To be honest, Alex Savage is a failure.

[Nalien]

That line of arguing is hyperbole. I can just as easily say "you're vastly underestimating the number of people that care about Savage" and we've accomplished nothing.

Yeah... Except SE provided census data on this;

That isn't clears, that's just people who entered... Less than 20% of the people who did Normal went on to enter A1S, there is quite clearly an issue here... Either people aren't interested, or it is inaccessible to them for whatever reason. I assume the former, while suggesting a fix for the later. Feel free to, you know, actually weigh in on that... It's old data for A1~4, but I really doubt much has changed since then... I imagine the Midas is much the same, while Gordias will have more numbers now (certainly with that Anima step), but that ~200k isn't even half this games estimated playerbase (last I checked that was 600k~700k).

Also, please don't assume I haven't read your post, or I wouldn't have replied to it, thanks.

How about actually responding to the suggestion then... Removing hardcore content from the game was not my suggestion, doing something different with it, and hopefully making it more accessible, was... Do you actually think people would quit en-mass if SE provided content that was just as rewarding and challenging, but easier to get into?

If you don't want me to assume, post more than a few bleedin' sentences...

[Ghishlain]

That isn't clears, that's just people who entered...

I wanted to correct this and say that the data you provided most likely are clear rates and that they probably incorrectly translated that text for the slide.

The reason I say this is because Elysium's A3S World First is dated July 28th, 2015. Since the data is taken between July 7th to August 21st, I'm pretty certain there were a handful of people who did walk into A4S by then. This difference in information should have you at least reconsider your stance a little.

16% clear rate for the first tier of the toughest content in the game sounds about right given the overall skill level of the player base (when comparing those who cleared normal versus cleared Savage). I imagine the amount of people who actually tried the content is at least double the clear rate. So, if you assume 70K people entered A1S, that's a 10% general population interest rate (based on your 700K player base total) and a 5% clear rate of the total population.

That isn't that bad in my mind for content designed for a much higher level of play. It would be interesting to see how many players in contrast attend / cleared / compete in things like Triple Triad, PvP, Chocobo Rising / Racing, and LoV.

*Has nothing else to add to the discussion and poofs away*

[Mindy_Macready]

Yeah... Except SE provided census data on this;

That isn't clears, that's just people who entered... Less than 20% of the people who did Normal went on to enter A1S, there is quite clearly an issue here... Either people aren't interested, or it is inaccessible to them for whatever reason. I assume the former, while suggesting a fix for the later. Feel free to, you know, actually weigh in on that...

Well, for one thing, you said yourself that you're making an assumption, so...you're not really actually providing evidence of anything besides "20% of people who did normal went on to enter A1S." How's that for a response? Just because you post an image with numbers doesn't make it evidence to your argument. It's an opinion based on an assumption.

Removing hardcore content from the game was not my suggestion, doing something different with it, and hopefully making it more accessible, was... Do you actually think people would quit en-mass if SE provided content that was just as rewarding and challenging, but easier to get into?

Don't put words in people's mouths if you want an actual response. I never said people would quit if SE "provided content that was just as rewarding and challenging, but easier to get into". I said people would quit if they "scaled back" and replaced the Savage 8-man encounters with 4-man encounters.

Think of the groups of friends that already exist and raid together. That'll go over well! Suddenly they're forced to cut their group in half, and aren't raiding together.

We already have LotA, Void Ark, etc because people wanted encounters with even more players per run.

If they cut their premier raid to 4-per, it'd be a disaster.

[Nalien]

Don't put words in people's mouths if you want an actual response. I never said people would quit if SE "provided content that was just as rewarding and challenging, but easier to get into". I said people would quit if they "scaled back" and replaced the Savage 8-man encounters with 4-man encounters.

If that was your intent, you should have quoted the part of my suggestion and actually said that... Quoting the opening line and just saying "lawl people will quit" gives me virtually nothing to go off... Had you replied more like this;

Think of the groups of friends that already exist and raid together. That'll go over well! Suddenly they're forced to cut their group in half, and aren't raiding together.

Initially, the past several posts could have entirely been avoided...

