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

[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.

[RiceisNice]

...

And this again, boils down to semantics on who you think are good players and which are not, which has no relevance to the topic at hand. The bottom line, regardless of the reasoning or the players, current content is pretty abyssmal with the incredibly low clear rates, while being the general census that normal mode is an utter joke. There's nothing in between within the same lines of A1S and A2S to appeal to the middle ground for until the next content update (which may or may not have said said content fulfilling the middle ground)

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.

Regardless of which one it is (and I personally think it's normal being incredibly undertuned, there's absolutely no reason to make it DF-able difficulty from the start when you have CT-raids to fill that niche), this is what we're given).

As for the liveletter, they had mentioned something of normal being "Similiar to FCoB +Echo" (which imo is the understatement of the year) While savage would be "FCoB Savage difficulty", this one not existing for reference and numerous translations leading to either FCoB or SCoB Savage. If it was the latter combined with how undertuned normal was, they're far off the mark.

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).

It'd certainly be the lesser of the two. The way it is right now, a good handful of the non-hardcore raiders (and even some hardcore ones, I can say this for a fact on my server) have disbanded or transferred off to greg for a better raiding environment/static. Aiming for the same range of FCoB difficulty (instead of FCoB+echo or even CT, because this can eventually be added over time anyway as well as overgearing) would have sufficed.

[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.

[zosia]

There are also players who play less, also completed the fourth floor and did not share the same opinion. Just to let you know, they cleared before other played because they practiced the fight for a lot more time. Some people choose to only raid 20 hours a week. Clearing quickly because you have the time to put in practice does not make you the best, nor does it mean your opinion is the same as other players. Of course, I do think that they are the best players in the game. But not for the reasoning you just gave. You are a good example of why people do not directly vote for president in the US. Apparently, just a small group of people's opinion is equivalent to millions of people. BTW, some people are working adults and don't take weeks off from work every time a patch drops. Don't use clear time to determine whose opinion matters.

There still is a content gap that catered to a larger portion of players than what alex savage caters to now. How is anything you said there relevant to the content gap we now have? Regardless if a player is "good" or good, there is no version of a raid tier similar to FCoB. We only have a snooze fest that is DF-able and hyper mode.

The thread I linked had clearly laid the issue and this was that people over estimate their own achievement and think that clearing some particular fight means that they are good players. Sure, it takes some skill to do (let's a pick a random fight) moggle mog ex. But clearing the fight didn't mean you were good. Which is why the poster explained that the people clearing FCOB weren't as a good of players that they thought they were. It doesn't take much to do a lot of the coil fights (let's pick on T5):

That's why I linked the interview. They were not the only hardcore top tier group that felt that way about alex savage. Do you want me to start linking tweets from the other world 1st groups? People who like alex savage a3s and a4s as is are definitely a minority. ARR raiders might have not been as good as they thought, but they still have much less content than they did in ARR and that's the problem we are having. I don't care if ARR raiders thought they were the best in the world, alex savage is still considered over tuned by both good and "good" players. There is still a content gap for the midcore raiders. Balancing raids around less than 1% of the player base is just as silly as only having one mode of raiding.

T5 required that you look over your head and moved to a spot. Later it required you to look at a cast bar and keep moving. That was the whole fight. DPS check is not a mechanic. People who can dps well can play their class. That's expected before you get into fights. This fight had some random elements (who got chosen for the mechanic) but either these were controllable (conflags and fireballs) or it didn't matter that it was random because every one did the same thing regardless of whether the mechanic chose you (divebombs and twisters). The last element of the fight you can even ignore completely (hatches). The skill level required to clear this fight was not high. So clearing this fight did not automatically mean you were a skilled player.

a4s has a total of what, seven mechanics the raid has to worry about? One of which is ignored. We can reduce a4s to the same minimalist points you have made. It's just stunning, moving into tethers, moving into exploding balls, etc etc. There is no amazing or revolutionary mechanics in a4s. It's just the same crap, the only thing different is the DPS required is through the roof. The mechanics are not hard, beating the enrage timer is. That's all a4s really is, just more team jump rope and beating the dps check. The only difference between t9 and a4s is that a4s was tuned higher, that's really it. I would even argue that t9 was more mechanics heavy than a4s.

