SE: Savage Difficulty Spike and PF Toxicity Shows we need Hard Raids

Many players find Normal Raids too easy and Savage Raids too hard. Some of the highest skilled players sometimes resent the latter players even being in Savage. The solution is easy and requires almost no effort or changes in fight development by SE: just tune with MINE and use copy-paste.

Savage Raids: Using the current 7.2 Savage ilvls as an example for my purposes, when you are creating your next Savage tier or further in the future, tune it to ilvl 730 AND sync it to ilvl 730. Essentially force Savage to be MINE (minimum ilvl, no echo) permanently upon release and forever. Also do not allow pots or food above ilvl 730 either, and possibly do not even allow pots or food at all. Tune it to get whatever percentage of the top players you want it to be cleared by in the world first races.

Hard Raids: Take the unsynced version of the same exact fights and allow upgraded gear, food, and pots. So with the current Savage fights players would start with ilvl 740 gear and eventually get higher levels of gear just as they currently do, but there would be no weekly lockouts because the gear is not needed for Savage so gearing would be faster. Call these Hard Raids.

Normal Raids --> Hard Raids (with gear, food, pots) --> Savage Raids (MINE, without food and pots)
[Hard Raid and Savage Raid fights are identical: only player stats are different]

Hard Raids would emphasize learning the mechanics whereas Savage Raids would continue to emphasize doing both the DPS optimization while doing the mechanics. By tuning the Savage fight such that the best players do not get access to new gear to complete them it would automatically also be tuned for Hard. So basically the challenge will remain intact and permanent for Savage Raids and less-skilled players will have the option to enjoy the same content much closer to release in the form of Hard Raids.

The problems of the current system are rather striking. For many players Normal is too easy and Savage is too hard, at least for a while, until enough gear trickles out. The current Raid system is essentially the release of an easy mode and a hard mode, and then a normal mode much, much later. This means the most-skilled players and the much-less-skilled players each have content to enjoy at release, but a large chunk of players have to suffer with either boring content or frustrating content until enough gear is obtainable: it can take up to eight months for some players to get enough gear to start having fun due to the limited loot roll system. As time goes on the number of players playing the content drops and it becomes harder to find good players or players with enough gear to compensate for their lower skill level. Because the game has no personal damage meters, grading system, or prog point identification system, PF becomes a place where players may never know whether they are good enough to clear or whether they are being held back by the lack of gear or other players. This leads to animosity between players of different skill levels trying to play the same content potentially for different purposes.

The current system is plagued by accusations of prog lying and players on high horses blaming lower level players for skill issues. I have heard many stories of players who feel burned out trying to clear as much as possible early because as time goes on the number of very-skilled players progging drops and the more numerous less-skilled players end up having much less of a chance to clear because the gear doesn't get accessible fast enough. It's easy for high level players to get gear they don't need, but less-skilled players have a harder time getting the gear they do need. The loot system actively discourages higher level players from helping lower level players. Some players have to rely only on the pity book system. It also becomes harder for the more-skilled players who do not have statics because they get paired with less-skilled players in PF. Players use their black lists to try and filter skill or use third party apps to filter skill. Some parties block jobs they do not think are able to clear. Some players disband if prog isn't seen instantaneously. It is easy for the content to become demoralizing for all skill levels especially when there are numerous strats floating around complicating things. Many 'prog liars' are just ordinary people who are making mistakes because they have a had a long day at work and are tired or their hands are sore from actual physical labor: they still want a place where they can go and take their minds off their troubles, but they also do not want to fall asleep in Normal Raids.

All the problems are from SE trying to have one mode serve double-duty: try splitting it into two modes.

I have often heard high level players claim gear isn't necessary to clear the content or it doesn't make much of a difference. Make Savage MINE and let's test that theory. No need to buy or craft new gear. No more pentamelding. No more golden tickets from Khloe. No more funneling gear through alts. No more giving gear to the highest DPS first. No more relying on lucky rolls. Every racer starts at the same line using the gear they earned in the previous raid tier. Oh and I would also restrict pots and food to be no more than ilvl 730 so no need for new food or pots. In fact I would be tempted to remove the use of food and pots completely from Savage, so it would be cheaper too. But this might make the content too hard for some.

