Issue With End Game Raiding

[Saccharin]

Getting 8 people together to do scheduled content is difficult. And when you have content that requires several weeks of practice to clear and people slam their heads against walls for it, it leads to burn out. Couple this with the fact I believe we're just so far into the game's life cycle now that there might be a diminishing pool of veteran raiders willing to run on a schedule every week (and not enough new, incoming players to replenish the ranks), and you can see why it might be getting harder and harder for people to make this work.

This got me thinking about what possibly could be done. Then an idea popped into my head - how about introducing smaller team compositions for end game raid. Getting maybe 6 people or even as few as 4 together would be much easier than 8, and would possible allow for more groups to exist, increasing the overall active raid scene. So like, a 4-person version of Alex Savage or Coil? I don't know if this could work, but it was a thought. Obviously this would change a lot of the dynamics, but I know other MMOs (including WoW) have done smaller-group compositions while also offering larger group compositions.

Are you kidding. Eight players for a raid is nothing. If people fail at gathering 8 players for a few weeks then they fail at raiding as an FC. You mentioned WoW and their flexible system starts at 10 player - more than FF14s raids.

Let's face it the first tier of Alex proved that FF14 raid player base is just not 'hardcore' and that's why Tier 2 Alex was much easier than the first.

The other solution I know people will bring up is introduce a third tier for raid content, between the "Story" difficulty and Savage. I thought I heard that isn't what the team is looking to do (at least right now), but no idea if that would be considered in the future. Again, I'm not sure this would entirely solve my dilemma - as I said, I wasn't finding the raid content difficult, it was finding a group to play with.

All we need is the current story mode and the savage. FF14 doesn't have the raid playerbase that WoW does so extra modes just bloat an already messy ilevel range and fragment then even more.

Which stinks because right now, I want to raid. I want to be playing the game. But because of these reasons (schedules, limited groups, only wanting to play this job, not wanting to go too far back in progression), I'm getting left out.

If you can't set a few hours a week aside for raiding then you can't raid. Simple.

[Thayos]

If you can't set a few hours a week aside for raiding then you can't raid. Simple.

I couldn't agree more.

That's exactly why we need a form of endgame that's not typical raiding. Too many people can't set aside a few hours per week with seven other people whose schedules match exactly.

[Yukiko]

8 man rope jumping or 4 man rope jumping makes no difference.
It doesnt matter if its raiding or not, as long as everyone have to perform perfect like robots nothing will change!
SE have to allow some sort of recovery and give the players a form of choice (skill tree, more freedom with attributes or some sort of element wheel)
Currently most of the frustration comes from that stupid team rope jumping, one will always fall.

[Almalexia]

The fact that endgame is built on having eight-person statics -- AND ONLY EIGHT PEOPLE, no more or less -- is really what's suffocating endgame.

The 4/8/24 lockdown is but a symptom.

No flexibility in itemization plus a pathological fear of imbalance means a every piece of content requires a strict DPS assembly line quota. Different BGM will play, different colored lights and floating markers will flash, but you are ultimately doing a familiar dance. We will never see Salvage, Dynamis, Limbus or any content with logistical complexity until the itemization moves away from bigger numbers on the same stats.

Once the itemization becomes more diverse, the content will follow suit.

[Millen1]

I have been in and out of raiding. My last group broke up at the start of 3.2. I worked to find another group for Midas savage but too many were focused on getting all i220 Seph stuff first and ended up stuck there. The groups I either subbed for or tried out for, I had to change off of my main as a sch and played blm which is a secondary I am ok at but not great. Too many of my friends I did raid content with left the server I am on just before 3.2 or right after to head to a raid server for a better chance to get in and clear. I am hoping the the cross server PF for raid works in 3.3. It won't fix everything but I think it will help many ppl get into a group.

[KarstenS]

SE is working on a way to jump to certain phases of a raid for practice:
"On a basic level, this raid finder would have the same function as the Duty Finder, but it would primarily address Savage raids with specific participation requirements.

For example, you would be able to select whether you wanted to go for practice or to clear it by checking a box. If you were going into a raid to practice, you would be able to select the beginning, middle, or end phase of the fight."

Source letter from the Producer April 12

In my understanding this option is meant to tell the others which phase you on and want to practise, not which phase you want to start with.