But again, that is irrelevant to the content gap we have now. That roughly 12% of ARR raiders had their raid taken away and they were given a snooze fest and an over tuned version instead. What people did in ARR has absolutely no relevance to the content gap. Which is why this "good" vs actually being good point is so shallow. It does nothing to address the problems people are having. It's the dressed up version of "git gud"

Let's a look at another fight, a fight apparently so difficult that it no longer exists in the game, T7:

In T7, the main feature was that there were many instant kill mechanics, in which your teammates kill you. As everyone knows, if you get petrified, then any additional damage instantly kills you. Cool so far right? We can just avoid being petrified. But only one mechanic can you even save yourself from being petrified (petrifaction). Cursed voice and shriek petrified everyone but the user. You also have someone else petrify a renaud before it mauls your face in. First fight in the game where you actually have to trust your teammates to not fall asleep in the fight. Sure there were other stuff in the fight (renauds, dps checks, etc.) but nothing like trying to avoid death every 20 seconds from your own teammates. However in the end, all of these were handled simply (everyone face the edge, designate a ranged to stand far from boss, build The Great Wall of Renaud, shrieked person always run to the same location, etc) and the randomness seemed kind of a non issue. Once again this fight did not require vast amount of skill to complete (and now boss gives you a rope to hang her since none of the above even kills you).

See my point about T5, a4s, and T9 above.

We can fast forward to A3S, but there's no point. People are already convinced that good players cannot clear the fight and it was only meant for professional gamers with no life to clear and any stories of regular groups clearing it are made up lies. But the fact is that there are many who do clear the fight. And the misconception that clearing some other content would mean that you are able to clear unrelated content is clearly false. Clearing coil did not give you the skills to clear alex, nor did it even adequately prepare you. Half the problem is that the difficulty when down from second coil to final coil (didn't see any nerfs to final coil before adding to DF). If the difficulty trend had went up from second coil and final coil was on the level of savage second coil, then maybe we would have a smoother transition to alex. But in no way can you say that you are good based on what you cleared in the past when these fights are vastly different and test players in different ways (well you can say that all of the difficulty in coil is a subset of alex, but I digress). Of course, clearing savage alex doesn't mean you are good either. It means that your skills as a player were adequate to complete the challenge, nothing more.

I never called myself "good." I don't think it has even been a point of contention in this thread at all. This thread was never about good vs "good" players. This thread was meant to exhibit the fact that raiders are different and come in many different varieties holding many different convictions. Also, why does it matter if people think of themselves as good or not, we have a content gap that is causing statics to drop like flies, the happy raiding minority is far less important than the dissatisfied raiding majority. Again, this is why the point is a shallow one, you can say that the majority of raiders thought too highly of their skills, it does not change the fact that they are bored or unable to overcome the content they are working on.

You also like linking to an interview which people with different opinions than other people share their thoughts. Should I link to Donald Trump when people complain about unemployment? Apparently he's doing something right and everyone shares the same opinion and since he's the best player in the economy, his opinion is fact. Wonder why that guy isn't president (hmm...)?

I linked that article because they have a place of authority to speak from. This is not just some random raid group x, y, or z. They are the best group in the world, totally top notch, better than both of our statics. They are the ones that smashed their faces against the wall and prevailed 1st. That gives them a bit of credibility. Their opinion carries more weight than yours or mine. You can act obtuse if you like, but linking a random talking head to some subject he is not an expert on is leagues different from linking an expert's opinion on a topic they know a lot about.

[Astral145]

I knew HW would be a re-skinned 2.0. But like any fare driven individual I thought I would give FFXIV HW a chance to see if the devs and content creator team would learn some lessons of what to do and not to do from 2.0. Sadly they haven't and all FFXIV is nothing but grind grind grind with too many weekly caps. I have played many rpgs, sub mmos and full blown mmos and by far FFXIV is one of the saddest mmo's I have encountered. Sure FFXIV has its moments but at its core its a snooze fest. This game out grows content way to fast. Even worse gear gets thrown away faster than we can actually fully gear 2 jobs with esos. I know that mmos and rpg's are a grind fest but at least they throw in more horizontal progression and allow you to enjoy the gear you grind for a little a while. Many other mmos also add in special traits that you can bind to gear for that extra push or something different in the job you are in.

Speaking of jobs they basically threw brd under the bus then put it back together by a No.Ob dev that honestly couldn't have cared less about BRD.

BLM was made more complicated for no reason at all. Granted the nukes are awesome to look at but its not fun to play anymore. If you lose enochium your screwed and having to worry about something as retarded as timers is just plain dumb which forces you to watch a stupid icon on a screen instead of enjoying the content you are running... bad form in any mmo. I know mnk has a timer but every 3rd move resets it and with all the new skills it has makes it quite easy to keep greace up and maintain it. But with BLM you have to worry about astral fire timer and enochium timer + how much time you have left to reset enochium with Bliz 3 + 4... its stupid and not needed. BLM already had to worry about mechanics and everything else like cast times to keep it's rotations smooth why couldn't they just left it at that?

DRG has it pretty good except for that stupid RNG procs... why do dis? Why not just make a 4th positional hit in each rotation? Sometimes I wonder if the devs were drunk that day and thought it would be a good idea to throw in more crappy rng in the game.