I recently heard one youtuber claim 'Savage is not for fun, it is for the challenge; it only becomes fun if you enjoy the challenge.'

So where do those players who 'do not belong' in Savage go? If Savage were tuned at ilvl 730 and possible without the use of food or pots, then the exact same tuning with new gear, food, and pots should allow many more to participate in the Hard Raid content as the DPS and Healer checks should automatically be much less strict from the start than they currently seem to be. More players might think stepping into Hard is not as scary. The current expansion Savage Raids have such great characters, music, and mechanics it is a shame that they cannot be enjoyed at release by more players without grouping with players who sometimes seem offended by their presence.

Since gear would no longer matter for Savage, make winning gear easier for Hard Raids, by removing weekly lockouts, and allow players who have already cleared that week to help other players clear and have fun. Make Hard Raids a socially safer place where failure is not such an emotional buzzkill to so many and where players have a chance to learn new skills and challenge themselves without being as much of a hindrance to others. High level players should want a place where lower skill level players can actually improve their skills. A wider range of skill-levels would have a place where they could practice different jobs without feeling like they need to stick to one job they can optimize. Very few are learning much in Normal Raids because the mechanics feel very dumbed down after only a few runs: sometimes you can fail/eat mechanic after mechanic and still live. There is a massive gap between Normal and Savage difficulty levels.

Having a Savage Raid and Hard Raid split would have many advantages. First those extremely serious players would be able to find themselves more easily, as would those players who want less serious gameplay that is still challenging. I suspect it might even result in Data Centres maintaining their Hard Raids in PF, while only Savage Raid players flock to one Data Centre like Aether (NA). Hard Raid completions could be required to unlock Savage Raids, perhaps even having to clear ten times to unlock Savage. There is no filter between Normal and Savage Raids: Extremes only function like a loose recommendation. Hard Raids would allow players, including higher level players, to improve or practice in a less socially tense environment. Maybe better players would be more willing to help other players improve through positive criticism and those struggling players would be willing to accept it without being so easily offended. There would be no need for the one clear on each Tuesday mentality. Jobs that might be blocked in Savage shouldn't be an issue in Hard. Maybe you wouldn't need a shield and pure healer combination. In the end players will be able to judge their success or failure in Hard and know whether they are suited to trying Savage since only the DPS and Survivability checks are different. The current super gradual luck-based change in difficulty over time is a curse. Players could also practice more easily by intentionally lowering the ilvl of their gear in Hard. Good players who do Savage might use Hard to recruit players or create lists of good players instead of focusing on block lists. Multiple strats used in Hard might also be tested more easily and possibly result in a filtration that leads to a single strat for Savage.

For SE's part the amount of work developing the fights should be no different than currently. Just tune them at a lower ilvl without food and pots. The only difference will be that more players will end up with a separate mode with less severe checks early on because they will have more easily accessible gear sooner rather than waiting for up to eight months when the interest has significantly died down. If you think that quicker gearing would result in players being finished with the content sooner you are wrong. I guarantee there are lots of players who would try and gear all their jobs if the possibility were there on a single character. In fact if gearing is the goal and content is just designed around making gearing a longer process rather than the gameplay being the goal that is a sad philosophy. Try other things: e.g. while I would put the Raid mount as a drop in Savage only, I would be tempted to have an achievement with that same mount recolored for clearing the Hard Raids on every job. If you make the content more attractive to more players, the increased number of players alone will help keep numbers up. If you give more people a place to learn and improve, there's also a chance more people who are actually capable move from Hard to Savage in a less miserable manner.

It cannot be emphasized enough: by trying to force more players at more skill levels into the same content, you are causing unnecessary friction.

So, SE, the next time you are tuning Savage use MINE rules and consider not using food or pots. Stop tuning with the assumption that the best players will have access to new better gear, food, and pots. Force them to continue using the gear from the previous tier. Doing so would allow the exact same fights to be copy and pasted into a Hard Raid mode so that more players can participate and enjoy the content sooner. You just have to split the content into forced MINE and unsynced variants using a lower initial ilvl tune. The same amount of work on your end resulting in two difficulty modes might help increase your content's popularity.

