Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Normal mode shouldn't really give gear at all, the problem right now is that NM has more incentive than savage and people become burned out on NM before they get into savage. Sure, put the story in NM so everyone can experience it, but don't make it part of the gear progression because this will make splitting them redundant by putting it on the gear ladder before savage. NM primals don't give anything, and that system seems to have worked, plus there are ways to keep people running content without putting it on the gear progression ladder (such as relic grind)

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People are "fine" with normal (hard mode nowadays) primals because they're in the MSQ and are made to be beaten easily so you can move on. There has to be more to the end than just raids and relics or at the very least, offer more variety to them.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Normal mode shouldn't really give gear at all, the problem right now is that NM has more incentive than savage and people become burned out on NM before they get into savage. Sure, put the story in NM so everyone can experience it, but don't make it part of the gear progression because this will make splitting them redundant by putting it on the gear ladder before savage. NM primals don't give anything, and that system seems to have worked, plus there are ways to keep people running content without putting it on the gear progression ladder (such as relic grind)

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The problem with this is that players are forced to waste endless hours in there slaving for the gear and if you removed that many would be "less entertained".

The crafted gear has the same item level so it could be interesting to remove the gear from Normal (make it tomestone worthy instead) and maybe just add materials for the crafted gear in there and if the new dungeons were made part of the progression - gave i245 gear etc - it could also make the dungeon drops relevant at the same time.

It's an interesting idea which could give savage unique gear without additional development costs. Tho casuals are bound to riot. :3

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

The low clear raids compared to japan and the fact that joining a static is pretty much the only way you'll complete a raid fight.

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Low clear rates have a lot less to do with the community and a lot more to do with bad developer design. And again, designing content in such a way that requires an incredible skill ceiling again, is bad DEVELOPER design. It has nothing to do with the community.

Look I am sorry if you had a bad run in with some end-gamer but there are bad eggs in every "community" in this game be it crafters, people leveling, and people who have no interest in end game. Do not lump this all up as "the community's fault". Without the community there would be no game.

I also wanted to add that Yoshi has stated that the raiding culture in Japan and the NA is a bit different. In Japan they raid because the challenge is in front of them, in NA/EU we raid because of the incentives, in a nutshell. However, I have said before I don't think that is 100% accurate as I have played another game that had a huge JP population and they were just as reward hungry as us. You don't camp a 72 hour nm just because it's there. My last point is that clear rates for savage across the board are the worst of probably any mmo, even in Japan.

Gear that is an ilevel upgrade over the last Savage tier should not exist in normal mode. Catering to casuals in this regard is hurting the game a lot.

It basically destroyed gear progression in this game and made progression raiding a lot more expensive or grindy. Now, on top of every odd-patch being a catch-up patch, every even patch is a complete ilevel reset. At least before, the gear you got from the previous raid tier was useful until it was replaced by the new raid / tomestone gear. Now all your old gear is instantly replaced by crafted and Alex normal gear.

What this also does is instantly kill raid content upon clear. After your first clear of A8S there is no reason to ever do it again aside from the minion. There is no point to raiding anymore. Many A8S clearing statics I knew broke up because of how pointless farming is. Even if you farm for BiS gear, it's instantly replaced the next even patch.

There is also no point in going back to do old content after the new content is released and this shortens the lifespan of your content. In reality, while A8S might be too hard for a MC group even with full i240, it'd probably be a reasonable challenge with a few pieces of new tomestone gear.

Having a Normal mode is perfectly fine. But, SE's implementation in 3.X has been embarrassingly awful.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

One thing that I think might help is a practice mode to Savage. No loot or clear credit is awarded. The difference is the enrage timer is removed.

A6S gives you 10 minutes to beat all 4 bosses. For a midcore or somewhat casual raiding group they are going to spend too much time on each boss and by the time they get to the last one, the raid period will be mostly over.

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A6S is a good example to explain, why this idea is not good.

When you would have a "practise mode" like this, and you wait before every boss, you would have cooldowns ready, you will not have when doing it in real. You were not able to correctly practise how to adjust your rotation and manage your cooldowns for this fight, which is one of the main issues players do have, as Yoshida statet in his interviews. This requires to understand how the rotation work, instead of just learning it straight out of a guide and think thats all to know about.

