FFXIV: Endgame as it is now and what it once was, how do you feel?

[Yamimarik]

So not to start out by spouting pointless generalities, please make note this is solely based on my opinions and my experiences. This has only affected me and my friends as far as my specific points I'll bring up. But please speak about your experiences and how they may relate or differ to what has happened with me in the past few years. TLDR down below.

Back in 2.0 when raiding in this game was new. Most people were still trying to get their toes wet on what it was all about. Most people were gated behind the primal HM fights for most of their early careers. And to those who could easily triumph over them moved on to the next level of difficulty, Binding Coils of Bahamut.

Farming up Titan weapons, tomes, etc. to prepare myself to tackle on Coils. Finding PuGs was rather easy in a sense back then. So many people were so willing to try and fail over and over seemingly to just get inside the final tier of content. I actually got my first T1 Coils clear with a PuG on SCH (my 2ndary job at the time) and we went in blind and cleared it relatively easy.

I eventually made my way into T2 and found it a different kind of beast. But still fun and interesting I didn't clear it till I found my new FC and with that a static!

Having the privilege to have a static was amazing at the time! You always had set to semi- set times which were always nice. You always had fun and a sense of accomplishment when clearing things together as a group. You never felt held back or weighed down because it was just playing the game with your friends. Even PuGs back then felt a very similar feeling though, people were just so easily ready to keep trying to push through to the next piece of content.

I never got to clear Final Coils with my static as my entire FC/Static left XIV right after we beat T11. So T12 and T13 remained undefeated for me until 3.0.

Heavensward shows up and boy oh boy... did raiding and endgame change drastically! Sure we still kept our Ex primals... but now we had "story" normal endgame raid and savage endgame raid, the great Alexander.

This tier of raids saw many statics and groups simply fall a part. Be it hardcore or midcores (in skill, not times being able to play) and casuals barely even attempted or could get through this set of raids.

Many people seemed to have clamored for this change to happen though. As the story of Binding Coils of Bahamut was locked behind the 1 tier of raids back in 2.XX. So with the story completed gutted out of the now "Savage" raid, most people didn't feel the need to even attempt it anymore if story was their aim.

At the start of 3.0 I was still "hopeful" that my FC would return... and by the time I got the expansion finished and made it to Bismarck/Ravana Ex, I knew it was time to find a new FC and hopefully a static!

Case in point I find my new home (my current FC to this day) and the prospect of a new static as well! Seeing as Alexander was a different beast from Coils period... we unfortunately never made it far into Gordias. Seeing only consistent clears and the final tier of mobs in A2S was as far as we got. Granted we were not a full static and had to PuG 1 tank, and 2 DPS often. Ex Primals were hit or miss, but we eventually triumphed over most. Took a lot longer to fully farm some like Nidhogg. But we eventually came through.

I'm sure you're thinking (why the blog post?) I probably got a bit heavy winded but my point is coming up now. So after going through all of this, still attempting Alexander as it came out and not really finding a nice spot until Creator, I started to notice a certain thing pop up when I would go with my static or even PuGs to Primals or Savage. And no it wasn't parsers, my old static in 2.XX used those back in the day. No... it was FFLogs. A website dedicated to keeping up with said parses in a database and able to compare others parses around the world.

It started out rather heavy handed as the DPS checks and crazed mechanics in Alexander were very high and stressful for anyone not attempting world first races or even in the higher percentile of hardcore players. But as Creator came, it wasn't nearly as heavy handed with constantly checking others on this website.

4.0 finally makes its way into existence and we get the Omega raids. With everything we had seen with Alexander though, people were not going to take many chances. Keeping my static for the most part through at least Deltascape and clearing all the way through O3S. It was rather rough, not so much the fights, they seemed decently tuned. But finding others with our willing mindsets and play-styles seemed almost impossible. So many people then and now were extremely obsessed with their FFLogs scores. The journey and the fights along the way didn't mean much anymore. It was all about coming on top of PvE content in a race against your "opponent". No... not the raid bosses, but other people's parses. Endgame had shifted drastically in the years from 3.XX-4.0 and remained as such in the oncoming content of 4.XX.

Primals weren't as heavily affected by this, but it can still be seen from time to time.

I have never had a personal problem with parsing or parsers period. I find them helpful tools that can help pinpoint your mistakes and work on them when you're in a very healthy and friendly raid group environment.

I feel like the problem, again for me personally, is now FFLogs as a whole. People are trying to make PvE content into a competition. Instead of simply trying PvP where the whole premise is to compete against each other, the players have taken it into their own hands to do that with an outside source using said means.

