Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Hayward]

As said by the president and CEO of Level 5 when he was a guest on a live letter, from his point of view as someone who just enjoys the game, releasing the story mode really killed a lot of the hype and anticipation behind the hardest tier of raiding. There is no doubt that the story version has given many a reason to not bother with Savage.

I don't buy that for a second. If you gave any raider truth serum (or a fifth of Wild Irish Rose), they'd probably tell you the story never meant anything to them. The only thing they liked about the Coil story was that they could say "We got to see the story and the commoners didn't". That's all. SE did everyone a service by making story mode Alexander, whether you want to admit it or not. The only negative you and others see is that your security blanket, exclusivity, was pulled out from under you.

[Brian_]

I don't buy that for a second. If you gave any raider truth serum (or a fifth of Wild Irish Rose), they'd probably tell you the story never meant anything to them. The only thing they liked about the Coil story was that they could say "We got to see the story and the commoners didn't". That's all. SE did everyone a service by making story mode Alexander, whether you want to admit it or not. The only negative you and others see is that your security blanket, exclusivity, was pulled out from under you.

I'm a raider and I find it pretty presumptuous for you to assume what I think.

Did I genuinely enjoy experiencing coil's story? Yea. T12's cut-scene is my favorite moment in the game and also has my favorite piece of music in this game. The fact that it was locked behind weeks of hard work and a fun fight made it mean all the more to me. The commonly touted idea that a reward gotten from hard-work is all the sweeter is not some lie.

At the same time, did I really care that they later released it as a stand-alone video? No. Not at all.

I don't want raid content to be exclusive. I want more people to enjoy it. I get no joy from seeing the raid scene shrink and to assume that exclusivity is what I want when I just want more people to be incentivized to raid is idiotic. When the HW relic was released and people were doing coil carries for the poetics bonus, I was genuinely happy more people got to experience coil -- even if it was unsynced and they were getting carried.

SE did a piss poor job of fostering a healthy raiding community in multiple ways. The first failure is their pandering to bads (not to be confused with casuals) through their face-roll difficulty tuning of 90% of the game's content. The content is bland, boring, and has poor longevity and replayability. This failure is magnified by the complete lack of in-between content -- stuff like the original Steps of Faith, HM-trials, EX-trials, 24-mans with a bit more bite, and T10 / T11 / A5S difficulty raid content. Casual and mid-core raiders were gutted by HW for a reason. In 3.3, they've taken baby steps to remedy this with Nidhogg NM / EX and Weeping City but their in-between tier still does not properly satisfy a real portion of their player-base or bridge the gap to my next issue (they really needed to also release a NM and EX warring triad fight in 3.3). The third failure is their complete botching of the reward to difficulty tuning ratio of Savage -- an issue compounded by the first two problems creating no fluid or natural progression path into the Savage tier of difficulty.

IMO if you're a PvE game, you need real PvE progression. Not a huge wall between 90% of the game's content and the hardest 4 fights of the game. You need to give players content that can gradually prepare them for Savage and keep them engaged within the PvE end-game. And, the content needs to be available at the onset. For example, patch 3.2 should've been 2 dungeons > story based NM trial > Midas NM > Sephirot NM > Zurvan NM > Sophia NM > Weeping City > EX version of story based trial > Sephirot HM > Zurvan HM > Sophia HM > Midas Savage. Then you would've had a real progression curve of inbetween fights for the mid-core raider base to sharpen their teeth on before jumping into Savage. 3.3 should be experimental / alternative content like an updated Diadem, Deep Dungeon, Aquapolis, and some other stuff. 3.4's progression curve would be based around the next Mhach raid, EX versions of Sephirot, Zurvan, and Sophia culminating in a conclusion to the Warring Triad story locked behind EX completion, the next Alexander tier, and maybe something from the MSQ.

[Kallera]

snip.

When alexander came out, and even in the months afterward, players weren't shy in saying that its story was a weak aspect of the game, that bond villain goblins just didn't compare to a calamity causing dragon god that had possesed well known characters.

Some might not care that they released it as a video, but plenty of people, myself included, did. After months of being told to "watch a youtube video instead of playing the game" by others, trying anyway, and SE being mum, people trying to clear were furious. So story is still a major thing that keeps casual players interested, but putting it all behind a8s isn't the answer.