With the currenty gear, the enrage should be no problem at all in A6S. Even with some deaths. Geared in i220 or beolow, the enrage could be a thing. But when people get close to enrage in i240 in A6S, they really should invest alot more time to practise their rotations and buff management (maybe on the dummy too), because they will never beat A7S without echo this way.

It's purely an excuse to say that rotations and CDs are the reason why we don't have an isolated practice mode.

The real reason that's obvious to anyone with a brain is that they want to artificially lengthen progression. Since the dawn of raiding people have constantly complained about CDs not resetting on a wipe. Only now are we finally getting it -- some 3 years later -- despite it being one of the most asked for QoL changes.

Really, are you also going to believe Yoshida's moral degradation argument for why GC restrictions still exist in PvP? Because I have a bridge to sell you if you do.

People want a practice mode because they want to practice mechanics. Obviously normal progression would still be used to map out your GCDs and CDs. But, for a lot of mechanics, familiarity is the most important thing and you don't get that without seeing it enough. Rather than waste hours repeating P1-6 of A8S just to practice P7, you would shorten the progression cycle of a mid-core static by weeks if they could just practice P7 until they were comfortable with the timing of mechanics before going back to regular progression to map out their GCDs and CDs.

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Originally Posted by Lorielle

What i don't understand is why people are hung up on "needing a static". This is what PUGs are for. Wanna know something? When I was in Tonberry, I cleared Final Coil in a PUG. My friend in DF. There was no need for a static. Just people that knew what they were doing and willing to stick it out. The problem is the community here is too impatient.

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This is the most important difference between a static and a pug.

In a static you talk about times when you want to do the content and then you practise the entire time you agreed to play together this content. Even if its sunday and everything goes wrong. You do practise till the sheduled duration is done.

In most cases PUGs don't last for long. After a few wipes they abadon.

If PUGs could work with the same discipline like a static, PUGs would be way more successfull. One thing to start would be to clearly state in the PF the time to start and for how long. Only players that agree to this should join and then stay the time, even if its running not that good.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

It's purely an excuse to say that rotations and CDs are the reason why we don't have an isolated practice mode.



Really, are you also going to believe Yoshida's moral degradation argument for why GC restrictions still exist in PvP? Because I have a bridge to sell you if you do.

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Oh my god you made my night LOL wish i could like this 20 times hahahaha

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

This is the most important difference between a static and a pug.

In a static you talk about times when you want to do the content and then you practise the entire time you agreed to play together.

In most cases PUGs don't last for long. After a few wipes they abadon.

If PUGs could work the same way together like a static, PUGs would be way more successfull.

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This is hardly the most important thing and is merely a part of a bigger picture.

The biggest difference between a static and a PuG is in the names. A static is consistent. Consistent raid times. Consistent personnel. Consistent strategy. Consistent progression. And, when you are finally going for that clear, hopefully consistent execution.

You play a healer. You should know how different it is healing a PuG tank compared to a static tank even if it's the same fight. You know which CDs your tank is going to use and are familiar with their damage intake. As such, you can find your DPS windows or know when and how to conserve MP if you need to. Over prolonged progression, content changes into memorization and not improvisation.

The problem with a lot of Midas is that it's just not PuG friendly when you have a disorganized PF structure like the NA/EU servers. There are a lot of different ways to handle the preys in A5S, blaster mirages / brawler attachments / vortexer in A6S, jails and tank swaps in A7S, and basically all of A8S.

The main difference is a static can establish a consistent strategy and build slowly towards a clear over weeks.

You will join one PuG group, practice for a lockout or maybe more, join another PuG group and encounter a different strategy and see your progression reset.

When dealing with easier content like EX Trials, this is less of an issue because the mechanics are more straight forward and generally don't have as many variations. While stuff like P1 AoE spreading or Earth Shaker baiting in Sephirot have variations in how they're handled, there isn't that much nuance involved.

Why JP servers have success with PF is their strategies are set in stone. They don't care if your way is more efficient or if you have the skill to do things differently. You shut the hell up and do your job according to the established strategy. That way, even PuGs have a consistent strategy and might as well have consistent personnel because you're only just a part of the set plan.

So, when you constantly have your progression reset and wasted in the NA / EU communities, it leads to people having a very short fuse. You can only join so many "aim to clear" PFs that constantly wipe in early phases before you start to grow impatient. If I had a dollar every time someone said a variation of the words "sorry, I'm not used to doing it this way" or messed up a mechanic with varied execution I'd be a very rich man.