And there are those that will harass you for simply not playing to "their" standards or the "new" standards that were put into place during the awkward struggles of Alexander Savage. Now I'm sure this just seems like a bad player spouting on about how bad he is and wishes he could continue to just play in the "old days". Who knows maybe this is and maybe I am bad. I don't have many uploads on said site for people to check out, I play on PS4 and am at the mercy of others for that. But I'm sure there are those who will do their "research" just to sniff me out.

I have never claimed in this post nor will I ever claim to be the "best". I only try to be my best when I'm in a fun and friendly environment. I feel many PuGs I deal with now days... are no such place. Even finding a static or trying to start your own is just as much of a challenge if not worse. People have bookmarked expectations of you and if you don't fit into that one size fits some mold, you aren't worth their time.

Now don't think either I advocate sloppy or bad play. You shouldn't have to deal with others who refuse to improve or hold your group back from progressing through the content.

I suppose my point being, is from 2.XX and onward endgame has drastically changed, and I definitely feel it's been for the worst. People try to put into stock what the rest of the world is doing rather then trying to focus on their progress and their team mates. I still personally think it was a mistake splitting our one 8man raid into two tiers. I always felt and still feel that Coils as a whole was the perfect raid tier and setting. Yes, even if it makes me sound elitist, I feel story mode should have never happened in 8man raiding. I feel it took out the want for most people to try and progress not only for gear, but for story as well.

Now days people only progress through the hardest 8man raids (even Ultimates) simply to have the highest scores. As many go on here and other places, you don't need the top tier raiding gear if you aren't raiding in those raids yourself. So they don't seem to be doing it for the gear since a lot of higher hardcore players can and will clear with crafted stuff and appropriate melds. So it seems that people try to go forth and simply beat the next groups "score".

Alexander has and will always remain to me personally as a fail. I felt Omega might have had some redeeming qualities, but because of my own personal experiences with this expansions raid tier, it fell flat for me and hard.

Again I really don't claim to be some expert on this sort of stuff. I just feel that the direction the game has went in since 3.XX has failed to meet some of my own personal expectations and continues to do so while allowing certain things to go unnoticed by the devs and maybe even Yoshi himself. I personally hope the status quo eventually gets shaken up so much by 5.0 that we finally see a hard reset as the raiding continues on in this game. I personally miss the much more story driven as well as outlook of the earlier days of raiding. I know some of it was based on everything still being new and I know that part can and will NEVER be recaptured and I don't expect it too.

Anyway if you stuck with me through all of this LONG read, what are your thoughts? Think I'm some bumbling fool who has NO idea what he's talking about? (I honestly just might be lol) or have you had similar or the same type of experiences?

TL : DR - Endgame has changed drastically from 2.XX all the way to 4.4. I personally think it's the use of FFLogs and peoples desire to compete with each other in PvE content rather then PvP content. Do you agree? Disagree?

[Reynhart]

TL : DR - Endgame has changed drastically from 2.XX all the way to 4.4. I personally think it's the use of FFLogs and peoples desire to compete with each other in PvE content rather then PvP content. Do you agree? Disagree?

Back in 2.xx, there were two major incentives to run Coil, story and gear. The third one was competition but it really felt like a little niche.
When HW was released, story was stripped away from Alexander and the first level cap killed a lot of gear incentive since you could literally buy gear on par with what Second Coil dropped.

So, I guess lots of raiders simply turned toward the last known incentive and joined the competitive aspect of raiding, while some who were interested in the story skipped Savage completely.

[The_NPC]

That good sir is one long post & thou I have never joined said "Endgame" I have seen a fraction of this "Numbers War" u discribe bleed over into 4-man dungeons more regularly since 3.0 (use to be very rare at 3.0 start & became common by 3.5, was high during A5-8 Savalge release time but I hear that version was overtuned & was breaking ppl). I do however like to state that at one point way back in 2.0 I wanted to try Coil, when T5 was the highest, but my servers "Endgamers" during my login times were very... escentric about ppl "Preforming to a standard" if I wanna be nice about it. A more blunt version is: The espectations thrown about & all the "drama" caused by all the arguing made me avoid that stuff so much I have yet to beat Coil, well I have unsynced T5 but thats it, let alone give the newer version "Savage" an honest chance

I can't say if ur right due to having no "real" experiance in the "area" u discribe but thats what I have noticed about said "area", srry if this reply is unhelpful.

[Bright-Flower]

I didn't do endgame until SB really. FF XIV wasn't my 'main' mmo until late HW, about 3.4 or 3.5 and I didn't do any of the alliance or alex raids until 3.5 where I basically just said 'newbie bous' in party finder and got carried through the first 11 fights, though I did get a good grasp on a12 as I was farming crystaloids for weapon upgrade. I will say that Alex did have story. The difference was it was a new story while Coil's story was wrapping up loose ends from 1.0.

