Anyone else concerned by the extremely low skill ceiling?

[Wegente]

So yea of course it takes several weeks to complete a raid tier in WoW. There are significantly more bosses.

That's not the reason WoW raids take longer to clear. Most bosses in WoW are cleared on the first day by the hardcore guilds, it's usually the last two bosses that are the roadblock.
Those two bosses alone can take up to 2 weeks to be defeated, and it's because they're really hard fights with extremely tight DPS and healing checks. Something that we haven't seen in Savage fights for years.

people make habits of logging in rarely at times or unsubbing regularly regardless of their skill level or goals in gaming. Everyone is different, and some people like to have a change of scenery more often than others.

That's true, but I think most people who play FFXIV to raid wouldn't unsub before at least having cleared the current raid tier, unless they're really bored by the game in general. Having cleared the raid tier in just a few days is the final nail in the coffin for them.

[Penthea]

That's not the reason WoW raids take longer to clear. Most bosses in WoW are cleared on the first day by the hardcore guilds, it's usually the last two bosses that are the roadblock.

Those two bosses alone can take up to 2 weeks to be defeated, and it's because they're really hard fights with extremely tight DPS and healing checks. Something that we haven't seen in Savage fights for years.

I didn't realise we talking about the progress of literally a handful of guilds in the entire game. I thought we were talking about how hardcore guilds in general fare in progression, given that was what was being talked about when I entered this conversation

And there are some things you need to consider.

Firstly tiers often last far longer in WoW than in XIV. I have experienced raid tiers that lasted well over eight months. So it makes sense to make the bosses more difficult if you want the content to be able to last long within that time frame for your average raid teams.

Secondly the attitude and methods towards deaths is very different. In WoW you don't have access to essentially endless combat resses due to long cds and that very few classes can combat res. We often called a wipe the second somebody died because, for example, we needed to save the res for later in the fight. In FFXIV this attitude towards deaths is far less common due to ressing having no cd, every class who can res having access to an instant cast, and of course the existence of heal LB3.

What this means is in FFXIV you're far less likely to waste several minutes on a pull only to call for a wipe, because you usually res and just keep going, mechanics permitting. You can even res multiple times and keep going, and even still get a kill. In WoW if someone dies too early in the pull, you often just wipe it and start again. This means more wasted time.

That is not to say raiding in FFXIV is easier, some aspects are harder, but deaths are generally significantly less punishing on both progress and time. And then add to the fact that raid teams in WoW are bigger and the more people you have, the more likely it is that someone will mess up.

There are other differences of course but these are among the main reasons why WoW progression takes longer than FFXIV. It's just a different raid environment. Some stuff is harder, some is easier.

Anyway we're going off on a tangent now. The whole point of bringing up WoW was to show that an increased frequency of kills does not necessarily equate to raiding content becoming easier. Not to make direct comparisons of their raiding environments.

That's true, but I think most people who play FFXIV to raid wouldn't unsub before at least having cleared the current raid tier, unless they're really bored by the game in general. Having cleared the raid tier in just a few days is the final nail in the coffin for them.

While that is true, having more difficult content won't change raid logging. That inevitably happens when the amount of goals a player has shrinks due to completing them.

Also raiding can be stressful or intense. Sometimes people raid log during progression to get a break from the game, and then will play other content after they have cleared everything in raiding.

[shibeouya]

What I'm asking for is a slight increase in difficulty, so that the more hardcore players can complete the raid in a week or so while the rest of the population can still clear before the release of the next tier.

You already got Ultimate, let other people enjoy the game without feeling the need to restrict as much content as possible from the general population.

Increase of difficulty will not happen, look at the clear rates from the recent survey, gating too much content towards hardcore will make this game end up like the many other failed MMOs ouut there.

That way we wouldn't have a huge population of raiders who only log in for their Savage clears on Tuesday and then log out for the rest of the week, or worse, unsub until the new patch get released, making SE lose potential money.

Right, if it's between the 5% of raiders who might take a break out of boredom, or the 95% other players who might quit out of frustration because they can't make any progress, I wonder what SE would choose.