And TBH, while I greatly appreciate what content creators bring to this community, they are partially to blame for this situation. You have MTQ with her strat, Xeno with his strat, Solitude with their strat, DnT with their strat, Elysium with their strat, a different strat posted to Reddit, and another variation posted to Blue Gartr. A static can consolidate things into something that consistently works for them. A PuG will just wipe while not knowing they're all following different strategies.

My biggest issues with the endgame design of this game is that (1) the game doesn't really motivate the players to do the highest level of endgame and (2) much of the content doesn't stay relevant for long. I think one simple step into right direction would be to remove the tomestone gear entirely. Then the players would actually have to do the content for the content drops (extreme primals or Savage or relic for weapons, Savage or Weeping City or dungeons for gear). Raiders would have a real benefit from raid gear when entering a new patch, while those who haven't yet completed the previous Savage tier would be able to get on that while it's been nerfed (and would have a reason to do so). The current mode of being able to get up-to-date gear by grinding 2 easy dungeons over and over and over and completing 1 easy 24-person raid a week is not a well designed base for endgame gear progression.

Similarly, the normal mode of Alexander shouldn't drop gear that's better than previous tier Savage gear, as Brian_ posted:

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Gear that is an ilevel upgrade over the last Savage tier should not exist in normal mode. Catering to casuals in this regard is hurting the game a lot.

It basically destroyed gear progression in this game and made progression raiding a lot more expensive or grindy. Now, on top of every odd-patch being a catch-up patch, every even patch is a complete ilevel reset. At least before, the gear you got from the previous raid tier was useful until it was replaced by the new raid / tomestone gear. Now all your old gear is instantly replaced by crafted and Alex normal gear.

What this also does is instantly kill raid content upon clear. After your first clear of A8S there is no reason to ever do it again aside from the minion. There is no point to raiding anymore. Many A8S clearing statics I knew broke up because of how pointless farming is. Even if you farm for BiS gear, it's instantly replaced the next even patch.

There is also no point in going back to do old content after the new content is released and this shortens the lifespan of your content. In reality, while A8S might be too hard for a MC group even with full i240, it'd probably be a reasonable challenge with a few pieces of new tomestone gear.

Having a Normal mode is perfectly fine. But, SE's implementation in 3.X has been embarrassingly awful.

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Then do it?

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Tried with coil. Was just failure after failure after failure. If Alex Savage was all we had, that would be no different, I'm sure.

I didn't even see 2nd coil until near the end of 2.x, and never actually beat it until 3.x. It was still a struggle even then. (3rd coil was a joke in comparison by that point; way less insta-death-mechanic-ridden than 2nd coil.)

I don't mean to toot my own horn here either, but frankly, a lot of players are worse at this game than I am. How do you think they'd be faring trying to complete this sort of stuff?

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Originally Posted by Taika

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I know for a FACT you and others who think this way would put "[insert raid-level gear] or GTFO" in the PF comments if SE followed your selfish suggestions. What other reason would you have for removing Tomestone gear except for creating a chasm between filthy commoners and the noble raiders?

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Originally Posted by Taika

remove the tomestone gear entirely.

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This is the solution to many endgame woes (except for crafted/normal mode gear invalidating the previous raid - that just needs to stop entirely). Getting item drops feels good. Buying items and seeing trash drop (sup dungeons) feels like crap.

RNG was hellish in 1.x so a lot of people asked for a token system, but I think the devs misinterpreted what a token is supposed to do. I always expected something like how WoW used to do set pieces - a generic item would drop with three or four classes on it (Paladin/Mage/Priest for example) and those classes could roll for it and turn it in for a piece of armor. That, or how Gordias/Midas pages work (which is good).

Instead we got spamming Wanderer's Palace for raid-level gear.

Another solution is to keep tomestones, but only have them come from the 8 man savage raid. That way, you could still mitigate bad RNG but the actual drops from dungeons wouldn't be completely useless. They could set up a progression of something like

New Dungeon/Old 8 man savage raid < Ex Primals/24 man raid < 8 man savage raid

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Originally Posted by Hayward

I know for a FACT you and others who think this way would put "[insert raid-level gear] or GTFO" in the PF comments if SE followed your selfish suggestions. What other reason would you have for removing Tomestone gear except for creating a chasm between filthy commoners and the noble raiders?

