Raider to Non-Raider: an exhibition on thoughts and misconceptions

[dejavutwo]

I personally raid for the novelty of the fights and challenge. Having normal modes of say extreme primals was never an issue for me because you would to the normal mode once, and then actually learn the fight in extreme, which even then would only take at most half an hour to learn. With Alex on the other hand, in order to gear up, you had to run each floor multiple times a week to prep for the savage mode, which then takes much longer to learn. When learning the new savage fights they are close enough to normal that they feel about the same, so there is very little novelty to keep the fight interesting while wiping.

As the OP pointed out, I too have seen statics struggling to keep their rosters together. Players cycling in and out is always a part of raiding, as nobody sticks with it forever, but the attrition rate for this tier has been so much higher. I don't know if I can last another tier set up the same as this one.

[zosia]

Chiramu, Natashio, SevenHeavens, Waeksyn, and Kore_Hyperion have apparently opted to side with the rude, uninformed and caustic group on the forums. Keep it up folks. I'm sure you don't even realize that losing the raiders will have severe repercussions across the board and may even spell the beginning of the end for this game.+

I used to be a raider in a couple of other games until mother nature decreed my right hand shall no longer work well enough to participate in that level of play. So in FFXIV I content myself with most other content but Coils and Alexander Savage. I will attempt Alex normal once I have the ilevel. I know how hard raiders work at seeking perfection so they can beat that boss! It's thrilling, exhausting and often demoralizing all rolled into one.

@Zosia
Thanks for your well presented post. Every point is bang on. I do have one question though. What is this new BiS gear that is coming out in 6 weeks? Something from the 24 man? If so, why is that a bad thing? Seems it might be easier gear to get so one can use it to go back to A3S and A4S with better gear.

Thank you for taking the time to read it. The new BiS gear will come from the "sky pirate" styled content where you explore uncharted areas of The Sea of Clouds. There is little information as of now, but aetherial gear will drop from some sort of hunt or NM styled monster. This gear has a chance to be BiS depending on the itemization. I don't think it's a bad thing to have the 210 gear drop from that area. I honestly don't know how it will play out, but I imagine raiders will have mixed feelings about it until more information in available. It certainly feels like a double edge sword. It will definitely help some statics with progression, but depending on what's available from the islands, raiders might only have bragging rights as the main point of value from savage. That's what really frightens me since the last savage raid we had where gear was not a reward flopped pretty hard.

I personally raid for the novelty of the fights and challenge. Having normal modes of say extreme primals was never an issue for me because you would to the normal mode once, and then actually learn the fight in extreme, which even then would only take at most half an hour to learn. With Alex on the other hand, in order to gear up, you had to run each floor multiple times a week to prep for the savage mode, which then takes much longer to learn. When learning the new savage fights they are close enough to normal that they feel about the same, so there is very little novelty to keep the fight interesting while wiping.

As the OP pointed out, I too have seen statics struggling to keep their rosters together. Players cycling in and out is always a part of raiding, as nobody sticks with it forever, but the attrition rate for this tier has been so much higher. I don't know if I can last another tier set up the same as this one.

Yeah, I definitely agree, especially with a1s and a2s. Those fights were marginally different from their normal counterparts. A2S is by far the great offender. It's the same fight as normarl with the exact same mechanics with the primary difference being what comes out in each wave. If there was an award for most boring fight of the tier, the rehashing of t4 into a2N and a2S was a mistake imho.

They should have added a mini boss that had to be contended with throughout the fight. Maybe a super faust and have the waves of trash mobs be less of a chore that way it feels like we are fighting an enemy commander and his/her army rather than just a gauntlet of trash.

That would have been a great difference to have between a2s and a2n.

Also, I bolded the part I can't agree with enough and you worded it so well. Attrition is through the roof with raiders this expansion.

[Chiramu]

Chiramu, Natashio, SevenHeavens, Waeksyn, and Kore_Hyperion have apparently opted to side with the rude, uninformed and caustic group on the forums. Keep it up folks. I'm sure you don't even realize that losing the raiders will have severe repercussions across the board and may even spell the beginning of the end for this game.

Lol you're taking the moral high ground it seems. Please be more concise with your words so people will read them.

