Yoshida, The Creator: Savage is the worst tuning ever in an MMO

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I never said it wasn't expensive. I said it is not as much to make as it would be to add onto it and create new assets to accommodate the harder mode. Developing anything in an MMO costs money and time. The question is, is it to the point that SE cannot add an extra mode. Their last update of this a few months back according to them is yes, it is too much.

You have to remember however is what that 1% brings to this game. The hardcore players are the ones buying the crafted gear, food, and potions, not the casual players so much. They are the ones making raid guides, how to's, and BiS theories that a lot of casual players follow. If SE truly believed they were not important, then raiding would not even be a thing to begin with. They would not of experiment as much as they did, they would just make Alexander on normal mode and that is that. SE does value that 1% in some form, they just have this belief that the raids have to have high clear rates as opposed to simply high activity.

Actually, that isn't true. MrHappy has openly expressed enjoying this raid tier and outright said on his Twitch stream if they hadn't scaled Savage down to allow the raid scene a chance to recover, they wouldn't have one in 4.0. Mizzteq is midcore, and actually a victim of Gordias. She only managed a full clear after Midas dropped due to her static giving up. They are both the most well known and popular guide makers, and neither have any intention of leaving. Furthermore, Elysium and Angered have also said they liked The Creator. Can't get much more hardcore than World First players. And prior to 3.2, crafted gear was utterly worthless to raiders. It remained among the primary complaint of crafters, yet all of them made a profit. xAshe10x and Mithrie do guides on all level crafting. Both have made tons of profit outside the top tier crafts.

I never said the hardcore side isn't important, but you cannot cater to it when the vast majority of your audience has next to no interest in that content. Not when the statistics are so enormously one-sided. They attempted this for over a year, yet Savage clear rates remained abysmal. Hence why they are now attempting to make it midcore-esque. Whether they scaled Savage back too far is up for debate, but no, you aren't going to see guide markers or the market suffer even if they kept it exactly as is.

The main difference between WoW and FFXIV in development terms is that content balancing is developed for Savage and then scaled down (also linked with source on the first page). WoW develops Normal Mode balancing and scales up. There is something you need to understand when quoting development costs. Once the money is spent making an asset, it doesn't cost more to use it again. The idea that there is extra cost for another mode is a misnomer, you aren't paying for the same meal twice. They are justifying the cost of encounters for Normal Mode, which again, is the only reason they didn't decide get rid of raiding entirely in Heavensward.

If this were true, we would already have three difficulties. Yoshi specifically cited costs and a lack of resources (in so many words) for the reason we don't. Bosses are all scripted, thus certain attacks follow a specific animations. I never said you couldn't reuse assets. I said not every asset is re-useable, thus necessitating new animations. If say, Sophia does a certain motion in extreme to provide a hint to her next mechanic, but that whole sequence isn't in normal. Then that animation is exclusively for extreme, and therefore, an extra cost. The order they develop it is irrelevant. They still had to do a separate animation at some point.