Select a phase would not work as said before by others.

Example:

In A6 normal the enrage timer starts with the pull of the last boss.

In A6S the enrage timer starts with the pull of the first boss. Because of this you are in hurry not to wait for cooldowns when getting to the next one.

If you could select a phase to start with and all cooldows would be ready, it would be very different to regulqar practise.

[LineageRazor]

If you could select a phase to start with and all cooldows would be ready, it would be very different to regulqar practise.

Bear in mind, that simply because it would be different from regular practice doesn't mean that it wouldn't still be USEFUL practice.

While players will eventually need to worry about beating the clock, dealing enough damage to get the job done before enrage, that's not the ONLY thing they have to worry about. Learning the mechanics of the fight, knowing how you have to move and where to stand, that's important, as well. Step one is to stay alive. Step two is to put out enough damage to win the fight while staying alive.

Choosing a phase to start with would be helpful in step one. Once you have the dance down pat, you can start worrying about step two.

Honestly, I doubt SE will ever give us this feature, but there's been so many times where I've ached for it... It's so frustrating having to slog through the early phases just for one chance to practice where the practice is needed.

[KarstenS]

Step one is to stay alive.

[...]

Choosing a phase to start with would be helpful in step one.

For learning of mechanics its also important to know about available cooldowns and learn how to manage them. Not so much for damage dealers. But for tanks and healers. Learning how to move and where to stand is the easiest part for these two roles in the "current" raid tier.

[RiceisNice]

Let's face it the first tier of Alex proved that FF14 raid player base is just not 'hardcore' and that's why Tier 2 Alex was much easier than the first.


If you can't set a few hours a week aside for raiding then you can't raid. Simple.

The first part is debatable on whether or not what group of players they are aiming for. I wouldn't go as far as saying "tier 2 alex was much easier than the first" since I can see where some groups can have trouble with (such as Blaster in A6s, as well as the process of learning vortexer) Doing 6-7 hours of raiding a week (roughly 2 hours a day for 3 days) isn't enough to get lasting progression on a fight like A3s or A6s as far as retaining the mechanics are concerned. But when you go beyond that, Savage is also meant to be the to-go to raid for any and all static, alongside EX trials.

All we need is the current story mode and the savage. FF14 doesn't have the raid playerbase that WoW does so extra modes just bloat an already messy ilevel range and fragment then even more.

I'm in favor of making story/normal mode be tuned to a similiar range of difficulty as the EX primals. The latter is already tuned in a way that it becomes accessible through the process of gearing (and eventual echo), and prevents it from being delegated to a weekly routine from release like void ark or dungeons. In a wider perspective, there's a lot of content for players who have no interest in raiding, there's content for players who want to invest a lot of time for raiding, but only EX trials are there for players who want to raid but can only invest a small amount of time due to outside of obligations and finding other players to do so (which isn't necessarily easy, especially with smaller servers transferring off for gordias progression)

[Saccharin]

No flexibility in itemization plus a pathological fear of imbalance means a every piece of content requires a strict DPS assembly line quota. Different BGM will play, different colored lights and floating markers will flash, but you are ultimately doing a familiar dance. We will never see Salvage, Dynamis, Limbus or any content with logistical complexity until the itemization moves away from bigger numbers on the same stats.

Once the itemization becomes more diverse, the content will follow suit.

I dont see how you think that more interesting itemisation will lead to harder fights. The reason FF14 has those fights is the fundamental design of the game and server code. The 2.5 second global, the negative effects of even a little high latency are the reason why we have rather mundane fights compared to other raiding MMOs.

I'm in favor of making story/normal mode be tuned to a similiar range of difficulty as the EX primals. The latter is already tuned in a way that it becomes accessible through the process of gearing (and eventual echo), and prevents it from being delegated to a weekly routine from release like void ark or dungeons. In a wider perspective, there's a lot of content for players who have no interest in raiding, there's content for players who want to invest a lot of time for raiding, but only EX trials are there for players who want to raid but can only invest a small amount of time due to outside of obligations and finding other players to do so (which isn't necessarily easy, especially with smaller servers transferring off for gordias progression)

Story mode works for what it is so dont even think about trying to make it 'harder'. If you can't put in the effort for savage then you just dont raid. Simple. As I said in the bit you quoted this isn't WoW.