Yoshi P: Please Consider a Better Raiding System in 3.0 - Beyond Statics

[Alipoprocks]

Oh since this is your attitude, will make this my last response to you, at least respond properly with points against my posts in a more civilised manner in this debate, dont like my posts thats fine, but to act childish like that, wonder who may be the problem then when it comes to the 7th group for coil then.

I only say this because you responded to everyone's post saying they are wrong, "false," and don't even try to consider what other people are dealing with because that is not your experience.

It's great that you are able to have people to rotate in your group. I don't know anyone else that is able to do that. We were able to do that at launch. But every month there were groups of people that quit. When we got new people, some would quit or wouldn't work out. So good for you that everything is working out for you. But that is not a lot of peoples' experience and makes this game troublesome.

[Akariel]

One sad thing I find in this setup is that not everyone will be able to find a static.

Even with the general static group being composed of 2 tanks, 2 heals, 4 dps, dps classes still far outnumber tanks/heals, so there will be for certain a lot of dps that will be left out once all the tanks/heals that are willing to join a static have joined one. Even PFs in my server now show multiple parties all trying to fill up tank/heal slots.

The option left to those dps will be to reroll to a more in-demand role or live a pug life forever, the latter not being much too enjoyable at all imho (e.g. PFs will all dps with no tank/heal joining).

[Grotesque]

We're a static/flexi-raid of 13 people, who actively play main and second classes in raids, currently T13 progress. We vote on a weekly base who has time on our raid days (tues,wed,thurs,sun,mon) and then choose 3 days with a suitable team composition. The biggest disadvantage is that progression is slower in comparison to a static of 8. Main advantages are that most people learn the fights from different perspectives and anyone can take a break without the burden of busting the raid, we all have our RL issues and it can always happen that something unplanned occurs which is bad if you have only the needed 8. We keep track how many kills everybody has on a turn and who needs what from each turn, so we try to equally distribute the kills among all members. Sometimes, we are enough to go for a third chest since they were introduced.

[Duelle]

Just take voidwatch from xi. 18 man content, doesn't lock you out for trying with 17 or less, good mechanics in fights, everyone gets their own lootnothing but logs.

No thanks.

In 1.0, the highest end content did not have 100% drop rate for rewards, and as a result, it did not have any Weekly Lockout. With a lower drop rate and no weekly lockout, *and* a 100% Token Drop, players were able to have LS and groups of friends with *more* than 8 people and rotate people in, so that everyone in your particular group had a chance to raid together.

Keep in mind that 1.0's endgame content was basically Cutter's Cry, Dzmael Darkhold and primal fights. Also keep in mind that content was holdover content meant to take a ridiculous amount of time because they had literally nothing else they could add to the game between implementation and the day the servers shut down.

Beating around the bush on this does nothing for all involved. Raid size and content tuning are the reasons why you see so many people wanting to form static groups.

The size issue is obvious. Less people that can see the content together. Not to mention greater need for the less popular roles (tanks and heals) and less space for the more populated roles (DPS) per raid group.

Coil being tuned to being the way it is does have part of the blame on why people feel forced to make static groups. The fact it is limited to 8 people is also an issue, as it does lead to less people experiencing the content if the content is tuned in such a way that a static group is required. Remember that the moment content becomes "difficult", people will start placing barriers to weed out everyone but those who meet their criteria to run the content. This is why I always have an issue with designs that are built around one difficulty without various modes.

Players are *pushed away* from their own FC / LS / Group of Friends because of the inherent design of the Weekly Lockout and Loot System.

You're barking up the wrong tree. Lockouts have nothing to do with why people aren't seeing content and running with their FCs. Raid size is to blame here.

While the current Coil chests drop something of value 100% of the time, the current Loot Pools are so gigantic and the Random Number Generator is so random, that for many, it takes MONTHS to ever get the item they wanted, let alone NEVER seeing something drop (e.g., I never got my Tank Body from T9 (nor the Sword) (never saw them drop in all the runs I did, even after Echo Buff and no lockouts). It’s almost like having a “low drop rate” system anyways.

This is because you have a paltry four/five bosses compared to what you'd see within a content tier elsewhere. Plus plenty of alternatives and gear that can hold you over. Those two things are what FFXIV sorely lacks when it comes to gear drops.

[Atomnium]

The fact that they aren't doing anything about it and just whinging and wanting the system to change says it all they cant adapt to a system in this game thats been in place for over a year now.

Why cant you have in your team a number greater then 8 and rotate them out on a daily basis, whats stopping you from this, greed is whats making people just stick to 8 and not expanding on this number.

I'm not sure that by calling people greedy, your main goal was to show a friendly attitude in your post :/

You know, not everyone are able or ok to rotate for end game activities such as instanced raiding content in ffxiv and this is mostly due to the nature itself of the said content.
Progressing through instanced places such as coil is less likely going to be "rotation system" friendly.
Why? Just because there is not much point to voluntary nerf your progression rate since you are going to need the best of your team mates in order to reach the mandatory skill level, harmony, tight dps/heal checks needed.

