[Personal Opinion] FFXIV is too casual friendly

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Originally Posted by Subucnimorning

MMO's have ALWAYS had challenging content, not sure where you get the idea that they haven't

EQ1 had challenging content when they went to instanced content, WoW had challenging content, Rift had challenging content, Wildstar had challenging content (all these pretty much just involve raids being challenging, although Wildstar had challenging group content which was great). I am sure others have had challenging content as well but those are just the ones I played most extensively

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Memorization is not hard which is what pretty much all mmos do is not what most people would call challenging.

Thing is, stuff that requires you to "use your noggin' " is fun and interesting the first 2, maybe 3 times. When it's something you have to run on a daily basis it will get BORING regardless.

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Originally Posted by Meeka19

I don't know if that's really what people need. It seems more interesting, for me at least, to be kept in high pressure situations (low hp after taking a mechanic, and needing not to mess up the next, could be a stacking debuff that makes it so only the next actually wipes) than to make a boss aoe gaze kill everyone and u just .... press s every 3-5 min for example, or wait on a rev and just watch everyone from then on.

My emphasis is on demanding activity and thought of players, not "you didn't do this therefore you may now do nothing", and if you mess up again well now you're doing nothing again. Oh and here's a debuff for dying to make you more likely to die. (probably a defense against botting that should be there though)

An example of a mechanic that requires attention is in potd higher floors where dots tick for a lot more than usual and will kill someone if you're not careful, but not in one tick. It's fairly minor but it's different when every mob is meaningful and you're not pulling 6-8 mobs that your tank can almost tank without being healed.

Floor 180 boss of potd actually does just what you said, unvoidable big aoe, but it doesn't kill you if you're not full hp, yet seeing as he keeps casting it over and over, you're forced to address your fail if people weren't shielded or healed right when the first one hit by trying to optimize your casting time/buffs so the pt can keep taking meteors until boss dies.

Regarding your example, it's technically exactly these sort of unforgiving mechanics that don't favor learning that're pushing people away from challenging content.
What I'd look forward to is simply content that requires you to pay attention and adjust on the fly rather than giving each boss a set rotation, I guess. It becomes a memorization exercise rather than strategy or requiring a decent reaction time.

Reaching a good balance between how visible the cast is, how long the mon cast is and how strong the impact is is the difference. If a cast is very long it makes sense to one hit, if the cast is fast then you'd want to give people leeway to fail once or twice. But the cooldown for a fast cast with a forgiving impact (allows healer to take care of it) shouldn't be long. (as in is cast one after another) Otherwise it will be as if it never happened as you mentioned.

It's actually really strange that there aren't clear visual queues for each skill a boss casts. (there are some but not always)
You shouldn't need to look at a cast bar to know what's going on.

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Its the only thing you with this type of game if it doesn't kill or you or almost kill you people don't bother to move because healing is so strong. Everything is a scripted dance in this game boss the same thing at the same time every single time you cant randomize it because then the entire fight becomes rng and you cant really prepare for anything and since this is a GCD style game it ruins any concept of a rotation. So the only thing that can be adjusted is the amount of damage things do which is already done in this game.

The game was Normal difficulty... 2 years ago. Then when Heavensward came, they nerfed everything in Realm Reborn, including The Steps of Faith which was a true teamwork challenge, but once people cleared it, everyone got scared of it and refused to do it at all. But that doesn't mean that there are still not hard dungeons. To this day, if I get Aurum Vale in a roulette, people still leave it instantaneously. Because they know that it is a hard dungeon and also, they are completely cowardly.

So it is not a case of casual friendly, more or less it is experienced players having no spine and therefore forcing Square Enix to nerf the entire experience.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

Since when have MMOs been known for hard content? Oh right, never.

The other point FF14 is a gateway mmo its not really meant to be hard. Hell until you hit 60 this is a single player rpg for all intent and purposes. Also there is not much you can do to make GCD style mmos more challenging the only way to do it is make any kind of avoidable damage kill you instantly and anything unavoidable almost kill everyone if they aren't at full hp and to do it over and over in rapid succession.

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As others have stated, MMO's have always had difficult content. Hell, raiding started out as many-group affairs, things were just too hard for (era appropriate) characters to deal with them. I'll never forget having over 100 people trying to get in on a Rallos Zek the Warlord kill in Plane of Tactics, Everquest. (Sometimes I think that EQ is the only MMO with large scale raids remaining is the reason it is still around.)