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When was the last time you actually used an item that dropped from a dungeon on your main class? I know the last time I used an item from a dungeon was 3.0 launch, but I replaced all of it with uncapped tomestone gear (which was higher item level than the drops for some reason) almost immediately. If we don't count expansion launches, the last time I used an item that came from a dungeon was 1.x. That sucks and tomestones are basically just poison. Beyond invalidating all dungeon gear, though, they actually make the """"catchup"""" patch 24-man raid gear less exciting because, by the time the 24 man raid comes out, everyone already has at least one full set of same-ilvl gear.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

What other reason would you have for removing Tomestone gear except for creating a chasm between filthy commoners and the noble raiders?

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So many threads, so many posts and I still don't understand why is it a bad thing?

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Originally Posted by Hayward

I know for a FACT you and others who think this way would put

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You should probably go take a break from this topic, the moment you start claiming crap like this is the moment you lose all credibility in a debate...

Most of my Party Finder comments haven't even directed people to various guides or included "Must know X Y and Z", all I've ever asked when starting a Party Finder group is that people be patient and not expect to be carried, that they communicate what they know and help the rest of the group clear... The only people I tell to GTFO are the kind that learn nothing despite repeated attempts, expecting to be carried, and point the finger of blame at everyone but themselves... Know why I don't even make Party Finder groups like that anymore? Because there is simply no point in doing so... Why would I put effort into forming a pickup group to clear stuff, when I know full well that all the content will be irrelevant in a few months? New tomestones will roll in and the item levels I'm working on get replaced by a stupidly simple roulette grind... I'll just save myself the bother and ignore item level progression completely...

Remove tomestones? Suddenly I don't find myself with i250 for next to no effort... Suddenly if I want to progress my item level, I need to do the content I'm currently ignoring, and I'm making Party Finder groups to tackle that content... But why am I even saying any of this... You've already made up your mind, after all you know for a FACT that we'd be saying "[insert raid-level gear] or GTFO"! Christ... So what? If you don't like my hypothetical Party Finder comment... Make your own damn Party Finder group... That is exactly what I started doing before progression in this game killed my motivation for such... I was (and still am) utterly sick of the "Watch a guide before joining!" mentality XIVs endgame is infested with, so I went out of my way to make "Blind run" Party Finder groups... I didn't demand SE take down such guides to suit my playstyle, because I'm not insanely entitled, I'm perfectly happy to let people play how they want so long as it doesn't impact me, and "watch a guide" and "[insert raid-level gear] or GTFO" don't actually impact me...

What does impact me is this games utterly terrible progression system, brought about by entitled people who seem to feel threatened by Party Finder comments...

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Originally Posted by Vantol

So many threads, so many posts and I still don't understand why is it a bad thing?

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Because feels? That's the best I've taken away from all this... Everyone needs to feel like a special snowflake, and thus nobody gets to...

I mean Christ... I very much doubt I'd get far with raiding, so if there was such a divide, I'd be on the bottom end of it as a filthy scrub still in i180 or some sh*t... I'd be perfectly fine with that though, because it gives me a sense of purpose and reason to log on, one that weekly tomestone caps utterly fail to provide... I'd want to climb that mountain, I've no idea how people can be content sitting on XIVs escalator... I want a game with a sense of progression, sometimes XIV almost feels like rolling in the dirt, then BAM! i240...

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Originally Posted by Hayward

I know for a FACT you and others who think this way would put "[insert raid-level gear] or GTFO" in the PF comments if SE followed your selfish suggestions. What other reason would you have for removing Tomestone gear except for creating a chasm between filthy commoners and the noble raiders?

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Good try but you missed your mark. :) The point of my suggestion was to encourage more players to do more varying content: raids and extremes instead of just running 2 dungeons over and over and over. Motivating more players to do more content means more people doing the content (for longer and even when it's made easier), which again means more possibilities for players to find people to do this content with. It would be good for everyone if more players would be able to enjoy this content and if the content would also be relevant for a bit longer.

You don't currently see ridiculously high item level requirements for stuff in party finder (at least I don't on my server) and even if this change would happen it wouldn't likely happen either, since the people who have the raid gear / certain item level are already likely to run with the group they've gotten that gear with instead of random party finder people.

