Is there a way to fix savage?

Hardmode content kind of feels broken in FFXIV when it comes to savage. Every single design around it points to it being content with set groups of people involved, but instead it has turned more into a hodge podge of people with different schedules and commitment levels running together in PF. People run the content at the same point at the start, but depending on who people group with, how quickly they can get into groups, and how much time they put in, it always seems to come into a wave where some people get orphaned somewhere along the chain.

its always been better content with a set group. learn the fight together beat it together

sure, can be done through PF, but no one that wants to actually beat it would use that

what do you expect? that's the nature of pick up groups. you're at the mercy of whatever's available at the time if you don't have a dedicated static group. In NA/EU at least.

JP they practice in party finder and clear in duty finder.

The system is working as intended.

The way to fix it would be for it to save in your character data how far you were when the first person in your party died. So let's you got the boss to 50% and then a party member died. That's your progression, because it's possible you were responsible for their death or didn't save them.

Then we should be able to restrict people who join to people who have been to 50% cleanly.

We should also be able to require that people have defeated the striking dummy for the final savage fight, because if they can't beat that they probably don't even have the crafted gear item level or other things like food and pots. Or they don't know their rotation or didn't do job quests to unlock basic job abilities.

That would solve a lot of the issues with Party Finder. But it's too complicated of a suggestion to communicate to developers who speak Japanese.

If you can't beat it keep doing it untill you can.

It feels like content that is supposed to be a social experience for multiple people and to overcome challenges, but in reality it actually pushes people apart. The solutions SE implemented such as personal completion status impacting the loot others receive, having options to filter out people who have and have not completed it, and other tools all further segment the few people that do savage. Some people even go to great lengths to level two characters just to bypass the lockout so they can participate with more than one group.

For a game that is built around having someone do everything on a single character, it seems very out of character for FFXIV to have a system that would push people to have to do something so unintuitive to play the game the way they feel they should be able to.

This is probably my biggest issue with the game. Savage is probably best with a static, but if one does not have a consistent schedule, then you're only option is PF. With PF, if you don't clear with in a few weeks of content being released then learning parties dry up. Prog parties become hard to fill because people that cleared are not going to go back and help prog. I have no problem taking things slower, but taking things slower means missing the boat on learning parties.

I really wish this game had a middle difficulty. Normal raids are super easy, savage requires static. If I had something in the middle, probably would never worry about savage.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

sure, can be done through PF, but no one that wants to actually beat it would use that

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But people do it all the time though and some even find it better than a static because you are not committed to a certain time with a certain group of people. Some even form/join casual statics and use additional free time outside of scheduled raids to progress beyond the static's prog point. The Devs have kept pugging in mind when it comes to fight design at least.

Back to OP's point: The system of Savage raiding I believe is fundamentally flawed and unfun in its current state. I enjoy the fights yes, and I enjoy both pugging, playing with friends, and/or playing with a static sure, but its the savage systems that make it restrictive and not fun. I understand the reasoning for why these systems are in place (Savage is the only avenue to BiS gear), and the current systems do what they are supposed to do, but I personally feel it makes it unfun.


1. The 2-chest system limits player engagement with the content

Unlike EX and Ultimate, Savage punishes players in your party if you have cleared that fight for the week with deducting half the loot from the table (and all of the loot if 5+ have cleared). This incredibly inhibits players on interacting with the fight more than once per week once they have cleared as they are only given 1 free token. Once that token is used, you are essentially a massive grief to the party. Even on the weekend 2-chest parties are normally the majority (even for prog/1st clear parties). It really isn't until monday where you can reliably find any chest parties where you can help prog, clear, or re-clear. This then limits players from circulating back into learning parties as the tier continues forward..


2. You cannot re-clear fights YOU HAVE CLEARED in any order

This always baffles me. If someone has cleared 9, 10, and 11, why can't they go re-clear 11 first with no penalty? Sure, if you want to punish players for jumping straight into prog 12 thats fine, but why limit people from re-clearing in any order? Now if you have friends or a static that only reclears 9 for instance, you would have to forfeit doing your 10 and 11 reclears until you met up with them to reclear 9 if you wanted to. It creates an unncessary restriction on the player.


