Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[Istaru]

Fair enough, though that segues into another issue. Say 4.0 did launch with Savage dropping by far BiS gear. What purpose would raiders have to stay subbed once they have all they want? All dungeons, 24-man raids and etc won't give them anything meaningful. Tomestones definitely has its flaws, but it does keep people queuing into the aforementioned content.

Trying to relate gear from XIV to XI is just not a good way to go.

Gearswap is not in this game. Gearswapping made gear situationally relevant.

Ninurta's Sash was the best haste belt for mages. It was good for spells where the potency was fixed but recasting time was important.

Aureole was the best ranged weapon for Magic Accuracy. A spell like Stun or Paralyze, where it does no damage and the mob gains immunity over time is a good use of that item. Casting something like Water V or Holy II where Magic Attack Bonus on a low Magic Evasion monster were the critical stat to boost.

It was not uncommon to carry numerous pieces of gear for the same slot for just one job.

While managing all of the could be a chore. Adding that to having a lot of different stars did make many pieces of content relevant for longer periods of time.

Hopefully that sheds some light on it.

[Starkbeaumont]

Coil's story reward was a one time thing though. it's a pretty weak point when ppl argue that's what made coil better than alex.
While i would handle drops differently I do actually like the 2 difficulties.
Savage is just frustrating in one way or the other and not really enjoyable for a lot of ppl. having a challenge is a good thing but not if you know that one of your static members will fail again and holds back the whole group's progression (for weeks or even months)..
Let's see how the next (last) tier of alex savage will be. if it's really more in line with final coil, raiding might be able to recover eventually (though hardcore raiders will probably feel less special).


But what I never got is how ppl complain about the gear progression. the way i understood it is in WoW you get raid drops basically not for this tier but actually for next one. If you are an every week raider you'll will start a new raid cycle with all the gear you need to clear it and everything you get till the next one is introduced is more or less for "bragging rights".
In XIV though drops are there to progress in the current tier. in neither case gear is less valuable. it's usefulness has just different peak times and will be replaced eventually.

Though i wouldn't mind if savage gear would be 5-10 ilevels higher then upgraded tomestone gear (or get rid of upgrades).

[Lambdafish]

What I think should happen is NM should exist but give NO rewards except story. Think of it like primal NM, they are just a dumbed down version of the fight that you do once for the story, NM gear should not exist, and by removing it it will give incentive back to savage (gear progression and glamour being the main thing).

The other knock on effect of this is that you run NM less and therefore arent burnt out with the fight before you even enter savage.

[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.

[zosia]

Coil's story reward was a one time thing though. it's a pretty weak point when ppl argue that's what made coil better than alex.
While i would handle drops differently I do actually like the 2 difficulties.
Savage is just frustrating in one way or the other and not really enjoyable for a lot of ppl. having a challenge is a good thing but not if you know that one of your static members will fail again and holds back the whole group's progression (for weeks or even months)..
Let's see how the next (last) tier of alex savage will be. if it's really more in line with final coil, raiding might be able to recover eventually (though hardcore raiders will probably feel less special).


But what I never got is how ppl complain about the gear progression. the way i understood it is in WoW you get raid drops basically not for this tier but actually for next one. If you are an every week raider you'll will start a new raid cycle with all the gear you need to clear it and everything you get till the next one is introduced is more or less for "bragging rights".
In XIV though drops are there to progress in the current tier. in neither case gear is less valuable. it's usefulness has just different peak times and will be replaced eventually.

Though i wouldn't mind if savage gear would be 5-10 ilevels higher then upgraded tomestone gear (or get rid of upgrades).

Absolutely true. 100%.

That was always my big gripe with gear... That's why raid gear NEEDS to be good, it's for the next tier...

HOWEVER, in this game, the incentive to farm BiS for the next raid tier is nonexistent.

Just look at Midas savage, it gives 240 gear with a 245 weapon. Come 3.4, ilvl 250 crafted weapons and crafted gear will be much better to start the next raid with. I am also sure that the new savage raid will be balanced around players having crafted gear, not the old midas stuff.

Literally the only reason to do midas savage is for glamour (one you can get out of normal) and bragging rights. So, really, just bragging rights.

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?

You know what I did when I could not raid ICC25 HC? I just accepted the fact, moved on, and did the raid later when I had the time to commit to it. I get full clears, I have the motivation, I just understand my IRL limits. If there was an IRL reason I could not do savage, I would not ask savage to be nerfed, I would move on. Much like I am moving on from this dumpster fire of a game.

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).

I don't care too much about normal and how it ruins my story as long as I can have better ilvl gear from raids. Right now we don't have anything else other than a minion and bragging rights. No story, No great gear, nothing.

