FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[zosia]

Similar to what people have said here, I have posted this ages ago:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...misconceptions

Alex savage has been some of the worst designed raiding I have ever seen in any game.

What rewards are there for savage raiding? In all honesty, the only rewards are a small vanity item (mount, pet, soon to be a title) and dyable alex gear.

Raiders get no epic story that builds up with every fight you down.
Raiders get no BiS advantage for the next raid tier.
If your group is good enough, you can get 240 before the 3.3 patch. You only have to look through this thread to see many raid teams will not see a midan gob dip or twine before 3.3.

Honestly, it just feeeeels so good to be right! Alex savage raiding has dumpster-ed the raiding community.

No one wanted to do SCoB savage for vanity rewards. What a surprise that a similar reward system did not pan out for raiding in 3.x

You know why LFR works in WoW? Because raiders get showered in amazing rewards that FFXIV has yet to touch.

The ilvl difference in wow raiding gear is superior.
The aesthetics for mythic gear are much more distinct than the lfg gear.
Each wow raid tier comes with multiple mounts, titles, achievements (esp for accomplishing harder feats mid fight), epic BoEs, rare crafting materials).
Wow raids usually incorporate the legendary weapon into the raiding scheme (including LFR so more casual players can complete the quest).

No one wants to raid in this game because sinking 40+ hours into a fight like a4s or a8s to get glamour rewards just aint worth it. You can show up 6 months later, mop up the entire raid tier with 100000% echo and get all the rewards for a fraction of the work.

And don't even get me started on the dev team themselves not being able to beat a4s in it's entirety before releasing it. How does a Dev team think that's a good call? SE, can you use some of that cash shop money to hire decent play testers to vet your fights properly? Looking at how a6s was mismanaged, something tells me the dev team learned very little from gordias.

I predicted the current state of raiding and I can tell you this much: raiding will be dead in this game after the first patch of the next expansion. Raiding needs better rewards (weapons effects, making BiS useful for the next tier, a much higher ilvl in contrast to non-raiding gear), normal mode should come out a few weeks after savage (just like LFR in wow), and ffs can we get enviroments that actually feel like raids again? T1/T3 FELT more like a raid environment than any turn in coil or any floor in alex. This square/circle arena FOR EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER gets to be old fast.

I said this countless times in my previous thread, you only need to look at LOTRO to see what happens to a game when the raiding community gets snubbed/dies. So, unless you want this game to becomes the next LOTRO, I suggest that raiding incentives and design be overhauled for the last installment of alex.

[Melch]

.

Itemization, special stats, special effects, special weaponskills that you could unlock by raiding, and higher ilvl would definitely give more incentive for raiding. Also, they should completely remove the normal mode, get a better design for the gear on savage, and a better and more immersive story.

[Kaurie]

Itemization, special stats, special effects, special weaponskills that you could unlock by raiding, and higher ilvl would definitely give more incentive for raiding. Also, they should completely remove the normal mode, get a better design for the gear on savage, and a better and more immersive story.

I'd love special effects/stats like tier pieces in WoW

[Hayward]

...

You know as well as I do that kind of exclusivity (and the mentality that comes with it, from the tone of your post) makes MMOs less attractive than they can be (FFXI proved that about as clearly as any).

All this silly talk about segregating servers for "hardcore" players (quotes due to players talking loud and saying nothing) and/or asking for item level differences that would eclipse non-raiders to the point of irreparable game imbalance needs to stop. SE really would shoot themselves in the foot catering to such a small group of players who, in all truth, want to let everyone else know that they're special snowflakes and the rest of us are not.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

You know as well as I do that kind of exclusivity (and the mentality that comes with it, from the tone of your post) makes MMOs less attractive than they can be (FFXI proved that about as clearly as any).

All this silly talk about segregating servers for "hardcore" players (quotes due to players talking loud and saying nothing) and/or asking for item level differences that would eclipse non-raiders to the point of irreparable game imbalance needs to stop. SE really would shoot themselves in the foot catering to such a small group of players who, in all truth, want to let everyone else know that they're special snowflakes and the rest of us are not.

