We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[Nezerius]

If the content isn't significantly easier than current Savage it won't draw a much larger audience than Savage does now.

If the content is much easier than Savage it invalidates Savage as being the only way to acquire BiS while being much easier. Who cares about an i375 weapon from O8S if you can also pick one up by dungeoning? Might as well hit BiS before even starting Savage at that point.

I'm guessing you've never heard of the Mythic+ system, or the massive success it was in Legion, to the point of being considered one of the best features that had been introduced in that expansion.

First of all, a dungeon with scaling difficult would already be more accessible to players, due to the simple fact of requiring half as many players (4 instead of 8). Second, the content wouldn't be "much easier than Savage", since you wouldn't be getting the raid-level gear until higher difficulty levels, that's kind of the point of the whole scaling difficulty thing.

If someone chooses not to do Savage that's perfectly fine but they then don't need to gear up as quickly (or honestly at all for quite some time) and they certainly don't deserve the same rewards as people putting in considerably more effort.

To put it bluntly - why does anyone not doing Savage feel like they need or deserve the same ilvl without delay as someone who is actually raiding? It just strikes me as super entitled. If you want the gear then do the content. If you don't that's fine too.

Short answer: Because players find it fun to progress in an MMO.

Long answer: Because there's literally no other option of similar difficulty that allows players to obtain gear above the stuff that can be easily grinded for (ie: facerolling dungeons for tomestones, buying crafted gear, gear from Alliance raids). Mythic+ is seen as an alternative to raiding, without the hassle of organizing a group of 10-30 players. It allows players who prefer tight-knit groups, or prefer to have their playtime be much less schedule based (ie: hopping on to do a mythic+ or two) to still progress at a decent pace.
To answer your blunt question, because there's isn't any non-raid content at similar difficulty level, it's literally the only option people have. This is the raid-or-die mentality that I was talking about. Add actual options of similar difficulty (like WoW did), and I wouldn't be surprised for people to show interest in said options, despite having chosen to not do savage raids.

Did anyone argue the point that non-raid content can be challenging? Problem is, in XIV, it isn't. I agree, a Mythic+ like system would be fun, and a great change of pace especially for those who can't find seven other people to commit time to the game with, but as it is, basically all the content outside of Savage (and to a lesser extent, EX) requires very little relative technical skill.

It's a direct reply to Ilan, specifically the part where they said "You basically want that you get raid gear outside of raids which is not right. If you want it put in the effort." as if people who don't raid are somehow incapable of putting in the effort of clearing difficult non-raid content.

But I agree with Ladon here. As we're reaching the fifth anniversary of ARR, it's becoming more and more apparent that SE isn't really all that interested in shaking things up, preferring the safe content cycle that they're currently working with.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Mythic+

The issue becomes they won't even attempt difficult content outside of raids, let alone dungeons. If they actually did Mythic+ styled content, I would be more open to the idea of high end raid gear being available from it, but they seem utterly afraid to make anything too difficult outside Ultimate. With that said, you have to remember WoW has a substantially different gear progression system—one heavily dependent on RNG to maintain its relevancy. Say they did end Mythic+ styled dungeons but they will weren't anywhere close to Guardian or Kefka's difficulty. Well, what reason do raiders have to touch the aforementioned two when Hell's Lid EX offers a faster alternative?

[Magic-Mal]

Well, what reason do raiders have to touch the aforementioned two when Hell's Lid EX offers a faster alternative?

BiS stats most likely. "Raid level gear" from content that isn't a raid already exists in the form of tome gear that everyone, even the worst players, can get. Fact is though that raid gear doesn't always have the best stats on it. Tome gear has the BiS stats all the time. Too often we end up with both raid and tome gear having the same 2 stats on it with the priority stat switched maybe. Or the tome gear being sucky but the raid gear being sucky too. It's extra boring. We can already get raid gear without raiding and could have for 6 years now so I don't know what the fuss is.

I would love to have options to get more gear pieces with different stat match-ups. If I wanna have 4,000 skill speed, I should have the opportunity to do it while still being i370. But we don't have that choice..

[MoroMurasaki]

snip

My two concerns are that Savage remains relevant and that any content that rewards the same gear at the same pace is the same difficulty.

It sounds like some people want the rewards without the effort. That bothers me. If you want raid gear you should be doing content that takes the same amount of time and focus.

At the end of the day it's nice that people like feeling like they're progressing but I don't care if they feel like they need another way to proceed - there is already an avenue to get savage gear. Its called savage.

[Magic-Mal]

My two concerns are that Savage remains relevant and that any content that rewards the same gear at the same pace is the same difficulty.

It sounds like some people want the rewards without the effort. That bothers me. If you want raid gear you should be doing content that takes the same amount of time and focus.

At the end of the day it's nice that people like feeling like they're progressing but I don't care if they feel like they need another way to proceed - there is already an avenue to get savage gear. Its called savage.

I don't recall anyone asking for the ability to get Diamond gear from dungeons. Is tome gear savage gear now? Help me with my confusion please because it exists and it seems to be just fine. Side content that is released that gives a i370 chest with Crit/Det would not be the same as the i370 raid chest that gives Crit/Skill Speed. Or even Det/Crit instead of Crit/Det.