Would you guys like an added difficulty for raids?

I personally would appreciate a new difficulty in between Normal and Savage. I wondering if guys would as well?

An example from another game would be WoW. It has Normal, Heroic, and Mythic modes for their raids.

In my opinion Normal mode is too easy and Savage destroys most of the player base. So much so that many players are to scared to even attempt Savage.

To me personally the old Coil raids had the perfect mix of difficulty. It was way harder than normal, but not as cruel as Savage.

It would be very nice to have a difficulty been the two. Maybe even call them Extreme Raids. Plus it would get more people to try some harder content.

What are you guys thoughts on this?

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Originally Posted by PMSJordan

I personally would appreciate a new difficulty in between Normal and Savage. I wondering if guys would as well?

An example from another game would be WoW. It has Normal, Heroic, and Mythic modes for their raids.

In my opinion Normal mode is too easy and Savage destroys most of the player base. So much so that many players are to scared to even attempt Savage.

To me personally the old Coil raids had the perfect mix of difficulty. It was way harder than normal, but not as cruel as Savage.

It would be very nice to have a difficulty been the two. Maybe even call them Extreme Raids. Plus it would get more people to try some harder content.

What are you guys thoughts on this?

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Technically, Savage is the middle mode if you consider Ultimates.

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Originally Posted by Remish

Technically, Savage is the middle mode if you consider Ultimates.

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True, but I really consider them their own thing. Since there are only a few of them and not based on each raid.

I'm not really sure how they would do a middle one tbh.

There's not that much they can do to savage without completely neutering the fights to make them slightly easier. I guess if they made them not wipe you on mechanic fail but then that's not really hard....

Some history for you: Originally when alexander was being developed there was going to be 3 tiers of difficulty but they had to cut the middle out due to time constraints alongside some other stuff like quests on individual heavensward members

There already are multiple difficulties.

They include, but are not limited to:

• The Netflix Watcher
• The "I don't care, you don't pay my sub!"
• The "Doesn't even bother with mechanics"
• The "What's a job crystal?"
• The "I'm just here to (E)RP".

And for a bonus...they aren't limited to raids!

I would have preferred it if the "normal" mode were a bit harder. Not quite savage, but also not nearly as easy as it is now.

There were multiple threads about how hard a solo player duty with easy mode was. There is a thread about how hard the story trials are. You expect these people to want and take part in harder raids than we have? If anything based on how they are mending the game these days they’re more like to remove savage than make a new middle difficulty.

I wish they would let you unlock savage directly without having to play through normal mode

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

I would have preferred it if the "normal" mode were a bit harder. Not quite savage, but also not nearly as easy as it is now.

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I would prefer it if they call normal mode story mode and create a normal mode that isn't too disimilar in mechanics but drop a few from savage and slightly tighten up the dps and healing checks from what we have now and have savage where it is or tune it slightly higher so that the tier can't be cleared in a few days on release.

WoW raids at mythic last lot longer then this on release.

The curve will be really good for the playerbase, some of the issues with FF14 content is the curve, its one extreme to another.

I think what the developers consider the “middle content” are the EX primals. While not technically raids, they are 8-man content. So, I think the way they tier difficult at endgame might look something like this:

“Expert” Dungeons
Alliance Raids & Normal Raids
Extreme Primals
Savage
Ultimate

I think there’s also future nuance between the EXs and Savage floors. In the past, the developers have said that some EX primals can give players a “stepping stone” into the third and fourth floors of a tier. For this current tier, I’d wager the nuance between EX and Savage would be something like:

Pandaemonium Normal
83 & 89 EX = entry level to high-end 8 man content
P1S & P2S
90 MSQ EX set to release in 6.1
P3S & P4S
Dragonsong Ultimate set to release in 6.15 (pls don’t delay it again devs)

The 90 MSQ EX trial won’t have much bearing on higher end statics or more skilled players that have already cleared the tier and have it on farm—but more so for the casual raiders or those just starting to get their feet wet when it comes to the content. I think it was Shinryu EX where Yoshida said the weapons might be beneficial for Savage groups—since, at that time, you couldn’t buy a weapon upgrade for the current Tomestone gear unless you had cleared O3S, and the Shinryu weapons were a slight increase from the tome ones. If I am remembering correctly. It has been a while, so I could be mistaken.