Speaking of rng mch is heavily depended on rng.... nothing like popping the same skill over and over till ogcd's and force proc skills come off cd. But other than that MCH is pretty good but wish it was more of a gunslinger job that another stupid hybrid wannabe support dps job.

DRK is damn good for a tank but honestly it would have been a better as a dps class.

War is just way to OP for its own good nothing like hitting a 5k to 9k crit.

PLD is ummm kinda sitting in the back waiting for some love by the devs....

AST had a bad start but its now standing toe to toe with all the other healer jobs out there.

SMN is well I don't know what the heck it is... The pets now just kind pew pew and nothing much else. No new skills for pets or new pets for smn. IT would have been nice to at least get a few glamour primal skins but no the devs just shrugged it off and just made SMN OP in the AOE department. Basically the devs said meh "here's a few new skills and a few QoL changes to bane now go play and leave us alone"...o.O?

The only jobs that really kept its core game play from 2.0 was mnk (QoL changes for Greece), drg, pld, war (with a huge buff), smn (huge aoe buff), nin and all healers... all the other jobs got a shiny new turd to play with....

So basically after weighing all the stuff FFXIV has to offer is basically nothing but big shiny alligan turds that get thrown at us by big alligan monkeys.

There are 3 things that keep me hooked on a game... Horzontal Progression meaning making gear last longer with really enhance traits to farm for to bind to gear, battle classes... I go by how fun they are to play and how deep the battle ground is... meaning you have to know elemental weaknesses for every mob and boss, allowing you to manipulated mechanics and turning the tides against the bosses you face by using there own mechanics to destroy them... ect. The last thing I look at is how rich the content is. Horizontal Progression falls in line with this as well and of course if can you make decisions that could alter the story somewhat.

FFXIV has some of this but overall its nothing more than a theme park mmo that honestly has no direction at all. The battle classes are a snooze and the battles we are in are boring... its the same ol bs mechanics with no real depth or strategy.

DPS checks are not real mechanics and 1 shot mechanics are not real mechanics.... What makes fights more interesting is learning what the bosses weaknesses are then planning an attack to destroy them. Elemental weakness shine on things like this and adds to the depth of what a mmo should be. BLM could have a lot more than what is now... seriously throwing fire bombs at ifrit is kinda dumb and made zero sense at all. I understand this is fantasy but a blend of reality and fantasy can make things a little more interesting.

Well sorry for the rant but over all FFXIV HW ranks about 3 out of 10 as far as creativity, battle classes, depth of battle play and strategy is concerned. Graphics are 8 out of 10 but that is all it really has going for it. Story is at best a 5 out of 10. It was too predictable and it had no real originality it was basically a rip off of other games and stories out there.

Anyways best of luck to you all out there.... I'll be dropping sub this month because I refuse to pay SE another dime till they get there business straight. They do not offer us a real Pay to Play mmo .

[UBERHAXED]

.
.
.
DPS checks are not real mechanics and 1 shot mechanics are not real mechanics.... What makes fights more interesting is learning what the bosses weaknesses are then planning an attack to destroy them. Elemental weakness shine on things like this and adds to the depth of what a mmo should be. BLM could have a lot more than what is now... seriously throwing fire bombs at ifrit is kinda dumb and made zero sense at all.
.
.
.

Aside from the mountain of incorrect information about class you've never played, let's give some context here. Everyone know that if the player base finds an exploit, they will exploit said exploit (see A4S). Also if mechanics don't kill you, they will be ignored (see T2). This is why mechanics are the way they are now. Also fire doesn't "absorb" fire in real life, which is why the proverb (fight fire with fire) exists.

[ArcticFang]

I think a lot of people preferred coil because it was easier to prep positioning/movement in order to make up for the server ticks. I would have thought feedback on Savage Second Coil, and clear rate on it, would have acted as a sort of "beta test" to see how the community responded to it. Instead, it seems SE has discounted the results because not enough players participated. I think it would have been better to make Savage 2nd coil a limited time event and then, before passing out any title, the player would be required to fill out a feedback form with simple yes/no answers to questions. And one of those questions should have been "Did you feel like your struggle was hindered in any way by the game interface" and "Did you feel like your struggle was hindered by server latency". There would have been a LOT of yes for t8's ballistic missiles/allagan field and maybe we could have avoided this Alexander Savage disaster, which learned absolutely nothing from Savage Second Coil.

[UBERHAXED]

There still is a content gap that catered to a larger portion of players than what alex savage caters to now. How is anything you said there relevant to the content gap we now have? Regardless if a player is "good" or good, there is no version of a raid tier similar to FCoB. We only have a snooze fest that is DF-able and hyper mode.

There is no raid of the tier of FCoB because that's not the intention of the development team. They want to make raids last the entire content cycle. Also, why do people want FCoB difficulty raids? SCoB was far more challenging.