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.

The entire endgame community only comprises 30% of the player base. Both causal and raiding endgame players are the minority already. I already showed in this thread that raiders comprise a larger portion of the endgame community than most people are willing to admit to. A third of endgame players tried coils when they were relevant.

Retreating to this 'minority/majority' argument is pointless when both end game groups we are talking about are minorities and every piece of content outside of ex trials and raids is designed to be SUPER casual friendly.

Is the MSQ, Normal trials, solo trials, Alex normal, relics, hunts, Palace of the dead, weeping city, treasure maps, DoH, DoL, expert dungeons, aquapolis, the entire gold saucer, housing, the countless holiday events, the mentor system etc etc etc not enough casual oriented content to sustain this "lifeblood" "majority" you are talking about?

In order to please this "lifeblood majority" we are talking about, do you really need to devalue the one piece of HC content in the entire game to the point where the only reason to do Midas savage is for bragging rights? The casual "lifeblood" of this game already gets 90% of the content catered to them. How much more do you need?

I don't think normal needs to go away, what needs to happen is normal and savage need to be completely separated. This means that normal should not drop the same looking gear and that you don't need to do Normal for anything related to savage.

Then, the rewards from savage raids need to have an ilvl higher than upgraded tome gear in addition to being better than crafted gear in the following raid patch. If you fear that this will screw over crafters, let crafters make gear augmentations that give raid gear the 10 ilvl bump (ex midas gear is 240 > use crafted augmentation > now the gear is 250).

[Ibi]

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.

I don't care about what what you feel or think. Out of endgame players (30%), 10% participated in the coil raids, That's a 33% participation rate among end game players.

The entire endgame community only comprises 30% of the player base. Both causal and raiding endgame players are the minority already. I already showed in this thread that raiders comprise a larger portion of the endgame community than most people are willing to admit to. A third of endgame players tried coils when they were relevant.

Do you have a source for the 30% figure?

According to this post, "By the end of October, around half of active players have cleared Alex Normal," which indicates that at least "around half" of active players were at the level cap at that time.

Lucky Bancho's most recent unofficial census puts the number of active players at 507,722 and the number of players who've cleared the 3.0 story (which requires the player to have at least one level 60 job) at 354,091, which would be almost 70%.

[BubblyBoar]

Let's be honest here. It doesn't matter if normal mode exists, or normal mode had no story, or normal mode delay released after savage, or even if normal didn't need to be touched at all for savage, the "hardcore" raiders would still be upset over Alex. It will never be as good as Coil was. Not because the Alex story isn't good, but because the Coil story literally had the death of an MMO to back it up. Nothing else will ever reach the sentiment or scale of Coil for this reason, not unless we kill and revive FFXIV again. It's just not going to be that good and honestly people should stop making the comparison. Alex was fresh and started from scratch. It had nothing but the FF name to it and went from there. It is completely unfair to compare it (story-wise) to Coil, which had everything that it had pumped into it.

Do I support normal mode? Yes I do, surprise surprise. I'm a dirty casual that plays this game for fun, not challenging fun. I have other games for that and that is not what I play FFXIV for. Some people do, that's great, but not everyone does and not everyone should. I, like many others, am motivated by story, this is a Final Fantasy game after all. I want to enjoy as much story as I can. I, however, do not like raiding. It's just not my thing. I'm not afraid of challenge or lack the skill or capcity to learn. It's just not what I play FFXIV for. Does that mean I should miss out on the story the devs worked so hard on? Absolutely not. Should there be other better incentives for savage? Absolutely. Just as long as it's not story.

If story is the only thing, or the main thing you raided for, then why is the challenge THAT important to you? Why is it so important that the story be the thing that you have and others don't get to see. Why that specifically? Because it's not so you'll care about the story as much as you did Coil's. Nothing will compare to Coil's no matter what (barring game death.)

[zosia]

Do you have a source for the 30% figure?

According to this post, "By the end of October, around half of active players have cleared Alex Normal," which indicates that at least "around half" of active players were at the level cap at that time.

Lucky Bancho's most recent unofficial census puts the number of active players at 507,722 and the number of players who've cleared the 3.0 story (which requires the player to have at least one level 60 job) at 354,091, which would be almost 70%.

Eoreazen census from '14 and '15 respectively, official data released by SE. These will show you the number of level capped players. It's simple math after that. Just compare t1-13 clear rates with the number of level capped characters during ARR. You will see that T1-13 had varying clear rates ranging from 12% for the earlier fights and 14-0.1% for the final fight (server dependent). Overall, raid participation was around 10%. If you look at the number of level capped jobs (none exceed 30%), you can see that roughly 30% of the players of this game actually reach end game.

