Raiding in FFXIV

SQenix

You have some outstanding boss fights in this game right now. In fact, I'd got as far as to say that some of the fights you've implemented are among the best I've ever encountered in over a decade of MMO raiding. Titan Extreme is a great test. Turn 1 is a great introduction to raiding, Turn 2 is a great execution check, and Turn 4 may be the first time I've seen a "boss" fight be entirely made up of adds yet at the time I was progressing on it was both fun an challenging. Turn 5, of course, is extremely fun and challenging to boot.

However, I really worry about the amount of content you are releasing. I fully understand that the demographics for MMO gamers can be very fragmented and that, with each patch, you do your best to provide content for all types of gamers. However, I feel strongly that your raiding community may get bored and ultimately leave the game unless the quantity of raiding content released is scaled up. It's been many months now that many of us have been farming the same content and we crave a new challenge. With a total of five encounters coming in 2.2, I'm worried this raid content will be exhausted within a few weeks leaving us as raid-loggers for another three-four months until 2.3 hits. For perspective, WoW currently has 3 tiers of raiding with their most recent expansion. The bosses per tier are as follows:

Tier 1 (released with MoP): 11 bosses across three raid zones
Tier 2 (patch 5.2): 12 bosses across multiple wings
Tier 3 (patch 5.4): 14 bosses

That's a total of 37 encounters to work through. I do full understand that WoW has been around a long time, the dev team there is well-established and they probably have more funds to work with at this time but do you know if there are any plans internally to ramp up the amount of raid content available?

Not to mention LFG/normal/hard, thats encounters X3. The game is good and relaxed in a way that you don't need to play 24/7 and possibly raid 2 days a week will more than suffice. Definitely not a game if you want WoW type of hardcore raiding.

I feel FFXIV sometimes intentionally do not want to mimic things in WoW, but their way of dealing with it hasn't been smart. (such as extending vote to kick with vote to abandon<---lol?)

2.2 is not an expansion.

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Originally Posted by Jerilith

2.2 is not an expansion.

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WoW's major patch usually bring a minimum of 8 bosses, 2.2 is a major patch.

They're not going to focus on massive Raid releases this early in the game's life, there's simply too much else they have on their plate. It's not about creating a gigantic end game, it's about filling out the overall game as a whole and the extra systems that portions of the population want.

They extend a raid for the Raiders, add some dungeons for the so inclined, adjust/fix issues and improve QoL for all players... and then go about adding systems for those 'not' interested in end game the same way. Housing and vanity gear system are prime examples, and are likely to be followed by other non-raid/dungeon oriented content. Gold saucer rings a bell (whenever we get that much desired addition).

It's not all about raiding, and they can't afford to make it so.

I quit WoW. I do not want to play WoW. I liked WoW, and consider it a good game, but FFXIV is not WoW and should not try to be.

Comparing what WoW offers only makes me wish FFXIV would be LESS like WoW. If WoW offers 37 encounters, this game should definitely NOT offer 37, preferably not even close. Maybe 370, or 3.7 ;)

Folks

I'm not trying to argue that WoW is a better game or that FFXIV is a failure by any stretch. I really enjoy FFXIV and, for the most part, I consider it a better game than WoW. All I'm asking about is whether there are plans to up the amount of raid content available in this game and I used WoW simply as a comparison. I could have used Rift instead. With Rift's last major patch (or it may have been two patches ago, can't recall) they introduced two raids with a handful of bosses each. As someone who's primary enjoyment in MMOs is raiding, I'm simply curious if there are long-term plans to scale up the amount of raid content being released per patch or if we should get used to clearing all available raid content in a couple weeks or so and then logging in once a week for two hours on Monday for the next 3-4 months thereafter.

Being that they're releasing 4 Turns of Coil and a new Primal fight for 2.2, I think that's going to be their standard for patches. Also I don't know how often WoW releases their patches now, but SE is on a 3-4 month spread where they're averaging 5 new encounter types per patch. 2.3 will probably bring 4 more CT fights and another instanced boss fight.

I actually prefer the way it's setup now that you can complete one raid in one sitting. In WoW there were raids where it'd commonly take 2, sometimes 3 days in multiple sittings to complete something because it was SO LONG. The way content is segmented now (raids/primals/misc. trials like Ultima/GKMM) works well for me.

Keep in mind, that WoW did release 5.1-5.4 fairly quickly, 5.4 has been out for months now, and WoD wont be out till Summer or even Q3. Thats a LONG time to be raiding 5.4 content over, and over and over..