FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[KarstenS]

The difference in this case is that the intention isn't for everyone to do all three difficulties nor has it ever been, SE stated that Savage mode is NOT for everyone and that is perfectly fine.

But you miss one fact of this game we had with every primal and also Alexander: you must do the lower difficulties before you can do the higher one. In case of Alexander its the worst of all: you have to farm the lower ones if you don't want spend millions in crafted gear.

When you want to do the highest one, you have not the choice to select the one you want. You have to do them all.

[Khalithar]

But you miss one fact of this game we had with every primal and also Alexander: you must do the lower difficulties before you can do the higher one. In case of Alexander its the worst of all: you have to farm the lower ones if you don't want spend millions in crafted gear.

When you want to do the highest one, you have not the choice to select the one you want. You have to do them all.

Having to gear up is a part of every MMO yes, but a good part of the issue with this game is SE's own design. Imagine if they removed the weekly limit on getting lore tomestones and added the normal mode difficulty with an ilevel higher than the tomestone gear and removed that stupid arbitrary limit of only having one tomestone ring. If that were the case, you would maybe do midas story for the story/quest completion but you wouldn't need it for gear unless you didn't want to farm tomestones that hard or wanted to try gearing up another Job.

The end result being that you could farm your tomestone set at your pace without needing to do midas story mode (more than maybe the one time through) then once you had enough enough 230 gear to meet whatever dps/heal check the medium difficulty raid has, you could begin gearing up that way. Then once you've spent a few weeks farming the medium difficulty you could either move on to something more difficult or try gearing up other classes. In this model, you only really need to farm one difficulty mode raid with the option of moving to something more difficult if you want. This solution adds midcore content, leaves Savage and Story mode as is, and doesn't make you feel forced to farm the lower difficulty raid to gear up the class you want to raid on.

[KarstenS]

if they removed the weekly limit on getting lore tomestones ....

... they would increase the difficulty of the fights, because currently they are not designed with maxed out gear in mind. They are designed for steps inbetween.

[Khalithar]

... they would increase the difficulty of the fights,

Not if they added a third difficulty mode. Something between story mode and savage mode with the early bosses tuned assuming some 230 gear with later bosses tuned assuming full 230+ would be ideal.

[Brian_]

... they would increase the difficulty of the fights, because currently they are not designed with maxed out gear in mind. They are designed for steps inbetween.

A8S has a recommended HP threshold of 19k for DPS.

Unless you're full melding Vit Vs on your right sides, that's not an inbetween step. That's not only full i230, that's closer to full i240.

[KarstenS]

A8S has a recommended HP threshold of 19k for DPS.

Unless you're full melding Vit Vs on your right sides, that's not an inbetween step. That's not only full i230, that's closer to full i240.

You noticed that A8S is the last encounter in the i240 gear era? So its not a surprise, that this one is designed close to the end of the i240 gear progression.

Inbetween steps are A5, A6 and A7.

If the weekly limit of tomes would not exist, they all would have to been desinged for i240 and not i220, i225, i230 and the last maybe i235, maybe higher, as you can get everything except the i245 weapon in A5-7.

[Khalithar]

If the weekly limit of tomes would not exist, they all would have to been desinged for i240

Not A5 or A6, you don't balance the early ones assuming gear people don't have.

[KarstenS]

Not A5 or A6, you don't balance the early ones assuming gear people don't have.

The calculation for A5 is based on the gear you can get on day one. Its not based on what you could get before day one.

With the release of Midas the gear you could get on day one was a full i220 Set (crafted+Midas normal+Primal weapon).

If there would be no weekly lockout on the latest tomes, the gear you could get on day one would be i230.

If the upgrade items would be available without lockout, the gear you could get on day one would be i240.

The gear progression is like a roadmap and the calculation of this has been done with a fixed timeline in mind, how the average raid player should progress. Based on this, they balanced the steps. This is also the reason for the lockouts.

If it would be possible to get the maximum item level within one day, they would have to change this design and would balance all fights around this item level. This would also make it harder for many groups, as they can't outgear "easier" steps anymore.