As for the idea that this is some kind of "gateway MMO" ... no. Just, no, not more than any other MMO ever made. No MMO has been made with the idea that they would only cater to the experienced MMO crowd. They ALL want to attract people new to MMO's, unless they've gone over the hill and stopped advertising completely (the way EQ has) and simply hope to retain as many as possible without getting any new blood.

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Originally Posted by Colino

Thing is, stuff that requires you to "use your noggin' " is fun and interesting the first 2, maybe 3 times. When it's something you have to run on a daily basis it will get BORING regardless.

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Eh, I've done the veteran dungeons in WildStar at least a bazillion times (totally not an exaggeration!) and have yet to find them boring. xD It takes the right combination of challenging mechanics, engaging combat system, and game design that doesn't rely on endless grind.

The differently is about where I want it.

The issue is how easy content gets.
When 3.4 came out take A9 could be cleared with min ilevel or 1-2 levels over it. But wasn't easy at all, you could miss Rage timer or something could go wrong as people learned the fight.
Now all active players are Ilevel 259 Well over gear for all the content it's way to easy. But it wasn't. I still find a12 party that have issues getting weekly clears.

Personally think SE did an epic job of providing content difficulty for all levels. However from my own personal experience when I was trying to learn a Tank class, and getting harassed, mocked, even booted once makes it hard to get the opportunity to improve your skills at least from a hands on perspective. You can always study guides but that only teaches so much. The one issue in this game, at least in post main story is to many people are in such a rush to get through roulette's, get their tomes, and get out. When Tanks are in such a hurry they get the healer locked out of a boss fight there is a problem.

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Originally Posted by Colino

Thing is, stuff that requires you to "use your noggin' " is fun and interesting the first 2, maybe 3 times. When it's something you have to run on a daily basis it will get BORING regardless.

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While all things inevitably get boring if forced to complete constantly, I find I'll be far more engaged if I'm failing due to the game pushing back. Case in point, I spend some 40-50 hours (probably more) in A12S prog and enjoyed nearly every hour of it. Now I certainly don't expect something like dungeons to be that challenging, but Weeping City remains an example of reasonably challenging content. What I find boring is being capable of pulling the entire room day one. When Baelsar’s Wall releases, I'll pull the room just like every other dungeon and never even think about it. If I pull less, I literally have no reason to use cooldowns. In fact, the healer could /sit because I'll never come close to dying with a pack of three mobs. Frankly, I believe it's this brain dead level content that is hurting the game. It's no coincidence they put the latest Anima step in roulettes. People had stopped doing them.

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Originally Posted by Meeka19

My emphasis is on demanding activity and thought of players, not "you didn't do this therefore you may now do nothing", and if you mess up again well now you're doing nothing again. Oh and here's a debuff for dying to make you more likely to die. (probably a defense against botting that should be there though)

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What I understand from what you're saying is that mechanics from endgame content that are not extremely punishing (ie. death/wipe/very low HP on messing up) would encourage players on improving more?

If that's what you mean I'm not really sure if that really changes anything on how demanding a fight would be for a player and how it wouldn't encourage DPS, for example to completely ignore certain mechanics and facetank them instead of causing a reaction for them as thegreatonemal mentioned.

I'm far more interested in FFXIV as a casual game, with varied activities. Raiding is a tried endgame, and we need variety.

The story, by the way, should absolutely not have any unique aspects with savage modes.

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Originally Posted by Platinumstorm

I'm far more interested in FFXIV as a casual game, with varied activities. Raiding is a tried endgame, and we need variety.

The story, by the way, should absolutely not have any unique aspects with savage modes.

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Not savage levels, but take WC. There's the point on the 2nd boss when the MT is almost dead. Benediction/Essential Dignity will top em off. I STILL see this cause chaos.

We don't need savage levels of hard, but we need to take the training wheels off. Casual should not be an excuse for auto-pilot.

Edit: I keep seeing WC mentioned. Gotta admit, SE did a DAMN good job here. Difficult, but not ball-busting.

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Originally Posted by Frowny

Not savage levels, but take WC. There's the point on the 2nd boss when the MT is almost dead. Benediction/Essential Dignity will top em off. I STILL see this cause chaos.

We don't need savage levels of hard, but we need to take the training wheels off. Casual should not be an excuse for auto-pilot.

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Exactly!