So I can only really speak for SB's endgame. And even then I haven't stepped into savage. In part because I don't want to schedule time for a static and in part I have a bit of anxiety about messing up while learning new fights around strangers. So I can only really comment on normal mode raids.

And I have mixed feelings there. Omega doesn't feel like a 'raid' to me. It's really just three sets of four Trials but with a raid loot structure. There's no sense that I'm going anywhere. No sense of exploration, no trash to give a sense of pacing, it's just four bosses in boxes, albeit pretty boxes. I hope that 5.0's raid goes back to a Coil/Alex model where it's not always just a boss fight.

As far as story goes, it really depends. If Alex had been savage mode only I wouldn't have been upset about that, because the Alex story doesn't have anything to do with the main story. Coil and Omega are cleaning up lingering story threads that, unless you do progressive raiding, you won't get to see resolved. And so I don't feel like that story should be locked behind difficult content when the main story itself is pretty casual and accessable. The Ivalice, sky pirate and crystal tower stories for example I think are standalone enough that I wouldn't mind if they had been savage only stories. Omega and Bahamut though had too much setup in the main story to only pay off in high end content IMO.

There are still plenty of rewards for raiding. You get unique mounts, you get the best gear. I wouldn't mind story locked behind it if it was a side story that had nothing to do with the main plot, but I am against setting up Omega and Bahamut int he main story but not paying them off unless you do the difficult content. If the raid stories are going to leave holes in the msq then I feel story mode should exist in raids.

My main issue with normal mode raids is the loot structure. In theory I like it, but it can be very frustrating. For example this last week, I got my loot from O12 pretty quick but I had to run O11 five or six times, which is frustrating. On one hand, FF XIV doesn't have enough raid content to have the WoW structure of 'run it once per difficulty and you're done.' On the other hand when you get bad rng, it sucks when it can take several runs at the same boss to get your reward. I think SE needs to find some kind of middle ground but I don't know what form that could take.

[Yamimarik]

I didn't do endgame until SB really. FF XIV wasn't my 'main' mmo until late HW, about 3.4 or 3.5 and I didn't do any of the alliance or alex raids until 3.5 where I basically just said 'newbie bous' in party finder and got carried through the first 11 fights, though I did get a good grasp on a12 as I was farming crystaloids for weapon upgrade. I will say that Alex did have story. The difference was it was a new story while Coil's story was wrapping up loose ends from 1.0.

There are still plenty of rewards for raiding. You get unique mounts, you get the best gear. I wouldn't mind story locked behind it if it was a side story that had nothing to do with the main plot, but I am against setting up Omega and Bahamut int he main story but not paying them off unless you do the difficult content. If the raid stories are going to leave holes in the msq then I feel story mode should exist in raids.

Well this isn't really about the story raids though, in the sense of "how are they, their difficulty, or their structure." Sure speak out of the absence of a story mode, but we have it right now so that isn't even an issue for you.

This insight is in endgame raiding in the highest tier i.e. Coils(since it was the only tier) and ofc Savage. I personally have 0 experience with Ultimate though, I just mentioned it because it exists.

Maybe you didn't read some of my finer points, but for some of us that isn't what we wanted out of raiding regardless. Mounts and gear is nice, but wasn't the goal for some as the goal has shifted from then till now. I personally couldn't care less about the mounts. I was mostly in it for gear, but always in it for the story.

Yes there are some nice nuances and extra dialog from doing Coils. But Alexander and Omega, as I'm aware, have nothing to do with the actual MSQ. You really don't need them in order to understand ANY thing going on inside the MSQ. So that point is kinda moot. I've yet to see any holes from a lack of completing Alexander or Omega in the MSQ. So I'm not sure where you got that from.

[Bright-Flower]

Well this isn't really about the story raids though, in the sense of "how are they, their difficulty, or their structure." Sure speak out of the absence of a story mode, but we have it right now so that isn't even an issue for you.

This insight is in endgame raiding in the highest tier i.e. Coils(since it was the only tier) and ofc Savage. I personally have 0 experience with Ultimate though, I just mentioned it because it exists.

Maybe you didn't read some of my finer points, but for some of us that isn't what we wanted out of raiding regardless. Mounts and gear is nice, but wasn't the goal for some as the goal has shifted from then till now. I personally couldn't care less about the mounts. I was mostly in it for gear, but always in it for the story.

Yes there are some nice nuances and extra dialog from doing Coils. But Alexander and Omega, as I'm aware, have nothing to do with the actual MSQ. You really don't need them in order to understand ANY thing going on inside the MSQ. So that point is kinda moot. I've yet to see any holes from a lack of completing Alexander or Omega in the MSQ. So I'm not sure where you got that from.

