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

[Sparktacus]

No 5-10% of the community as a whole. You are going to lose more than just the ~2% that was able to clear a8s or close. You are going to lose other raiders who don't find this tier rewarding either if they continue this difficulty b/c they went way too far. If you lose them you lose the communities that they have built as well as a decent chunck of their friends. We have 2 different raid difficulties and a tier that is even easier than FCoB was.

We help generate hype for the game, we influence the economy more than anybody else. Losing us also means losing a lot of crafters because they either aren't selling nearly as much stuff on the market board, or aren't a part of an FC and feeling like they are contributing meaningfully to a community anymore. Our raiding FC has a lot of members who are here because they don't have the time to raid but want to be able to jump in with other players who know their jobs to do Ex Primals or speed run dungeons. We are also subbed year round, as are our entire communities, where a lot of people resub to try out the new dungeons and primals and then turn around and unsub for another 3 to 6 months. If you are truly worried about catering to the majority of people than lets just make leveling dungeons only seeing as how at any given time only 35-50% of the currently subscribed NA market has at least one max level character and up to date with the MSQ months after it is released. You would not only lose a substantial part of the player base who is subbed year round. It isn't and simple as losing the 1-2% that can clear the raid tier as you make it out to be.

I don't disagree with anything you say about what it means to lose the raiding community, however much of that was lost with Gordias and will most likely never recover. What remains is the 1% that was able to beat A8S. Many groups could only pass A5 and A6 and that was all they had for 6 months which drove even more people away. What remains is that 1% and lower difficulty gives many lost teams hopes to rebuild again.

I am not advocating one is right or one is wrong, as I said earlier we really need to see clear data and feedback a bit further out, perhaps in two months. If someone's blind arthritic grandmother is beating A12S one handed, then yes we have problems.

[Viridiana_Sovari]

I don't disagree with anything you say about what it means to lose the raiding community, however much of that was lost with Gordias and will most likely never recover. What remains is the 1% that was able to beat A8S. Many groups could only pass A5 and A6 and that was all they had for 6 months which drove even more people away. What remains is that 1% and lower difficulty gives many lost teams hopes to rebuild again.

That is a problem of not having more bosses so that they can smooth the difficulty curve. 6 to 8 bosses per tier really needs to happen. I personally think 2 primals that drop savage raid level right side gear on a weekly lockout (weapons could be shifted to normal and made the same ilvl as previous tiers raid weapon) paired up with 6 raid bosses starting at a10s difficulty and progressing to a8s is the way to go, but that is my personal opinion. That gives you 8 bosses in a content patch that are meaningful to do each week. 2 are primals outside the actual raid. 6 are part of the raid tier with a smoother difficulty curve so you don't feel like you are hitting a wall with a massive difficulty spike.Would honestly be a decent middle ground where people didn't feel quite as bad if they didn't finish the whole tier when it was current.

[Sparktacus]

That is a problem of not having more bosses so that they can smooth the difficulty curve.

6 to 8 bosses per tier really needs to happen. I personally think 2 primals that drop savage raid level right side gear on a weekly lockout (weapons could be shifted to normal and made the same ilvl as previous tiers raid weapon) paired up with 6 raid bosses starting at a10s difficulty and progressing to a8s is the way to go, but that is my personal opinion. That gives you 8 bosses in a content patch that are meaningful to do each week. 2 are primals outside the actual raid. 6 are part of the raid tier with a smoother difficulty curve so you don't feel like you are hitting a wall with a massive difficulty spike.Would honestly be a decent middle ground where people didn't feel quite as bad if they didn't finish the whole tier when it was current.

I also agree with everything you just said. Like 100%. I don't believe it is not feasible with their team to add 2 more bosses and just strip away phases from the other ones if they need more manpower.

[Lambdafish]

I also agree with everything you just said. Like 100%. I don't believe it is not feasible with their team to add 2 more bosses and just strip away phases from the other ones if they need more manpower.

The problem is that new fights and taking away phases do not equate. Every new fight needs to be concepted, assets need to be made, and the fight needs to be programmed (hell, they even need to add more quest chains to get into the fights), then increase the workload by taking into account both normal and savage. While more bosses would be nice, it is not as easy as you imply (although Yoshi has said that they only need 2 more members on the battle team in order to "vastly" improve raids, whatever that means).

[Sparktacus]

The problem is that new fights and taking away phases do not equate. Every new fight needs to be concepted, assets need to be made, and the fight needs to be programmed (hell, they even need to add more quest chains to get into the fights), then increase the workload by taking into account both normal and savage. While more bosses would be nice, it is not as easy as you imply (although Yoshi has said that they only need 2 more members on the battle team in order to "vastly" improve raids, whatever that means).

I know there is more to it as I don't work in the industry but thinking outside the box I feel it would be easy to conceptualize a battle without having any video game knowhow. Hire artists and critical puzzle thinkers to create a concept and then have the design team go from there. I feel the company has a standard they want to live up too and sometimes it might hold them back.

[Lambdafish]

I feel it would be easy to conceptualize a battle without having any video game knowhow. Hire artists and critical puzzle thinkers to create a concept and then have the design team go from there. I feel the company has a standard they want to live up too and sometimes it might hold them back.

Oh yeah, conceptualizing a battle is easy, yoshi P has shared many times his wacky ideas (as have many forum goers including myself). The problem is when you say "just have the design team go from there". A) We don't actually know what makes up the "design team" and what roles and responsibilites these teams have to a full extent B) If we did know the full extent of what they did, design team has other responsibilities, and we don't how busy they are. C) "Just going from there" means nothing. The amount of work it takes to take an idea from conception to even a working prototype takes a tonne of thought and consideration (originality, difficulty, pacing, job viability etc.) and that isn't even taking into account technical feasibility, art assets and even lore. Game development is an intensive task that goes through many iterations before we get a final outcome (as an example of timescale, yoshi P said that a single piece of glamour takes 6 months to create from concept to implementation, and as for battle content - we saw concept art (and even a concept render) of shiva and world of darkness before the release of 2.0)

Edit: *and bug fixing