Can we just have the Wrath of the Lich King Raiding Scheme?

[Dwill]

users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

And I only said they lost those extras that joined for WoTLK.

And from this exact chart, you can see that the amount of subscribers started rising in the last half of 2007 (pretty much when WotLK was annouced in August 2007) and throughout all of 2008. One could easily argue that the subscribers they lost from those 2 months were the one unhappy about the game and that they kept the majority of the subs that joined after WotLK announcement.

[RiceisNice]

...

The problem I'm getting out of what you said is that you didn't like it when LFR made the content too easy, even though normal and heroic difficulty was available to you. What harm is there in having more people experience content maybe for the lore, when you can still have access to those challenges? For the first few dungeons, there were enough changes in mechanics and numbers between LFR and normal difficulty that you couldn't effectively PUG for normal difficulty. I don't see whats wrong with allowing more people to experience content via lower difficulty, when there's also an option for harder difficulty options in comparison.

What really killed it in MoP was the overall difficulty in the last raid. Even I have to say that normal mode SoO is a complete joke, especially the final boss of all people when its in relativity to LFR. They shouldn't tone down the current difficulty in FFXIV (except for some spot-check one shot mechanics like the dive bombs, that's just silly for a boss mechanic) and they tried to do it by implementing 20% echo into Coil 1 (again which doesn't really help with spot-check mechanics).

[silentwindfr]

the trouble it's the curve of difficulty... Dungeon must serve to training ground, but let's be honest, they are too easy. exept one or two, that was tune down, all the dungeon are freeloot.

behind we have the HM, that exept Titan (at the release) was quite accessible, Titan for a large part of the playerbase was a trouble for two reason:
- 1) the lag a lot of player did experience the lag
- 2) the DDR-style, because of the 1) people did fall into a DDR style of raiding, we are not reacting, we are knowing what will happend and when. not everybody is good at this... know the whole pattern of the boss can be something quite hard for people (in my case, it take a huge work to memorize long pattern, when i'm quite capable to react to it... actually i have never learn the pattern and did learn the skill and react to them.)

after this we enter the first coil, T1 it's not extremely hard a bit of work and anybody can pass it. actually ADS it's harder than Cad. T2 in normal setting can be tricky and ask more skill, but one more time people did find a way to do it more easily by using the enrage tactics) T4 it's more interesting already, even if it's still quite simple, you follow rules for each wave and it freeloot.
and then you have T5... until then you did get quite easy tactics and pattern, you was able to pass anything with a bit of work... but T5 did bring a few new tricks. i personally from my experience of different raid, feel it was really really really rude from them part. like the Dive and the twister, without forget the long phase or the instant kill technic. why soo many people don't pass T5? because they don't have the training for it. the game before, never train them for face this sort of... behaviour. only 1 boss in the whole game before had skill hidden. it's in aurum vale, the second boss, where you don't see the red circle, it's not hard as fight... but the number of time i have seen group wipe on it because of this.

After you had the toxic community with the 1 fail = kick or other means stuff in the same genre, that have make a looot of player simply abandon the raid (like me). the choice of SE to make this fight extremely hard for please Hardcore by add skill that have artificially increase the difficulty of the fight it's... let's be honest idiot. if they had train them playerbase by offering them challenge that become harder and harder and had a better difficulty curve... we will not be in this situation.

the trouble don't lie in the capacity of the playerbase, but in the capacity of the dev to train this playerbase. let's be honest, how many stuff outside the raid it's dangerous or did kill you? Yoshi-P choice did lead to that situation... add a raid like in Wotlk is not a solution, the solution it's to bring new content with a better difficulty and learning curve that what we did get. he need to stop to think to the hardcore or casual gamer and simply see the whole playerbase as a player, make it content hard for a normal player.

if they do this it's easier later to bring harder content that will please a maximum of player. because every player, casual included, will become better and better, and soon the difference in terms of skill between hardcore and the other will be less important.

ps: i want to add something, it's impossible to make a content that will please hardcore gamer without relly on some... cheat in a way. because hardcore gamer have more time for learn and become better. it's pointless to even try to make a content that will be hard for them... because it will recquire to make a content with a learning curve extremely long. for compensate the time they can play.
by doing this, this content it's out of reach for other type of player!

it's the same with the casual in the other sense, the learning curve will be short and the content will fast be consumed... the only way to make a content for casual that can be... good. it's make a content with a very high replayability. however soo far, it's not the case of FF14 content. (or most of the content in mmorpg)

[Velhart]

snip

People should work hard for their reward, even if it is just for the lore. If you can't beat it, then wait till the next patch comes and they make it easier for you. Giving White Tanooki suits in the content's prime promotes laziness and lacks motivation for players to push the content, which developers don't want to happen. People beating the easy mode and not looking at the game till next patch. WoW's "Looking for Raid" feature was proof alone to show for this.

[Fendred]

People should work hard for their reward, even if it is just for the lore. If you can't beat it, then wait till the next patch comes and they make it easier for you. Giving White Tanooki suits in the content's prime promotes laziness and lacks motivation for players to push the content, which developers don't want to happen. People beating the easy mode and not looking at the game till next patch. WoW's "Looking for Raid" feature was proof alone to show for this.