I mean this idea of a forced ilvl is what we have Ultimates for. That content comes next patch (I think? They haven't announced the next ultimate).

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Originally Posted by Hastatus

So where do those players who 'do not belong' in Savage go?

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Ex trials.

I find that ppl who don't want to raid b/c they just don't want to raid in my exp.

Also, we have old and new extremes at home.

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Originally Posted by Hastatus

It cannot be emphasized enough: by trying to force more players at more skill levels into the same content, you are causing unnecessary friction.

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This is true.

However, more generally, you're not going to produce this comfortable funnel from normal --> hard --> savage that significantly increases the number of players who choose to challenge themselves beyond normal.

The fundamental road block IMO is that, in NA/EU in particular, twitchy DDR fight design simply does not interest most players. And in DT I've heard far more people say they're not even bothering with the normal raids, because they find them too tough and/or boring.

I've been saying for a long time that there really needs to be a difficulty between Normal and Savage.

People may say "That's what Extreme trials are" but that's just 1 raid fight every patch that only gives weapons. When you look at World of Warcraft, their raids have 4 difficulties—LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic—so there's something for people of all skill levels. FF14's raid equivalent is only LFR and Mythic, and trials having LFR and Heroic.

I don't agree with just slapping on item level restriction to Savage to make new difficulties. Instead they just need to take the Savage version of the fight and scale down boss HP and a few of the more punishing mechanics so that it's more on level of an Extreme trial. They don't need to completely redesign the fight for each difficulty like they currently do.

But how would the gearing work? The problem would be the reward structure. I mean I personally don't care but if you introduce hard mode raids and they give the same ilevels as either normal or savage people will complain.

There isn’t a middle difficulty that will bridge the gap between Normal and higher difficulty content because they’re different things with different types of challenge. In normal content you don’t have to know/do your rotation and can even be dead the whole time, and the mechanics aren’t as complicated and the hope is that people can see them once and understand them (although of course this isn’t always the case). They’re doable with no prior knowledge, and people just need to avoid complete wipes. In EX and higher, people need to actually press their buttons properly to varying degrees and know the mechanics and do them properly, where they’re often designed in a way that people will either need an explanation about the mechanics or take time to figure out what’s happening. They’re two different types of activities that are approached with different mentalities, and as we can see there’s a lot of people who are interested in one but not the other.

The Hard raids you’re describing will not show people if they’re doing well enough in terms of damage or healing, or even mechanics since they won’t know how many deaths or damage downs is too many. And it’s already possible to learn to do high end raids without having to worry so much about damage, because Extreme trials and first floor Savage raids already exist. Usually it seems people who have an idea of how their job is supposed to be played will do enough damage for either of those, and also during prog people always have the option of not worrying about their damage output if they’re not comfortable with the mechanics yet. You don’t need good damage to prog a savage fight or to try new strategies, only to clear or in very specific cases like when there’s phases with dps checks.

Some benefits of what you’re describing sound like what we already have if you’re in a party where the players don’t have bad attitudes, if people are relaxed with other, help out, and are generally patient, which leads to a good space for new players to learn. Having easier dps checks and healing checks will not somehow remove the players with bad attitudes. People don’t need to be skilled to be toxic. We’ve likely all met people on either end of the skill level spectrum that get mad at others a lot, who have made a space unwelcoming for new players.

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Originally Posted by Voryn

Some benefits of what you’re describing sound like what we already have if you’re in a party where the players don’t have bad attitudes, if people are relaxed with other, help out, and are generally patient, which leads to a good space for new players to learn. Having easier dps checks and healing checks will not somehow remove the players with bad attitudes. People don’t need to be skilled to be toxic. We’ve likely all met people on either end of the skill level spectrum that get mad at others a lot, who have made a space unwelcoming for new players.

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Same. I've had ppl join farm parties causing everyone to wipe and hosts being rude to everyone who made even the most minor mistakes which ruined the relaxed mood for old content. There's just no way to regulate people who join PF or statics beyond extremely toxic players who you can report to GMs.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Ex trials.

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Pretty much this

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Originally Posted by Hastatus

So where do those players who 'do not belong' in Savage go?

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Extreme Trials and Chaotic Raids.