I know that explanation was used for Thordan EX. It was supposed to be a middle ground between A2S and A3S. There were just…other issues with Gordias that kind of skewed that tiering. Plus Thordan EX was actually super hard compared to the EXs of today when it was current.

The difficulties are just right for me. Normal difficulty is pretty much my sweet spot given lag and my physical constraints. As much as I'd love to see more difficult versions of Alliance raids, the thought of having to go through them on a Roulette isn't terribly appealing.

Normal mode is interesting enough at first, becomes a fairly routine farm later but that's fine. Savage is also generally in a decent enough place difficulty wise.

A middling difficulty seems like a decent amount of work for not a great deal of reward. I don't really think there is much point.

They could probably add scaling modifiers to increase the difficulty, i.e. more HP for boss, harder hitting abilities, reducing mana regen. Maybe scale everyone's gear to minimum ilvl supported by dungeon. As a reward they could give you additional tokens, like 50 more than normal. Honestly most bosses increase in difficulty during last 40% as multiple mechanics start to overlap, increasing HP and reducing damage from ilvl would ensure players sit in that window longer.

I seriously doubt they would add more abilities or new gear sets though, that's too much work. FFXIV does a pretty good job IMO of offering moderate difficulty without the need for coordination, something WoW doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Illmaeran

The difficulties are just right for me. Normal difficulty is pretty much my sweet spot given lag and my physical constraints. As much as I'd love to see more difficult versions of Alliance raids, the thought of having to go through them on a Roulette isn't terribly appealing.

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I think the equivalent of more difficult Alliance raids in this game are probably things like Baldesion Arsenal in Eureka and Delebrum in Bozja. I only did Delebrum once because I took an extended break from the game last expansion, but BA was a ton of fun.

What would the "middle" difficulty be? Mechanics either aren't mandatory and failing results in a slap on the wrist like normal or are mandatory and failing leads to a wipe like savage. There is no in-between. A harder slap on the wrist is just a slight annoynce to the healer.

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Originally Posted by PMSJordan

I personally would appreciate a new difficulty in between Normal and Savage. I wondering if guys would as well?

An example from another game would be WoW. It has Normal, Heroic, and Mythic modes for their raids.

In my opinion Normal mode is too easy and Savage destroys most of the player base. So much so that many players are to scared to even attempt Savage.

To me personally the old Coil raids had the perfect mix of difficulty. It was way harder than normal, but not as cruel as Savage.

It would be very nice to have a difficulty been the two. Maybe even call them Extreme Raids. Plus it would get more people to try some harder content.

What are you guys thoughts on this?

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Raid no that's what ultimate covers. Dungeon yes.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I think what the developers consider the “middle content” are the EX primals. While not technically raids, they are 8-man content. So, I think the way they tier difficult at endgame might look something like this:

“Expert” Dungeons
Alliance Raids & Normal Raids
Extreme Primals
Savage
Ultimate

I think there’s also future nuance between the EXs and Savage floors. In the past, the developers have said that some EX primals can give players a “stepping stone” into the third and fourth floors of a tier. For this current tier, I’d wager the nuance between EX and Savage would be something like:

Pandaemonium Normal
83 & 89 EX = entry level to high-end 8 man content
P1S & P2S
90 MSQ EX set to release in 6.1
P3S & P4S
Dragonsong Ultimate set to release in 6.15 (pls don’t delay it again devs)

The 90 MSQ EX trial won’t have much bearing on higher end statics or more skilled players that have already cleared the tier and have it on farm—but more so for the casual raiders or those just starting to get their feet wet when it comes to the content. I think it was Shinryu EX where Yoshida said the weapons might be beneficial for Savage groups—since, at that time, you couldn’t buy a weapon upgrade for the current Tomestone gear unless you had cleared O3S, and the Shinryu weapons were a slight increase from the tome ones. If I am remembering correctly. It has been a while, so I could be mistaken.

I know that explanation was used for Thordan EX. It was supposed to be a middle ground between A2S and A3S. There were just…other issues with Gordias that kind of skewed that tiering. Plus Thordan EX was actually super hard compared to the EXs of today when it was current.

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That's getting delayed :)

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Originally Posted by EverQuest

Raid no that's what ultimate covers. Dungeon yes.

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New harder dungeons would be great!

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Originally Posted by PMSJordan

New harder dungeons would be great!

