Lack of End Game Content

[HyoMinPark]

Well, I don't believe the reward does remains what it always was. You have to understand that by completing this content upon its patch release, you had the best weapon in the game. One that can be taken into further content into the next patch. Raiders LOVE a challenge and they LOVE being rewarded. Once the weapon is no longer best in slot, you are purely left with only aesthetics and as a raider, are less inclined to do the content.

I can concede being wrong on this one though - as this more of a personal preference.

The weapon in UCoB was only better than the one from O4S by one materia meld. Other than that, it was the same stats—you could just put 3 materia in it. Hardly a noticeable difference. That said, the UCoB weapon was made irrelevant with Sigmascape; the UwU one with Alphascape. The weapons are vanity—they do not provide any inherent advantage. They are entirely prestige.

Raiders do love a challenge. Ultimate is always a challenge. And do you honestly think that raiders stopped doing the Ultimate raids after the weapons were no longer relevant? That is objectively false. They are still participating in them even now after Shadowbringers launch. I have a friend who has been in UCoB since clearing the MSQ. The weapons being irrelevant have no impact on raiders doing this content.

GNB is a side job, not something that I play outside of instant queues. I have no intention of playing it end game.

I main a red mage, and have BiS possible, both Titania Weapons, Innocence Drops, Tomes and whatever Eden gear we've been able to get thus far.

But your suggestion otherwise would be creditable.

Except you said that you had BiS for Caster/Healer/Tank in your comment. I directly quoted you, my dude. You claimed you had BiS for three roles (not even jobs—roles), yet you clearly do not. But you’re out of stuff to do?

[Avraym]

The weapon in UCoB was only better than the one from O4S by one materia meld. Other than that, it was the same stats—you could just put 3 materia in it. Hardly a noticeable difference. That said, the UCoB weapon was made irrelevant with Sigmascape; the UwU one with Alphascape. The weapons are vanity—they do not provide any inherent advantage. They are entirely prestige.

Raiders do love a challenge. Ultimate is always a challenge. And do you honestly think that raiders stopped doing the Ultimate raids after the weapons were no longer relevant? That is objectively false. They are still participating in them even now after Shadowbringers launch. I have a friend who has been in UCoB since clearing the MSQ. The weapons being irrelevant have no impact on raiders doing this content.

And you've just prooved it right there.

UCoB was only better than the one from O4S by one materia meld, like you said.

How many players do you think participated in O4S vs UCoB.

I guarantee you, FAR more participated and cleared O4S.

Why? The reward was more or less the same but far easier to obtain.

The reward matters.

[HyoMinPark]

And you've just prooved it right there.

UCoB was only better than the one from O4S by one materia meld, like you said.

How many players do you think participated in O4S vs UCoB.

I guarantee you, FAR more participated and cleared O4S.

Why? The reward was more or less the same but far easier to obtain.

The reward matters.

....the difference in damage increase you would see is minuscule. There is no inherent advantage to having an Ultimate weapon over a Genji or Diamond weapon. Your entire premise is that raiders go for the best gear possible—yet now you’re contradicting yourself.

Well, I don't believe the reward does remains what it always was. You have to understand that by completing this content upon its patch release, you had the best weapon in the game. One that can be taken into further content into the next patch. Raiders LOVE a challenge and they LOVE being rewarded. Once the weapon is no longer best in slot, you are purely left with only aesthetics and as a raider, are less inclined to do the content.

But I cling to the ideology that they'll always be more inclined to do whatever content will get them best in slot even more.

Absolutely. There's a reason that the weapons have stats when they release Ultimate.

Raiders love the incentive to get a reward that not only shows off their ability to clear most difficult content, but enhances it also.

You are directly contradicting yourself now.


Far more participated in O4S than UCoB? Or O8S versus UwU. Of course. You have to clear O4S to even get into UCoB, and likewise with UwU. The same will be true of the coming Ultimates.

However, Ultimate was never designed with the intention to match or beat Savage participation numbers. It was designed for the hardcore, 1% of players that wanted a challenge because Savage has been progressively watered down since Midas. It is designed for the challenge. It isn’t designed to be on par with Savage—it is designed to be harder. Clearing it is more bragging rights than having a Savage BiS.



I haven’t proved anything other than you don’t seem to know what you’re arguing at this point. You claim raiders raid for the best gear in the game and stop when its irrelevant; that they want gear to show off their achievements. People point out that’s not the case with Ultimate—that players do it purely for the challenge and the rewards are basically vanity items and bragging rights to beat anything else in this game—and suddenly your argument is: “well, the reward wasn’t worth it because it’s the same as O4S/O8S”.

I would say, look at the statistics.

A LOT of people cleared O4S in contrast to Ultimate.