There are other points I can bring up in regards to flaws of the savage system, but those are the main two regarding the issue OP brings up.

just speculation.
1 - reduction of rewards for helping other people clear. This is a handicap to prevent overgearing others too quickly. Also, a majority of people should not be attempting the instance again for the week after clearing. You're "meant" to be doing other things - playing other games, engaging in other in-game activities like crafting/gathering/big fishing, farming other EX content, doing older savage for gear/glam/mounts, etc. I personally myself do savage but I have no interest in doing any fight more than once a clear per week. (at least until unlock).

2 - put plainly, progression lock is an artificial subscription time extender. Can't let people get their stuff too quickly, bad for business.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

just speculation.
1 - reduction of rewards for helping other people clear. This is a handicap to prevent overgearing others too quickly. Also, a majority of people should not be attempting the instance again for the week after clearing. You're "meant" to be doing other things - playing other games, engaging in other in-game activities like crafting/gathering/big fishing, farming other EX content, doing older savage for gear/glam/mounts, etc. I personally myself do savage but I have no interest in doing any fight more than once a clear per week. (at least until unlock).

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What you have explained is how the system works, which i pointed out it is doing what it is supposed to do (and i understand WHY it is in place). The problem is it is incredibly limiting. "You're meant to be doing other things", but why does the same logic not apply to Extreme, Ultimate, or Unreal? Ultimate (on patch) and Unreal both have weekly lockouts but don't stop the player from jumping back in even after receiving their reward.

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2 - put plainly, progression lock is an artificial subscription time extender. Can't let people get their stuff too quickly, bad for business.

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Neither point you made here applies...at all. They've already progressed through multiple fights in my example, and they don't get things "quicker". If you only need gear from 11 for example, you can still jump into 11. You just can't get anything from 9 or 10 that week. If you need gear from 9 and/or 10 still, you still have to clear those fights, which takes time.... So?

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

What you have explained is how the system works, which i pointed out it is doing what it is supposed to do (and i understand WHY it is in place). The problem is it is incredibly limiting. "You're meant to be doing other things", but why does the same logic not apply to Extreme, Ultimate, or Unreal? Ultimate (on patch) and Unreal both have weekly lockouts but don't stop the player from jumping back in even after receiving their reward.

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You just answered your own question - it is incredibly limiting - because it is supposed to be limiting. Keep people around longer for more sub time. If you can't help yourself from jumping back in to the same content, well, that's something you have to deal with. It's not something for the devs to change to suit that mentality better.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

Neither point you made here applies...at all. They've already progressed through multiple fights in my example, and they don't get things "quicker". If you only need gear from 11 for example, you can still jump into 11. You just can't get anything from 9 or 10 that week. If you need gear from 9 and/or 10 still, you still have to clear those fights, which takes time.... So?

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they just don't want people jumping ahead, that's all. and if you're only doing 11 or 12 that week, you're not spending time wiping in 9 or 10 to get there. *shrug*

Remember this is a subscription game, so anything keeping people around longer is something they want.

But we've seen also the devs cave little by little over the years now, due to the increase in the number of jobs available to us. It's just a matter of time.

Yeah, welcome to the "spirit" of MMO gameplay. Where you tackle a challenge with a group of people and have those sweet victories.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

What you have explained is how the system works, which i pointed out it is doing what it is supposed to do (and i understand WHY it is in place). The problem is it is incredibly limiting. "You're meant to be doing other things", but why does the same logic not apply to Extreme, Ultimate, or Unreal? Ultimate (on patch) and Unreal both have weekly lockouts but don't stop the player from jumping back in even after receiving their reward.



Neither point you made here applies...at all. They've already progressed through multiple fights in my example, and they don't get things "quicker". If you only need gear from 11 for example, you can still jump into 11. You just can't get anything from 9 or 10 that week. If you need gear from 9 and/or 10 still, you still have to clear those fights, which takes time.... So?