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Originally Posted by Sparktacus

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The fights are based on memorization from a design standpoint. the only thing it takes to learn a fight any fight in this game is to go in there and see it but our community basically gates seeing the fight behind "are you in a static you need to join a static" The biggest challenge to raiding as anyone will tell you is getting into a group if you weren't at gear lvl day one of a new raid cycle. the point I was making is that japan's clear rates are higher due to them being able to PUG them for the most part there is a cultural difference as they feel since its there they have to do it.
And lets leave the personal stuff out of this as you're just flat wrong I'm speaking as a raider. This is a community problem not saying the community is bad just that it needs to do better.

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Originally Posted by Taika

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Having played FFXI, I'd dare to say you have way more faith in MMO raiders than is justified.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

Having played FFXI, I'd dare to say you have way more faith in MMO raiders than is justified.

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I really don't see what that has to do with anything but I've played FFXI as well. And in fact back there we started a LS aimed for players as myself who had no endgame experience and didn't consider themselves as "raiders" (although that wasn't a word used there anyway) aimed for completing as much of the game content as possible without any background requirements whatsoever. In FFXIV too my aim in my FC has been to support everyone's possibilities to do as much endgame content as they want and are able to do.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

Having played FFXI, I'd dare to say you have way more faith in MMO raiders than is justified.

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I'm honestly not sure why you're making such comparisons to XI... XI and XIV are two very different breeds of MMO... One is an Everquest clone, the other is a Warcraft clone...

To a degree, elitism in XI was actually entirely justifiable... Content lockouts worked differently in that game, if you formed a PUG, got a complete joker who caused a wipe? Well, sucks to be you... You're locked out of that content for at least a day, if not three... XIV just doesn't have that problem, thus people don't need to be anywhere near as selective when forming groups... If we wipe Sophia (EX), for whatever reason, we can adjust and reenter... If you wipe Dynamis? Your next attempt isn't (well, wasn't) for three more days, and you'd blown a fairly large amount of Gil (which actually had value in XI) on the Lamp to enter... XIV has a much lower tolerance for error as a result, if they made it so you got one shot at Weeping City a week, and a wipe was a wipe, you all died and get kicked out instead of returning to the start? You'd see the exact same level of elitism in XIV, regardless of the progression system...

XIs elitism was a result of the content itself, the gear was just a method of being selective; If someone had a Hagun, they either bought it or earned it, and if they earned it chances were they weren't going to piss around. Gear itself did also play a factor, but again, that isn't something XIV is going to replicate... Gear in XI was a lot more powerful, XIV is never going to replicate the difference between a 6 hit and 5 hit build... Christ, XI was a game with such poor balancing that there were entire Jobs that were effectively worthless and out right rejected from content... When was the last time you got into Weeping City, only for the Dragoons to be kicked just for being Dragoons? Those pre-Angon days were rough man...

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Originally Posted by Hayward

Having played FFXI, I'd dare to say you have way more faith in MMO raiders than is justified.

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Depending on what you played up to is what is at stake here in XI. Because the only time I've -ever- seen "You need X to get in" was probably when Delve was in the game and probably later down the road with Aegis/O-Chain Paladins. However, those weren't exactly the flood of parties. You could also get into groups a myriad of ways. Another job. Another scapegoat(example I couldn't get into Delve because I didn't have a Delve weapon, but I worked as a Re-Raise bot until I could afford it). Now such things aren't as demanding here in XIV. No one cares what gear you have exactly. At minimum, it's ilvl and at best, it's the ilvl required to beat the content. People only ask for higher ilvl to minimize the difficulty of the content because not a lot of people are 'skilled' enough to handle it as if it came out day one.

As I mentioned and others, if these parties bother you, make your own party. Something takes forever to get into? Make your own party. Don't like the rules of another leader? Make another party. There's so much you can do in gaming if you just 'Take the Initiative'. Except there, there's nothing to take the initiative to.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

I know for a FACT you and others who think this way would put "[insert raid-level gear] or GTFO" in the PF comments if SE followed your selfish suggestions. What other reason would you have for removing Tomestone gear except for creating a chasm between filthy commoners and the noble raiders?

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Really? This is just more HC player demonizing. All you are doing is creating a "bad guy" raider stereotype to support your argument.

