Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[Sandpark]

Its the same old "But look at the numbers!" excuse. Principle of design, Yoshi-P. Story should be a reward, not something to be handed to you on a silver platter. If you are incapable of getting a group or lacking the skills to take on a raid tier, then wait till they put a echo buff and gimp the mechanics on normal mode. I am a broken record here, but the team needs to know when to make an MMO, and when to make a Final Fantasy. Nice to see also how enthusiastic his team is about making the raiding content. Almost like it shouldn't exist.

Bad Principle then. Are you saying the CoP story gate in XI was perfect and anyone un-able to find a good static should have been denied to experience the story? They later nerfed the content and group requirements after realizing all that hard work was what was preventing people from advancing.

I beat it in it's vanilla, but I knew many who just could not find the people, the time, or lacked the skill to progress the story line.

Raids are the least popular endgame not only because the difficulty is hard. It requires perfect harmony in skill and forming same schedule/skill competent groups for long play sessions on a regular basis.

The point here is watching the metrics. If 4-15% of the playerbase is getting new story completing raids and the rest aren't. Something is amiss. In a sub based game, isn't the point of a dev to try and get the most players possible having a reason to log in? If it's not, then the game should go full on hardcore and then they would have a couple of hundred thousand that never quit, but everyone else not in that category would fly the coop.

Normal should be pretty difficult, but not Savage difficult, more lenient towards pugs and mistakes. Savage should have the BiS and require statics, guild type content but just marginally better or you get a cry for content from both sides. The super elite saying the rest of the game is too easy and the other side who says the game is too hard.

[zosia]

Bad Principle then. Are you saying the CoP story gate in XI was perfect and anyone un-able to find a good static should have been denied to experience the story?

Think that is a bit of a false equivalency. CoP gates were not going to get easier, especially with level capped fights that can't be outgeared/outleveled.

We know that raids in this game get easier in three ways: direct nerfs, overgearing, and the eventual raising of the level cap.

Coil is a great example of this concept. Pretty much anyone, regardless of skill, can see the coil story first hand right now. Most of the coil fights are solo/duo/trio-able. I think the primary exception is Bahamut prime, but he is only one expansion away from being soloable by all jobs.

This was not true with CoP, the gates were not designed to get any easier.

So, yes, Velhart is right, you should not get everything handed to you on a silver platter. If you don't want to pony up the skill and time to see the raid story when it's current, you should just wait until you can do the fights on your terms rather than dragging down the entire game to meet your play style.

[Sandpark]

Pretty much anyone, regardless of skill, can see the coil story first hand right now.I think the primary exception is Bahamut prime, but he is only one expansion away from being soloable by all jobs.

So, yes, Velhart is right, you should not get everything handed to you on a silver platter. If you don't want to pony up the skill and time to see the raid story when it's current, you should just wait until you can do the fights on your terms rather than dragging down the entire game to meet your play style.

Not my playstyle. The majority's playstyle. Midcore/Casual outnumber Hardcore by a wide margin.

The more story locked from the majority is bad for business. Better gear, harder content is fine for the elite. Creating story for a tiny minuscule pushing the larger percentage to not ever experience is bad.

The solo thing doesn't hold water. I don't care if I can solo every single thing in the game 2 years from now. Raids are designed to be group content, content that is not getting played by most people now. Waste of development.

[zosia]

Not my playstyle. The majority's playstyle. Midcore/Casual outnumber Hardcore by a wide margin.

do you actually look at the stats or do you just like to assume that since casuals are the majority that there is no need to be diligent?

You do know that even at level cap, you are a minority player? Does that mean that we should cater the game strictly to leveling? No, that would be a dumb way to design a game. I forget the stat off of the top of my head, but admittedly by SE own stats released about 30% of the player base makes up the end game community.

Coils had a 10% participation rate, with about 5% reaching a full clear before heavensward.

That's nearly a third of endgame players that participated in coils. This notion that we are talking about 1% of the player base is ridiculous. If Alex had not destroyed the raiding community, we would still see this similar pattern of participation.

In reality, when raiding was at it's healthiest in this game, close to a third of endgame players were trying coil and many of them were able to actually down some bosses.

Source:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ea-Census-2014
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...e8ff1bcf34c5ae

The more story locked from the majority is bad for business. Better gear, harder content is fine for the elite. Creating story for a tiny minuscule pushing the larger percentage to not ever experience is bad.

It's not locked, you choose to lock yourself out of it, which is perfectly fine. It's your prerogative to choose what you spend your time on, but it does not mean that your choices have to be detrimental to others.

