Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[zosia]

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.

The part you don't seem to understand is that the two progression paths would be available to anyone and everyone, the only person stopping you from the raid progression path is yourself. Yoshida has already spelled out that we are going back to FCoB difficulty for raids, arguably the easiest raid tier this game has ever had. If the easiest raid difficulty is too hard for you to pug, then maybe you should not have max ilvl gear?

Again, as I asked somewhere else, why does raid gear being 10 ilvls higher than upgraded tome gear bother you so much? Why not let raiders just have it? I really don't get why it bothers you guys so much. I feel entitled to that 10 ilvl boost because of the effort required in spending millions of gil, countless hours of prog, and endless headache of scheduling. That extra effort should give me a bit of advantage over a player who plays 30 mins a day for their expert. I don't see where your entitlement comes from. I don't understand why you think that millions of gil, countless hours of prog, and endless headaches of scheduling should be rewarded in the same manner that running a daily expert and a weekly 24 man is. In any other reasonable situation, this philosophy of risk vs reward is staunchly held up. In every facet of our lives from hobbies to work, the more effort you put into something, the higher the returns should be.

I just don't understand why that idea alienates you soooo much. It's like asking all science fair ribbons just be participation maroon because having a 1st place ribbon might hurt someone's feelings. /facepalm.

I wonder how much bickering would be solved by getting rid of raiding.

Not a whole lot when your max/drac pots, crafted meldable gear, Materia V, etc etc suddenly stop being bought as frequently. You just assume that raiders have little to no impact. Outside of the glamour economy, who do you think is buying up all this min/max stuff? It surely is not the causal player logging for 30 mins for their daily expert.

Not to mention we can see how terrible a game becomes when raiding is abandoned. Go google LotRO and you can see what is in store for FFXIV.

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.

We already know that concept does not work. SCoB savage had poor participation rates. Both Gordias and Midas Savage have had poor participation rates. How many people do you have to see post that raiding is not worth it to them because the rewards suck? These forums have been littered with those responses for the last year.

While what your saying has a lot of merit, we need to engage as many players as possible with different content, you fail to see that incentive is the other side to that coin. This game has some of the worst carrots I have ever seen in any mmo ever. Even guildwars 2, a pure horizontal progression MMO, offers VERY unqiue looking rewards for doing end game stuff, something midas or gordias could not even manage to do.

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.

I don't care if someone examines me, I surely don't examine people or stand around idylshire afk, I have better things to do. What bothers me is KNOWING of these incentive problems and that they go unaddressed. You know how unmotivating it is to actually log on and play when I feel like all the rewards are homogenized anyways? That's the HUGE problem this game is facing, one that will not be fixed until ALL rewards in this game are intrinsically rewarding. The only way we can make all rewards, from casual to HC content alike, more compelling is starting from the top down. You can't make casual and midcore rewards meaningful without also making savage rewards meaningful.

The tome grind feels like slavery because it's intrinsically unrewarding. It's unrewarding because every few months, everyone's character progression is homogenized.

I have been raid logging for the last 6-7 months, I could really care less who is standing around idylshire.

The problem is that item level is how we progress out characters... For that to function properly, you should have to put some effort into progressing, yet I wouldn't really say you need to here... They've actively undermined character progression with their difficulty curve, or lack of... All you need to do for i240, the current cap, is do dungeons which are tuned such that a moron could clear them, and participate in Hunts, which are a complete zergfest... That's it, you might have to wait a while, but ultimately that is all you need to do to take your character to the peak...

When players any step above that skill level (and I'd hope that's all players, but I've seen the Duty Finder...) become aware of that, it starts to devalue content... What is the point in doing Midas? Certainly not character progression, character progression is practically automatic in this game given enough time... Yes it's an inherently egotistical exercise to do Midas to laud your riches over others, but who cares? Is the current generation of casual gamer so thin skinned that they see a prick doing such and actually feel bad about it? I mean, I feel bad whenever I've seen people doing that, but only because I felt sorry for the poor sod who feels the need to show off like that... In my day, we had hardcore gamers who were OK people, and I looked up to them and wanted to get the same rewards, that motivated me to keep playing. Then we had ass-holes with the same gear who acted like Gods gift to humanity because of it, and we laughed at them and correctly asserted that they have no life... And that also motivated me to keep playing, so I could knock them down a peg... I see no problem with this... XIV is just a shallower game for its attempts to normalize everyone... They've destroyed my sense of progression by just resetting us all on a bi-patchly basis, I've not made my character stronger, they've just released and handed me a new item level. I've not gotten better at the game, there is nothing to get better at... Every dungeon is the same as the last and raids difficulty curves are all over the place... The only place none of this is true, oddly enough, is PvP... There are people who are better than me at PvP, and I kinda look up to them. There are people who are better than me at PvP, and complete jerks, and that's fine too... The Leaderboard and Wolf Coat work as a better form of progression that item levels as well... It's really kind of scary that, of all the aspects in this game, I'd probably praise PvP the most because of this... PvP isn't even that good in XIV... Final Fantasy, a notoriously PvE franchise, and... Just... What happened? Did I enter the Twilight Zone again...

Seriously, what is actually wrong with casuals getting a lower item level? If casuals have no progression, I see a problem with that, but that's not what I think anyone is suggesting... Everyone should be able to experience character progressions, but I really don't see the problem with someone who puts more effort into the game reaching a higher level... That should be a good thing, that's how you motivate people to get better at the game, to invest in it and keep playing... Why would I invest in a game I barely need to play in order to progress to the top? I built my Relic off PvP, I hardly touched PvE for it... When we get to 3.55, and I've got my Anima to i275 or whatever, I'll effectively have gotten to the peak of Everest, but I sure as hell didn't climb here... Am I supposed to feel accomplished in that fact?

You are so on point I wanted to make you smile!