FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[Colt47]

The trouble with raiding is that they are using a broken system that divides the community up rather than bring it together. Old raiding had people who were hardcore to the bone leading people with all different kinds of commitments and they all were necessary to complete the challenges presented by raiding. What we need is an environment that encourages bringing new people into raiding that doesn't punish the people who have been there longer, and the current system just doesn't do that.

[TankHunter678]

The trouble with raiding is that they are using a broken system that divides the community up rather than bring it together. Old raiding had people who were hardcore to the bone leading people with all different kinds of commitments and they all were necessary to complete the challenges presented by raiding. What we need is an environment that encourages bringing new people into raiding that doesn't punish the people who have been there longer, and the current system just doesn't do that.

How is it broken?

Would it be the DPS checks and 1 person fucking up screws over the whole raid group?

[Colt47]

How is it broken?

Would it be the DPS checks and 1 person fucking up screws over the whole raid group?

It's not even as simple as that. The trouble is we've got multiple raid difficulties dividing up the community at end game and an over emphasis on challenging the player to be what ultimately is an hp numbers machine under pressure instead of utilizing tactics. There is zero creativity in how players can tackle fights: They must be completed by following a strict routine, and messing up that routine means everyone pays.

Changes that need to happen are

1) Fights can be completed slowly or quickly with no enrage timers. People will always work towards speeding up boss kills and there's zero reason to add a big fat stick at the end.

2) Larger, more inclusive group sizes, but optionally fewer than the max may enter the same fight. No changes in difficulty based on number of players or number of loot drops. A large PF group should be able to do the same content that a smaller fine tuned FC party can be exposed to, just they wont have more drops so people will need more runs to get geared. This lets the smaller parties still get geared faster, while also allowing more casually inclined players to jump in and have fun with it.

So in a nut shell: Have trouble with Seph EX? Zerg it to get through all the phases and then move to a smaller group size to improve the chance for loot drops. Can't handle Alex savage? Same deal. It lets players learn in a "more community friendly" environment before pushing into it with smaller groups.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

If I'm understanding this correctly, you mean to say people could enter Savage with a smaller than 8 party composition? If so, that would require a massive scale down on difficulty. No matter how good you are at the game, even six people wouldn't come close to completing Midas or Gordias. Hell, even in decked out ilvl 240 gear, you'd still with Thordan EX with less players.

[Colt47]

If I'm understanding this correctly, you mean to say people could enter Savage with a smaller than 8 party composition? If so, that would require a massive scale down on difficulty. No matter how good you are at the game, even six people wouldn't come close to completing Midas or Gordias. Hell, even in decked out ilvl 240 gear, you'd still with Thordan EX with less players.

No that would be a normal group. The idea is more people could go into savage at once and thus reduce difficulty. There would need to be a little scaling on the enemy HP, but otherwise the fight would remain the same.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

No that would be a normal group. The idea is more people could go into savage at once and thus reduce difficulty. There would need to be a little scaling on the enemy HP, but otherwise the fight would remain the same.

So essentially a 4-man trial that you could also queue with additional people to make it easier? See, problem with that is 8-man trial content has very specific mechanics that simply wouldn't work with less people. For example, four or six people could never kill the golems fast enough in Turn Nine. The DPS checks alone are far too high if you're not vastly overgeared. You also lose out on certain mechanics like shared damage, tank swaps and etc. Any scaling to compensate for this would render Savage a joke with eight people. I also don't see how this would encourage more of a community feel. Most raid groups would prefer to do it with less people for the challenge, and then stick with their statics.

Savage isn't intended for everyone. While some adjustments could be made, it exists to be extremely challenging. I would much rather see the devs focus on midcore content (Aquapolis, Palace of the Dead, a revised Diadem, more extreme trials), then nerf Savage since that defeats the whole point of it.

[TankHunter678]

-snip-

I think what colt means is that a normally 8 man savage raid could be set so that you can 16 man, with some small upward number scaling for the raid mobs. This reduces the chance of a particular person getting drops, but better allows the groups as a whole to power through the content as unlike a normal 8 man setup if one person fucks up there is still an extra 7 people helping pick up the slack.

This makes DPS checks and enrage timers easier to beat, while people would still have to learn the mechanics and the AoE safety dance.

Its going in with more then a standard "True Savage" run. Not with less. While "True Savage" runs would mean an easier time distributing gear.