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Originally Posted by Hastatus

So, SE, the next time you are tuning Savage use MINE rules and consider not using food or pots. Stop tuning with the assumption that the best players will have access to new better gear, food, and pots. Force them to continue using the gear from the previous tier. Doing so would allow the exact same fights to be copy and pasted into a Hard Raid mode so that more players can participate and enjoy the content sooner. You just have to split the content into forced MINE and unsynced variants using a lower initial ilvl tune. The same amount of work on your end resulting in two difficulty modes might help increase your content's popularity.

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Hardest content should reward the best gear.

Either accept you're not good enough for Savage or strive to improve and make yourself good enough for Savage.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

This is true.

However, more generally, you're not going to produce this comfortable funnel from normal --> hard --> savage that significantly increases the number of players who choose to challenge themselves beyond normal.

The fundamental road block IMO is that, in NA/EU in particular, twitchy DDR fight design simply does not interest most players. And in DT I've heard far more people say they're not even bothering with the normal raids, because they find them too tough and/or boring.

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I'm sorry but if people find these normal raids or trials hard, that's a skill issue.


They aren't Endwalker easy sure but they aren't super hard.

There are enough difficulties and raid styles. People simply don't play them because they're crap. I rather read a book that will benefit me in life at some point instead of spending X hours to learn a braindead choreography in a video game. Or I'm just playing any of my other thousands Steam games that all provide an infinitely better experience than FFXIV raids.

You know that the game is trash when the meme content like BLU arena and DD solo actually is the highest brain/skill content with the most personal expression involved.

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Originally Posted by NightHour

I'm sorry but if people find these normal raids or trials hard, that's a skill issue.

They aren't Endwalker easy sure but they aren't super hard.

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Yes, of course it's a skill issue. It's also a boredom issue with the monothematic fight design.

A skill slider would stop the tryhards from suffering ennui and the less skilled from leaving.

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Originally Posted by Hastatus

Savage Raids: Using the current 7.2 Savage ilvls as an example for my purposes, when you are creating your next Savage tier or further in the future, tune it to ilvl 730 AND sync it to ilvl 730. Essentially force Savage to be MINE (minimum ilvl, no echo) permanently upon release and forever.

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So essentially make the savage content unclearable for the majority of people that have a job and can't raid for 12 hours a day like those week 1 streamers.

wow, fantastic.
Get a life man.


get one damage down = wipe, great concept.

I would prefer to not add more min iLvl/ ilvl sync content. BiS gear already has bearly any use except for savage speeds and ultimates.

However. I would like some more content in between Savage and Ultimates. Maybe even something above Ultimate that gets released only once per expantion.

I don't care about ex trials, they're the same slop than savage and other arena bossfights. Difficulty isn't that much apart if you consider that the first fights of a savage tier can play in the same ballpark.
What we need more of are CLL and Dalriada types of pve, and not gated behind a lot of junk.

another 8 man boss in a boring arena?

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Originally Posted by Valence

I don't care about ex trials, they're the same slop than savage and other arena bossfights. Difficulty isn't that much apart if you consider that the first fights of a savage tier can play in the same ballpark.
What we need more of are CLL and Dalriada types of pve, and not gated behind a lot of junk.

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Add criterion minus the savage in disguise minutiae & BA without the chaotic entry point into that list there.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

another 8 man boss in a boring arena?

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I specifically referred to the non standard boss sections of both, notably most of CLL with the wall battle and the PoVs to free, and the beginning of Dalriada with the laser rooms. This is where it truly feels like I'm raiding an actual dungeon or place and not just fighting on a nonsensical ring seeing the same mechanics over and over.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Add criterion minus the savage in disguise minutiae & BA without the chaotic entry point into that list there.

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Are we speaking about the criterion add phases or criterion in general?

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Originally Posted by Valence

[...]Are we speaking about the criterion add phases or criterion in general?

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I guess I should've wrote 'minus the savage boss encounters' instead.

Some of the things described by OP where people lie about their prog point, where people are shamed for their lack of skill, this isn't a savage content issue, this is a socialization issue and it's just up to the individual to get better at the game and to get better at being social.

People who want savage content but easier are just lazy. Learn your rotation, learn the mechanics and learn to coordinate with the players you meet.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

this isn't a savage content issue, this is a socialization issue and it's just up to the individual to get better at the game and to get better at being social.