I really doubt current raiders would quit just because they have to cut their group in half, though... Heck, what exactly would be stopping a group of 8 from just switching around people? Sure, you're not doing the encounters as 8, but you can still work through the content and communicate as a group... I can perhaps see people being annoyed by downsizing groups, but I really can't imagine it's anything to quit over, and even if it was... It makes the content far more accessible, forming a static and getting everyone on at the same time and on the same page is one of the main barriers to entry on Savage... Easing that up is something even existing groups benefit from...

The only group I can really see as being totally screwed over by such a change would be the merc groups... 4-man provides a much tighter window to balance, could potentially make carrying someone all but impossible... Though I can only see that as a good thing...

Can always just twist the idea around, too... Drop Normal instead... Rather than having an easy mode to make the story/etc. accessible, we have a 4-man mode to do just that, while retaining similar difficulty... No more easy mode, but then I never got why we really needed that... The 24-man raid was the "Babies First Raid", now we have two of those and item level is further inflated because of it...

[Mindy_Macready]

I really doubt current raiders would quit just because they have to cut their group in half, though...
...
It makes the content far more accessible

Or it makes it less accessible because groups that already exist would have to split themselves. They already exist as a group of 8, so going into the next 8-man raids is pretty accessible for them already, wouldn't you say?

The only group I can really see as being totally screwed over by such a change would be the merc groups

The 8-man statics that already exist would be the ones totally screwed over.

The 24-man raid was the "Babies First Raid", now we have two of those and item level is further inflated because of it...

The difficulty of the currently-existing 24-man raids is mutually exclusive to the idea that people want larger raids. If they made tougher 24-man raids I'd personally love it.

[Noxifer]

Or it makes it less accessible because groups that already exist would have to split themselves. They already exist as a group of 8, so going into the next 8-man raids is pretty accessible for them already, wouldn't you say?

The 8-man statics that already exist would be the ones totally screwed over.

The difficulty of the currently-existing 24-man raids is mutually exclusive to the idea that people want larger raids. If they made tougher 24-man raids I'd personally love it.

Yes, if there was no difficult 8-man content, there'd be trouble for static groups. But there still is. There's primals. So... if you're already in a static, you could go as the full static to primals, and for a 4-man raid you could split up into two groups and do it side-by-side, so to speak. It might even make it easier to schedule for some groups in case a few of their people have an easier time raiding on Wednesdays instead of on Thursdays (random days picked). Static groups today consist of 2 tanks, 2 healers and 4 dps. So that'd be pretty easy to split into two groups if there were 4-man raids or other Hard content.

There have been threads on these forums with a few people asking for bigger non-faceroll raids, some reminiscing with rose-tinted glasses back to EQ or Ultima Online and such... But those threads tend to give an overwhelming "No, thanks, we don't need that scheduling nightmare" response. Getting a serious group who are able to be online the required times can be tricky enough with 8 players. Trying to find, say, 24 people who are able to raid the same days...? @_@

[KarstenS]

Yes, if there was no difficult 8-man content, there'd be trouble for static groups. But there still is. There's primals. So... if you're already in a static, you could go as the full static to primals, and for a 4-man raid

Do you know how long primals last for statics?

Mostly 1 or 2 weeks.

Also you forget that the jobs are balanced around full parties.

When there would be 4 man raids, with the current job balance, every group would be PLD, DRG, BLM, SCH (maybe AST). The onliest solution would be making the jobs less different. Nobody really wants this.

[Mindy_Macready]

Yes, if there was no difficult 8-man content, there'd be trouble for static groups. But there still is. There's primals. So... if you're already in a static, you could go as the full static to primals, and for a 4-man raid you could split up into two groups and do it side-by-side, so to speak...

Primals last a week or two at most. It wouldn't be enough content to sustain a group of 8. Also, forcing a group of 8 to split apart is going to cause rage, it isn't easy just because the split will be even among roles.

There is a need for more mid-core content, but not at the cost of alienating what many perceive as the "main" part of the game for them, and not at the cost of so many established groups that enjoy that portion of the game the most.

As for scheduling nightmares with 24-man runs, we've seen arguments from both sides; it's not as one-sided as you represent it.