Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[CyrusBryant]

Format aside, I just wish they would address raid gear becoming worthless with the release of every new raid. It feels pointless putting in the effort to raid, and the BS that can be included with it, when they release crafted gear/NM raid gear 10 ilvl's higher than the previous ilvl raid gear (rendering the gear that we all work so hard for to become useless other than glamour).

[Moomba33]

I'm very glad that SE's keeping normal.
Never got past t9 while Coil was relevant so it feels good to know I'll be able to keep up with the story as its released in 4.0 as with 3.0.

Guess we'll see if they adjust rewards/delay normal's release to incentive raiders. I'm fine either way.

[Zojha]

If you couldn't do Coil while it was relevant[...]

...you probably were a part of about 70% of players.

Top clear rate for Final Coil was still 16% on the top japanese raiding server. 4% on the top NA/EU raiding server. If we are lenient and assume only half the people who attempt it end up clearing it, you end up with about 70% of players who never even got into it when it was relevant. And that's taking the top raiding server worldwide as standard.

Better blame it on the players, right? Because the players have to cater to the game, not the game to the players >_>

[FoxyAreku]

Nothing would be stopping you.
I too, much prefer a story reward and this made Coil so much better than Alexander in this regards. I'm not striving and failing to get more lore, I'm doing it for a new price if gear marginally equal to what I'm already wearing.

This so much.

They really need more incentives for doing savage.

...you probably were a part of about 70% of players.

Top clear rate for Final Coil was still 16% on the top japanese raiding server. 4% on the top NA/EU raiding server. If we are lenient and assume only half the people who attempt it end up clearing it, you end up with about 70% of players who never even got into it when it was relevant. And that's taking the top raiding server worldwide as standard.

Better blame it on the players, right? Because the players have to cater to the game, not the game to the players >_>

70% of the player base isn't even max level. Better make leveling easier eh?

Your logic is awful.

Sure, there's people who aren't interested in raiding, and that will never change, but you don't have to completely kill off your raid scene in order to cater to people who probably won't even do the normal mode. You have any idea how hard it is to find people willing to join statics these days?

[Nalien]

Difficulty has never been my issue... 8 man raids just aren't rewarding or even particularly interesting at this point... As much as Alexanders story improved with Midas, I still can't bring myself to care about it even remotely as much as I did Coils... Coil just had vastly superior subject matter, you could insert Hildibrand into Alexanders plot and I wouldn't be remotely surprised... Level design was also better with Coil, and even then it wasn't particularly great... I guess people complained about Coil actually being a raid though, so now we get Alexander as a glorified trial...

It's a real shame too, Alexander was pretty much the perfect chance to try introducing some more challenging level design... Coil was pretty much just a cave with Allagan sh*t trying to kill you, interesting caves, but still just caves... Alexander you're actually inside the Primal... I think only once did I actually feel like my surroundings were remotely an enemy though, and thats A4 where the vents suck you up... That kind of thing should have been played up a whole lot more... We're inside Alexander, the entire level should be as much an enemy as the bosses, just getting to those bosses should be half the battle... Shame "trash packs" are the only thing developers seem to be able to handle these days...

Still, difficulty isn't my issue with Savage... It's that there are no real rewards... No story. No gear. What? There is gear? Lol, you must be confused, XIV doesn't have gear. Glamour is the true endgame... Add the fact that it's just painful to do, and... I'm just not going to do it... Heck, even if you made it a delight to go through at this point... I'd still just go through and experience that in Normal... Savage just doesn't add much...

[Claymore65]

Honestly, I'm happy they're keeping normal. Raids are one of the most expensive pieces of content to produce, and previously they were also one of the least played pieces of content. The vast majority of the playerbase has little to no interest in hardcore raids. Whether it be due to time commitments, difficulty, rewards, or whatever, most of the playerbase just isn't going to it. "Normal Mode" opens it up to a MUCH larger portion of the playerbase. They get to experience the story, the fights, and the zones at a difficulty they're more comfortable with. I'm sure the clear rates for normal mode are at a much more acceptable level.

Moving back to the "one difficulty" level of Coil would be extremely problematic. Just look at the clear rates from April 2015: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...active/cqjuvsn

The highest server clear rate for NA was 4.80%. For JP it was 15.60%. They want a larger proportion of the players actually completing the content. Building such an expensive addition for such a small proportion of the fanbase is just bad business sense.

Keep in mind, even these forums are a very small representative of the playerbase. Only the more dedicated players end up here, hence the common requests for higher difficulty content and/or raids, when realistically only a very small amount of players will ever engage in it. The Devs have the difficult task of balancing the expectations and desires of the hardcore, midcore, and casual audiences. I'm not saying they've succeeded at this point, but getting rid of "Normal Mode" would be an absolute step in the wrong direction.

[LineageRazor]

And you would be able to...?

It would just actually take longer than an hour. If you couldn't do Coil while it was relevant, that's more of a you problem, as there were plenty of pugs back then.

Pugs aren't going to do it for you, frankly. I spent the entire patch from Sephirot Ex release until echo was added to the fight trying to pug the fight. While I did get the win before echo, it was on the last day before it was added. And that's Sephirot! An EASY fight compared to pretty much any floor of Alexander Savage. I honestly don't see ANY raid pug succeeding, not unless it's about three quarters filled with raiders who happen to be slumming it, or a farm party that decides to take along someone who needs the win.

No, it became very clear with Alexander that the only way to succeed is to join a static party and HOPE that the other members of that static party are able to learn the fight as well as you can. These eight members have to be able to agree on practice times and frequency, and have to have enough spare time in real life to meet these demands.

And let's not forget to factor in the latency issues that many players have to deal with. Raid level fights are very unforgiving. If you're the sort of individual who can expect a moment of lag a second or two every ten minutes or so - well, you might as well not raid. You WILL die to lag, and you will take everyone else down with you. Even if you don't suffer latency regularly, if any of the eight members has a bad connection one night, it will generally be enough to make it not even worth practicing that evening.

It's understandable why folks would be frustrated with these raids and give them up as a lost cause without even trying. There's so many factors that can doom a raid that are COMPLETELY out of the hands of the individual. Windows of free time not matching up with other players, other players' skill levels, your latency issues, other players' latency issues... It can be agonizing, knowing you're GOOD enough to do this (whether or not that perception is justified) but cannot succeed because of all these factors.

There's a reason that folks actually go so far as to change servers to have a hope of dipping into that incredibly tiny pool of players that are actually worth partying with.

[Zojha]

Your logic is awful.

Says the person who realizes nobody wants to do the content on their own volition and instead of drawing the logical conclusion to either change the content or discontinue it, wants to bribe people into it. That's like suggesting SE should not have remade 1.0 and instead paid every player a couple dollars/euros each month for putting up with the game.

Uhm...yeah. I'm out, I rather not let myself be dragged to that level. Have fun!

[Remus]

I'm pretty sure SE doesn't even know what to do with raiding anymore even though people have given suggestions.

[bass9020]

At least I have many fond memories of Coil days that I will keep with me forever. Nothing in Alexander or 3.0 has held up the standards of early 2.0 and thats a shame.