Lets be honest, raiders are not playing with you most of the time because people don't want to teach new players, regardless of play style, and raiders also sell content. Also, if a raid team has way better gear, what makes you think that they would be in PF anyway? These raiders have a static after all, they are not going to be doing sophia EX initially in PF.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

Having played FFXI, I'd dare to say you have way more faith in MMO raiders than is justified.

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yes, because MMO raiders are such bad people. /s

You might want to go to home depo and get a wider brush to paint these broad strokes with. Your hyperbolic over sensitive comments are adding nothing of value to this discussion. Your argument amounts to "all raiders are bad, so give them nothing!"

Your terrible outlook on raiders perpetuates a game climate that has end game progression in a choke hold. Nothing is meaningful in this game because players like you want everything to be a participation ribbon. You are literally killing your own game, not even casual players can be bothered to log in these days due to how underwhelming this game is and how poorly it motivates players.

but go on, evil raiders are the real problem, lol.

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Originally Posted by zosia

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Says the person talking from the opposite extreme. The both of you are the problem.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

Says the person talking from the opposite extreme. The both of you are the problem.

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exactly what extreme have I taken? where have I demonized casual players? When I have said that casual players don't deserve anything? Please show me where I throw the entire casual community under the bus the way hayward is throwing the raid community under the bus.

I often suggest two progression paths for raiders and non-raiders respectively. Unlike Hayward, I actually make suggestions for BOTH parts of the community rather than just saying raiders should have absolutely everything.

People like you are the problem. You are assuming that just because I say something you don't like that I don't want to see the casual community flourish. Hayward would happily hurt the raiding community because he dislikes those players. Grow a thicker skin.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

Says the person talking from the opposite extreme. The both of you are the problem.

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I don't think you see the big picture here. All three forms of play need to be balanced. Casual, Midcore, and Hardcore. Right now motivation is dead on all levels. For one reason or another, each style of play has a severe lack of motivation. A large contributing factor to that is how much this game hands out everything to you for doing borderline nothing. Mindless dungeons with no depth, relics that only have grind content, overly easy mode for raids.

When you make everything a participation reward, then all three levels of play lose motivation to progress. At least making dungeons more challenging (like 2.0 Amdapor Keep/Wanderer's Palace), more trials to overcome in relic (Chimera/Hydra), and so on are what people need to stay focus and motivated. Its like developers want you to get really bored before even the odd patch hits.

A restructure of how we progress is very much needed. Casuals need proper motivation to advance without everything handed to them, Midcore need more variety of challenges, and Hardcore need something to overcome that only the higher skill of player can take on.

Basically do what they did at the start of 2.0. A lot of good ideas there were tarnished because special snowflakes can't be compelled to step out of their safe zone in the slightest bit.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

A lot of good ideas there were tarnished because special snowflakes can't be compelled to step out of their safe zone in the slightest bit.

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To be honest I think this situation has poisoned the entire games design process.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

To be honest I think this situation has poisoned the entire games design process.

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It was more of an exaggeration. I really do wonder however why some believe they are entitled to the same items and rewards as hard working raiders. Kind of baffling.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

It was more of an exaggeration. I really do wonder however why some believe they are entitled to the same items and rewards as hard working raiders. Kind of baffling.

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No one has said that though. all I've heard in this thread is take all gear out of normal mode raids and content if casual players want to progress their characters start raiding or wait three months from the current patch then you can get some gear.

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all I've heard in this thread is take all gear out of normal mode raids and content if casual players want to progress their characters start raiding or wait three months from the current patch then you can get some gear.

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Again, what is wrong with that? If I want to have a car, I get job and start working hard. If I don't want to work hard, I'm not getting a car no matter how much I want it. I really can't wrap my head around how people don't understand or don't agree with that simple rule.

In adequate progression structure you wouldn't be supposed to getting read-level gear in 2 years. Here you can get it in 3 months and even that is not enough! What the ...

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Originally Posted by Vantol

Again, what is wrong with that? If I want to have a car, I get job and start working hard. If I don't want to work hard, I'm not getting a car no matter how much I want it. I really can't wrap my head around how people don't understand or don't agree with that simple rule.

In adequate progression structure you wouldn't be supposed to getting read-level gear in 2 years. Here you can get it in 3 months and even that is not enough! What the ...