People continuous to misconstrued these two factors. There is a middle ground between brain dead easy and savage. I mean, you could even build around extreme primals as a template. There just needs to be something that actually requires effort, lest the game suffer for it in the long run. I want to feel like a tank whenever I run a dungeon. I want to actual heal in said dungeon. Right now? If I don't pull the entire room, I may as well remove my defensive cooldowns from my bar unless I get some truly awful players. Friends and I are even planning a no healer run of Xelphatol and GGL just to see how absurdly easy it actually is. That shouldn't be remotely possible yet I think even a Dark Knight can pull it off and they don't have good self healing against bosses.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

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Off-topic but to be frank, sometimes even savage can be "easy". My group only struggled on A9S acid rains on 2nd alarum (mostly getting ranged to get out of mine and the MNK's way). Otherwise we had it under control... and only 2 of us (to my knowledge) had previous experience.

You CAN up difficultly without going to extremes.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Exactly!

People continuous to misconstrued these two factors. There is a middle ground between brain dead easy and savage. I mean, you could even build around extreme primals as a template. There just needs to be something that actually requires effort, lest the game suffer for it in the long run. I want to feel like a tank whenever I run a dungeon. I want to actual heal in said dungeon. Right now? If I don't pull the entire room, I may as well remove my defensive cooldowns from my bar unless I get some truly awful players. Friends and I are even planning a no healer run of Xelphatol and GGL just to see how absurdly easy it actually is. That shouldn't be remotely possible yet I think even a Dark Knight can pull it off and they don't have good self healing against bosses.

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Overbearing is going to cause that to happen no matter how difficult the mechanics. Even WC isn't particularly challenging anymore and Ravana EX dies so quick he barely uses half his mechanics if that.

Your also measuring what difficulty for everyone should be by your personal preferences which isn't necessarily a good measure for the player base as a whole.

Some people who log on at the end of a day of work just want the equivalent of watching the television levels of difficulty. They just look for things to keep them occupied, not feel particularly challenged.

You can still up the challenge without it being overbearing. We're at the opposite extreme right now where most content is on auto-pilot.

Filthy elitist logic needs to stay out of our mmo.

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Originally Posted by Frowny

Off-topic but to be frank, sometimes even savage can be "easy". My group only struggled on A9S acid rains on 2nd alarum (mostly getting ranged to get out of mine and the MNK's way). Otherwise we had it under control... and only 2 of us (to my knowledge) had previous experience.

You CAN up difficultly without going to extremes.

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Oh, definitely. Having done all of Savage, A9S is pretty much a target dummy. I wouldn't mind it being the gate way to harder content if we had six fights per raid tier, but it does feel a little underwhelming. Frankly, I'd rank Refurbisher below even Sophia EX, and she is easy. Lamebrix is a bit better because of all his mechanics. Cruise Chaser is where I found it really picked up. I don't have too many complaints with Creator though. The raid community needed something more welcoming after the disaster that was Gordias.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

Overbearing is going to cause that to happen no matter how difficult the mechanics. Even WC isn't particularly challenging anymore and Ravana EX dies so quick he barely uses half his mechanics if that.

Your also measuring what difficulty for everyone should be by your personal preferences which isn't necessarily a good measure for the player base as a whole.

Some people who log on at the end of a day of work just want the equivalent of watching the television levels of difficulty. They just look for things to keep them occupied, not feel particularly challenged.

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Despite their ease nowadays, I still find both enjoyable. Weeping City lasted its entire patch cycle and even now still gives a little pause. Compare that to Xelphatol that was rendered irrelevant on release.

And that is fine. They can queue for older dungeons which will have long lost their relevancy. Expert is intended for us to run through over an entire patch cycle yet is an absolute joke. There is no incentive to bother gearing your job or performing at even a sub-par level when Augmented Esoteric gear meets the requirements-- gear released at Heavensward's launch over a year ago. It remains little coincidence the current Anima step puts us all back to doing Roulettes. Queues have slowed done because it's considered boring. An Expert dungeon should actually have me tanking or healing. As it stands, I either pull the room or I may as well remove my defensive cooldowns from my hotbars because I'll never need any of them. If I'm 'healing', I'll spend more than half the fight in Cleric Stance.

There's such a thing as catering too much in one direction. XIV has a far larger midcore playerbase than it's often given credit. If they continue to develop primarily brain dead content, they'll inevitably loss these players. In fact, the census done by Lucky Bancho has shown a steady decline in active characters over the year. That isn't a good sign.