Ultimate was of course, more difficult, but the motivation to clear something that offers - as you've said, being so minuscule, players will have far less drive to complete it.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, the reward matters.

The statistics match the developers design. It wasn’t designed for 10%, 20%, or 30% clear rates. It was designed for the 1%. And the clear rates match. Ultimate is the most successful piece of content this game has ever released. Ultimate brought FFXIV into the Top 10 on Twitch. FFXIV’s visibility shot up after UCoB came out. Same with UwU. They were repeatedly streamed well past when they were first released, and that has never happened with any other piece of content. No other piece of content has the longevity Ultimate does.

The reward does matter. An Ultimate achievement—an earned one—means more than any Savage BiS you will ever obtain in this game.

[Avraym]

....the difference in damage increase you would see is minuscule. There is no inherent advantage to having an Ultimate weapon over a Genji or Diamond weapon. Your entire premise is that raiders go for the best gear possible—yet now you’re contradicting yourself.







You are directly contradicting yourself now.


Far more participated in O4S than UCoB? Or O8S versus UwU. Of course. You have to clear O4S to even get into UCoB, and likewise with UwU. The same will be true of the coming Ultimates.

However, Ultimate was never designed with the intention to match or beat Savage participation numbers. It was designed for the hardcore, 1% of players that wanted a challenge because Savage has been progressively watered down since Midas. It is designed for the challenge. It isn’t designed to be on par with Savage—it is designed to be harder. Clearing it is more bragging rights than having a Savage BiS.



I haven’t proved anything other than you don’t seem to know what you’re arguing at this point. You claim raiders raid for the best gear in the game and stop when its irrelevant; that they want gear to show off their achievements. People point out that’s not the case with Ultimate—that players do it purely for the challenge and the rewards are basically vanity items and bragging rights to beat anything else in this game—and suddenly your argument is: “well, the reward wasn’t worth it because it’s the same as O4S/O8S”.

My contention is very clear. The reward matters.

We can both agree, the reward if measured by power, is essentially the same.

Ultimate was released months after Omega Savage, yet so much fewer participated and succeeded.

IT DID DETER players from doing it. This is is suggested by how few people even participated in it.

I believe, if the stats for ultimate, reflected just how much challenging it was than savage, you'd see more people pushing to complete it.

[HyoMinPark]

My contention is very clear. The reward matters.

We can both agree, the reward if measured by power, is essentially the same.

Ultimate was released months after Omega Savage, yet so much fewer participated and succeeded.

IT DID DETER players from doing it. This is is suggested by how few people even participated in it.

I believe, if the stats for ultimate, reflected just how much challenging it was than savage, you'd see more people pushing to complete it.

You directly contradicted yourself, and now you are trying to backpedal and change your argument. What deterred people from doing Ultimate compared to Neo-Exdeath is that Ultimate is significantly harder and players cannot do it. Increased stats on the weapons would not encourage more players to try Ultimate or push to complete it. It’s difficult to the point that most actually cannot do it, and that is the entire purpose of the content.

I don’t think you actually understand the design of Ultimate. You just think it’s another avenue for big boi strong gear, but that was never its intention. Its intention was to give the hardcore raiders a challenge because they were dissatisfied with the way Savage was getting progressively easier since Midas.

[Avraym]

You directly contradicted yourself, and now you are trying to backpedal and change your argument. What deterred people from doing Ultimate compared to Neo-Exdeath is that Ultimate is significantly harder and players cannot do it. Increased stats on the weapons would not encourage more players to try Ultimate or push to complete it. It’s difficult to the point that most actually cannot do it, and that is the entire purpose of the content.

I don’t think you actually understand the design of Ultimate. You just think it’s another avenue for big boi strong gear, but that was never its intention. Its intention was to give the hardcore raiders a challenge because they were dissatisfied with the way Savage was getting progressively easier since Midas.

I dont think I'm contradicting or back peddling at all. I even said that less players will also be inclined to do ultimate due to its difficulty alone.

But lets be real. A lot of players going into Ultimate Coil, would've had O4S weapons (or better).

What do you think their attitudes will be when they wipe over and over when they already have a reward of equal measure months ago.

I guarantee you, a lot players gave up, because the reward just wasn't worth the effort outside of bragging rights.

If ultimates are purely for bragging rights, it stands to reason why so few would strive to complete it - which is only reinforced by the statistics the dev's released.

[CorbinDallas]

I dont think I'm contradicting or back peddling at all. I even said that less players will also be inclined to do ultimate due to its difficulty alone.

But lets be real. A lot of players going into Ultimate Coil, would've had O4S weapons.

What do you think their attitudes will be when they wipe over and over when they already have a reward of equal measure months ago.

I guarantee you, a lot players gave up, because the reward just wasn't worth the effort outside of bragging rights.