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I wholeheartedly agree. All these excellent players that cannot progress since they're constantly lied at in savage PF groups just need to get better at being social. Find some like minded players on their skill level, and never have any problems with PF groups. Getting matched with bad players? Social skill issue, just git gud.

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Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

I wholeheartedly agree. All these excellent players that cannot progress since they're constantly lied at in savage PF groups just need to get better at being social. Find some like minded players on their skill level, and never have any problems with PF groups. Getting matched with bad players? Social skill issue, just git gud.

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Oh that's beautiful. And applies to multiple areas of the game, not to mention life.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

Some of the things described by OP where people lie about their prog point, where people are shamed for their lack of skill, this isn't a savage content issue, this is a socialization issue and it's just up to the individual to get better at the game and to get better at being social.

People who want savage content but easier are just lazy. Learn your rotation, learn the mechanics and learn to coordinate with the players you meet.

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So human beings have no intrinsic skill cap when it comes to video games, and everyone can do anything? The problem is laziness?

Then why do savage raiders even bother?

I would say the tier's difficulty isn't a spike, rather a return to normalcy because the last tier was a complete joke

Problems can be caused by either way as skill issues or attitude issues. Although IMO for a skill issue to be a major problem it requires an attitude issue as well.

Are you not performing as consistently as others in the party you’re in, and holding them back from either reaching the prog point or from clearing? Then you should step away and come back another time after some practice, or some study, or even just a break if that’s what you need. Continuing to troll the party or getting mad at others is an attitude issue. This can happen even with no dps checks.

Is there someone in your party underperforming? Ideally they’d be able to realize it and understand what they need to do. But also as a player you should try able to recognize the difference between a troll and a person that’s just making “normal” mistakes. Like recognizing that certain mechanics can be error prone for whatever reason, and also actually thinking about what mistakes people are making. Getting upset with them isn’t really justified unless the person is actively being a troll (and even then, some will say to just move on when getting trolled rather than getting mad). All this can also happen with no dps checks.

Either way, you can’t design a game in a way where attitude issues don’t matter unless you take away the things someone can possibly get upset about. But if the game doesn’t ask people to play properly then the difficulty is gone. Like how a test at school can’t be hard if you don’t need to get the questions right.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

So human beings have no intrinsic skill cap when it comes to video games, and everyone can do anything? The problem is laziness?

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Humans obviously have caps to things like a reaction times and working memory capacity, but are there specific things this game tests in a way that isn’t learnable by almost anyone? Like it doesn’t require us to react to things in under a second unless we’re doing PvP or have comically bad ping.

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Originally Posted by Voryn

Humans obviously have caps to things like a reaction times and working memory capacity, but are there specific things this game tests in a way that isn’t learnable by almost anyone? Like it doesn’t require us to react to things in under a second unless we’re doing PvP or have comically bad ping.

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Ah now there's an interesting thing. I am quite good at PvP in this game, but struggle with PvE.

I'm open to the possibility it's an attitude problem, driven by the fact I find PvE in this game tedious.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Ah now there's an interesting thing. I am quite good at PvP in this game, but struggle with PvE.

I'm open to the possibility it's an attitude problem, driven by the fact I find PvE in this game tedious.

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PvE is scripted and predictable. PvP is unscripted and subject to human whims.

It is not an "attitude problem" to find one mode more enjoyable than the other, or to be better at one mode than the other. The two modes might as well be different games as far as FFXIV is concerned.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

PvE is scripted and predictable. PvP is unscripted and subject to human whims.

It is not an "attitude problem" to find one mode more enjoyable than the other, or to be better at one mode than the other. The two modes might as well be different games as far as FFXIV is concerned.

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I agree, just given the options I was offered it felt better than "lazy."

More generally, whenever the topic of the low engagement with Savage comes up, the minority who enjoy it in this game blame the players in various different ways. This strikes me as strange, since the players don't design the PvE that most (NA/EU) dislike, based on engagement.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

So human beings have no intrinsic skill cap when it comes to video games, and everyone can do anything? The problem is laziness?

Then why do savage raiders even bother?

