Quote Originally Posted by Granyala View Post
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You can't have piss poor rewards for raiding and expect that aspect of your game to flourish. If you removed the gear from Savage and made it purely about the challenge, the raiding community would shrink even more, there would be less and less of a reason to devote any development budgeting to Savage, burn out would hurt even more since there wouldn't be a steady stream of new raiders to replace the old ones, and the raiding aspect of the game would die off completely leaving even the raiders that only raid for the challenge disenfranchised. You'd have what many regard as a PvE game without challenging PvE.

I don't think many raiders raid purely for the gear. But, you have to be completely clueless to think that the gear doesn't matter to any raider. It obviously matters.

You speak to others of their lack of experience with WoW. I was in one of the few WoW guilds that cleared vanilla Naxx before BC and continued to be at least a server first raider until late into BC. I also witnessed all the vanilla gear aside from a few items get completely trashed in one expansion. Not only that, but I was an avid PvPer before they really separated the PvP and PvE gearing aspects so raiders would curb-stomp non-raiders in PvP -- I also played on the largest PvP server at the time.

That said, now that I've taken a step back from top-progression raiding in FFXIV due to being older and having a job, I don't get envious of others for their gear and achievements or feel like I deserve to be their equal for whatever self deluded reason. At times, I'll see their BiS gear and feel more motivation to progress myself -- how is that a bad thing? I still remember back when I first started playing WoW the sense of awe at seeing a fully geared bad ass storm through and wreck everything. Like I said, what you are doing is removing the carrot from the stick for some people and expecting that they'll still move forward.

As for why raiding needs to matter -- it's not some mystery why so many people sub to this game for a few months and then quit until the next content patch. The reality is there really are only a few things in this game that have true, natural longevity and actually help build the bonds and friendships that keep people immersed within the community.

One is crafting. Unless you somehow start the game filthy rich, the progression cycle of gearing for crafting as well as the development and optimization of rotations naturally takes some time. If you were starting from scratch today, the process of becoming a geared omnicrafter would take you a lot of time. The social interaction of selling your services or products as well as the interactions with other crafters naturally builds human relationships.

Another is PvP. Due to the RNG nature of node spawns in the recent PvP maps / modes and the always changing nature of player versus player interactions, PvP naturally has enough variance to stay fresh for a long period of time.

The last is raiding. The content is challenging enough for most (and even the best) that it requires time and effort to learn and clear. Regardless of if you are PuGing the content through PF or with a static, the requirement of teamwork and communication naturally creates a social interaction. Experiencing something together with a team naturally builds camaraderie and relationships. It's really not that different from going to the park and playing a sport with someone.

Outside of that, the rest of the game is quite superficial. I might catch some flak for saying so from people that enjoy playing dress-up or RPing, but the reality is in the numbers -- it's hard for many to justify paying a monthly subscription to play virtual barbie. If this wasn't the case, we wouldn't see such a large dip in subs during content lulls.

But, from those three things, I think the one with the obvious widest appeal is raiding. PvP just simply isn't something a lot of people enjoy -- especially with the bad rewards, and as someone who is already fully-geared in self-crafted IW gear for both my crafters and gatherers, I can admit that the entry bar for crafting is rather high and the role of MMO tycoon isn't for everyone.

With harder PvE content, you really have the tools to create a rewarding and fulfilling path of progression. I think most who cleared coil will never forget the moment they cleared T12 with their friends and experienced the truth behind the calamity together. Even after they stripped out the story from Savage, I can still remember how good it felt to finally beat A3S with my static and that shared experience has kept me raiding and playing the game.

So yea, I really don't see the problem with rewarding people more for raiding so that you have a healthier end-game PvE scene in your PvE game. Is that necessarily gear? No, but I also don't see the issue with gear rewards as long as the path of progression is accessible. As the system currently exists and even if the disparity grows, the lack of raid gear is not holding anyone back from clearing Savage.