So you will probably reply with something like "but it's not a race! Do you want to be the best/first to clear contents or do you want to socialize with other raiders. You could totally put a rotation system there"
Eh... Why not both? Why we would have to heavily punish our members in order to create an "half-working" community?
And yeah, heavily punishing is the right word to me, benching players of your FC just in order to possibly rotate people in 8 man instanced contents with a weekly lockout is really sad, because someone will always feel left out at a point.

I have no idea of the size of your FC but how many benched players do you have every weeks? And how many of them have to PUG their coils at the end of the week because they were locked out? Is it acceptable or just very sad?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Rotation system with a roster and even some sort of "intending-points" are bad in a general way. But they are not working for current FFXIV end game.
To be fair it was working greatly for most openworld endgame contents in the other mmos I experienced, because you could split people to different places for different tasks and repeating them with no heavy lockout. (at max, you had to wait the repop of X NM for an hour or to wait the specific server time of a place, there was also force spawn fights too).

Lockouts have nothing to do with why people aren't seeing content and running with their FCs. Raid size is to blame here.

Both actually xD It's a double loose system : Raid size system locked to 8 + weekly lockout preventing to help other people.

I've paid a lot of attention to all the major forums and announcements and have yet to see a post quoting him saying it bothers him, or that he's even commented on it. Link?

The last time Yoshi-P made some sort of official answer about the subject was like a couple of months later after the launch of ARR during an interview, to him, if I recall his words, he said something like "Mercenary players who does selling exist, they are a part of the game and can be considered as a role playing activity".

But 2.45 proved us that his opinion may have radically changed since.
No offence really but the answer is kind of obvious when you become a raider and experience the evolution of different mechanics they worked on since scob, they always heavily punished the mistake (or the inactivity) of a single player leading to the whole wipe of the team.

[Dererk]

End game is supposed to be hard nothing to it I can understand nerfing old content after awhile but end game is and has all ways been optional the hard mode fights from Good king moogle Mog are a lot easier because it's still part of the main story.

I think that a hard mode and extreme mode for Alexander is a good idea I just hope the extream mode has better gear than HM to make it worth while and is done in a way so that people can't sell carry's. Because maybe then we won't have to suffer a one chest penalty like with FCOB.

[Magis]

Sorry OP, but reducing the exclusivity (and therefore organizational drama) of raiding would 'reduce the content's lifespan' - ie, make it less profitable to sell raids.

People still buy/sell raids? Like I get it back in 2.0 when relics required Titan HM when it was hard, but... really? Coil will get nerfed anyway cause it seems it's more about the gear then the experience of getting said gear. And yes, reducing the content lifespan is a valid concern, regardless how sarcastically you say it is.

[Kiara]

They just need to add FC level content.

16 - soloable mobs in the open world that randomly drop an item used to pop (drops craft materials)
8 -4 manable mobs force popped in the open world that an item used to pop (drops i140 accessories)
4 - 8 man team instance mobs (Coil level) (drops i150 gear and accessory upgrade items)
1 - 24 man mega boss (extremely though 30 minute timer, 15min fight) - drops a single i155 weapon

Rinse and repeat to learn/farm. No lockout restrictions.

Hey SirTaint,

I'd love to see open world content that FC / LS (more than 8) can tackle.

Definitely would love to see challenges that reward Pop Items that allow FC to force spawn a challenging encounter (or entry into a special raid).

Ideally with no lockouts, and the ability to then run it with more than just 1 fixed static of 8 players.

[Sapphic]

OP it's the players that only run content as statics, nothing to do with SE. Players want challenging content and they find the best way to approach it is with a static, that isn't on SE. Problems boil down to how many bad players there are that are incapable of learning hard content.

So pugging or DFiing them turns into a lottery of whether you get players who either can't learn due to skill level, wont learn due to ego, or don't understand due to them picking a language they cannot communicate in or read whatsoever. A static just guarantees you end up with players that aren't in those brackets.

If the quality of DF players increased dramatically, or if attitude changed to the JP philosophy where PF is to learn DF is for when you can clear the content. Statics are going to save a lot of time wasting and headaches.

Just try DFiing turn 9 where it has been made easier twofold, Echo and gear. You will get players like those I mentioned earlier

[Kiara]

You're barking up the wrong tree. Lockouts have nothing to do with why people aren't seeing content and running with their FCs. Raid size is to blame here.

Raid size of course would alleviate a lot of the issues, but your claim that "Lockouts have nothing to do with why people aren't seeing content and running with their FC" is just not true.

I know quite a few FC that have *great* players (who perform well in end game), but they are beyond the 8 pre-established people in their FC's static.

If there was no loot lockout / penalty, even keeping at a fixed 8 Player Raid, they could've joined and run w/ their FC via being rotated in for each raid:

* First team (8 players).
* Rotate in extra FC / LS / Friends that couldn't go the first run.

Instead, they are all forced to start finding their own static or just PUG / Party Finder each week.