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You and I had this argument before, barring disability there's no "intrinsic" ability to play savage, if you can do normal, you can do savage, and I've linked you resources on how to get started. You learn where to go, you learn your rotation while you learn where to go and you do it. But you know ,it's OK to not like it, it's ok to do OTHER things.

I have a problem with people who don't like savage, come here and ask for the same mechanics but with everything watered down so they can do them (this is what NORMALS are for). Then why do this type of content at all?

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Originally Posted by Volgia

You and I had this argument before, barring disability there's no "intrinsic" ability to play savage, if you can do normal, you can do savage, and I've linked you resources on how to get started. You learn where to go, you learn your rotation while you learn where to go and you do it. But you know ,it's OK to not like it, it's ok to do OTHER things.

I have a problem with people who don't like savage, come here and ask for the same mechanics but with everything watered down so they can do them (this is what NORMALS are for). Then why do this type of content at all?

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Ah right, that was you. I still disagree with your first point. My feeling is Savage requires a skillset that not everyone has nor can develop, particularly when older. (This is usually when Jeeqbit reminds me of Yoshi-P's age, which misses the point.) Suggesting otherwise simply leads to people who genuinely try and fail to suffer frustration. But since we can't prove the point either way, it boils down to opinion.

That said, I can tell you from personal experience and a gaming history that goes back to 1980s arcades, there is no way in hell in Savage I could ever "learn where to go, learn my rotation while I learn where to go, and do it." I simply do not have the memory/rapid recall, nor the hand-eye coordination.

I'm agnostic on whether another tier would be helpful to get more people playing content beyond normal. But if it gave a raiding tier that led to a lower time commitment and time to clear, I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the idea if it is a light lift for SE. Nor do I understand your objection. You might ultimately get more players and thus easier to pop PFs in the content you enjoy.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Ah right, that was you. I still disagree with your first point. My feeling is Savage requires a skillset that not everyone has nor can develop, particularly when older. (This is usually when Jeeqbit reminds me of Yoshi-P's age, which misses the point.) Suggesting otherwise simply leads to people who genuinely try and fail to suffer frustration. But since we can't prove the point either way, it boils down to opinion.

That said, I can tell you from personal experience and a gaming history that goes back to 1980s arcades, there is no way in hell in Savage I could ever "learn where to go, learn my rotation while I learn where to go, and do it." I simply do not have the memory/rapid recall, nor the hand-eye coordination.

I'm agnostic on whether another tier would be helpful to get more people playing content beyond normal. But if it gave a raiding tier that led to a lower time commitment and time to clear, I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the idea if it is a light lift for SE. Nor do I understand your objection. You might ultimately get more players and thus easier to pop PFs in the content you enjoy.

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You know, you can develop the memory and rapid reflex, and the hand-eye coordination. It's a skillset, but if you don't wanna commit to learning this that's perfectly fine. Savage isn't a time commitment issue, you can bang your head against the wall if you want, but if you manage to get 7 other people who are willing to learn or are equally skilled you can beat the tier in a couple weeks.

We're talking about the hardest content in the game, I don't want it watered down for people who just wanna put a tick on the checklists on things they did in FFXIV, I want to play with people who enjoy this type of content.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

You know, you can develop the memory and rapid reflex, and the hand-eye coordination. It's a skillset, but if you don't wanna commit to learning this that's perfectly fine. Savage isn't a time commitment issue, you can bang your head against the wall if you want, but if you manage to get 7 other people who are willing to learn or are equally skilled you can beat the tier in a couple weeks.

We're talking about the hardest content in the game, I don't want it watered down for people who just wanna put a tick on the checklists on things they did in FFXIV, I want to play with people who enjoy this type of content.

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I don't want to take any content away from anyone. Indeed I regard the presence of "the hardest content in the game" as an asset, since it minimizes my contact with a subset of the community that refuses to accept the reality experienced by many others.

As I mentioned, I have been gaming since the 80s. You are asserting you know better than I what my cognitive and physical limitations are. I find that deeply offensive.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I don't want to take any content away from anyone. Indeed I regard the presence of "the hardest content in the game" as an asset, since it minimizes my contact with a subset of the community that refuses to accept the reality experienced by many others.