If ultimates are purely for bragging rights, it stands to reason why so few would strive to complete it.

People had those weapons because they literally had cleared Savage way before ultimate and it was all they had to do before the content came out, and beyond that, why wouldn't you have the best gear possible to challenge the hardest content in the game? Better gear means an ever so slightly larger margin for error.

I would know, I dipped my toes into Ultima after I had cleared Alphascape. You know why I did that? Its because I was bored. Savage didn't satisfy me anymore, I had capped all jobs, had bis on at least one job per role, and I was considering unsubbing until 5.0.

We wiped, a lot, and disbanded after only a few weeks, largely due to the looming expansion. But we had an absolute blast in the time we had, the vanity rewards weren't ever a concern, it was about bettering ourselves and doing something that felt good.

But I guess you're gonna gloss all over this like you have with literally every other post telling you the same thing in order to further your narrative that the only reason people do content is superior gear. Fact is, people don't do ultimate, not because the gear is out of date, but simply because they're not cut out for it.

[HyoMinPark]

I dont think I'm contradicting or back peddling at all. I even said that less players will also be inclined to do ultimate due to its difficulty alone.

But lets be real. A lot of players going into Ultimate Coil, would've had O4S weapons.

What do you think their attitudes will be when they wipe over and over when they already have a reward of equal measure months ago.

I guarantee you, a lot players gave up, because the reward just wasn't worth the effort outside of bragging rights.

If ultimates are purely for bragging rights, it stands to reason why so few would strive to complete it.

The attitudes now in Ultimate are fairly positive unless you have members in a group making things particularly negative with their attitude—and not attitude caused by wipes, but by just bad personalities. Do groups get frustrated? Sure. My first UwU group had many nights of frustration when we were wiping to the primals. But I feel fairly confident in saying that most, if not every, group that clears UCoB and UwU have that victory screenshot at the end; the victory screenshot in front of Bahamut in T13 or Ultima Weapon in Ultima’s Bane; the victory nerd scream at the end of the VOD if people were streaming. Having a weapon that is essentially the same as Savage did not dull the clear for them. I didn’t give two hoots about the stats on the weapon when I cleared the first time. I just cared that I had done it.

The people that do Ultimate do it for the challenge. Not for the gear. They never did it for the gear (outside of glamour—certainly not for a BiS). And I don’t think Ultimates need some Ultimate Big Boi gear to drop from it for participation.

Gear is transient in this game. Raiders realize that. That’s why Ultimate-tier raiders don’t put stock in the weapon stats—they never did. They put the stock in the achievement of doing something that is challenging. It is enough for them.


And hey. The bragging rights from an Ultimate clear were enough for some to fork over $1200 for carries when the content first released. Too bad it becomes fairly obvious fairly quickly that their clear wasn’t earned by anyone other than their credit card.

[Zabuza]

The statistics match the developers design. It wasn’t designed for 10%, 20%, or 30% clear rates. It was designed for the 1%. And the clear rates match. Ultimate is the most successful piece of content this game has ever released. Ultimate brought FFXIV into the Top 10 on Twitch. FFXIV’s visibility shot up after UCoB came out. Same with UwU. They were repeatedly streamed well past when they were first released, and that has never happened with any other piece of content. No other piece of content has the longevity Ultimate does.

This is what gets me...I've seen this to a lesser extent with Savage as well. So, casuals claim there is so little interest from other people in endgame and yet... as is said here, the twitch viewers shoot up about tenfold when Ultimate comes out. Why is that, if raiders are a vanishing minority? Why is raiding still a big thing in WoW, the MMO that, despite declining numbers from its prime, still holds the most subs? People here keep acting as if adding some raid content would somehow be detrimental, but can someone tell me where all those interested Twitch viewers come from then if there's not people wanting to participate in these raids and see more of them?

[PandaMonium]

This is what gets me...I've seen this to a lesser extent with Savage as well. So, casuals claim there is so little interest from other people in endgame and yet... as is said here, the twitch viewers shoot up about tenfold when Ultimate comes out. Why is that, if raiders are a vanishing minority? Why is raiding still a big thing in WoW, the MMO that, despite declining numbers from its prime, still holds the most subs? People here keep acting as if adding some raid content would somehow be detrimental, but can someone tell me where all those interested Twitch viewers come from then if there's not people wanting to participate in these raids and see more of them?

Well, maybe because Twitch viewers are interested in watching a show? Fighting a raid boss is a show, a race for a World First is a show, no matter how many people in game are actually participating in said activity.
Doing the same trial x99 for a mount, farming 100500 resources to craft and make gil, decorating a house while 10 times rearranging the south wall - all these are not a show for the Twitch users, though still a very valuable activity for lots and lots FFXIV players.