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

[Alahra]

Semantic debate over whether Elysium's raid group are "the best" or "some of the best" players aside, it's still notable when a group of such caliber feels the fights may have been tuned a bit too tightly. Debating over whether an individual player or raid group is "good" kind of misses the point of the thread entirely.

In ARR, many players were "good enough" to participate in and clear the game's primary endgame raid content. In HW, a significant number of those players are no longer "good enough," and that means fewer players are able to partake in the primary endgame content. Overall, that's not really a good thing, unless suitable content is brought in to satisfy those players that are now alienated by this new, higher level of difficulty. It also means developer resources are being spent on content that an even smaller percentage of the playerbase will partake in than did so in ARR, which is ultimately not an efficient way to develop and run the game. Finding the right balance is tricky (it took WoW something like 10 years, from what I understand), but it's still important to find it.

[Spellbinder]

In ARR, many players were "good enough" to participate in and clear the game's primary endgame raid content. In HW, a significant number of those players are no longer "good enough," and that means fewer players are able to partake in the primary endgame content.

You say many, but only the developers have the numbers to make that decision. In the end, they made Alexander (the regular one) easier, to make sure more people could clear the primary raid.

In the 2.x series, Binding Coil of Bahamut, Second Coil of Bahamut, and Final Coil of Bahamut was the primary raid. Savage was icing on the cake.

This is just my opinion, but Alexander: Gordias (the regular one) is still the primary raid. Savage is the icing on the cake. The only difference this time is they added rewards. But because they chose to add rewards, and because the normal Alexander: Gordias is easier, players are glossing over it. The only thing we care about now are the shinies in Savage, even though I don't believe the players who were "good enough" for normal Coil were intended to clear all four floors of Alexander savage.

I mentioned it in one of the other myriad threads on this subject, but the level of difficulty of Savage should not have been a surprise...if you can read Japanese. But there was a translation of the information on Reddit, and yet it was still ignored, and the Western audience is suddenly blindsided by the fact that Savage is still Savage just like in 2.x.

I see all these fingers pointing at Savage as the problem, when I think the normal Alexander: Gordias is where we should be looking. If players weren't able to gloss over it so easily, if it offered even a modicum of the difficulty that 2.x raids had, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[Alahra]

I see all these fingers pointing at Savage as the problem, when I think the normal Alexander: Gordias is where we should be looking. If players weren't able to gloss over it so easily. If it offered even a modicum of the difficulty that 2.x raids had, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I actually think we still would be, if the reward structure wasn't changed. In ARR, the group of players (whatever size they are) that were sidelined by Savage were able to get top, optimized gear from B/S/FCOB. Even if Alex NM were closer to the old ARR raids in difficulty, if the i210 Gordias gear was still Savage only, I have a feeling a lot of the dissatisfaction would still be there. It's the fact that Savage gives the other i210 gear that makes people view it as the "primary" raid content more than anything. Normal mode is very clearly aimed at allowing everyone to see the story and it happens to have some rewards (which I think has more to do with the fact that it was released at a time when there was very little content than anything else).

As for the Western audience being blindsided, I think that's a bit unfair. I hadn't seen that translation until you posted it in the other thread because I try to avoid visiting Reddit. I do what I can to keep up with the Live Letters and the like, but I don't think it's really fair to discredit people's disappointment with the current state of things because they happened to miss one thread that translated a pertinent interview several months ago.

[Spellbinder]

As for the Western audience being blindsided, I think that's a bit unfair. I hadn't seen that translation until you posted it in the other thread because I try to avoid visiting Reddit. I do what I can to keep up with the Live Letters and the like, but I don't think it's really fair to discredit people's disappointment with the current state of things because they happened to miss one thread that translated a pertinent interview several months ago.

There were multiple Japanese interviews, and a player addressing Yoshi-P directly at another Japanese event. I just supplied a few examples of what the JP community has been well aware of since last year at Tokyo Fanfest. But I digress.

I actually think we still would be, if the reward structure wasn't changed. In ARR, the group of players (whatever size they are) that were sidelined by Savage were able to get top, optimized gear from B/S/FCOB. Even if Alex NM were closer to the old ARR raids in difficulty, if the i210 Gordias gear was still Savage only, I have a feeling a lot of the dissatisfaction would still be there.

This is going to sound rude of me, but the problem we face essentially boils down to an impeded race for the shinies, then? (impeded by the debated artificial difficulty of Savage)

[Alahra]

There were multiple Japanese interviews, and a player addressing Yoshi-P directly at another Japanese event. I just supplied a few examples of what the JP community has been well aware of since last year at Tokyo Fanfest. But I digress.

I may have misread the tone of your initial post that I responded to, honestly. It read to me like it was intended to dismiss the grievances, but looking back at it I don't think you meant it that way now.

This is going to sound rude of me, but the problem we face essentially boils down to an impeded race for the shinies, then? (impeded by the debated artificial difficulty of Savage)

Not entirely, as there are other issues with Savage, many of which are well outlined in the original post. But I do think that, yes, the gear plays a part in it. If there were challenging midcore raid content, along the lines of FCOB in difficulty, but the rewards weren't up to snuff, I imagine people would still be bothered by it. For those players that aren't quite up to par, they've always been able to get the gear, and can't now--it feels as though they've lost something. They've also lost the ability to tackle that level of challenging content, incentive to build a static, etc. It's not *all* about gear, but gear certainly plays a part.