The solo thing doesn't hold water. I don't care if I can solo every single thing in the game 2 years from now.

Sure it does, you don't need to solo anything. You could have gotten 3-4 people together right after hitting level 60 (just a few weeks after HW) and destroyed T1-13.

Raids are designed to be group content, content that is not getting played by most people now. Waste of development.

Again, this is just more of you wanting the entire game to cater to you. This game is full of casual content, you just want 100% of the game's content to cater to you, it's very greedy. Once you take Raiders and non-level capped charters into account, you and your ilk comprise about 25% of the player base, not such a hefty margin to warrant that 100% of the game cater to you. Thus, you should not have everything handed to you on the silver platter, you are not as large of a demographic as you think.

[Welsper59]

Think that is a bit of a false equivalency. CoP gates were not going to get easier, especially with level capped fights that can't be outgeared/outleveled.

We know that raids in this game get easier in three ways: direct nerfs, overgearing, and the eventual raising of the level cap.

Coil is a great example of this concept. Pretty much anyone, regardless of skill, can see the coil story first hand right now. Most of the coil fights are solo/duo/trio-able. I think the primary exception is Bahamut prime, but he is only one expansion away from being soloable by all jobs.

This was not true with CoP, the gates were not designed to get any easier.

So, yes, Velhart is right, you should not get everything handed to you on a silver platter. If you don't want to pony up the skill and time to see the raid story when it's current, you should just wait until you can do the fights on your terms rather than dragging down the entire game to meet your play style.

Mmm that's just as bad, honestly. You're telling people to wait possibly years then. That's like someone telling you to wait years until you get the type of motivation to raid that you want lol. I'm certain that will go over well with you, right?

The middle ground of staggered release of difficulty is probably the best approach from the story reward perspective, but in the order of Savage > Normal. 3-6 months down the line might be a good time... most likely the former, rather than latter. However, this is STRICTLY speaking in relation to Savage raiders that can actually clear it in that timespan, which for NA/EU, is not a whole lot of the player population. This is not taking into consideration further major changes that is being requested, such as gear ilvl availability being more exclusive (i.e. raid only gear being significantly better and harder to acquire than simple tome gear).

Their concern is likely centered around the majority (this is apparently not you). What are they to do in such a long period of time in the game? That's the majority lifeblood there. At least in the case of how we are today, everyone has a rather consistent flow of content to take part in, even if it is the same old monotonous task that every single act in existence becomes eventually. I'd wager that's at least a part of their defense on the matter.

[yexie]

If you don't want to pony up the skill and time to see the raid story when it's current, you should just wait until you can do the fights on your terms rather than dragging down the entire game to meet your play style.

Can't you see that it's not always about not WANTING to pony up? For some people it's just plain impossible because of lack of time, lack of statics and other things.
We all pay the same amount each month, so why are you more priviliged than others that just simply CAN NOT put the effort into endgame the way it is needed? I personally would LOVE to put the effort into endgame and be "up there", but I simply can't put that much effort into the game. And that's not dragging down the entire game, it is dragging down the game for ~10% of the playerbase maybe? By meeting YOUR play style it would mean gating story and gear for ~90% of the playerbase.
And no I don't want things to be handed to me on a silver platter, it often happens to me that I find the "casual content" too easy or I find it just right because you actually need to put some effort into it and you wipe a few times and I see so many people cry and whine about it until it gets dumbed down and I dislike that too.

So please, try not to see all casuals as lazy people who aren't willing to put in the effort and want things handed to them on a silver platter. There is a reason there is only a small amount of people doing endgame, not everybody has the means to put that much effort into a game.

Like Sandpark said:

Raids are the least popular endgame not only because the difficulty is hard.It requires perfect harmony in skill and forming same schedule/skill competent groups for long play sessions on a regular basis.

The point here is watching the metrics. If 4-15% of the playerbase is getting new story completing raids and the rest aren't. Something is amiss. In a sub based game, isn't the point of a dev to try and get the most players possible having a reason to log in? If it's not, then the game should go full on hardcore and then they would have a couple of hundred thousand that never quit, but everyone else not in that category would fly the coop.

Normal should be pretty difficult, but not Savage difficult, more lenient towards pugs and mistakes. Savage should have the BiS and require statics, guild type content but just marginally better or you get a cry for content from both sides. The super elite saying the rest of the game is too easy and the other side who says the game is too hard.

I get that Alex savage not having any new story to it was a HUGE downer and it shouldn't be that way, it should have had a continued story of normal mode and something like a minion or such in the end to show "hey I did it!", and it should still have the highest iLvl gear rewards, because they really are not needed outside of savage.
But you simply cannot keep ~90% of the playerbase MONTH behind story and gear (lookswise) because all of us paying folks have a right to enjoy and get the "new look" feel when a new patch comes out and not be punished simply because our personal circumstances or the circumstances on our server doesn't allow us to get into the real endgame.

