The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

[Ibi]

It is virtually impossible without removing it.

Which it sounds like SE are going to do in 3.2, and it'll be interesting to see the results.

My suspicion is that even if every single person that's cleared A4S to this point clears A8S in the first two weeks and quits because they have absolutely nothing else to do (which would say as much about the non-raiding content available, or lack thereof), the impact on the economy will be negligible and you'll actually end up with a higher percentage of the players tackling and succeeding in Savage that you have now.

But that's just my feeling, and I have no data to back it up, so I'm not going to try and claim that it's "common sense" (or anything similar) that that will be the outcome.

However, a lot of the damage that's been done may be irreversible. There are likely players who quit based on the difficulty of Savage (who would have stayed around if it had instead been at Coil difficulty and they'd been more able to make progress) who won't come back regardless of how difficult Midas is.

On top of that, you likely will lose some hardcore players due to it being too easy. If Gordias had been at Coil-level difficulty, you might still have lost those players, but now they're going to lose them in addition to the group they already lost by alienating them with Gordias' difficulty, rather than losing them instead of that group.

[Alahra]

On top of that, you likely will lose some hardcore players due to it being too easy.

I'm not so sure of that. It's not as though the hardcore players didn't do Coil of Bahamut in ARR even though it was midcore. Hardcore players will engage with content that's below their preferred difficulty if there are significant incentives for doing so, the content is challenging enough, or if they like other aspects of the game, which still allows for some of that "trickle down" effect to occur.

On the flip side, midcore players won't "step up" to content that's too challenging (which is what we've seen with Savage) the same way that hardcore ones will "step down" to content that's less challenging than they would like (as long as, again, it's still challenging enough).

I don't know how significant the loss of players was when it came to FCOB being "too easy," and Midas is going to be somewhere in between SCOB and FCOB (at least, that's what they're telling us). Given that a lot of the raiding community saw SCOB as the pinnacle of the game's raiding content, I think aiming for somewhere in between Second and Final is likely to be the best compromise the developers can make between midcore and hardcore focus.

[Velhart]

On the flip side, midcore players won't "step up" to content that's too challenging (which is what we've seen with Savage) the same way that hardcore ones will "step down" to content that's less challenging than they would like (as long as, again, it's still challenging enough).

This is hard to give a definite answer to. I would be interested to see how hard Savage would of been to approach if midcore players had something more FCoB level before hand. The mechanics in general would be familiar at least.

[Alahra]

I would be interested to see how hard Savage would of been to approach if midcore players had something more FCoB level before hand.

They sort of did. AS1 and AS2 were comparable in difficulty to FCOB once you had the gear to clear them. It wasn't a full raid tier, but there was at least something there. The gap between FCOB and Savage difficulty was probably too big. If AS1/AS2 had been more in line with SCOB's difficulty, it's possible that some groups would have been better prepared for the jump to AS3, but it's really hard to say.

[Ibi]

This is hard to give a definite answer to. I would be interested to see how hard Savage would of been to approach if midcore players had something more FCoB level before hand. The mechanics in general would be familiar at least.

Based on the WoW numbers, where they have the two intermediate difficulties and see similar levels of player engagement, I suspect it might not have made a huge difference. That's something I'd like to be wrong about though.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's practical even with a much larger development team (if it's even possible) to get small enough gradients to get people from where Alexander Normal is to where Alexander Savage is. Even more so if you're doing it by repeating the same fights multiple times at slightly higher difficulty each time.

It'd be interesting to know how many people who couldn't beat A3S prior to having weapons from Thordan extreme obtained them and went on to beat A3S.

[Alahra]

It'd be interesting to know how many people who couldn't beat A3S prior to having weapons from Thordan extreme obtained them and went on to beat A3S.

I'd imagine it's "not enough," judging by Yoshi's comment about item level not being enough to help with the DPS checks. It's possible Thordan was just too little too late though—I'd imagine some groups that had been at the AS3 wall for awhile when 3.1 dropped had already given up out of frustration. If the weapons had been available earlier they might have been able to have a greater impact than they seem to have.

