Are the raid tiers "too hard?"

[Hyrist]

There are a number of critical flaws within the Raiding system, and I do not speak just mechanicly or the reward system - but how we as a community have been discussing raids to begin with. This stems both from the raiding and non-raiding perspective.

Taking a singular item such as 'difficulty' without really even analyzing what 'difficult' really means in this context isn't making a constructive discussion on the matter. It's not if the Raids are difficult enough or too difficult, but the manner of 'how' these raids are difficult, that needs be discussed.

It's not whether or not there should be valuable rewards in raiding or valuable gear for raiders, but what is considered 'valuable' in and of itself and why.

It is clear by the metrics that Raiding is a niche affair, and by many that Niche is too narrow to justify itself at this point. We needs re-analyze this from the ground up rather than pick at the shallow-level issues that fail to address core problems.

[Duelle]

Taking a singular item such as 'difficulty' without really even analyzing what 'difficult' really means in this context isn't making a constructive discussion on the matter. It's not if the Raids are difficult enough or too difficult, but the manner of 'how' these raids are difficult, that needs be discussed.

The problem with that is that approaches to difficulty vary from person to person.

For example, memory game stuff is not fun nor approachable to me. I look at fights like Ravana EX that requires you to memorize a John-fucking-Madden style football play diagram for Final Liberation and nope right out of there. Largely because I'm not fond of memory games and prefer gameplay where I can react to stuff as it happens (the same reason why I disliked how Titan HM and EX were designed). Ergo, when you make something a memory game, you basically make it unapproachable to me because I hate memory games. This is obviously a metric that does not apply to everyone, and to make all content reaction based just for my sake would be unfair.

They just need to balance the learning curve. Just one EX primal is not the solution to it. They need an entire raid tier at a midcore level that can help work you into Savage.

I'd rather see, say, Wicce's Citadel (a raid centered on the magus sisters set in a big castle that becomes accessible over time) Story Mode, Hard Mode, and Savage Mode, than to see them add something entirely unrelated with a midcore difficulty level. For one because you're otherwise wasting assets and potential settings in content that will become irrelevant too quickly.

[CrimsonThunder]

Gating is also a huge problem...or the lack of, rather.

Quite frankly, I feel you shouldn't be allowed to touch Savage unless you've beaten the current Extreme trial....maybe even something like 5 or so times incase your clear was a fluke.

There is no learning curve to hop into this content and what we end up with a cesspool of people who can and people who can't all ending up in the same parties which just results in throwing lambs to the slaughter.