Are the raid tiers "too hard?"

[Lambdafish]

Was it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/
If I recall correctly, only 4,5% of people on the top raiding server Gilgamesh cleared FCOB as of April 2015

My mistake, coil wasn't as successful as I remember but the point still stands that coil was far more successful than Alex. FCOB clear rates can easily be contributed to one single thing - being locked behind BCOB and SCOB (T9 being harder than anything FCOB had to offer), which made it very inaccessible to many people, and I feel that without this limitation, it would have been more successful.

[Velhart]

My mistake, coil wasn't as successful as I remember but the point still stands that coil was far more successful than Alex. FCOB clear rates can easily be contributed to one single thing - being locked behind BCOB and SCOB (T9 being harder than anything FCOB had to offer), which made it very inaccessible to many people, and I feel that without this limitation, it would have been more successful.

FCoB was more successful on the midcore side than the hardcore side. Hardcore players beat it in the same week or a little over last I recall(please correct me if I am wrong on that). Raiding should be built towards midcore and hardcore only really with the casual base being an afterthought. It is one piece of content in this game that is suppose to truly challenge you. The best set up really is making Normal Mode have FCoB's difficulty, and Savage be something that give hardcore a run for their money. This balances out things. Not only that, keep Savage always on a ilvl sync so the reward for it, be it titles or certain gear always hold some form of value. The Savage titles from SCoB are mostly meaningless because anyone can jump in at lv.60 and easily get it done.

If SE wants to dish out three modes (Story > Normal > Savage), I don't mind, but they play the "we can only do two" game and they should cater to who the content was intended for, people seeking a challenge. What makes better sense? A story mode people beat in a day and get their gear less than a month and it is barely touched by people again? Or a Normal Mode that lasts two patch cycles and a Savage that stays relevant forever? Can even dumb down Normal Mode and add the echo once the new tier raid is introduced for casual players.

This game is 95% casual content, it wouldn't hurt anything to keep raiding catered to the midcore/hardcore scene.