[NovaWulfe]

You are now my favorite poster on the forums, OP.

[Krylo]

Here's the thing, everyone plays for story, challenge, and gear (and, on Balmung, ERP, maybe).

Hardcore raiders, in every MMO, make up a small percentage of the over all player base. Hurting the larger populations of the game to service them is bad business and bad design. It's using development time on resources a majority of your players will never see and leaving a large portion of your customer base dissatisfied to satisfy a smaller group. (And both groups of players are just as likely to leave during slower times, find other games, etc. Loyalty doesn't really change between casual and hardcore and everyone in between).

Hardcore raiders do get to have the best possible gear for months at a time, and usually it's very shortly after equal ilevels become available to the rest that new, better, ilevel gear is released for hardcore raiders. They almost always have the best gear. This is fine. Giving raiders much higher than the 10 ilevels they already have over everyone else, however, would destroy the challenge of any non-hardcore raid content as everything else would have to be built around the 20+ ilevel deficit the rest of the player base has. So if they play for challenge they shouldn't WANT this. They can show off just fine with 10 ilevels and a much much much higher skill level than the average DF players.

FFXIV is a very story orientated MMO. Everyone who plays wants story. Hardcore raiders all through to 2.55 were the only ones capable of watching the coil story line--one that was very connected to the main story line and very important to a lot of people. Did this get people raiding who otherwise maybe wouldn't have? Possibly. Did it also alienate and frustrate a larger portion of the community than was made happy by this? Yes. Definitely. Gating an important and/or interesting story line behind Savage goes back to being bad business and bad design. It shouldn't, and won't, happen.

This leaves challenge, and if that's really your issue? Cool. Post about it. Suggest harder/better mechanics.

If, however, you're burnt out from doing normal, want special story cookies for yourselves, or just feel like you aren't out DPSing the casual scrubs by QUITE enough with your +10 ilevels with better itemization than casual scrubs get? Well. . . that's too bad? You're a minority of the customer base and no sane company is going to hurt a majority of their paying customer base to make a minority happier with them.

[zosia]

Here's the thing, everyone plays for story, challenge, and gear (and, on Balmung, ERP, maybe).Hardcore raiders, in every MMO, make up a small percentage of the over all player base. Hurting the larger populations of the game to service them is bad business and bad design. It's using development time on resources a majority of your players will never see and leaving a large portion of your customer base dissatisfied to satisfy a smaller group. (And both groups of players are just as likely to leave during slower times, find other games, etc. Loyalty doesn't really change between casual and hardcore and everyone in between).

Hardcore raiders do get to have the best possible gear for months at a time, and usually it's very shortly after equal ilevels become available to the rest that new, better, ilevel gear is released for hardcore raiders. They almost always have the best gear. This is fine. Giving raiders much higher than the 10 ilevels they already have over everyone else, however, would destroy the challenge of any non-hardcore raid content as everything else would have to be built around the 20+ ilevel deficit the rest of the player base has. So if they play for challenge they shouldn't WANT this. They can show off just fine with 10 ilevels and a much much much higher skill level than the average DF players.

FFXIV is a very story orientated MMO. Everyone who plays wants story. Hardcore raiders all through to 2.55 were the only ones capable of watching the coil story line--one that was very connected to the main story line and very important to a lot of people. Did this get people raiding who otherwise maybe wouldn't have? Possibly. Did it also alienate and frustrate a larger portion of the community than was made happy by this? Yes. Definitely. Gating an important and/or interesting story line behind Savage goes back to being bad business and bad design. It shouldn't, and won't, happen.

This leaves challenge, and if that's really your issue? Cool. Post about it. Suggest harder/better mechanics.

If, however, you're burnt out from doing normal, want special story cookies for yourselves, or just feel like you aren't out DPSing the casual scrubs by QUITE enough with your +10 ilevels with better itemization than casual scrubs get? Well. . . that's too bad? You're a minority of the customer base and no sane company is going to hurt a majority of their paying customer base to make a minority happier with them.

You are missing the point.