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You're basically asking the developers to take out something from non raiders and give nothing but a 3 month delay in return. In my view, if there's nothing for non raiders to do if you go for the trickle down effect for gear, that could affect subs as well. If you couldn't tell, people hate waiting. If people can't get raid gear along side savage raid gear, then what do you propose that the delay should offer other than a waiting game?

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

You're basically asking the developers to take out something from non raiders and give nothing but a 3 month delay in return. In my view, if there's nothing for non raiders to do if you go for the trickle down effect for gear, that could affect subs as well. If you couldn't tell, people hate waiting. If people can't get raid gear along side savage raid gear, then what do you propose that the delay should offer other than a waiting game?

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If Alex(Story Mode) was an actual Normal mode then the current gear progression currently would be fine. Tomestone and gear from that could line up. Savage having high gear ilvl that would give a nice slight advantage to hardcore raiders for the next tier set.

In all honesty though, increasing ilvl in raids in general will not solve any major issues the current structure has. Like I said before, all levels of play need to feel like they are progressing. The question is, how much do players who only like the easier content line up with those who enjoy the harder content. Players right now can go through hardships and stress to get ilvl240 gear, which the average midcore group takes at least the even and odd patch to complete. Or you can just grind tomestone gear and have a set with upgrade items given in a odd patch that is roughly the same time. Sure BiS can be taken into account, but the general idea is still there.

While above is true, at the end of the day, gear is truly a means to just accomplish content. It is not doubtful however that a lot of people put value in gear more than they should and a motivation to push forward. So while I don't completely agree with the mindset, I am very much a minority on that. So developers should look back and at least find out how to motivate people into harder content, because it sure isn't Story Mode.

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Originally Posted by Vantol

Again, what is wrong with that? If I want to have a car, I get job and start working hard. If I don't want to work hard, I'm not getting a car no matter how much I want it. I really can't wrap my head around how people don't understand or don't agree with that simple rule.

In adequate progression structure you wouldn't be supposed to getting read-level gear in 2 years. Here you can get it in 3 months and even that is not enough! What the ...

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Because progression of your character should not be locked behind just one gate that not everyone wants to do. to use your example we are all working and have cars you want nitro and some other nifty stuff on your car so you work harder or work more hours to get the money to buy it people shouldn't be stopped from buying a car because they don't want nitro.

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You're basically asking the developers to take out something from non raiders and give nothing but a 3 month delay in return.

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In FFXI there was Chains of Promathia expansion pack, in which 80% of all content was locked behind savage-level fights, which you couldn't overgear or overlevel because of level-synch (which was never removed). And there was census, that after 2 years only ~40% of active playrbase who bought this expansion, were actually able to get there. I have been trying those fights for 1.5 year and never was able to complete them. And that was perfectly fine. Did I want to see whole new story, all those beautiful zones, new gear? Very much! But did I deserve it? No, I did not. Because my skills weren't good enough. That is how MMO should be structured.

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If people can't get raid gear along side savage raid gear

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Oh, what have become with players ... Am I that old?

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Because progression of your character should not be locked behind just one gate that not everyone wants to do.

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Yes, it should, that's like the whole point of "progression". You do easy stuff, you get weak gear. You do hard stuff, you get strong gear.

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to use your example we are all working and have cars you want nitro and some other nifty stuff on your car so you work harder or work more hours to get the money to buy it people shouldn't be stopped from buying a car because they don't want nitro.

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To use my example, considering how much time and effort takes dungeon farming and raid farming, it should be not nitro car against normal car, but personal jet plane against bicycle.

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Originally Posted by Vantol

In FFXI there was Chains of Promathia expansion pack, in which 80% of all content was locked behind savage-level fights, which you couldn't overgear or overlevel because of level-synch (which was never removed). And there was census, that after 2 years only ~40% of active playrbase who bought this expansion, were actually able to get there. I have been trying those fights for 1.5 year and never was able to complete them. And that was perfectly fine. Did I want to see whole new story, all those beautiful zones, new gear? Very much! But did I deserve it? No, I did not. Because my skills weren't good enough. That is how MMO should be structured.

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This arguably worked tweleve years ago, when the MMO market was still in its infancy and choice essentially boiled downed to WoW and little else. Taking that same approach now would be financial suicide. It's the near equivalent of making Steps of Faith harder (even more so than pre-nerf) and telling players "if you can't beat it, you don't deserve to play Heavensward." Guess what happens? People either return the game in mass (see No Man's Sky) or abandon it entirely. There exists far too much variety nowadays in gaming as a whole to expect gamers to bother with massively gated content.