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I've got a suggestion for the hardest dungeon, that will probably get people complaining instantly. No trash packs, extra strong bosses(still only the 3 usual amount, just like 5x stronger), but instead of the trash packs...you have jumping puzzles.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

I've got a suggestion for the hardest dungeon, that will probably get people complaining instantly. No trash packs, extra strong bosses(still only the 3 usual amount, just like 5x stronger), but instead of the trash packs...you have jumping puzzles.

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I do love a good jumping puzzle. :)

A middle to me sounds like this:

-Recurring soft enrage: Gage builds up on its own. When it reaches full, Boss "enrages" with faster auto attacks and all other types of dmg from boss and mechs increase, all for a duration of 15-30 secs. Then gage resets and boss goes back to normal stats. There is no hard enrage.

-No fixed mechanics: Not just in when they appear but how it's executed. Every single mechanic will require quick thinking AND quick on your feet action.

-Global death limit: 3-6 deaths= duty fail

I’d really like that. Savage is very fun but not in PF and I strongly dislike statics for various reasons. PF Savage for the third and fourth fight is just too painful. I’m currently on P3S and the adds phase is the new PF gate. Even consistently getting to the adds phase is a matter of luck, with tanks not doing tethers right, a dark fire going untouched until it explodes for some reason, people getting clipped by shiva, or DPS getting aggro during adds if we get there and dying lol. And don’t even get me started on the clustercrap that is big bird limit cuts. It’s very simple but there’s always one person that messes up and then there’s not enough DPS to kill birds

I’m just saying it’d be nice to have a challenge for these fights but I think Savage is becoming to difficult for pugs. It’s just a painful experience. And this is the first week. I can’t imagine what progging this fight in PF will be like in 3-4 weeks once most half decent players are on farm

If the devs had unlimited resources, I wouldn't mind a middle difficulty. It'd be great to have more "PFable but not braindead" kind of content for when my static isn't running.

But even then, the gear niches are pretty thoroughly covered - there's baseline dungeon/AF gear, EX primal gear, normal mode gear, crafted gear... and finally tomestone/savage gear. Each tuned to be a bit better than the previous or perhaps cover slots that weren't there before. There's not a lot of room to provide rewards from a middle difficulty that people would find meaningful.

But then there's also the fact that developing that would mean we get less content somewhere else. No new bozja/eureka/deep dungeon, perhaps. And that's really why I don't think it's really worth it.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

If the devs had unlimited resources, I wouldn't mind a middle difficulty. It'd be great to have more "PFable but not braindead" kind of content for when my static isn't running.

But even then, the gear niches are pretty thoroughly covered - there's baseline dungeon/AF gear, EX primal gear, normal mode gear, crafted gear... and finally tomestone/savage gear. Each tuned to be a bit better than the previous or perhaps cover slots that weren't there before. There's not a lot of room to provide rewards from a middle difficulty that people would find meaningful.

But then there's also the fact that developing that would mean we get less content somewhere else. No new bozja/eureka/deep dungeon, perhaps. And that's really why I don't think it's really worth it.

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Both of these points. There would be temptation to follow the pattern of other MMOs and let the gear gap creep. But their MSQ works to control that gear gap creep since we all get normalized on regular intervals so the content can stay accessible.

And, what would we lose content wise for it?

I don't think there needs to be a new difficulty.
Just waiting a bit and playing at a higher ilvl, with echo is basically a new difficulty.

What I'd really like is an option to customize the ilvl synch so that you can do something in between min and max ilvl.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

If the devs had unlimited resources, I wouldn't mind a middle difficulty. It'd be great to have more "PFable but not braindead" kind of content for when my static isn't running.

But even then, the gear niches are pretty thoroughly covered - there's baseline dungeon/AF gear, EX primal gear, normal mode gear, crafted gear... and finally tomestone/savage gear. Each tuned to be a bit better than the previous or perhaps cover slots that weren't there before. There's not a lot of room to provide rewards from a middle difficulty that people would find meaningful.

But then there's also the fact that developing that would mean we get less content somewhere else. No new bozja/eureka/deep dungeon, perhaps. And that's really why I don't think it's really worth it.

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Well, unfortunately no one ever has unlimited resources, choices always have to be made, the fortunate thing is that the more profit a product like FFXIV generates, the more a company like SE can (often) justify adding to that product. So it's not a given that something else would have to be dropped.

Depends on more on how many people want it, and how long \how difficult it would be to do, is it the best idea- maybe the design team would come up with something a bit different .