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

[Malzian]

That's why I also mentioned WoW as well and games from the Final Fantasy series, the point was to have a wide array of different and similar genres to draw comparison from. Not o mention you can take this game at your own pace if you want, you can attempt to clear everything as fast as possible by joining a static and going at content non stop, you can attempt to slowly PUG it at a rate you feel comfortable, or you can wait for it to get easier and do it then. If that's not a variety of time investment options I don't know what is. PUGin savage is more than doable by the way, plenty I players have cleared a3s in PUGs.

Okay, since WoW is a viable comparison, let's look at that. Now, I will note that I personally did not play WoW (for very long...) so most of what I will say comes from the plethora of people that I know played it.

The thing about raiding in WoW, no matter the expansion, no matter the raid, there always was a large number of parallel paths for you to advance through in order to accomplish what you needed to do in order to be ready for the raid. This meant that whenever you logged in, you had something to do. We should also note that the WoW raids mostly came out with expansions, which were not presented as often as we get content patches in XIV, meaning that devs had a lot more time to actively develop those raids before release.

Also note that Blizzard has a HUGE group of devs dedicated to producing these raids (many of which I've been lucky enough to meet personally...) so they have a lot of talent to pull from in both the sophistication of the encounters they can develop as well as the overall quantity they can push out.

XIV's dev team for this is, by comparison, relatively small and they push out the content at a much faster rate than most other companies do. This means, sadly, that the content is often not as polished and isn't close to the same volume as other games. Because of this, unlike the multithreaded path that people can follow at their place in WoW, you basically have only one path into Savage, and it's a hugely lackluster set of encounters. In the long and short of it, I think the only reliable way that we will ever get good quality raids with enough content wrapped around them is if they expand the dev team, because no one will accept them pushing out content slower then they are right now.

As someone who greatly enjoyed the challenge of savage coil when it was difficult, and the rush of handling mechanics precisely and trusting your team mates implicitly, I feel nothing but disdain for Alexander Savage. My static fell apart, 5 major statics on my server dissolved or transferred and I can't even get back in to raid anymore. I'm imminently qualified as arguably the best dragoon on my server (I'm mildly elitist, what can I say) and I still can't catch a break because nobody wants in. The fights are boring.

What I would have preferred, is for them to have released normal mode alongside savage, or even after since it's only purpose is for the bleeding hearts that wanna experience raid story, and rather than streamline savage, drop the NM players off right in front of boss rooms (Faust for example). Add expanded area's that the savage players would get to experience, because Alexander seems cramped and claustrophobic in comparison to T1, or even T3. Let the savage players who are crashing against the savage wall have something that distinctly makes it different, because these boring mechanic changes are insulting. AS1 and AS2 are incredibly boring already, AS3 and 4 are gear checks, 3 being the more enjoyable of the 2, while 4 is just a grind of attrition. The mechanics are lack luster and require very little coordination in comparison to things as simple even as t12/13, or savage 7/8. The difficulty shouldn't be hidden behind a gear wall, but behind a veil of true mechanical difficulty that inspires players to improve and rely on one another.

-A former 'Elitist' Raider

I also highly disagree with the level of these checks in most cases. They're too reliant on the numbers... iLvl, frame-perfect DPS, frame perfect heals. They don't allow a team to adapt and rather force them into creating a standard methodical approach which you set up and never, ever... ever deviate from. Due to this, because it is so implicit that you must do these specific things at specific times in specific ways (or die), groups rarely want to help teach anyone new anymore. That, in itself, puts off a lot of people from even trying the content.

I can hardly count the number of groups that look for replacements that state: "Must know mechanics" or "Must have experience." Much like the job market, it's hard to -get- experience doing something if no one is willing to even let you try it in the first place. I can also say that I've seen plenty of PF groups that even say all that while cursing people out who haven't even joined yet because they haven't done something yet. Yes, the mechanics of the fight are boring, tedious and in many cases dumb... That's part of why I haven't bothered with Savage and really only do A1 and A2, because the fights for A3 and A4 are just uninteresting.