I agree. What is being suggested isn't to make it a walk in the park like Crystal Tower, but to create two difficulties that both pose a challenge, with the lesser of the two opening things up a bit so that the increased learning time associated with new MMO players isn't as substantial a barrier. The current system punishes players for trying to help new players learn content by preventing them from seeing the story that they could be viewing had they chosen to completely cloister themselves away with the rest of the hardcore community. Wrath of the Lich King's raiding scheme helped to solve that problem by finding a good balance for their community while preserving the genuine raids as Heroic Mode.

[Velhart]

I agree. What is being suggested isn't to make it a walk in the park like Crystal Tower, but to create two difficulties that both pose a challenge, with the lesser of the two opening things up a bit so that the increased learning time associated with new MMO players isn't as substantial a barrier. The current system punishes players for trying to help new players learn content by preventing them from seeing the story that they could be viewing had they chosen to completely cloister themselves away with the rest of the hardcore community. Wrath of the Lich King's raiding scheme helped to solve that problem by finding a good balance for their community while preserving the genuine raids as Heroic Mode.

Unfortunately lock outs are necessary to keep the content relevant. If you kept it unlocked or loot lock out, the content will be beaten much faster and then people will complain about lack of content and nothing to do. Not saying there couldn't be a better system for this, but I haven't seen any good ideas come from anyone. I do wish however that the developers would separate the lock outs of Normal and Savage like WoW does with Normal and Heroic. Give higher tier rewards for Savage also. Right now the lack of rewards is probably the biggest reason that most T9 winners don't even look at Savage. Incentive is heavily driven by reward, which titles don't really make up for in most people's eyes.

In all fairness though, all content except Coils is not on a strict lock out. For better or worse, Coils is built for people willing to put together dedicated teams to overcome. People who cannot be part of a dedicated team for whatever reason get their chance when new content arrives.

[Galliano]

I think this is a good idea for people wanting to experience the raid without too much of a wall. It would also be good for people to get used to the raid and move up to the hard and savage modes. Make it give lesser stat gear of a different colour or something to keep people wanting to run it but not too close to the standard coil drops, so they have something to aim for once they've beat the normal mode.

So it would look like:

Normal (story focused with lesser stat gear)
Hard (standard coil at release)
Savage (As it is)

[Exstal]

I think it's cumbersome to add 3 levels of raid. Especially if they keep the convention that you have to complete normal Coil to unlock Savage. It was annoying enough having to do Garuda, Garuda Hard, then Garuda Extreme. Having to do 3~5 bosses three times over? That's pretty irritating. If story mode Coil isn't required to continue on with the main story, nor required to enter normal Coil then I'd be okay with it.

[Zarzak]

I'm going to be absolutely serious here, and I'm not trying insult anyone with the following statement.

FFXIV targets the lowest possible skill brackets available in the gaming spectrum. The problem is the wider the skill brackets between players, the greater the drama becomes. It becomes more socially uncomfortable to try forming statics because more of the people can't make the cut, and that leads to less people trying to make static groups. Thus, skilled players find themselves increasingly locked out of the content made for them because they'd have to be increasingly ruthless in sorting out who can actually run stuff, and no one plays an MMORPG to be a dick.

VERY well said. And that is how I feel any time I try to form a group (or join one a friend made) for example making a ex primal group (pick one doesn't matter)

you look at the guy who just joined the group and notice he is in full ilvl 110 gear (minus the ring) this is what follows...

-any other MMO "ok this guy is definitely legit
-FFXIV "Shit ok check what items he has. Check his other classes. Send tells to whoever invited him. Make an obscure comment about T6 and see if he responds appropriately. Ask him a simple math problem.

Unlike any other MMO where you can glance at someone and immediately get a good idea about their capabilities. FFXIV asking someone to come fill in for member of your static who is on vacation is a SCARY SCARY event.

We had a ilvl 110 blm come into our T6 run a few weeks ago due to a member missing. After 3-4 pulls I began to wonder how the guy had managed to find the zone in.

But they(SE) don't really portray this fact when they give off the illusions that you need a static. If there was no direct coil lockout but perhaps just a loot lockout, you would probably see a big increase in the raiding community. Many experienced people will be assisting the other newcomers. With the current way, it's either have a static or struggle to down the content. What if you don't have that time to dedicate for a static?

I don't think it's not so much people don't want to do the content even on it's current difficulty but that the field of raiding is not favorable to the audience this game largely targets. You simply need to remove the burden of forced static progression. If you made two separate levels of the same instance, one being harder with slightly better rewards with a progression lockout (like current coil), and one with a loot lockout but open to the masses (no progression lockout), you introduce the raiding content to the mainstream, while also maintaining the hardcore progression in statics.

You even give the possibility for the masses to climb up to the difficult level and influence them to want to start on the harder level next time.

If you don't have time to join a raid group.. You don't raid. This is nothing new or revolutionary has been so since the dawn of MMOs for a good reason.

[Nel_Celestine]

~snip~

Wouldn't you want something like this to improve the pool of skilled players to draw on? I'm not saying everyone will become instantly skilled with a tiered difficulty setting, but it would improve the player base skill set and allow for some people to progress up the skill latter rather than having to be there on patch day or forever be considered stupid and can't beat pac-man...