Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[Nalien]

you really think most the player base would be fine with taking away what they already have?

Oh it's too late to make any changes for 3.0... What I'm saying should apply to 4.0 onwards, if I make examples with 2.0/3.0 content, then they're just that, examples. I'm not suggesting that anyone lose any of their current progression, I'm simply suggesting future content have multiple paths of progression, rather than one... I'd rather have a casual and hardcore progression path, that are tuned to those types of players, and hopefully works, than have a single progression path that tries, and fails, to please both sides...

why ask a game to stop being the game it is?

If I order some food, and it comes without a particular condiment I like, I will ask for that condiment. I still like the food plain, but I'd rather have it with the condiment. Same thing... I like XIV, I'd like it more with a superior progression system...

what about the players who doesn't want that change? they should just get over it?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. This forum is here to gather feedback... My feedback is that I'd prefer a different progression system. I'll keep telling SE that until I get bored and quit. I would hope for actual discussions, if I propose a different progression system, I'd hope for "I don't like that because", and that back and forth can hopefully refine an idea to better please both sides... Not that I expect that from these forums... Much more likely people will just start insulting each other over stupid labels like "hardcore" and "casual"... Again, I'd like to remind you I'm suggesting two independent progression paths for casual/hardcore players from the side of a casual player...

I'd rather has casual progression be casual progression, while hardcore progression is hardcore progression... Both can be tailored to please their particular demographics better, win win... Instead we have a single progression system that aims to please both sides and fails... What reason do you actually have to stand against such a suggestion? If it's not better for casuals as well, please do enlighten me as to why...

[zosia]

Oh it's too late to make any changes for 3.0... What I'm saying should apply to 4.0 onwards, if I make examples with 2.0/3.0 content, then they're just that, examples. I'm not suggesting that anyone lose any of their current progression, I'm simply suggesting future content have multiple paths of progression, rather than one... I'd rather have a casual and hardcore progression path, that are tuned to those types of players, and hopefully works, than have a single progression path that tries, and fails, to please both sides...

This is really how it should be. Obviously nothing can be changed for Heavensward, but in 4.0 there needs to be two progression paths for raiders and non-raiders. The path for raiders should always result in higher livls and I hope that SE is observing the many replies in this thread stating how poorly the rewards for alex savage have worked out.

You know it's bad when lead developers from other games have called out Yoshida on the poor rewards for savage.

Players wanting easy raid ilvl gear are akin to an unaccompanied child in a candy store. They don't understand that binge themselves on sweets is a bad thing. Easily obtainable max ilvl gear negatively impacts rewards from all types of content, casual and HC alike. This practice hurts the game, and the people defending it don't even realize it.

[Nalien]

You know it's bad when lead developers from other games have called out Yoshida on the poor rewards for savage.

Lol, that's happened? Damn, that sounds like an interesting read...

I think Yoshida is just grossly mistaken in why people don't get into raiding... It seems he thinks gear is the main hurdle, so he gives everyone gear... It isn't though, finding a group is the main issue... Honestly, I'm incline to blame the Duty Finder for that... I brought it up back in beta, but the Duty Finder is ultimately a very anti-social tool... It's definitely useful, but ultimately it gives people very little reason to form any friendships in game, after all we can all just queue up on the Duty Finder to get stuff done with people likely not even on your server... To really do raiding though, you need a solid static group... You're basically left shouting for random people, which can be very unreliable, and most people don't even know how to do that because the game has held their hand with the Duty Finder since day 1... They've never even considered forming a static, so that becomes the hurdle when raiding requires one... Then SE puts outdated content onto the Duty Finder, but there is such a sudden spike in "difficulty" that it's just impossible... Raid content requires communication, yet the vast majority of Duty Finder parties? You'll be lucky to even see a "Hello", and you certainly don't need everyone pulling their weight...

It's a problem with the difficulty curve honestly... Arguably Normal/Savage could help a lot with that, but then we just come back to the problem of motivation; Why do Savage when you've pretty much gotten all the rewards from Normal?

Ideally, they should have a casual progression path that, by the end, has prepared people such that they should have a decent chance against the raid content... Right now they're effectively doing that with gear, I imagine Gordias will be much easier with i260, but gear is meaningless if you don't know how to use it... There just isn't much of a difficulty curve in this game, what little is there is either backwards, or frequently gets nerfed down... Two progression paths, with the casual one slowly ramping up? That could be great... By 4.5 the casual path could have actively prepared people for the start of the hardcore path, then you've just given casuals more content to try out... Meanwhile the hardcore crowd has just been enjoying that content all this time anyway... Hard to achieve that currently though, given the difficulty curve for Alexander is wobbly at best, and the rewards just actively undermines the concept of a difficulty curve; We'll all be i250 soon, why would be do Gordias for i210? You can't have a difficulty curve when content is actively skipped like that...