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Oh, what have become with players ... Am I that old?

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In a word, yes. Gaming became mainstream, and in doing so attracted a significantly larger audience. It's among the fastest growing industry in the world. With that comes people wanting greater accessibility. MMOs do not have the luxury of catering to specific niches because the entire genre is intended to encompass a multitude of player types. A game like say, Dark Souls, has no such limitations. It can sell itself exclusively on being an immensely challenging game because it only wants that audience. MMOs that aim for a niche generally do not perform well.

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Yes, it should, that's like the whole point of "progression". You do easy stuff, you get weak gear. You do hard stuff, you get strong gear.

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Here, we mostly agree. Savage should provide a leg up as it follows a different progression trajectory. Frankly, I think this is where they could experiment with small bits of horizontal progression to make Savage gear stand out. Problem, of course, is why cater to content only 1% of your audience does?

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

You're basically asking the developers to take out something from non raiders and give nothing but a 3 month delay in return.

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Don't you think the "non-raiders" would actually spend that time doing things like the previous Savage raid, older extremes etc. instead of nothing? Since that content has been made easier and put in Duty Finder for accessibility and does not require a static or having studied the strategies perfectly to be able to complete the fights. What would be wrong in spending that time farming gear from that content (which already has a token system similar to Alexander normal except it's better since you get 1 token drop per win for sure every week) instead of just farming the two expert dungeons?

In my opinion, if we need to keep something similar to the current system, the perfect rotation would be:

1. New Savage tier raid + New Extreme + 2 new dungeons with relatively relevant gear
2. New 24 person casual raid + 2 new dungeons with relatively relevant gear (story mode of the current Savage raid here if there really has to be one)
3. New Savage tier raid + New Extreme + dungeons + the (1.) Savage and Extreme are nerfed and moved to Duty Finder so that those who haven't done them yet can experience them and farm the gear
2. New 24 person casual raid etc.

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Originally Posted by Taika

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Unlike ARR where you could ignore mechanics and just burn down everything HW is not like that all of these past fights (except Ravana) require you to do the mechanics, failing to do so means you die instantly/kill other people/wipe the raid. The echo does not help in these fights if people don't know the dance they wont clear. All overgearing does is making the dps check sections of the fight easier. Maybe 4.0 will change that but i doubt it the design concept for ex trials and savage raids has changed from 2.0

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

Unlike ARR where you could ignore mechanics and just burn down everything HW is not like that all of these past fights (except Ravana) require you to do the mechanics, failing to do so means you die instantly/kill other people/wipe the raid. The echo does not help in these fights if people don't know the dance they wont clear. All overgearing does is making the dps check sections of the fight easier. Maybe 4.0 will change that but i doubt it the design concept for ex trials and savage raids has changed from 2.0

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But like in previous Coil turns, the developers are able to adjust the fight mechanics while they move them in Duty Finder. That's not really an issue.

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Originally Posted by Taika

But like in previous Coil turns, the developers are able to adjust the fight mechanics while they move them in Duty Finder. That's not really an issue.

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I'm sure they will, plus level unsynch. That's why being 3rd-4th to clear Coil on my server, this time I decided to not even touch savage. What for? I will be able to clear it in 4.0 with little to no effort in 1 day.

Same goes for bird farming.

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Originally Posted by Vantol

I'm sure they will, plus level unsynch. That's why being 3rd-4th to clear Coil on my server, this time I decided to not even touch savage. What for? I will be able to clear it in 4.0 with little to no effort in 1 day.

Same goes for bird farming.

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Which is exactly why I think it would be a good idea to get rid of the tome gear and normal mode gear: those who want to get into the new highest level content right away would benefit from having done the previous tier when it was fresh, and at the same time it would still be valuable (because of rewards, not only the story) content when it goes in Duty Finder for those who would rather do it without a static or party finder and when it's not so demanding. It's really important that there's a wide variety of content for different difficulty levels with relevant rewards for those who are currently running that content.

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Originally Posted by Taika

But like in previous Coil turns, the developers are able to adjust the fight mechanics while they move them in Duty Finder. That's not really an issue.

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They already did that they just lowered some damage the fights have pretty much been the same