So, if 30% of players reach the end game, and T1-13 had a 10% participation rate (meaning they cleared some of the coil fights), that means a third of endgame players participated in raids during ARR. The raiding community was not some fringe community that only comprised 1% of the endgame player base, it was a HUGE portion of the end game community.

Then Yoshida killed the raiding community with alex savage due to it's insane difficulty, junk story force fed through normal, and poor rewards. This is reflected in the 2015 census.

My sources:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-embarrassing

The same census source you cite, showing roughly 8% over all servers for a T13 clear. That 8% of T13 clears is easily 10% participation among all the turns (T1-13), there was a census that showed this (T1 having a +12% clear rate), but I am having trouble finding it.

The census data from SE:

2014: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ea-Census-2014
2015: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...e8ff1bcf34c5ae

[Welsper59]

The entire endgame community only comprises 30% of the player base. Both causal and raiding endgame players are the minority already. I already showed in this thread that raiders comprise a larger portion of the endgame community than most people are willing to admit to. A third of endgame players tried coils when they were relevant.

Retreating to this 'minority/majority' argument is pointless when both end game groups we are talking about are minorities and every piece of content outside of ex trials and raids is designed to be SUPER casual friendly.

Is Alex normal, hunts, Palace of the dead, weeping city, treasure maps, DoH, DoL, expert dungeons, aquapolis, the entire gold saucer, housing, the countless holiday events, etc etc etc not enough casual oriented content to sustain this "lifeblood" "majority" you are talking about?

In order to please this "lifeblood majority" we are talking about, do you really need to devalue the one piece of HC content in the entire game to the point where the only reason to do Midas savage is for bragging rights? The casual "lifeblood" of this game already gets 90% of the content catered to them. How much more do you need?

You're right in that a lot of people did try Coil when it was new... but they also failed to beat it. As echo was released, more people did beat it though, granted, but it was obviously not enough for them to be happy with. Until things like Echo happened and better ilvl gear became available, those failed attempt players essentially did not do it or suffered misery for many months, which isn't a good thing btw... just look at what happened with the first range of Alex Savage.

Kinda reaching on the examples of content to take part in in the mean time. Some of that is just outright old or stale content, timed events that last no more than a single day, or stuff that does not appeal to some wants due to limited value. So many variables that don't even deal with a long-term objective, where only a handful would somewhat feels rewarding after a couple months. Some are even finished in a week at most... how exactly is that a lot of content to take on for months? And what do you mean Alex normal? In the current situation, that makes sense, but in the situation you want, how does that work at the introduction of a raid? Not to mention, they can't exactly time travel, so it wouldn't happen in this raid tier, given we're soon to be done with it. Like I said previously, that comment was looking at it from the staggered release of Savage > Normal separated by 3-6 months.

The "woe is me" mentality blinds you from the fact that minority does not equal best profit nor does it, more importantly, equal a majority enjoyment. They are going to commonly appease the majority over the minority, especially when what is being suggested affects EVERYONE. The concerns about lack of difficult content is a separate issue. The detriment behind lack of reward/motivation to the hardest raids is also a separate issue and one that goes together with their outlook of how to properly reward players appropriately.

Just as your constant mention of having quit is apparently seen by you as a "powerful" message or symbol, so too is their desire to keep Savage along the lines it has always been lol. Dime a dozen on quitting something, no matter how good or bad it might be. I have to ask though, how long ago did you quit? Just out of curiosity on that. I'd assume it'd have to be very recent if you really did.

EDIT:

I don't think normal needs to go away, what needs to happen is normal and savage need to be completely separated. This means that normal should not drop the same looking gear and that you don't need to do Normal for anything related to savage.

Then, the rewards from savage raids need to have an ilvl higher than upgraded tome gear in addition to being better than crafted gear in the following raid patch. If you fear that this will screw over crafters, let crafters make gear augmentations that give raid gear the 10 ilvl bump (ex midas gear is 240 > use crafted augmentation > now the gear is 250).

Now this is something I agree with, and is even something along what I've suggested in another thread on the matter of rewarding Savage appropriately (be it story, gear, whatever). It is absolutely tragic for that crowd that Yoshi-P doesn't see it necessary, but that's essentially what we'd expect from the way this game has always been. It's just become more apparent since the beginning of HW, though evidence did exist even with Coil.

[Rita1989]

Dont see any harm in having savage available from the start or a couple of weeks before normal

Normal existing has been a good thing but perhaps they could change the gear so it serves as a catch up rather then being the best gear available at the start of the patch.