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Cos you can trivially sell clears or really just boost people with 7 people + 1 buyer.

Instead of Savage, why not release a Savage+ version that is infinitely repeatable in week 8. Once you did your Savage for the week, you can either log off or do Savage+

You can put stuff like special challenges such as "never get hit by p10s turrets", "8 tanks" in Savage+ mode and these challenges refresh every 2 weeks or so. FFLogs will 100% log these. And then tune these fights to BiS gear level and make things hit harder. Rewards from Savage+ would be something like a unlocking a third materia slot on one piece of gear every time you complete 4 challenges (so 11 weeks to get to the next level of BiS). To make it infinitely replayable, FFLogs is there but you could also make an official leaderboard for Savage+ speeds. Top rankers get a title and some glams/mounts that require top ranking but will still be available to next raid tier's top rankers (like Feast t100 but each t100 can buy any of the previous t100 rewards), and consecutive top rankers will be top on the leaderboard but cede their rewards to the next in line.

If you actually want to do Savage because you want to help people then idk if there's any good fix.

This game is really unimaginative though and idk how someone can do Savage over and over again without some permutations

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

You just answered your own question - it is incredibly limiting - because it is supposed to be limiting. Keep people around longer for more sub time. If you can't help yourself from jumping back in to the same content, well, that's something you have to deal with. It's not something for the devs to change to suit that mentality better.

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Yes, the purpose is to strictly limit rewards. It does not technically limit gameplay. Just the type of parties you can join are limited. You can't join a 2-chest re-clear, you don't want to join prog/clear parties requesting a 2-chest clear, etc. etc. This creates the issue OP pointed out as cleared players do not funnel back into learning groups because they aren't supposed to (based on both points I listed). You get punished for doing content you re-cleared out of order, and you punish others if you've already cleared that week.

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they just don't want people jumping ahead, that's all.

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But why is that a good design choice? Because the Devs "want" it doesn't make it good design lmao.

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Originally Posted by GaiusDrakon

Cos you can trivially sell clears or really just boost people with 7 people + 1 buyer.

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Thank you for explaining the system that (as I stated) is working as intended to limit rewards. The argument wasn't to attack the function of the system in question, but the flaws that make it not fun in my opinion.

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If you actually want to do Savage because you want to help people then idk if there's any good fix.

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And that is to the point of the OP. Learning parties fall off as the tier progresses because of said savage systems. I personally believe it makes it not fun because there is no flexibility. Want to PF re-clears that your static hasn't progged yet? Can't because you need to reclear previous fights with them. Friend wants help in PF getting clear/re-clear? Can't because already used it on static or elsewhere, etc. etc. Again, the system is working as it is intended, but it has its drawbacks.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

Yes, the purpose is to strictly limit rewards. It does not technically limit gameplay. Just the type of parties you can join are limited. You can't join a 2-chest re-clear, you don't want to join prog/clear parties requesting a 2-chest clear, etc. etc. This creates the issue OP pointed out as cleared players do not funnel back into learning groups because they aren't supposed to (based on both points I listed). You get punished for doing content you re-cleared out of order, and you punish others if you've already cleared that week.




But why is that a good design choice? Because the Devs "want" it doesn't make it good design lmao.



Thank you for explaining the system that (as I stated) is working as intended to limit rewards. The argument wasn't to attack the function of the system in question, but the flaws that make it not fun in my opinion.



And that is to the point of the OP. Learning parties fall off as the tier progresses because of said savage systems. I personally believe it makes it not fun because there is no flexibility. Want to PF re-clears that your static hasn't progged yet? Can't because you need to reclear previous fights with them. Friend wants help in PF getting clear/re-clear? Can't because already used it on static or elsewhere, etc. etc. Again, the system is working as it is intended, but it has its drawbacks.

