Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[Claymore65]

Just to reiterate, I have no problem with changing the gear and rewards from savage. I agree that they are currently lame. If they had unique equipment models, a higher ilvl, or some other reward, Savage would be a lot more palatable. At the very least I'd like to see the previous Savage be the best equipment to start the newer savage at release. I also agree that Raiders should be allowed to skip Normal if they prefer, going straight into Savage. There are a lot of cool tweaks they could make to the gear for Savage Raids. I agree they should be BIS for the course of a patch cycle (i.e. until the next raid), aside from maybe the Relic Weapons, which use time expenditure instead of difficulty. The ratio of power between Tome and Savage gear is currently a bit too close, although I presume part of the reason tome gear is so strong is that it (indirectly) can make raids easier over time. Still, Savage Gear should likely be the clear BIS considering the difficutly to obtain it.

However, I still vehemently disagree with those suggesting the removal of normal. Raid content is too expensive, time consuming, and frankly "fun" to cater it to only a small, hardcore audience. While I agree Gordias was only okay, Midas was a blast, with a bevy of enjoyable mechanics (Gorilla/Bird etc), cool boss designs/music (Brute Justice), and some cool equipment. Plenty of players thoroughly enjoyed it. From the 2015 official census, over 230,000 people completed all of Gordias Normal, while only 58 completed Gordias Savage. The numbers are a lot better for Gordias 1 (251,158 compared to 58,873 for savage), but still over four times the number of players got to enjoy a piece of content that might have been inaccessible otherwise. I fail to see why it is "selfish" for more players to enjoy a piece of content. The allure of exclusivity is understandable, but there has to be a balance. I'd rather the high level gear rewards be exclusive than the enjoyable fights and the story.

We know for a fact they were disappointed with the clear and participation rates for Coils. Having a "Normal" version of the raids was the clear reaction to that. That said, I wouldn't have anything against adjusting the difficulty of the next Alexander (and inevitable 4.0) Raids a bit higher. Making it like Nidhogg normal, which is quite difficult for the average player, would be fine, especially for the last part of the raid. I just think it's wasteful to build expensive, enjoyable content and then leave it solely for the hardcore. Perhaps more difficulty levels would fix that as well, but I'm not sure.