And for reference what you described already happened, it's called Gordias. And it pretty much killed the raiding scene for a year. Hence why SE eased up a bit on difficulty so everyone could enjoy the content. They won't go bacck to that, this ship has sailed.

[MariaArvana]

Are you implying there were way more clears back then as well? Are you saying that official data like this one is all false then?

I wouldn't exactly count Gordias as some kind of shining beacon of difficulty when one fight's dps check was severely overtuned to a good 80% of the player base at the time, and the other was mathematically impossible to beat in entry level gear if you executed the fight the intended way. (Several of the world first raiders on Mainpulator were mentioning seeing enrage cast as early as 30s into final phase on the 1st/2nd weeks before weapons were available, or something to that effect.) Midas is a better representation of the post-coil, pre-creator era, and even then it was only a little over two weeks.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today. On top of many, many QoL changes that helped speed up progression (Cooldowns resetting every wipe that was implemented in Creator so you no longer had to do nothing but wait for literal minutes at a time.) better standardized markers (most mechanics that do certain functions (stack, spread, etc.) tend to have standardized markers now, whereas back in the old days it was a relative free-for-all and groups would have to spend more time arbitrarily discerning what certain markers did.) On top of all of that, just plain experience. When Gordias came out, there was only ARR's raid fights worth of experience to build up against. Now, most of the top raiders have been in the game across multiple expansions, having experienced the full spectrum of raid tiers since then.

Outside of creating complex puzzle mechanics, there's not much you can do to slow down the best raiders in this game outside of a large overhaul of the combat system.

Also, all the recent bfa raids took less than two weeks, most of them took less time to beat than UCOB did as a note.

UCOB - 11 days.

Uldir (8 days), Dazar'alor (7 days), crucible (9 days). Only Palace has lasted longer than UCOB at 12 days.

Savage is fine where it is. If people want more challenge Ultimate will keep groups occupied for long periods of time. Even my own group, which had 5/8 people already cleared Ultima Weapon, still took well over three weeks to get our first clear, and we're currently working on week 4 of our UCOB prog.

[Wegente]

I didn't realise we talking about the progress of literally a handful of guilds in the entire game. I thought we were talking about how hardcore guilds in general fare in progression, given that was what was being talked about when I entered this conversation

I used the world first clears as an example because that's how you evaluate the difficulty of a content. When Gordias was cleared by Elysium after around 1 month, most of the playerbase couldn't clear it even several months afterwards.
Because if the world first players took that long, then the more casual playerbase wouldn't have a chance of clearing it before the next raid tier came out.

On the other hand, if the world first is claimed only 12 hours after the tier release, like what happened with Eden, that means the tier is going to be very easily approachable even by the casual playerbase, especially after they get more gear.

What this means is in FFXIV you're far less likely to waste several minutes on a pull only to call for a wipe, because you usually res and just keep going, mechanics permitting. You can even res multiple times and keep going, and even still get a kill.

That's because the DPS checks have become a joke nowadays, and you can clear most fights on the first week even with multiple deaths.
This wasn't the case in Gordias and this wouldn't be the case if the bosses had more HP. If Titan had had its HP buffed by 15% or even just 10%, I'm sure nobody would have cleared the first week, and maybe even the second.

Yet, if the tuning is so lenient, you're going to see clears very early on because you can just ignore mechanics and healer LB3 for example, to get through them.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today.

They would, but they would definitely not take just one day to clear.

The CD resets only affected the time you had to wait between pulls when you finally reached enrage, because before that you would chain-pull regardless since DPS was not the concern before reaching the end of the fight.
And defensive CDs like Hallowed could just be swapped around if they weren't ready yet.

The DPS checks and healing checks were harder, mechanics were more punishing and insta-wipe most of the time, like with bosses getting damage up stacks if you failed them.

Also, all the recent bfa raids took less than two weeks, most of them took less time to beat than UCOB did as a note.

That's still more than a week longer than what Savage clears take today, which is one day or two at most. And I'm pretty sure WoW has been out for a bit longer than FFXIV, so people know how to play that game.

