A12 savage World first 3 days after patch

[Kaurie]

In that respect, I think you're in a very small minority. I have to do all kinds of "casual" things to support midcore raiding, like keeping up with my tomes, relic, earning gil for crafted gear as I don't craft (yet), grinding Alex NM for drops (next patch it'll be the next 24-man for drops), and that's JUST to support my "raiding", I also try to level my crafters and gatherers and increase reputation with beast tribes as a long-term investment, and things like PotD and Aquapolis just for fun.

I'm inclined to think most of the "mid core" pop is like me and not like you. And it's totally fine to make the choices that you do, but there's not going to be enough content in that tiny category alone to hold you over for a whole patch. That's totally unfeasible from a cost perspective.

I definitely think I am in the minority, and I agree that more casual content should be created than midcore. That said, there is very little midcore and even less hardcore content, so you can hardly say that it is "balanced' between the 3, in relation to their various populations.

[Auteur]

To be blunt, there seems to be a very small vocal minority of hardcore players demanding that this game conform closer to one of the hardcore F2P grinder mmos where rewards are dependent largely on time spent in game. Newsflash: this is not a F2P grinder.

It seems rather than play a grinder more suited to their demographic, they are here perhaps to feel like a big fish in a small pond or because they are afraid of competing with their brethren over there. Whatever, free country. But SE has not, and will never make, sufficient profit from FF14 by catering to that select minority. In short, if have the time and want to play a grinder, go play one of those games; don't try to impose yourself in an environment where you are clearly not the target audience and can cause severe damage to the base of this game (the vast majority of people, the silent majority mentioned by Yosh, do not want to deal with the mindset of the "git gud" world first players).

[Pasquale]

As i said before 99% of the population are social/casual/mid so the balance should be 99% content for them 1% for hardcore as it was before , now it is 100% for the first side

[KaitlanKela]

I definitely think I am in the minority, and I agree that more casual content should be created than midcore. That said, there is very little midcore and even less hardcore content, so you can hardly say that it is "balanced' between the 3, in relation to their various populations.

Disagree. I think to have a lot of casual content, little midcore and less hardcore IS balanced, relative to the player population and respecting SE's profit-making strategy. There are few midcore players and even fewer hardcore players so you kinda just proved my point?

[SublimeIbanez]

Not really. Keep in mind that casual players only do casual content, while midcore do midcore and casual content.
Hardcore players also do hardcore, midcore and casual content.

I have to agree with Kaurie below. I rarely touch casual content simply because it doesn't offer me any challenge or desirable reward outside of unlocking content. I only play this game for the challenge of savage, or what was.

[SublimeIbanez]

Disagree. I think to have a lot of casual content, little midcore and less hardcore IS balanced, relative to the player population and respecting SE's profit-making strategy. There are few midcore players and even fewer hardcore players so you kinda just proved my point?

The point she's making is that currently there is 0 hardcore content. So, unfortunately, she's right in saying that it simply isn't balanced. It's always been the same, most of the game caters to mid/casual players, and 1, one raid out of everything released in a patch caters to the hardcore crowd. Is that too much to ask for?

Also, to play the devils advocate, it's interesting that something which has always been designed for more of the hardcore audience is being encroached by mid/casuals and ultimately neutered because of it. I'm not sure of everybody else's reason for playing this game, but mine is simply for a challenge.

[Kaurie]

Disagree. I think to have a lot of casual content, little midcore and less hardcore IS balanced, relative to the player population and respecting SE's profit-making strategy. There are few midcore players and even fewer hardcore players so you kinda just proved my point?

I think what you said can be balanced, to what is in the game isn't..
Like 80% casual. 15% mid 5% hc would be good

We have 99.9% casual, 0.1 % mid and 0.0 % hc

[cammi]

I think what you said can be balanced, to what is in the game isn't..
Like 80% casual. 15% mid 5% hc would be good

We have 99.9% casual, 0.1 % mid and 0.0 % hc

I don't know.. I don't feel the game is 99% casual when more than half of the playerbase can't even complete the content we have now. It'll be different if that 99% was clearing everything but it isn't.

[Yallaid]

As many of these discussions we've had that just go in circles, I feel like everyone can agree that there are 3 large classes of players that we can generalize FFXIV's audience into and the only solution acceptable to all of them is to have 3 corresponding modes to the end-game raid.

I really think we're at the 'worst of all worlds' by having only 2 modes. If there was only savage (i.e. bahamut coil style, ignore the actual Savage bahamut raid pls. it's doesn't fit what I'm describing) raiding, it would be acceptable to all raiders but it would exclude a class of players who do not want that level of challenge from experiencing an important part of the story.

SE has decided that this 'exclusive' nature is not acceptable and has created the tiered system we have now. But this has required all raiders to compromise because all raiders want to raid, but not all raiders raid at the same level of competency. So the exact difficulty tuning of the Savage mode raid has huge implications for who can and cannot effectively enjoy the content.


Unfortunately, I believe that it is the case that the only acceptable solution in a tiered end-game is the have 3 tiers of difficulty. As a community we need to unite around this suggestion and force SE to take notice. We should also be willing to sacrifice potential content that we may lose out on by forcing them to create yet another raid tier. But I seriously think that a system which allows players to basically pick the difficulty of their end-game from 3 options is the only one that's viable in the long term.

As well, make it so that you can immediately enter the raid at whatever difficulty you'd like. There should be frankly separate communities of raiders for each of 'Story', 'Normal' and 'Savage' raiders and we shouldn't force people into the 'Story' mode the way we do now. Allow people to create the end-game experience that's right for them, do not tie the 3 tiers together into a united equipment progression curve like we have now. This just frustrates players at all 3 levels.

[Yallaid]

I just thought of an analogy that I think could be useful:

We need a type of raiding that is like a 'difficulty setting' in a traditional RPG. That is, it's a selection made before starting that content that indicates the overall challenge you can expect.

What we have right now is more like a 'newgame plus' system. We expect every player to complete 'newgame' (story mode), but raiders are expected to get to 'newgame+' before they've reached the difficulty setting they prefer.

I worry that SE may add an additional tier but won't take this distinction into consideration, forcing raiders to now get to 'newgame++' before they can play the game they want.