Once mid-core groups get there, they can get away with not having food/pots, as they are generally geared well enough to make the DPS checks without them.

I'd say a lot of midcore players still buy them, too. Hell, when my static cleared FCOB, we beat the DPS check at the very literal last second. Bahamut's final attack (was it Terraflare? I don't remember) finished its cast bar, the animation played, and then we got the fade to black from the last bit of his health ticked down. We wouldn't have done it that night if it weren't for food and pots.

[Kaurie]

II'd say a lot of midcore players still buy them, too. Hell, when my static cleared FCOB, we beat the DPS check at the very literal last second. Bahamut's final attack (was it Terraflare? I don't remember) finished its cast bar, the animation played, and then we got the fade to black from the last bit of his health ticked down. We wouldn't have done it that night if it weren't for food and pots.

They definitely do, I would consider myself midcore - as with my static. We are on A2S now, and we still use potions and food on A1S. That said, when I run out of potions and food, I am not largely concerned with going to get more. We're beating A1S with more than enough time on enrage.

In other words, midcore users use them, but it's not as necessary as it is with hardcore groups that work to beat A1S in ilvl 192 gear shortly after release.

[RiceisNice]

I don't know how significant the loss of players was when it came to FCOB being "too easy," and Midas is going to be somewhere in between SCOB and FCOB (at least, that's what they're telling us). Given that a lot of the raiding community saw SCOB as the pinnacle of the game's raiding content, I think aiming for somewhere in between Second and Final is likely to be the best compromise the developers can make between midcore and hardcore focus.

It's hard to make a direct comparison because of the circumstances between FCOB being too easy, and Alexander Savage being too hard. In the case of FCoB, it was the only difficulty for that raid tier. and SCoB savage was still present at the time. There's also a variety of content at the time to suit people outside of raiding; those who didn't have a static could do the 24mans, PF their primals, DF old coil, among other things. Those with statics could tackle FCoB at a comfortable level when it was still relevant, and still have the option to do so by clicking off echo. The hardcores would rush for their world firsts, and at the time SCoB savage was still available to them as well. I mean I could also argue that SCoB was relatively much, much harder and unforgiving than FCoB before the nerfs, to the point that I'd almost consider it to be "hardcore" due to the amount of coordination needed to get through something like T7.

For people who didn't do coil even when it was DF accessible, it's a different problem altogether; Why were they not doing coil despite it being accessible on DF with echo (which essentially trivializes the fight)? And what do the clear numbers in general mean? What about in the case of Alexander? Getting clear rate numbers is tricky because only developers can truly get the solid numbers, versus player-made census that can only really go by achievements (if they have public display enabled) or items (which is tied to redeeming from achievement or winning a roll).

[Alahra]

It's hard to make a direct comparison because of the circumstances between FCOB being too easy, and Alexander Savage being too hard. In the case of FCoB, it was the only difficulty for that raid tier.

You can't make a direct comparison, no, but the point was just that, in general, hardcore players will still do somewhat easier raids, while non-raiding/midcore players often won't step up to the higher ones. We didn't have significant player bleed around the time of FCOB due to the raid being easier than SCOB/SCOB (Savage), so I'm not sure we'll see a notable loss of players over the lowered difficulty of Midas relative to Gordias, either.

It's possible we will, but even if we lost every single player that cleared Savage, that's only perhaps 5% of the population or so (at most) which isn't large enough that it would be unable to be recovered from so long as the game continues to grow.

[Moomba33]

For people who didn't do coil even when it was DF accessible, it's a different problem altogether; Why were they not doing coil despite it being accessible on DF with echo (which essentially trivializes the fight)? .

Echo and nerfs certainly made most turns DF friendly.
My sticking points were with t5 and t9 which remained giant brick walls for quite some time as echo did nothing to help with things like divebombs and the mechanic was never adjusted to my knowledge.

A few of my friends were unwilling to try coil at all until we could undersize it in Heavensward since they were afraid of screwing up with people they didn't know.
I myself know how terrible it feels to be the cause of a group's failure but my desire to see the story made me willing to try every now and then.