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Maybe SE can add a "rehearsal" mode where you have the exact same fight but you don't get any rewards and don't consume any lockout.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Hardmode content kind of feels broken in FFXIV when it comes to savage. Every single design around it points to it being content with set groups of people involved, but instead it has turned more into a hodge podge of people with different schedules and commitment levels running together in PF. People run the content at the same point at the start, but depending on who people group with, how quickly they can get into groups, and how much time they put in, it always seems to come into a wave where some people get orphaned somewhere along the chain.

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Welcome to MMO's? If you're not willing to join a static you're gonna be at the mercy of randoms in PF.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

1. The 2-chest system limits player engagement with the content
2. You cannot re-clear fights YOU HAVE CLEARED in any order

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If savage had personalized loot instead of group loot this issue would be solved. It's been done by many other MMOs and It's just better imo. SE just doesn't care about the raiding community very much. Any update it gets seem like scraps when they could do so much more to help foster the community. People have been suggesting the very things you are for years, since ARR even.

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Originally Posted by Coatl

If savage had personalized loot instead of group loot this issue would be solved. It's been done by many other MMOs and It's just better imo. SE just doesn't care about the raiding community very much. Any update it gets seem like scraps when they could do so much more to help foster the community. People have been suggesting the very things you are for years, since ARR even.

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Those same MMOs also continue to have disastisfied raiders because personal loot.

So whether they have it or not, either way people will still not be happy

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Hardmode content kind of feels broken in FFXIV when it comes to savage. Every single design around it points to it being content with set groups of people involved

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It's Actually designed around Raid Finder Groups. The idea being anyone can jump on the game and jump into a queue and go. No need for statics or dedicated groups / strict schedules. Just maximum accessibility.

And truthfully it works very well. All you need to do is look at the JP side and how they participate in high end content and often have significantly HIGHER participation and sucess levels than the NA because they use the Raid Finder and other game tools properly..

On the NA/EU side the problem is the playerbase. Too many lazy / self entitled / c***sure players expect to be carried and that mentality killed off the raid finder tool almost as quickly as soon as it was implemented way back with Sophia Ex.

Everything in this game is designed to be as accessible as possible and thats honestly great.. The two things that ruin it are. 1. The beleif that accessible means easy. And 2. The playerbase and there mentality / attitudes.. If players used the raid finder properly, then even the most casual timmy could log in of an evening and get some savage raiding done..

The icing on the cake that demonstrates this design is that on the JP side people raidfinder / PUG Ultimates. On the NA/EU side even the easiest of extreme trials often ends in disaster.

Exact same tools. The difference is how players use them.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

It feels like content that is supposed to be a social experience for multiple people and to overcome challenges, but in reality it actually pushes people apart. The solutions SE implemented such as personal completion status impacting the loot others receive, having options to filter out people who have and have not completed it, and other tools all further segment the few people that do savage.

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The entire games designed this way to push players into duty finder / raid finder. it discourages social connections and cooperation on so many levels.

You cant send / receive tells to talk with friends in an instance.
Savage loot punsihments cant help a friend if youve already cleared.
MSQ will stop you in your tracks and say "you cannot continue this quest because you are in a party" It's a bloomin MMO people want to play together. the story would be 10 times more fun if you could do it with friends.
No roulette bonuses for going in groups.
Even the free trial restricts communication making it difficult to make friends and connections.
Super strickt party sizes make it difficult to include all your friends. (personally i rememeber when 5 of us wanted to do potd 200 but couldnt because the max was 4.. or times where 7 of us have wanted to go do a mount farm but couldnt because it wouldnt let us in without a random pug 8th to mess up the loot plans.

It's an MMO and they want everyone to play solo and use df/rf

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

What you have explained is how the system works, which i pointed out it is doing what it is supposed to do (and i understand WHY it is in place). The problem is it is incredibly limiting. "You're meant to be doing other things", but why does the same logic not apply to Extreme, Ultimate, or Unreal? Ultimate (on patch) and Unreal both have weekly lockouts but don't stop the player from jumping back in even after receiving their reward.