With Omega for example, Omega is set up in the MSQ. All the way back in ARR, concern over Omega was raised in the patch quests. Then it kind of dropped off the radar, but was brought back in late HW. Deciding to risk activating it to deal with the soon to be born Shinryu was a big story decision, and then there was the big spactacle fight over Gyr Abania.

To just drop the Omega story there for casual players would be a misstep IMO. It's not like Omega was just offhandedly mentioned a couple times, it was an important part of the story leading into HW. To then not resolve that story outside of high end content would, IMO, be a misstep.

To use an example from WoW, I was fine with the Algalon story in Ulduar. Only by doing the 'hard modes' of the fights could you unlock and advance the story there. The setup and payoff are all within that high end content. Casual players werne't left hanging by plot threads dangled in front of them but then held out of reach. Imagine if Omega was savage only, and you were a casual player who played through 2.55 and saw Omega and Shinryu battle and then just...never saw anything from Omega again. Would that not be jarring and weird?

Really though, I think the current model is better than savage only raids. It opens up raiding to a wider audience, while the best rewards are reserved for people who do the difficult content. I don't see why the story also needs to be an exclusive reward that only high end raiders get too, especially if the story is set up in the msq.

IMO, savage raids should have a bit more going for them than they do now. For example, assuming it's feasible with FF XIV's budget, I'd like to see Savage get its own distinct gear sets, not just dyable versions of the normal mode raid gear. Maybe some titles etc, not sure if they already have titles or not. But story? I don't really have a problem with story mode in general. Story mode gives some content for casuals while the best rewards are for savage players. I could deal with no casual story mode if stories were self contained, but again I don't consider the Omega story self contained enough.

[Coupain]

sorry for my english

i totally agree with you. Raiding in ARR times was better because only the progression was important

In my opinion FF logs have destroy the game ( it s my opinion)

Before FF logs, people only wanted raiding to destoy their boss, now people only want to destroy their dic...

[Dzian]

I don't really bother with endgame that much anymore. It just doesn't feel worthwhile when everything is so temporary and obsolete 10 minutes after you get it. Even the content itself doesn't last... And generally what's the point?

In ARR I did coil for the story. My friends and I cleared the whole of final coil in a single evening gripped by it's story. And wondering what would transpire.

Alexander was ok some fun fights but never really bothered with the savage modes be ause again what a the point. And omega is the exact same thing.

There's games out there where I literally invest buclet loads of time and effort into getting like 1 single stat point or something because I feel that it will have lasting benefits to my character and game... But xiv just sod it. No point investing in item a when I can get item b for free next month and it's better anyway....

As such I typically spend most of my time doing whatever friends wanna do.

The other issue is he overall lack of content which generally means players spam the same thing over and over and get sick of it. Like farming 64 rath wins in 3 days of the content going live. I mean competitively I can understand that wanting mount first sorta thing. But a lot of people end up burning it because it's literally the only thing to do.

It's kinda the same with 24 man raids. Where players will literally grind the same raid all week trying to get a drop. But hey there's nothing else to do that patch... It's no wonder players burn themselves out on content because there's no variety in stuff to do.

This game really needs some longevity and to stop being so temporary. I know people will spout up and say if that happens itll be a full tine job but no it really won't. Ffxi had massive longevity and a lot of the time I only played that 2 evenings a week and did all of its endgame..

[Bright-Flower]

I don't really mind the tiered vertical loot structure but I can definitely see why people would be tired of it. Back when I enjoyed raiding, gearing up wasn't main draw for me. It was the experience. Learning the bosses with friends and overcoming them. Gearing up was a side benefit. It's not worth staying on the loot treadmill if you don't enjoy the experience itself.

I can see why people would prefer horizontal progression, though it's something I have a hard time wrapping my head around having not played a game centered around it. For me, I like gearing up, and so getting a pair of boots that I'll use for two years just doesn't interest me personally.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

sorry for my english

i totally agree with you. Raiding in ARR times was better because only the progression was important

In my opinion FF logs have destroy the game ( it s my opinion)

Before FF logs, people only wanted raiding to destoy their boss, now people only want to destroy their dic...

See, I have the precise opposite opinion. FFlogs is what makes raiding fun because I have a tangible goal to work towards each week, or however often I elect to pug. Finding new ways to maximize my damage is fun. If I delay Litany a little bit, does that pair up better with other raid buffs? If I hold LotD, will it catch BfB? Take away the analytical side of raiding and now I'm left with simply killing the same thing repeatedly with nothing to differentiate. Given there is no Ultimate this tier, I'd basically have no reason whatsoever to care about Savage without FFlogs, barring the initial rush of clearing fresh content a few times.