[Musashidon]

If I order some food, and it comes without a particular condiment I like, I will ask for that condiment. I still like the food plain, but I'd rather have it with the condiment. Same thing... I like XIV, I'd like it more with a superior progression system...

choosing to eat food with or without condiments doesn't effect other people though, while choosing one or the other systems does.

the decisions is more like asking a taco bell to stop selling taco's and make pizza's because you can't give the best ilvl gear to raiders without taking the best ilvl gear from the rest of the players.

Instead we have a single progression system that aims to please both sides and fails.

how do you know it fails to play both sides? you may speak for yourself but you cannot speak for everyone.

sorta like i could be completely wrong in the idea that most players would be against the idea of giving raiders the best ilvl.

the only way to truely know is for them to give the raiders the best ilvl gear and see what happens.

if I propose a different progression system.

but there is only two proposed progression systems

1 the way we have it now everyone equal

2 raiders always get the best.

[Zojha]

I'd rather has casual progression be casual progression, while hardcore progression is hardcore progression...

Wouldn't, then, the best way to facilitate that be to separate the two entirely and make gear that can only be used in either content, casual or hardcore? From what I read in the last 2 pages, you are not actually suggesting to separate the two or make them independent, but rather to just plainly put the latter more ahead of the prior, which doesn't solve the issue you point out, as it's still just one progression path - it just stops earlier for casuals.

[Nalien]

Wouldn't, then, the best way to facilitate that be to separate the two entirely and make gear that can only be used in either content, casual or hardcore? From what I read in the last 2 pages, you are not actually suggesting to separate the two or make them independent, but rather to just plainly put the latter more ahead of the prior, which doesn't solve the issue you point out, as it's still just one progression path - it just stops earlier for casuals.

Well, I've not elaborated on it in this thread I think, at least not today (definitely touched on this some time this week though), but I'd quite like more Relic style progression... For both weapons and gear, that allows for a fairly solid split between casual and hardcore though... Yes they'd share the same progression system (item level), and yes the hardcore option would be stronger, but I see no issues with that (again, as someone who doesn't raid). It requires a wider variety of content, harder content, so it makes sense for it to be stronger... I'd have loved A Relic Reborn to have given me Omnilex, and subsequent "casual" quests upgrading it, while Primal Focus gave me Cognitome, with "hardcore" quests upgrading it, perhaps even tying them together at the end for a true "ultimate" weapon.

I think a system like that works for a number of reasons... Firstly, since it's for weapons and gear, you can arguably "lessen" the grind. Overall the grind can be of the same level, or even longer, but since you're doing it for multiple pieces of gear, you can get rewarded more frequently. Instead of, for example, upgrading your Anima Weapon and being finished after around 80 Umbrite, you could require around 90 instead, but after 15 you've upgraded one piece of gear. I also think Relic style grinds work better for maintaining purpose in events, although that's not quite true for the Anima questline, given it's a directionless mess IMO. Still, if you need to do Coil to upgrade a Cognitome, then Coil has a solid purpose beyond farming glamours... It would also technically give us three progression paths, you can do the casual Relic grind or you can do the hardcore one, or you can not bother with such stupid grind... You can just do content for the gear that drops there...

Lets say 4.0 starts us out at endgame with i300. Casual content can get us up to i310. Hardcore content can get us up to i320. People do that content, then the Relic quests come along. The casual quests get you to i320, while the hardcore gets you to i330. I think this would work somewhat better simply because it doesn't quite invalidate content in the same way we currently see... Right now, people did Midas to get i240, the catch up patch came along and everyone could get there fairly easily through pretty casual content... Next patch comes along, your Midas gear is thrown to the wayside and we repeat the cycle. Throw in Relic style progression, and everyone is getting the same item level through a fairly casual Relic grind while you're going a step further with your own hardcore Relic grind... Getting the raid content down and mastering it gets a new reward in the form of that Relic gear, that's a much better reason to farm it, IMO... Whats more, that gear sticks with you... While the Midas gear gets thrown in the same bin as the Gordias gear, you hold onto Relic gear to upgrade it later... There's a sense of progression there that regular gear just lacks, patches like 3.4 come along and just reset everything...

I guess my real issue is with catch-up patches though... As someone not raiding, I want there to always be a set of gear which is stronger than what I have, something to look up to and maybe think about aiming for... That keeps me invested in the game... Catch-up patches though, they just put me at the current peak... There is nothing new to lust over, I'm just being handed the current best item level... If I have the best item level, I want to have earned it by beating the game, but all catch-up patches do is go "Don't bother with Midas!"... I've not beaten the game to get i240, I haven't touched Midas, or Nidhogg, or Sephirot, or Thordan... Christ, I've barely even touched dungeons to get this far, for some reason I've gotten this far into i240 off PvP... My Guillotine of the Tyrant is mostly built off earning my Lone Wolf gear last season... My investment in PvE content is laughable, yet here I am progressing up the item levels anyway...