To cite your example. Should that television show be dumb downed because other people might not understand its subtlety?

I suppose it depends on whether you want people to even reach the end of the story in the first place.

Imho, the Vault, as it is, is hard. The Steps of Faith (as it is - I cleared it after it was nerfed), The Final Steps of Faith (story), Mhach, and Sephirot (base) are also hard. A number of solo missions, such as the Reason Roaille, are also hard.


Maybe something in between normal endgame content (ie expert roulette) and savage and extreme content is justified, but kicking away intermediate steps in the ladder is counterproductive.

Since more people can clear Sophia Extreme and A9S than Sephirot Extreme (upon release) or A1S (upon release), that is a step in the right direction.

I agree there should be something harder than normal, but I believe Squeenix is obviously making strides towards that. It has come at the expense of super-difficult content (though there are still plenty things that challenge the most extreme players? Sephex, Thordex, Nidex, Midas Savage, A11S and A12S?) but that is to be expected. They are just so insignificant. Honestly the energy might be more lucrative for both the company and the players if they made more stuff for crafting and roleplay. There is certainly unmet demand for erping!

Alexander the creator savage has the perfect balance just like coil. Is great!

I'm loving everything about this game! Adjustments are being made and team are listening.

Keep going SE! All for the best! And for a greater 2017!

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Filthy elitist logic needs to stay out of our mmo.

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As do braindead players. Sick of carrying them in A12 NORMAL. You know, the easier one which is challenging but pretty easy after 1-2 clears yet people still fail like it is day 1?

Wow this thread is only a month old and I find myself going through it and flipping my likes from the casual friendly posts to the more anti-casual posts. The jump potion announcement and red mage starting at 50 have apparently made me detest a certain portion of this games players.

And yet casual players vastly outnumber hardcore players in numbers, subs, and cash shop purchases. Why again would a business bow to hardcore players? Surely it would be corporate suicide to ignore the wishes of its majority customer base to make a vocal minority happy.


Edit: I'm not downing the OP's position. I'm just pointing out some reality in business.

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Originally Posted by ErikMynhier

And yet casual players vastly outnumber hardcore players in numbers, subs, and cash shop purchases. Why again would a business bow to hardcore players? Surely it would be corporate suicide to ignore the wishes of its majority customer base to make a vocal minority happy.

Edit: I'm not downing the OP's position. I'm just pointing out some reality in business.

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This is a frequent misconception. First and foremost, casual players do not necessarily want brain dead content anymore than hardcore players do. A well designed dungeon can be challenging yet still only take 15-20 minutes or less. Nonetheless, you're forgetting the midcore playerbase-- to which XIV actually has a substantial amount. Case in point, over 200,000 players participated in The Creator Savage. Plenty of yet to clear it, but the fact many are even attempting shows just how large that playerbase is. If we then consider Lucky Bancho's unofficial census on active players bring approximated at just shy of 500,000. The midcore and hardcore combined for almost half. None of this even accounts for players who quit-- sub numbers have consistently declined over the past year -- or the casual crowd who do want harder content, but aren't interested in a Savage equivalent. All said, it's not quite the minority.

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Originally Posted by ErikMynhier

And yet casual players vastly outnumber hardcore players in numbers, subs, and cash shop purchases.

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Been repeated many times (that horse is very tender now): we're not saying make everything Savage level. Things don't need to be in extremes, I'm still confused as to why people keep thinking it has to be one extreme or another.

And Bourne nailed it... midcore is the largest group, not casual players.

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Originally Posted by ErikMynhier

And yet casual players vastly outnumber hardcore players in numbers, subs, and cash shop purchases. Why again would a business bow to hardcore players? Surely it would be corporate suicide to ignore the wishes of its majority customer base to make a vocal minority happy.


Edit: I'm not downing the OP's position. I'm just pointing out some reality in business.

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Oh, you want reality? How about making the game cater to only casuals and bleeding out 60% of the playerbase because the game goes fully brain dead? Seven MILLION lost subs. But be sure to not learn from history.

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Originally Posted by Frowny

Been repeated many times (that horse is very tender now): we're not saying make everything Savage level. Things don't need to be in extremes, I'm still confused as to why people keep thinking it has to be one extreme or another.

And Bourne nailed it... midcore is the largest group, not casual players.

