of Faith, BLM's Enochian and DRG's Life of the Dragon in 3.0, Midas A6S, Stormblood MNK Tornado Kick rotation, 4.1 WAR rotation, healer DPS rotations, tanks enmity generation... the list goes on and on.

this post is literally made on every single MMO at some point.

The forum is full of threads like this and an equal number of threads from people who just want everything handed to them with no effort on their part. This game was intentionally made for the more casual players. Personally I would enjoy some more challenging content. Maybe something that takes actual thought, not just dodging every other second. I doubt it will happen, though.

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Originally Posted by Zarabeth

The forum is full of threads like this and an equal number of threads from people who just want everything handed to them with no effort on their part. This game was intentionally made for the more casual players. Personally I would enjoy some more challenging content. Maybe something that takes actual thought, not just dodging every other second. I doubt it will happen, though.

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I'll take "Doesn't actually do Savage" for 500, Alec.

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Originally Posted by Wegente

Then apparently people weren't satisfied anymore with just clearing the normal mode raids and also wanted to take on the challenge of Savage and clear it, so raids were made easier as a result to accomodate those players.

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Do you honestly think if SE didn't want more people in Savage they wouldn't tell those complaining where to get off? They've done it before. Players are going to ask for things. Put the responsibility where it belongs, on the devs who made the choice to change something.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

That's not my fault if people don't pace themselves. What I'm saying is that there's more to the game then high end content. If you burn through the other stuff and still feel dissatisfied then why are you still playing?

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That does not mean burning through the content.
In my own experience, I've played since 3.2 or 3.3 so almost 4 years now, and I logged in pretty much every day for the most part of that time, doing a bit of everything at my own pace, around one to two hours after work. I don't think I've burnt through the game at all. And there are people that are on the game since its launch(es).

Besides this specific forum post is about gameplay and high end content to an extent. It's not trying to say there's nothing else to do in the game at all.