[Penthea]

That's because the DPS checks have become a joke nowadays, and you can clear most fights on the first week even with multiple deaths. This wasn't the case in Gordias

I don't know why you are using Gordias as an example of "better" raiding. It was a mistake. SE even admitted this. The release of content as difficult as that was severely mistimed with Gordias. Coils was no walk in the park but it didn't prepare you for Gordias. None of the HW pre-Alex content prepared you for Gordias. It was so highly tuned that killing one of the bosses was literally impossible without farming for gear first.

It's not good design to be unable to beat a boss with entry level gear even if you're among the best players in the entire game. It really cheapens the idea of a challenge when the wall isn't skill based, but is instead ilvl based. If you lack skill you can keep trying until you improve. If you lack gear then you need to stop, go elsewhere, and come back later. Take a guess as to which one competitive raiders tend to prefer.

But SE didn't completely abandon difficulty and requirements as high as Gordias. We see it with Ultimate now. However unlike Gordias Ultimate is gated behind content that legitimately trains you to be good enough for it. It's in a place in the progression ladder that actually makes sense.

I understand wanting content to be more challenging, and I'm not against this idea, but if you want to be taken seriously by both other players and SE, stop using Gordias as a reference point for good content. It is widely regarded as poorly balanced by both players and the devs.

Midas is a better representation of the post-coil, pre-creator era, and even then it was only a little over two weeks.

Pretty much.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today. On top of many, many QoL changes that helped speed up progression (Cooldowns resetting every wipe that was implemented in Creator so you no longer had to do nothing but wait for literal minutes at a time.) better standardized markers (most mechanics that do certain functions (stack, spread, etc.) tend to have standardized markers now, whereas back in the old days it was a relative free-for-all and groups would have to spend more time arbitrarily discerning what certain markers did.) On top of all of that, just plain experience. When Gordias came out, there was only ARR's raid fights worth of experience to build up against. Now, most of the top raiders have been in the game across multiple expansions, having experienced the full spectrum of raid tiers since then.

Cds resetting is a serious game-changer on its own. No more standing around waiting for them to reset for several minutes, even after an ill-fated pull that ended early. Less guesswork due to standardised markers saves a tonne of time as well. These may seem like small things to some players, but they're actually significant changes that eliminate a lot of wasted time.

[Wegente]

It's not good design to be unable to beat a boss with entry level gear even if you're among the best players in the entire game.

Being able to clear the second or third turn, with multiple deaths, on the first week with no gear is not good design either. It's just a sign of poor tuning.

I know of a group that cleared the second turn of Creator with something like 11 deaths, and they still managed to beat the enrage.
And I've beaten the third turn with 4-5 deaths in Creator and Deltascape as well, in the first week.

I think DPS checks should be a little bit more unforgiving than this, at least in the first week. I'm asking for a middle ground here.

[Brandedblade]

Fortunately for me I'm learning theres more to the game then the combat classes, I'm in the process of leveling my crafters now and my botanist and miner just hit 80. As long as I have other things to do I could care less about losing a couple of buttons.

[Deceptus]

Right, if it's between the 5% of raiders who might take a break out of boredom, or the 95% other players who might quit out of frustration because they can't make any progress, I wonder what SE would choose.

And for reference what you described already happened, it's called Gordias. And it pretty much killed the raiding scene for a year. Hence why SE eased up a bit on difficulty so everyone could enjoy the content. They won't go bacck to that, this ship has sailed.

This is the right answer. We already have low tier (dungeons), mid tier (Ex/Savage), and high tier (ultimate) content. The dev's shouldn't be balancing the game around the top 5% of the playerbase. That will lead to failure.

[Mansion]

Fortunately for me I'm learning theres more to the game then the combat classes, I'm in the process of leveling my crafters now and my botanist and miner just hit 80. As long as I have other things to do I could care less about losing a couple of buttons.

Good for you.
But that does not erase the problem for people that have reached that point where they have finished crafting, mount farming or whatever the game can offer as side content. Or people that spend most of their time on high end content because that's what they like. Or people that are open enough to consider the problem even though it does not impact their playing experience.