As I mentioned, I have been gaming since the 80s. You are asserting you know better than I what my cognitive and physical limitations are. I find that deeply offensive.

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You're making an assumption and getting yourself offended, that's pretty much on you, as I said, barring disability anyone can do this content. Whenever they have the time or effort to put themselves through it despite their limitations? That is a different matter. You said yourself you find PvE content tedious and don't wanna do this type of content, why are people who don't wanna engage with this content arguing in favor of watering down? You have no skin in this game.

OP thinks that savage is like mythic in wow.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I have a problem with people who don't like savage, come here and ask for the same mechanics but with everything watered down so they can do them (this is what NORMALS are for). Then why do this type of content at all?

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The thing I really hate is that the devs have been purposely harming the storymode experience by neutering the 4th fights since Stormblood has been a thing and giving us a shitty final fight experience for when experiencing the story for the first time, which frankly, is unhinged. See how much of a joke M8N currently is because of this? Or the older Kefka or Oracle of Darkness fights? They've all been variuous degrees of this since.

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Originally Posted by Valence

The thing I really hate is that the devs have been purposely harming the storymode experience by neutering the 4th fights since Stormblood has been a thing and giving us a shitty final fight experience for when experiencing the story for the first time, which frankly, is unhinged. See how much of a joke M8N currently is because of this? Or the older Kefka or Oracle of Darkness fights? They've all been variuous degrees of this since.

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It's a way to entice you to do the savage version so you can experience the true final fight, but I get it, I think it was especially weird in M8N because M7N felt more like a true fight with the scenario changing so much.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

You're making an assumption and getting yourself offended, that's pretty much on you, as I said, barring disability anyone can do this content. Whenever they have the time or effort to put themselves through it despite their limitations? That is a different matter. You said yourself you find PvE content tedious and don't wanna do this type of content, why are people who don't wanna engage with this content arguing in favor of watering down? You have no skin in this game.

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I'm not arguing in favor of anything, simply disagreeing with an evidence-free assertion you keep making.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Aye, it's not my fault that hardcore content is daunting and unappealing to a casual player like myself, and it's also not my fault if hardcore players ever lack for warm bodies to do content with because of the skill wall that Square-Enix built.

Besides, I thought most hardcore players LIKED having gates kept up everywhere, and even gloated over Chaotic in particular recently, so they should be the happiest that the current filter is "working as intended" to keep casual and hardcore players separate in their own pieces of content.

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Someday, you will finish Shadowbringers and get to the current end-game, trying out hard content for yourself.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

However, more generally, you're not going to produce this comfortable funnel from normal --> hard --> savage that significantly increases the number of players who choose to challenge themselves beyond normal.

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Probably not, but one must always hope and be willing to try. :D

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Originally Posted by localareanetwork

I would say the tier's difficulty isn't a spike, rather a return to normalcy because the last tier was a complete joke

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Perhaps. But when I talk about the Savage difficulty spike here I intended to mean the difference in difficulty between Normal and Savage, not the differences in difficulty between Savages of different tiers and expansions. Maybe it was a subconscious double entendre.

On Extremes:
The idea that Extremes are in between the difficulty of Normal Raids and Savage Raids is true but they are insufficient for the job of attraction and retention of players for multiple reasons. They are not actually Raids. Normal Raids unlock Savage Raids, and Normal Trials unlock Extreme Trials. There are fewer Extremes: one Extreme to every two Savage Raids. Extremes are almost always released individually while Savage Raids are released in groups of four. Extreme Trials are usually released alongside other content rather than during lulls. When Savage Raids are released there is usually no other or not much other current content. The design of the rewards system for Extremes promotes very fast farming for mounts. The extreme repetition of farming and knowing it will have to likely be 50 to 99 times creates a quick burn. Kind of the opposite problem of Savage Raids where the rewards system tries to promote only one completion per week. The slowness of the gearing system makes Savage a very slow burn. The burn is so slow one has to decide whether the more numerous motivated clearers at the start is more or less important than the gear later that might reduce the time investment in progging. That very slow burn might actually be reducing the total number of participants earlier on. Because interests fade quickly, many don't bother entering the content at all especially when other new current content is added later. Old extremes and Savages would be fun, but other than the single Extreme SE turns into an Unreal every eight months or so there is not much of a chance to find many doing old ones in PF (unsynced mount farms do not count). Even the four-month-old Chaotic is practically dead and the leftover players are not seeing many clears (I spent the past two weekends during bonus hours and saw 3 clears in about 12 hours). It could just be a new temporary trend, but the art/story of the characters in the fights has an impact. The last Extreme with the knight of roses (Cordelia?...nope...Zelenia) is just a blip that appears and disappears like the hologram it is, but Black Cat, Honeybee Lovely, Brute Bomber, Wicked Thunder, Dancing Green, et al are very fun and attractive characters that have a larger role and interact with the WOL in the actual story. It feels like the production values for Raids is improving. If the Extremes were this magic bullet of difficulty content between Normal and Savage Raids why does the tension between players in Savage Raids seem so high? I would love to see more Unreals and Extremes (without excessive mount farms) but that would likely require way more effort on SE's part than copy-pasting and adjusting a few numbers on existing fights: TO ADD ANOTHER SEPARATE OPTIONAL DIFFICULTY MODE, NOT TO COMPLETELY REPLACE THE CURRENT DIFFICULTY MODE (just to be clear).