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Ultimate has a very different demographic and is considered such a massive step up difficulty wise that limiting the rewards doesn't matter. The issue for Savage is that if you didn't have some sort of restriction, it would always be better to run with people who have cleared. Say they reduced the penalty to only if three or more players have cleared do you lose a coffer. Now it's to your best advantage to always have two cleared players in your party. That way you're only rolling against five players instead of seven.

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Neither point you made here applies...at all. They've already progressed through multiple fights in my example, and they don't get things "quicker". If you only need gear from 11 for example, you can still jump into 11. You just can't get anything from 9 or 10 that week. If you need gear from 9 and/or 10 still, you still have to clear those fights, which takes time.... So?

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This is to prevent certain fights to die off. Look at P3 and P7 in the last two tiers. Neither would have seen almost any parties because the loot wasn't as valued, especially in the latter months when Twines weren't as big a deal. By forcing you to progress through each one, they're artificially keeping all four active. With that said, they still allow you to skip ahead should you join someone else's party. You just sacrifice your page for the week in doing so.

At the end of the day, both systems are in place to force longevity in the same way tomes do. If every QoL idea people have asked for were implemented, you could be finished gearing a whole character in less than a month, skip all the fights you don't need/want, limit how many people you have to roll against and then have zero reason to go back. Not exactly a good system for SE when this content is intended to last for months.

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Originally Posted by Coatl

If savage had personalized loot instead of group loot this issue would be solved. It's been done by many other MMOs and It's just better imo. SE just doesn't care about the raiding community very much. Any update it gets seem like scraps when they could do so much more to help foster the community. People have been suggesting the very things you are for years, since ARR even.

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Maybe, but sadly i think the issue requires a complete rework IMO. That is because Savage content feels like the only battle content with a system that is built for players with multiple characters that specialize in 1 class each in mind, while this game mainly accomodates to doing everything on 1 character.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

This is to prevent certain fights to die off. Look at P3 and P7 in the last two tiers. Neither would have seen almost any parties because the loot wasn't as valued, especially in the latter months when Twines weren't as big a deal. By forcing you to progress through each one, they're artificially keeping all four active. With that said, they still allow you to skip ahead should you join someone else's party. You just sacrifice your page for the week in doing so.

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Well P11 is different since now you can get the chest piece, which I would assume is a bigger draw than another head/boot/glove piece :). Even if that doesn't fix it, this still sounds more like a flaw with loot distribution than a necessity to limit players from re-clearing the content in any order.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

At the end of the day, both systems are in place to force longevity in the same way tomes do. If every QoL idea people have asked for were implemented, you could be finished gearing a whole character in less than a month, skip all the fights you don't need/want, limit how many people you have to roll against and then have zero reason to go back. Not exactly a good system for SE when this content is intended to last for months.

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I completely agree here. That is why I believe the system itself would need an entire re-work (which probably won't happen). If you think about it, the current system lets you gear 1 job in a very reasonable amount of time, but many people still complain about gearing as a whole. The recent changes still won't be enough, and 7.0 will add additional jobs to the mix. Savage is built with many characters -> 1 job instead of 1 character -> many jobs.

And theoretically, if you and 7 other people were insane enough to do it, you could technically "gear" an entire job to max ilvl week 1. You wouldn't be able to get all the tome pieces you wanted for BiS though. With the recent change to the drop system, if you were insane enough to do splits with 7 alt accounts in a static, you can now get every piece of gear/accessory guaranteed. You could then use your tomes pre-savage to buy a ring and upgrade with the coating from turn 2, and you can also grab a head/boot/gloves from tomes (if Bis) and upgrade with twine from turn 3 to replace one of the savage pieces. Boom, you have max ilvl week 1 XD. While a case of "this probably will never happen", the system already allows for you to gear insanely quick with the correct methods.

Pf had and always will be a chaotic mess

It is what it is. Nothing should ever be designed with pf in mind

it all boils down to

players: I want stuff now, faster, now!
devs: No.
players: weh! (run to complain publicly)

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

it all boils down to

players: I want stuff now, faster, now!
devs: No.
players: weh! (run to complain publicly)

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Yep, this.