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From the current content that is in the game, what would you say is the closest to fit the midcore crowd, if savage is considered extreme?

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Originally Posted by EponaTBHSMH

From the current content that is in the game, what would you say is the closest to fit the midcore crowd, if savage is considered extreme?

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WC, without question. Or even A12N. Difficult to a degree, but not crazy difficult.

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Originally Posted by Frowny

As do braindead players. Sick of carrying them in A12 NORMAL. You know, the easier one which is challenging but pretty easy after 1-2 clears yet people still fail like it is day 1?

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It seems you're just resisting what's right in front of your eyes. As you must have observed, to many, A11N and A12N are more than a little outside of casual. They make people rage-quit. There's your calibration for you. Take it.

Complaining that the playerbase is bad -and I think the quoted is far more honest about it than any idea that the game is too friendly to casuals- is not productive and you may benefit from finding a different entertainment platform with a gaming cohort up to your expectations. Good luck with your search!

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Case in point, over 200,000 players participated in The Creator Savage.

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I hope you didn't take that number from this redditor;
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._2016/dbf0n5i/
Because he already corrected himself there.

(Not that a participation metric as such isn't shady enough - When Feast and Lord of Verminion first came out, they had a pretty good participation, too. Nowadays however...)

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Originally Posted by PondHollow

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Until shown otherwise, I chalk that to "casuals" not being pushed a bit more. If you're given easy all your time, of course something that expects a bit more from you will be a shock. Some will step up. Others will cry for nerfs. The reason I resist it is because I've seen "casuals" in my own FC step up. It CAN be done and in a weird way I'm optimistic people can grow and improve.

Casual is also not equal to "bad". You can be a casual player and still have some braincells working. A11-12, contrary to what you seemingly suggest, are not hard (11 can be at times though, I'll admit that). The big moment in 11 is prey, easily solved with a regen and a Tetra/Essential. A12 is Gravitational and Sacrament, but Grav goes off first so you have a window to adjust (unless the game goes "nope"). What's often seen? In 11, healers not doing anything and letting the DPS die. In 12 people not knowing the simple pattern.

The common factor? Pattern recognition. They're scripted enough where even if you don't know the fights inside and out (I sure as heck don't), you can generally get a feeling of "hm... something big is next".

The other issue, which IS a toxic "casual" mindset, is when someone in say midcore goes "hey, do X at this point and you're good". Typically a very easy fix, but is often met with just being ignored, or something akin to "I'm a casual player, I can't do that".

I am actually glad that the main content works for casuals.
As for me I can't do much more than casual. On any game at all. I have a small handycap, it makes responding fast hard for me sometimes, it can trigger involuntary movements / twitches in my body. The fight with Nidhog was a terrible struggle for me. But want to progress non the less too.
Do have good days and bad days as in the good are where it doesn't get triggered as much & bad are the days where I'll avoid any dungeon that isn't a lower level or none at all and focus on gathering and crafting instead as I can do that on my own pace with a nice audiobook in the background to listen to, or discord sometimes too :)

So happy the fc peeps are nice, lovely peeps who can guide me through because it is easier to mention if my body malfunctions again midgame. <3

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Filthy elitist logic needs to stay out of our mmo.

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wao, its one thing to be casual but to pull others down? Elitist players wouldn't complain if people simply pulled their weight and mashed a few buttons.

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Originally Posted by Frowny

As do braindead players. Sick of carrying them in A12 NORMAL. You know, the easier one which is challenging but pretty easy after 1-2 clears yet people still fail like it is day 1?

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then don't queue with the plebs lol, go premade. 80% of the content in this game is literally designed around DF and how to make DF pop. This means that SE find all the possible ways to force the better players to carry bad players to ensure everyone is on the same page. Believe me, if there were a way to filter out so only competent players get to be with each other, the weaker players would never get anywhere (see Gordias Savage).

That is the price you pay for the convenience of Duty Finder. Think of it as a welfare system.

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Originally Posted by PondHollow

It seems you're just resisting what's right in front of your eyes. As you must have observed, to many, A11N and A12N are more than a little outside of casual. They make people rage-quit. There's your calibration for you. Take it.

Complaining that the playerbase is bad -and I think the quoted is far more honest about it than any idea that the game is too friendly to casuals- is not productive and you may benefit from finding a different entertainment platform with a gaming cohort up to your expectations. Good luck with your search!