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Originally Posted by Wasselin

But how would the gearing work?

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Good question. I thought about discussing this but it felt a little off-topic so I left it out of my original post.

On Rewards:

Hard Raids:Drops upgraded Historia Gear; Mount won by completing Hard Raids on every job class (achievement mount).
Savage Raids: Drops Babyface Gear and market-sellable upgrade materials for Historia gear (intended to be sold to normal players); Mount drop.

Forget the weekly lockouts in Hard Raids. If you want to farm gear, farm gear...that's more players playing each week and the freedom to gear any job you want without having to plan out one job weeks ahead of time. If all that gear and practice makes you feel done, move onto Savage. I really don't know if it would be better or worse to keep weekly lock outs in the Savage Raids. Under the current system I often find myself wanting to go help others clear a Savage but decide against because finding anychests at the same time that I have an itch is rare. If there were Hard Raids to fall back on, I guess Savage could keep the weekly lockouts too. The main idea is that Hard Raiders would have access to good gear quickly but Savage Raiders could still get all BiS. Upgrade materials would only be needed by those who do not do Hard or Savage Raids. *** It would be too harsh to lock a mount behind a MINE Savage so I would create a challenge achievement of some sort that could be done to earn the same mount in Hard Raids too. Such an achievement would give more players another reason to participate in Hard Raids.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

People who want savage content but easier are just lazy.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I have a problem with people who don't like savage, come here and ask for the same mechanics but with everything watered down so they can do them.

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I love Savage, but I'm not in a monogamous relationship with it. I like all kinds and levels of challenge. I love playing with people at all skill levels in content that suits their skill level (i.e. where they are having fun). I'm sorry you only see and imagine the worst in people and their motives. I do like the existing Savage Fights a lot and will do them. I'm just waiting until the average random PF Savage Raider has enough gear to clear the adds in M6S. I also see the unnecessary tensions that arise from the way the difficulty levels in this game are implemented. People's skill levels are on a bell curve but the amount of content vs difficulty is like an inverted bell curve (and yes obviously shorter on the tougher side). Can you not imagine or empathize with people at lower skill levels or lower endurance levels? Why must someone who advocates for variety automatically be an unskilled player? I might have more Chaotic clears than most players and yet I still think there should have been a slightly less strict version for other players to enjoy. Maybe a good player wants to drink a little while playing. Some people age and are closer to death than their birth. Why are you so afraid of an extra mode? Would someone clearing M6H diminish your clear of M6S? I'm sorry if you could not possibly have fun playing both Hard and Savage Raids with different types of people in different states of mind. *** You do realize that the current way Savage works is exactly that it is getting watered down over long periods of time by the way the gear is released right? Maybe it's so slow you never realized it or never thought of it that way. It is the very reason another poster was angrily afraid my solution would make a MINE Savage impossible for some to clear because it would never get watered down. My world first race comment was probably over the top: I don't know how to describe what SE is aiming for when they tune. [But to be clear I do not try to world first anything...except fishing.] But thanks to the two of you for proving my point that Savage seems to easily bring out negative emotions in some people.