FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[Bourne_Endeavor]

They do, some weapons in Bloodborne starting out made many parts of the game easier and in Dark Souls certain classes had better abilities and made fights easier. Those aren't exactly easy modes, no, but they do certainly impacts a players ability to learn the games flow and encourage different playthroughs.

Only in later patch updates not unlike the eventual echo nerf we see. At release, Bloodborne was outright advertised as a game where you will die, repeatedly, endlessly, until you learn.

Actually, it will fix the issue. This was done in some other lesser known titles in the past that failed for other reasons (Nexon... enough said) and the community loved it. It enabled groups to bring in people they knew needed to learn the fight still without impacting their own raiding schedules, and also let organizers make less intensive groups via shout out. Everyone got access to the same gear level and there was basically no grumbling about gear level because everyone, no matter how hardcore, could eventually get the gear. It was just faster to do so via the smallest group possible so tight nit groups (on balmung it would be RareEX), would still be the first to clear content and get it on farm. It worked a lot better than what the developers currently are doing, which is gating gear via time lock and making the highest level gear exclusive to a small niche part of the community.

What purpose does that gear serve though? You only need ilvl 240 to make Savage a slightly easier fight. You can theoretically get by with just ilvl 220 crafted gear and a Sephirot EX weapon. If you aren't looking to challenge yourself to extreme content, where a few mistakes means a wipe, you'll never need better gear. Nevertheless, the problem remains, larger groups wouldn't experience the mechanics, let alone practice them simply due to all the additional damage pushing phases. Even worse, the bosses often enough raid wide mechanics everyone has to do properly. Eight people struggle getting the timing right on Vortexer. Adding even more would be a nightmare, especially with those players lacking experience, skill or both.

And this alone would result in most raid groups restricting their group dynamics.

People aren't grumbling over gear level because those uninteresting in Savage know they'll never have any need of it. I again reiterate, there is not a single piece of content in the entire game where you even ilvl 230, let alone ilvl 240. So if you're having trouble getting a group or the sheer challenge itself is proving too much. Wait for the inevitable echo boost.

[Jetstream_Fox]

Only in later patch updates not unlike the eventual echo nerf we see. At release, Bloodborne was outright advertised as a game where you will die, repeatedly, endlessly, until you learn.

Then I must have been a minority given I didn't use any tactics up until Vicar and just rushed everything with the blunderbuss and Ax combo on day one. The only difficulty thing for me up until that part of the game which is roughly 25% is the fact 3 out of the 4 bosses you fight completely fill up your screen and make the camera your biggest enemy. Even Gascoigne was easy on day one with that combo and you didn't even need the music box, but this Final Fantasy, not Bloodborne.

T1-5 was not nearly as hard as T6-9 with the exception of Twin mostly due to the part of DB, Twister, and your party composition. Even with Echo, one person could screw up the DB phase or the Twisters and kill everyone. And if you didn't have any characters that could stun DK then that phase also becomes a problem.

There is a difference between overwhelming difficulty and badly designed fights, both Bloodborne and 14 were more subjected to badly designed fights early on, then FF14 started doing overwhelming fights that sent ripples throughout the raiding community. 14 has not found any in between difficult yet for the raids or any other type of content. This is evident with 24 man raids, they should be the hardest type of raid due to the sheer number of people required to tackle the fights.

[HulveinBlitz]

This is evident with 24 man raids, they should be the hardest type of raid due to the sheer number of people required to tackle the fights.

SE actually want you to queue for it, that's why.

[Jetstream_Fox]

SE actually want you to queue for it, that's why.

Which is exactly why I said this game doesn't know what direction to go into and every area of content has issues not just raids. The difficulty scaling is so jumbled it's getting harder and harder for them to make adjustments. If they make 8 man raids too easy than the 24 man raids become next to nothing. If trials are presented to easy on EX then normal becomes a faceroll. And dungeons are such a mess they're not even worth the title of expert dungeons. They can't really nurf or buff much without the possibility of negatively impact other types of content.

[KarstenS]

What purpose does that gear serve though? You only need ilvl 240 to make Savage a slightly easier fight. You can theoretically get by with just ilvl 220 crafted gear and a Sephirot EX weapon.

Uhm. No. The world first A8S kill took not this longe because of missing skill. They did need the gear they've got till they finally finished it.

[SDaemon]

Uhm. No. The world first A8S kill took not this longe because of missing skill. They did need the gear they've got till they finally finished it.

Huh? I'm not quite sure I understand you? The world's first A8S kill took what? roughly 17 days. That is hardly enough time to get more than a couple pieces of gear beyond the 220 crafted and the Seph EX weapon.

[Nezerius]

Huh? I'm not quite sure I understand you? The world's first A8S kill took what? roughly 17 days. That is hardly enough time to get more than a couple pieces of gear beyond the 220 crafted and the Seph EX weapon.

For the group who managed to get the world first A8S clear, 17 days was enough to get 18 pieces of Midas gear (since they cleared A5-7 first week, though not sure how lucky/unlucky they were), 3 i240 weapons (3x A6S tomestone/3x A7S gobdip) as well as 3 gobcoats and 3 gobtwines (for the ones who were lower on the priority list for a weapon, and were able to buy lore gear)

[KarstenS]

Huh? I'm not quite sure I understand you? The world's first A8S kill took what? roughly 17 days. That is hardly enough time to get more than a couple pieces of gear beyond the 220 crafted and the Seph EX weapon.

They did it in the third ID (A5-7S was done within the first ID).

In that time they've got 3 tomes for weapons (I'm shure all 3 of them got handed out to DPS players), 3 upgrade mats for the tome weapons (they drop in A7!), 3 upgrade mats for left side, 3 upgrade mats for right side and 18 pieces of i240 gear (6xAccs/belts and 12x left side).

As 3 weeks were enough to get tomes for lore weaopns, the kill week was the trade in for 3 x i240 tome weapons to the DPS players.

Even if there was crap in some of the chests, its alot they've got till their kill. Up to 24 pieces of i240 gear and the 3x i240 weapons did a huge boost in DPS, life pool (you need alot of life in A8) and other stats.

And if that is true, they had even more gear:

They also had alt runs, so each week two people from static were getting their upgrades, not one