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Neither are outside casual and can be facerolled if properly geared. And therein lies the crux of the issue. I see far too many people attempting content they scarcely meet the requirements for, then complaining about its difficulty. If you have mostly ivl 230, then yes, A11 and A12 will hurt. Shire or crafted gear? Both are complete pushovers. The problem is people have no incentive to upgrade. Why upgrade from your lore gear when ilvl 230 is enough to get in?

FFXIV is absolutely dreadful at encouraging self improvement for this precise reason. Even most single player games eventually reach a point where they get progressively harder-- to the point of being maddening -- if you don't upgrade. That is rarely an occurrence in XIV. Which, in my opinion, heavily contributes to the declining interest in certain bits of content. The devs shouldn't be using Relic quests to force us back into Roulettes. They should assess why people aren't doing them in the first place.

Another issue with the poor difficulty scaling. People don't have a proper understanding of their abilities. When dungeons are laughable to the point of absurdity, why is a inexperienced tank going to like "maybe I need to pop Vengeance for this attack"? Nothing has prepared them for those sudden spikes of damage. Your job quests are mostly useless at teaching you even a fraction of your abilities and very little content requires them. I'll reiterate once again, if I do not pull the entire room in either Xelphatol or Great Gubal, I may as well take all my tanking abilities off my hotbar. The only purpose they'll serve is to severely bore the healer.

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Originally Posted by CookieMonsta

then don't queue with the plebs lol, go premade. 80% of the content in this game is literally designed around DF and how to make DF pop. This means that SE find all the possible ways to force the better players to carry bad players to ensure everyone is on the same page. Believe me, if there were a way to filter out so only competent players get to be with each other, the weaker players would never get anywhere (see Gordias Savage).

That is the price you pay for the convenience of Duty Finder. Think of it as a welfare system.

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And the argument people are making is this will inevitably lead to those same people leaving the game. Active characters have steadily declined thoroughly this entire past year with no patch cycle seeing an increase. The two most frequent complaints you hear regarding FFXIV is the MSQ gating and how little there is to do at endgame.

Gordias Savage is a terrible example. Even midcore players couldn't handle it because of how severely over tuned it was. Like Frowny said earlier. We're beating the dust of a horse's bones at this point. No one wants Savage level difficulty for dungeons or Trials. We want a step up from brain dead to "I actually need to use my abilities." To put simply...

As a tank, I should need to manage my cooldowns
As a healer, I should need to actually heal consistently
As a DPS, I should know how to do my rotation

Right now? None of that is required for most content. The only except being if the tank pulls the entire room, then they and the healer actually have to know their jobs to handle all the incoming damage.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Neither are outside casual and can be facerolled if properly geared. And therein lies the crux of the issue. I see far too many people attempting content they scarcely meet the requirements for, then complaining about its difficulty. If you have mostly ivl 230, then yes, A11 and A12 will hurt. Shire or crafted gear? Both are complete pushovers. The problem is people have no incentive to upgrade. Why upgrade from your lore gear when ilvl 230 is enough to get in?

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Personally I would consider going into Alex Normal with a mix of i230-i240 to be normal and having Shire or crafted to be overgeared. It rewards tokens for i250 stuff afterall. Granted people on top of the gear curve will likely just be grabbing stuff for alt classes but I don't see any problem with doing the content in gear where the rewards are upgrades for you. (I regularly go on my healing classes that have a mix of Lore and Weeping City stuff honestly)

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Neither are outside casual and can be facerolled if properly geared. And therein lies the crux of the issue. I see far too many people attempting content they scarcely meet the requirements for, then complaining about its difficulty. If you have mostly ivl 230, then yes, A11 and A12 will hurt. Shire or crafted gear? Both are complete pushovers. The problem is people have no incentive to upgrade. Why upgrade from your lore gear when ilvl 230 is enough to get in?

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Okay, so, some of the context is making this a little hard to digest. The week before 3.4 was dropped, i230 gear took a good effort, and all i240 gear was gated and rationed. As one of the people who only just got into savage, I don't know about what else might have been dropping at the time, but if you were midcore, 230-240 was par in your main class with a long road between 230 and 237. When 3.4 did drop, prudence demanded players wait for two weeks each of tomes to get to 241+ via the shire body/leg pieces first (each being about +1.54 in total ilevel), with even smaller boosts from *completing* A9+. How could that be undergeared for A9+?

250 has been commonplace for about a month at most.