Lucky Bancho and NA raiding problems.

[CorbinDallas]

I got my final bird (Zurvan's) when it was still relevant back then and this still annoys me. Never have I had such a miserable PF experience until Zurvan came along. I had to be strong-armed into helping FC members clear Zurvan because I hated it after all the "Skip Soar or Disband" stuff.

It's sad because the mechanic in question wasn't even hard, there was 6 predetermined safespots for 2 patterns, yet the "wonky" pattern always confused people somehow. It amazes me actually, how people couldn't even deal with soar yet can do the entirety of Phantom Train.

[MeganLynn]

We're just lazy over here and want the path of least resistance, instant gratification, selfish, whatever you want to call it. That's why there's such a discrepancy in raid clears every tier.

Could not agree more.

[Kurando]

We're just lazy over here and want the path of least resistance, instant gratification, selfish, whatever you want to call it. That's why there's such a discrepancy in raid clears every tier.

Essentially this. The concept of saltyness is pretty much a western creation and it's really not difficult to find a multitude of parties in the PF mentioning something about sodium. My alt can comfortably raid on a JP data centre and actually feel comfortable even if I mess up, because the general players there are more forgiving and offer advice to help you out. You'll rarely ever get someone trash talking you or the party to get good, and it's that kind of comaraderie that gives the raid a positive vibe to keep trying. The NA centres can often be quick to shame you, which is bad sportsmanship.

[Mesarthim]

The NA centres can often be quick to shame you, which is bad sportsmanship.

I got name shamed on Ferdiad Hollow when it was TWO day old content. I didn't particularly enjoy that when most people were still learning Dun Scaith. I'm an expert at it now but there comes a time where I just hate people in general even if majority are likely polite.

[Hazama999]

Ah, it's a shame to hear that NA is trailing behind in terms of raiding.

For me, it's about opportunity cost. I recently finished my second year of medical school and will be starting the pediatrics clerkship in little over a month. Throughout these two years, I've had just enough time to allocate to this game to play it at a casual level. It's been great for stress-relief, as I do enjoy what I play. I love the idea of working hard with a team to achieve a victory so I find raiding appealing. That said, it's a time commitment that I simply cannot meet at this point in my life.

Maybe when I'm an attending... lol...

[Slevin_Impudicus]

It's a theme park MMO. Pick and Choose what content you want to do. Why try to force people to raid or get concerned about a national identity over it?

I always considered savage raids as honeypots to keep the "way too serious" people away from the general public on the server. Being top DPS doesn't make you the best at the game. It makes you the best at DPS in Raids... a small part of the game. If you don't get along with people on the server, then you are not so good at the "MMO" part of the game, no matter what fflogs says.
I've seen how toxic even my own FC members can be when they are raiding, so I don't bother. If it's not fun to me, then I don't keep wading through the salt and sarcasm on the chance that it will eventually become fun.
I opened Omega, saw that it was tied to some kind of annoying bird muppet and never went back. There's other stuff to do, but it doesn't mean you have to do all of it. I never cap tomes. I don't craft. I don't level alt classes, since I found BRD to be the least annoying. When I get bored, I log off, sometimes for weeks. Why should I feel like I'm somehow failing the NA/EU population by not pursuing savage content?

This is just my opinion, but I thought I would throw it out there. I don't see this as a problem that needs to be fixed. A small percentage will clear, just as it has always been.

[Singularity]

SE might seriously need to consider incentivizing more people to do raids on the NA servers.

I think the idea of incentives is flawed to begin with. Remember that this is a game, and we are paying for the privilege of connecting to it. If you look at a piece of content and think "ugh, gotta get through this content and then I can have the thing I actually want", then to me the content has failed for you already. The shiny must be really desirable at that point, because you're willing to pay both your money and your time in doing content you ostensibly don't enjoy to obtain it.

The reason incentives exist is because different kinds of content appeal to different people, and SE can't possibly make enough content that everyone has enough of the stuff they find fun. They add incentives to get people to do content they naturally would pass by so that they have something to do and so that there are people available to fill in those missing team slots. How many players would have filled the Eurekan FATE trains if it didn't have the relic weapon behind it for example? You can use incentives to get people into savage, but the people you'll get are ones that don't actually enjoy doing it, and therefore most likely will put the minimum amount of time and effort in, not doing very well as a result.

[Emstidor]

Ah, it's a shame to hear that NA is trailing behind in terms of raiding.

For me, it's about opportunity cost. I recently finished my second year of medical school and will be starting the pediatrics clerkship in little over a month. Throughout these two years, I've had just enough time to allocate to this game to play it at a casual level. It's been great for stress-relief, as I do enjoy what I play. I love the idea of working hard with a team to achieve a victory so I find raiding appealing. That said, it's a time commitment that I simply cannot meet at this point in my life.

Maybe when I'm an attending... lol...

*is a first-year attending*

(How do I break this gently to him...)

If you want to do raiding, the first half of your fourth year is gonna be your best chance for a loooooong time. :S

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

1) Is it really a problem when it comes to interest-based content? Raiding is always a small percentage no matter region. Why does it have to be the same number? Origami has less hobbyist too in NA, doesn't mean it's a problem if the region doesn't foster it in the first place.

2) This sums it up. There is no community. Carrot chasers sure plenty but rarely concerned with growing pains of rebuilding. Asking devs to make more stadiums or playgrounds doesn't really make people pay the learning price to go to those places. Time goes by though, people will do it unsynced, just not current ones which have expensive entry costs.

I see a lot of people saying "community community community" as the reason why JP clear rates are so much higher than ours, but honestly, there's another reason at play that a lot of people aren't talking about.

If you raid in an MMO, and you play in NA/EU, you've probably already been raiding for over a decade, and you likely raid in another MMO, an MMO that isn't anywhere even near remotely as popular in Japan as it is in those two regions. Simply put, the "best" raiders in NA/EU are raiding in WoW.

JP doesn't have this issue, where FFXIV is the dominant MMO over there. As such, the playerbase that hits that content does tend to be higher quality on average, even though the top 1% is exactly the same.

I think the idea of incentives is flawed to begin with.

Not sure what you mean. As far endgame content go, there is nowhere else but to go down/backwards and I'm sure raiders againsts nerfing. It's quite different if raiding was a free to play option with possibility to get new recruits anytime, there's incentive to go forward.

[Alleo]

Didnt Yoshida once stated that japanese players kinda have the feeling of needing to complete every content? While with the western world most people just do what they want to do and ignore the rest. I mean it could be the skill gap (which will never really close without certain things) but it could also just simply be that most people in this game are just casuals and simply dont want to use so much time to try to clear savage content. I mean raiding in most games is just for a certain part of the playerbase and never truly the majority.

So IMO I just dont understand why it should change?