I think this is the crux of the problem. Is the SE devs can't implement good rewards for doing difficult content, because the people that can't do/ don't like difficult content will feel left out. So the only way I see anything working is to have servers with different difficulty settings, similar to an offline game. Instead of nerfing the game for everyone they can just nerf it for the people that wan't easy/story mode. Blizzard has even tossed around the idea of having "pristine" servers for WoW after losing 1/2 thier subs and having to shut down Nostalrius. Then the people that don't want to hit max level in 2 days and want more difficult 4 man content ect, can have that. And the casual players can also get what they want. I'm definately not a hardcore raider. But with all the nerfs they did in 3.0, I feel like this game has gotten significantly easier since 2.0. I really don't want to see this trend continue. I am just not interested in that.

[Yukiko]

SE really would shoot themselves in the foot catering to such a small group of players who, in all truth, want to let everyone else know that they're special snowflakes and the rest of us are not.

Thats what they have already done.
We had Coil, then they made some interviews and asked players about "changes" and we got alexander.
The Problem was that they listened to the wrong group of players which resulted in very long living raid groups to disband.
They have seen the damage output of server first groups and recalculated enrage timers and mechanics.
I will not go that far and say coil was easier, but lets compare it with dancing:
It feels as if alexander needs a lot more steps with a much higher frequency than what we had to dance in coil...

[Warlyx]

Dunno what changed , maybe is the new mentality or the new generations , but i remember playing Eq and watching a High lvl Magician in awe because he had an awesome staff and a cool pet , same goes for FFXI/eq2/ect , i remember watching High lvl players with that awesome armors , and thinking i will strive for that! , it helped newbies , or fresh high lvls, now ppl watch geared players as scum that only want to show off and be "special snowflakes"....if u have something rare or something cool is normal wanting to show it off , we do it on RL too....what i have doesnt make what u have less important , and there is nothing in this game that u cant get if u work for it ....

if u dont give meaninfull rewards for the HARDEST content ingame ....then u are doing no favor to your playerbase.

Raiding have issues , and one of them is casuals not even WANTING to attemp raiding , why should do they? , there is no carrot on the stick ,only the same gear as normal but dyable? meh , all that time wasted , all that gil invested (food potions , raiding time , wiping , repairs) ....and for what?

[Synestra]

i remember watching High lvl players with that awesome armors , and thinking i will strive for that!

I dont usually care who has what but oh boy when i first saw Warglaives in TBC, i was like "whoooaaa! what are those! D:" then googled and found out that those drops from lastboss from last raid instance so my "fate" was sealed on that moment, fast forward 1.5 years and there i was standing next to Illidans corpse and i must say feeling was something i propably never will feel again eventho Warglaives never dropped for me after countless kills.

I feel sorry for yonger players because feelings like those are next to impossible to get nowdays, it was insanely epic journey that i will never forget specially when i did it with awesome peoples.

[Marcellus_Cassius]

Dunno what changed , maybe is the new mentality or the new generations , but i remember playing Eq and watching a High lvl Magician in awe because he had an awesome staff and a cool pet , same goes for FFXI/eq2/ect , i remember watching High lvl players with that awesome armors , and thinking i will strive for that!

For the generation that played XI, EQ - we were younger and fresh to the mmo scene. For the most recent generation, they don't know what they're missing because the scene has changed. Taking years to obtain a rare set of armor became two to three months before its do it again city. Its hard to be fond of items that change often so the connection between labor and gear is lost. Now its about the raid in itself that is supposed to keep people going, but look where we are. I could say the novelty kept me subscribed for more years than XIV's had patch cycles but it won't give you 5 million subscribers, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

[Iromi]

snip

Wow...one of the best posts I've seen in a long time. Nailed it totally..and yeah, it is already dying and will continue to die if they do not wake up and do something. But you know SE...they only do things when the subs drop severely (look at 1.0) lol