Perhaps that's the point... Perhaps the idea is that we pick what we enjoy and get rewarded with that, rather than having to do X to get Y... That makes for a pretty shallow MMO IMO, and I'm not sure XIV does anything amazingly well enough to justify that... I'm still playing because this game is better than the sum of its parts... If the idea is that I pick one or two things I enjoy... I'll pick games that do those things better and likely don't have subscription fees...

[Zojha]

It requires a wider variety of content, harder content, so it makes sense for it to be stronger...

I generally disagree with that premise because the point of difficulty IMO is not to justify bigger rewards, but rather to keep people of different talents and engagement levels entertained, no more no less. And in single-player games, that is deemed perfectly acceptable and common practice since ages - it's just MMOs in which people think harder difficulties should naturally come with bigger rewards and I think the sole reason for that is the ability to flaunt.

Similarly, power/iLvL IMO is not a reward, but a means to an end - and we're sorely lacking in ends in the casual department. It "could" serve to adjust the raid difficulty naturally, so that a geared "casual" would be able to pug and beat the raid as he would now beat normal mode, but the mechanic heavy raid design doesn't support this, plus the power gained from items doesn't make enough of a difference until several patches (or expansions) later. There's no casual content that requires you to be geared either - all content that requires good gear also requires coordination beyond pugs. It's pretty much gearing up for gearing up sake and that _is_ an issue, because as you say, there are no real goals.

That aside, the way you outline the suggestion doesn't really draw a clear line, even if the quests were mutually exclusive, because progressing along the hardcore path automatically progresses along the casual one, as the progression metric (iLvL) is identical and the usage isn't mutually exclusive. It just progresses further. As such, it also doesn't help with your goal issue, it just cuts off your progression earlier until you switch to hardcore.

I agree, though, that extending the relic system to more gear and thus opening up another gearing method as such might be beneficial. Gearing as is isn't very diverse, both in acquisition (though tomes have innate content diversity) and the gear itself: I think there's not a single vit/crit/det choker for tanks over i190. I would expect at least every stat combination to be represented for every slot on each iLvL plateau >_>

[Velhart]

I generally disagree with that premise because the point of difficulty IMO is not to justify bigger rewards, but rather to keep people of different talents and engagement levels entertained, no more no less. And in single-player games, that is deemed perfectly acceptable and common practice since ages - it's just MMOs in which people think harder difficulties should naturally come with bigger rewards and I think the sole reason for that is the ability to flaunt.

Problem is, you kill motivation to take on harder content. Developers should focus on motivating people to do all their content, those who are and who are not interested in raiding. It really is wasted content if you are not trying to get people in. The rewards have to match the effort put into them or it becomes one of the factors that kill motivation. You can't compare a single player experience with a MMO. It is a domain you have to share with others.

[Zojha]

Problem is, you kill motivation to take on harder content.

I don't see that as a problem, because as I said, to me, difficulty serves no purpose other than to engage people of different levels of skill/talent. The increased engagement as such is the motivation to take it on, because a lower level would just bore you but that level doesn't. Thus, different difficulties provide value - people who would be bored otherwise are being entertained by the game. What destroys value is trying to get people to play on a level they do not find "right" for them, be it too high or too low. And the issue here is probably more that people who prefer a higher difficulty level have to do too much content on a lower difficulty level than they'd prefer.

That aside: I do think the single-player comparison is perfectly valid in that regard. A person who plays Divinity Original Sin on Tactician Mode likely doesn't give a rats ass if someone out there is playing it on Explorer, because the experience of the other doesn't impact their own. In an MMO, the same applies - if one group does a boss on hard mode and another on easy mode, the experience of one group does not impact the experience of the other.
And yes, you share the same domain - both of those groups will end up idling in Idyllshire. And that is the point where people want difficulty to come with higher rewards, out of the desire to flaunt their tokens of esteem when the two groups meet in order to elevate their own ego. Their experience is completely independent, but this social aspect is why "effort must meet reward" and I don't think it's a positive one that deserves to be supported. Effort is the wrong word by the way, because everyone has different capabilities and it will take some people far more effort than others to achieve the same result as others - a colorblind person will have far more trouble dodging some colored circles than people with normal sight. "Performance" is what you mean.

[Archaell]

...

The harder content is mostly about the bragging rights - the players want to prove that they are better than plebs and flex their awesome gear in front of the scrubs. That's the main motivation behind the HC raiding even if few people do it for other reasons.

The less bragging there is the less people are going to bother with the stupid instant wipe mechanics. Simple as that.

Most players would not bother with Savage if the Normal gave the same rewards. Just a simple thing as giving players stronger unique looking gear would motivate a lot of people otherwise not interested to do the savage.

For the casual content and extremes it's quite easy to survive the whole raiding season in the crafted gear + relic, maybe even without it coz we finally get crafted weapons! So idk why should it bother causals so much that the welfare gear has slightly less item levels when these are not needed for nothing else than savage itself.