For the future they need to give savage a new story to discover or some sort of deeper insight... and a little more than just an achievement in the end. Heck they give PVP more than that.

And to what you said about Yoshi as a producer earlier:
I'm pretty sure he get's it, but if he would do all the things you want, he would be a much much worse producer than people make him out to be now, he HAS to view every problem from ALL angles and he has to go by what the MAJORITY of the playerbase is able to achieve, if he would do it any other way he would completely fail at his job. He has to find a balance.

[Velhart]

We all pay the same amount each month, so why are you more priviliged than others that just simply CAN NOT put the effort into endgame the way it is needed?

You pay 12.99 to access the world, not to have everything handed to you on a silver platter. That is what veteran rewards are for. That privilege you speak so lightly of is from people who put in the hard work to have it. Work that most are not willing to do but for some reason feel just as entitled to it.

If you cannot put in that kind of effort, then you need to acknowledge where you are in the progression chain, which is not at the end. When I played WoW before raiding, I always saw characters who had this really top notch Heroic gear and sometimes Legendary weapon that really showed off who was the best of the best. I in no way felt entitled to that gear at all, I know that person sweat blood and tears to get to where he was at.

If I am going to stress myself out doing these really hard dance routine raids that a lot of times tests my patience, then yes I do deserve that privilege that casual players shouldn't have.

[yexie]

You pay 12.99 to access the world, not to have everything handed to you on a silver platter. That is what veteran rewards are for. That privilege you speak so lightly of is from people who put in the hard work to have it. Work that most are not willing to do but for some reason feel just as entitled to it.

If you cannot put in that kind of effort, then you need to acknowledge where you are in the progression chain, which is not at the end. When I played WoW before raiding, I always saw characters who had this really top notch Heroic gear and sometimes Legendary weapon that really showed off who was the best of the best. I in no way felt entitled to that gear at all, I know that person sweat blood and tears to get to where he was at.

If I am going to stress myself out doing these really hard dance routine raids that a lot of times tests my patience, then yes I do deserve that privilege that casual players shouldn't have.

I'm not sure if you didn't read my whole post or if you're just ignoring it.I personally don't feel entitled to get the gear without doing anything for it, and if you get a super awesome "legendary" weapon or a certain item because you beat something super hard,I don't feel entitled to get it and I don't feel bad at all for not having it, but savage gives a WHOLE set of items that are unavailable to 90% of the players, it's not a single special item, it's a whole set and it gets farmed till everybody has theirs on each and every alt, so yea I don't think it should be anything else but a recolor with higher itemlevel, I do however think that there should be something else there as a reward at the end of savage aside from just a simple achievement.

Maybe it's because there generally is such a lack of choices when it comes to gear... There is always only ONE set of gear with a certain iLvl when a new patch comes out.
For me it makes sense there is a gap in iLvl between endgame and casual, but if you don't want a sour feeling over your effort not being meaningful, a casual or midcore player doesn't want to have that sour feeling either, and trust me, we have it too.
Grinding tomes is not rewarding, the gear that drops in the new dungeons is meaningless unless you have an army of alts to equip. By the time the weapon upgrade to i230 (7 weeks) is possible, we don't even "need" it to clear the content, since the iLvl is already high enough to faceroll through everything anyhow, the i240 upgrade now even more useless... we actually have even less to do than you.

[Velhart]

snip

My apologies. I was more going off on a rant not towards you after the first sentence. Should of clarified that.

For gear, if story mode and Savage continue being a thing, then perhaps they shouldn't drop gear in there but other items. Like just keep the key item you have to collect seven times and add a decent amount of tomestones. Because the only reason people go back in for story mode is gear and the key item to buy a weapon. Story mode is already borderline dead content after the first week so you have to be careful with it's rewards.

[Velhart]

Bad Principle then. Are you saying the CoP story gate in XI was perfect and anyone un-able to find a good static should have been denied to experience the story?

Difficulty was not CoP's issue, it was getting people to do it unless you went through it the first week. If DF existed during that time, 90% of CoP's story issues would of been fixed. Also the MSQ is not a raid tier. If it is raiding tier content, then it needs to retain it's difficulty and if the casual playerbase who already has 95% of the content in this game catered to them, I honestly believe they can wait a tier. Principle of design.

Again, midcore/hardcore will likely leave over casual with the constant dumbing down of content.