The devs made savage so that it lasts the entire eight months. So it should take you around eight months to clear. Not one week, not one month. Eight. Whole. Months. FFXIV is a game for everyone, not an elitist toxic/racist/sexist hellscape like WoW. You don’t have to rush. So what if it takes you a long time to clear it in party finder? That’s great! That means more time you have to play your favorite game. As long as you don’t rush anything, you’ll always have something to do. In fact, I still haven’t even cleared P9S yet. So what? I’m busy playing other games too. Surely FFXIV isn’t your only game, right? Besides, there’s so many things to do in this game, it’s impossible to just focus on savage. Take your time as the developers intended.

Don’t like it? Go back to WoW where they have zero content and the devs deleted half the game. Be fortunate that you’re playing the world’s most popular and most critically-acclaimed MMO. We’re so lucky to have Yoshida and the crew work tirelessly to give us such an amazing game. If I could tip the developers with my subscription, I would.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

It's an MMO and they want everyone to play solo and use df/rf

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That's exactly why the game can be so crap lmao

They're catering to Japanese 2ch NEETs who don't dare to say a single word to a human stranger even in a video game. Like why TF are we catering to these extreme introverts. I honestly wish introverts just disappeared from earth

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

Yep, this.

The devs made savage so that it lasts the entire eight months. So it should take you around eight months to clear. Not one week, not one month. Eight. Whole. Months. FFXIV is a game for everyone, not an elitist toxic/racist/sexist hellscape like WoW. You don’t have to rush. So what if it takes you a long time to clear it in party finder? That’s great! That means more time you have to play your favorite game. As long as you don’t rush anything, you’ll always have something to do. In fact, I still haven’t even cleared P9S yet. So what? I’m busy playing other games too. Surely FFXIV isn’t your only game, right? Besides, there’s so many things to do in this game, it’s impossible to just focus on savage. Take your time as the developers intended.

Don’t like it? Go back to WoW where they have zero content and the devs deleted half the game. Be fortunate that you’re playing the world’s most popular and most critically-acclaimed MMO. We’re so lucky to have Yoshida and the crew work tirelessly to give us such an amazing game. If I could tip the developers with my subscription, I would.

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While I agree that the way the savage raid tier is designed is due to those factors which makes sense considering how FFXIV lacks any other hard content and doesnt strive to cater to the hardcore raiders in MMOs. I feel its just a tad disingenous to say that WoW lacks content. Sure, due to its long history a lot of the world and previous expansions are made irrelevant because of them sticking to the current stuff 90% of the time, but they still do at least have timewalking dungeons and raids that cycle frequently for players to acquire relevant ilv gear and items for grinding old reps and cosmetics (which is a helpful idea). And while WoW severly lacks casual content, it makes up for it with a lot of open world activities that players can do. So I wouldnt necessarily say that FFXIV is better than WoW in this regard.

But as somebody who has played Dragonflight and currently on a hiatus, yeah no amount of content is going to keep somebody retained for so long, especially the casuals. People here thinking that FFXIV needs more retention content really need to get over the fact that this can never happen without sacrificing meaningful fun factor. Look at WoW being the prime example of having what FFXIV lacks and you think people over there are happy? Yeah if you look at the community, they're no better off than we are in terms of retention.

Its time to get over that "grass is always greener" mentality. I for one have. You play a game until it stops being fun and when that happens who cares, just move on to something else. Why continue to demand games to keep you tied down to it? This is terrible design.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I feel its just a tad disingenous to say that WoW lacks content.

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You are responding to a parody account, of course it's going to be disingenous.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

You are responding to a parody account, of course it's going to be disingenous.

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Yeah I know. I just still wanted to amuse the thought

Just do the content on normal that's about the skill level and time invest that is fitting for you, no prog needed, no time invest needed and you can do it anytime even after weeks!

The initial pressure to get a clear of savage before everything is duty complete gated is one of the biggest stresses I have when it comes to XIV in general.

They really should offer stronger incentives to help people with first clears.