That's why I linked the interview. They were not the only hardcore top tier group that felt that way about alex savage. Do you want me to start linking tweets from the other world 1st groups? People who like alex savage a3s and a4s as is are definitely a minority. ARR raiders might have not been as good as they thought, but they still have much less content than they did in ARR and that's the problem we are having. I don't care if ARR raiders thought they were the best in the world, alex savage is still considered over tuned by both good and "good" players. There is still a content gap for the midcore raiders. Balancing raids around less than 1% of the player base is just as silly as only having one mode of raiding.

Not that it matters, but there are millions of people in the game. A group of 30 or so players's opinions, all of which who are raiding 20+ hours a week in attempt to get the content on farm as soon as possible do not give the same opinions as other players. Some players who cleared Alex do not that it was over tuned. They come from other games and were prepared for the difficulty the game presented. But we can ignore those opinions because it's convenient. And there are a lot more of those people than server first people (obviously, there can only be so many).

a4s has a total of what, seven mechanics the raid has to worry about? One of which is ignored. We can reduce a4s to the same minimalist points you have made. It's just stunning, moving into tethers, moving into exploding balls, etc etc. There is no amazing or revolutionary mechanics in a4s. It's just the same crap, the only thing different is the DPS required is through the roof. The mechanics are not hard, beating the enrage timer is. That's all a4s really is, just more team jump rope and beating the dps check. The only difference between t9 and a4s is that a4s was tuned higher, that's really it. I would even argue that t9 was more mechanics heavy than a4s.

But again, that is irrelevant to the content gap we have now. That roughly 12% of ARR raiders had their raid taken away and they were given a snooze fest and an over tuned version instead. What people did in ARR has absolutely no relevance to the content gap. Which is why this "good" vs actually being good point is so shallow. It does nothing to address the problems people are having. It's the dressed up version of "git gud"

You misunderstand the point of normal mode. Normal mode was not meant for people who cleared FCoB. It was meant for people who cannot clear FCoB. You have no say in what the difficulty of normal should be because you where not the target audience. SE realized the mistake of decreasing coil's difficulty when the released FCoB and needed to make something more difficult than SCoB. They also released that to reach their goal (content lasts until the next cycle), it was safer to tune upwards than downwards when they created the fight. If A4S is just a large dps check with no new mechanics, then people should have cleared it the first time they entered right? Nothing to learn.

See my point about T5, a4s, and T9 above.

Design choice, as to ensure the fight cannot be done with a few weeks of gear. Sounds logical from a developer's standpoint considering the last raid they released.

I never called myself "good." I don't think it has even been a point of contention in this thread at all. This thread was never about good vs "good" players. This thread was meant to exhibit the fact that raiders are different and come in many different varieties holding many different convictions. Also, why does it matter if people think of themselves as good or not, we have a content gap that is causing statics to drop like flies, the happy raiding minority is far less important than the dissatisfied raiding majority. Again, this is why the point is a shallow one, you can say that the majority of raiders thought too highly of their skills, it does not change the fact that they are bored or unable to overcome the content they are working on.

I didn't say you called yourself good. But you did (as I quoted) call a few other players good solely based on the fact of their completion of (by MMO standards and compared to the previous tier even) a relatively easy raid. You also are making quite a lot of assumptions on numbers and seem to like saying your opinion is the opinion of others. I would avoid using words like "majority" because now you are claiming to speak for other people.

I linked that article because they have a place of authority to speak from. This is not just some random raid group x, y, or z. They are the best group in the world, totally top notch, better than both of our statics. They are the ones that smashed their faces against the wall and prevailed 1st. That gives them a bit of credibility. Their opinion carries more weight than yours or mine. You can act obtuse if you like, but linking a random talking head to some subject he is not an expert on is leagues different from linking an expert's opinion on a topic they know a lot about.

For all intents and purposes, they are a random group. Just like the guy I linked was a random guy, who also cleared. Still waiting for you to complain about Donald Trumps' policies since he's an expert and his opinion matters more than the random guy in new york, which had different living conditions. I don't disagree with Donald Trump btw, nor do I think there is a better group than Elysium. I do believe there is a conflict of interest though. The developer's goal is the make the fight possible to clear, but to take as long as possible to clear it. The players have a different interest than the developers, which is why you see a disconnect here.


That being said, They did not make all 4 floor difficult and even though with just enough skill to complete FCoB and easily clear half of the raid tier. In the nest raid tier (3.2 I presume) they will look at the amount of time spent to clear alex and will determine whether to do a BCoB->SCoB transition (moving up) or a SCoB->FCoB transition (moving down). Let's not forget that they are a game company and will make a decision that is most logical from a business stand point. They could of BTW made the first too floors as difficult as the last two. Would that have been better for you? To realize up front that you weren't prepared?