Raider =/= hardcore raider. You did not need to be a hardcore raider to beat t13. To get a a4s clear, to deal with that many mechanics at once in the last phase while maintaining a high level of performance, you will need to be a one of your server's finest players. Outside of alex savage, there is no challenging content. Why even bother having a static if you're not a raider of the savage caliber?

SE took content for 10% of the player base and made it for less than 1% of the player base so that non-raiders could go from having 90.0%+ of the game catered to them having 99% of the game without having to change anything about their play style. Now that other 9%, the ones that cannot cope with savage, are becoming lost to the dev team. They are a complete blind spot.

What should that 9% do? This is not the game for them? Should SE just cut their losses and lose 10% of their player base and only make story driven duty finder raids? I know that's an extreme extension, even a bit of a slippery slope, but there has to be a balance struck. Where does that line fall? When do raider subs matter? If at all? The reason I ask is because I am soon approaching a cross roads of my own about this game. If and when my friends leave, at some point I will have to ask myself why I play this game at all and those would be the question I am sure I would ask myself.

You are now my favorite poster on the forums, OP.

Thanks for reading it and I appreciate the positive feedback ^_^

[FaizeD]

FFXIV is a story oriented MMO, so everything must have an amazing story except this one bit of end-game content that I personally have no desire to participate in. That should have no story, because I pay my subscription and am unable to differentiate between having access to all the content, and actually doing it. I don't like it when other people get stuff that I don't have by doing things. So everything above my current level of progression should be an empty grey room with a ball and a cup and when those filthy raiders get the ball in said cup, they can be rewarded with a "gratz" and a pat on the back.

[NekoGenesis]

Thank you for taking the time to type out the post, OP, it is very well written and whilst I do concur with many of the points you raise, with the overarching point, correct me if I'm wrong, being to stop pigeonholing all the raiders, hardcore or otherwise, as snide, overbearing, arrogant elitists and to recognize that they have legitimate concerns with the content developed to cater to them.

[zlol365]

Honestly, This is one guy trying to talk to you about the everyday struggles of raiders. Not hardcore raiders.

I'm a raider too, though of course, i think whats keeping my static and me in for raiding is the fact that raiding is ca challenge but i suppose we've built up a bond, so there's a slight social factor to it. *wink*

More then that.

Its definitely true that Alex Savage is really punishing. Perhaps it might reward people in it for the challenge, however, generalization and saying all raiders are just looking for challenge isn't the fact.

Yes, we have some people who raid to up e peen with awesome equipment, etc. However, that's not why EVERYBODY raids. Its true that raiders just want to excel in what they do, and equipment being the best is one of it. We don't care if people get same ilvls in time to come. We just want to strive to be the best in our jobs. Be it rotations, etc. That's why for some raiders, equipment is important.


Then we have people just in it for the story. I agree with the OP on this. The reason why many people wanted to attempt coil was for the story. when you have a story that is gated behind the raid, in some sense, people want to attempt it, just to experience the story, which perhaps to them was the only reward. So please do understand that when Alex normal came out then savage alex, to find content that has become more difficult then Coil (Savage alex) has no more of that story reward, sort of kills off the motivation. Please understand not from your casual lenses or your hardcore lenses and see that these people started raiding because of WHAT Coil offered in terms of story. When you take that motivation out, they would just rather stick to norm alex or eventually just lose motivation for alex savage.

The OP here is highlighting the struggles of the raiding community. NOT a specific group of hardcore raiders.

He's trying to get you all to feel us and not treat us like thrash on the forums. Though honestly, I don't give a dam about people who disparage raiders here. Forums tend to reflect only 20% of people who tend to be vocal, while there's a 80% silent majority. Its true forums can represent the community to a certain extent, but not always.

So before you get onto your moral high ground, or get your swords, arrows, spells to turn this entire dam thread to a flame war or a debate about casuals vs hardcore raiders... Please hear the cry of the poor dude to relate to us as a fellow FFXIV player who just wants to have fun in his own way. Right now its increasingly becoming so tense in the forums here where its CONFORM MY WAY OR DIE.

Since when has our society progressed and then digressed to the period of colonialism where we think our own ways are superior compared to the other?

Food for thought dudes.

[Veralidaine]

You said olive branch and that made me think of olive garden and that's as far as I got