The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Colt47]

I mean getting back on topic, I think that including something that is less demanding, but still as fully fleshed out as an entire savage tier, would probably help deal with the DPS meter issue as well since it gives more options to provide rewards. Right now savage is an all or nothing deal, but if people could choose to do a toned down version of it that could be completed more easily in PF, while also providing progress towards the same rewards, it would make life a lot better. They don't have anything like it at the moment since normal mode is not even the same thing as the savage mode of an 8 man instance.

[Inanegrain]

I mean getting back on topic, I think that including something that is less demanding, but still as fully fleshed out as an entire savage tier, would probably help deal with the DPS meter issue as well since it gives more options to provide rewards. Right now savage is an all or nothing deal, but if people could choose to do a toned down version of it that could be completed more easily in PF, while also providing progress towards the same rewards, it would make life a lot better. They don't have anything like it at the moment since normal mode is not even the same thing as the savage mode of an 8 man instance.

I'd consider EX and first savage floors to be the remaining bridge.
Get better at ex, move onto trying floor 1, get better at it for how there's still a difficulty gap between the two then move on to the rest of the floors.

[Colt47]

I'd consider EX and first savage floors to be the remaining bridge.
Get better at ex, move onto trying floor 1, get better at it for how there's still a difficulty gap between the two then move on to the rest of the floors.

The issue is what does one consider completion? Midcore content is a fight or a series of fights that can be completed by players who have yet to ramp themselves up to harder content, and usually allows for players to gain the same rewards as provided by the hardcore content at a slower rate. Savage is not a set of single fights, it is an entire series of fights and has to be measured by the hardest fight in the series, which is p3s/p4s under the current tier. Not sure if you read anything back in the earlier posts that I made, but I'll repeat one of the points made for the sake of convenience: The shadowbringers job changes brought up the skill floor and EX content is no longer midcore content. It sort of became it's own thing and a lot of people just skip strait to savage now due to the changes. Unreal is even more-so in it's own kind of world as there's a lot of players who have never once touched it outside of maybe a few times when it got released.

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

[Packetdancer]

That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

Meanwhile, the truth is actually sort of the reverse; the Coils of Bahamut raids were basically what would now be considered savage, but people complained (and admittedly, understandably so) that what was functionally the epilogue to 1.x -- and thus potentially very meaningful story for 1.x players -- was locked behind very difficult content.

Hence why Alexander and onwards have the story for the raid series attached to scaled-down versions of the fights, and then have the actual progression raids be wholly optional content.

[Inanegrain]

The issue is what does one consider completion? Midcore content is a fight or a series of fights that can be completed by players who have yet to ramp themselves up to harder content, and usually allows for players to gain the same rewards as provided by the hardcore content at a slower rate. Savage is not a set of single fights, it is an entire series of fights and has to be measured by the hardest fight in the series, which is p3s/p4s under the current tier. Not sure if you read anything back in the earlier posts that I made, but I'll repeat one of the points made for the sake of convenience: The shadowbringers job changes brought up the skill floor and EX content is no longer midcore content. It sort of became it's own thing and a lot of people just skip strait to savage now due to the changes. Unreal is even more-so in it's own kind of world as there's a lot of players who have never once touched it outside of maybe a few times when it got released.

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

I've mentioned before I took 8 weeks + to clear the final tier of the previous tier and only cleared the 1-2 floors tier before it. If you mean the gap between current EX and P1s is far, I did mention that it'll still be hard for first timers attempting savage. I can't judge EX content as if I was new for any other ex released pass WoL, because every EX is going to be "easy" for me from a certain point onwards.

It's true that EX is "easy", players should start from somewhere and steadily climb. I consider completion when said player finally clears an entire tier. It's understandable if they did not clear the tier in time as it's late into the tier now unless a lot of personal improvement has been made rapidly.
Their choice to skip savage, but I wouldn't recommend jumping straight into savage if new besides getting carried through it because it's P1s, potentially at the cost of others sanity.

[histoireancienne]

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

This is a bit silly. I'm part of what would probably be considered a "midcore" static, based on the experience of most members, our numbers on That Website That Shall Not Be Named, etc. (I'm the "baby" of the group, with only one savage tier under my belt before Pandaemonium). We cleared P4S in 5 weeks as a group (we had some people clear earlier on alts in PF, etc). Our scheduled hours are 6 hours a week, plus an extra 3+ hours for *most* of the group can make while we're progging. But after our scheduled 6 hours a week, everyone's free to head to PF for the week.

I went back and looked at our E9-12 clear, which was not the exact same composition as our Pandaemonium group (still generally the same skill level & frankly, more familiarity between most of the static members that tier - but it was the last tier of an expac, so, harder than this one), but it took us 3 months to clear E12S as a static. That's with ppl who were - on the whole, minus probably me - far better than your average PF. Sniffing that it should take a rando party of randoms less than 2 months to clear a tier seems ... not quite right.

Like I've said earlier, I do wish there was some easier stepping stone to harder content in this game from dead-easy dungeons and trials, or something that teaches you how to play your class better & what you're doing wrong. XIV was my first/only MMO, and I was terrified of "hard" content and being screamed at for underperforming and/or dying. One of the best players I know (now a Triple Legend, great teacher, can flex to multiple roles, etc) had to be coaxed into Normal Raids as a sprout during SB, because they were afraid of "raiding" content & that it was going to be too hard. We both got better (though they're still way, WAY ahead of me, despite the fact I've been playing for years longer XD) because we were in an FC that encouraged getting into harder content in a safe & comfortable way - either with the "FC static" or with FC events on weekends. I learned so much doing current expac Savage & Ex fights with more experienced people who I knew weren't going to scream at me for dying! The only thing that got me into actually doing *actual* Savage raiding was listening to directions really well on an E2S party we had as an FC event, and having 2 ppl say "Oh, she'd probably be more than fine in an on-level Savage." (and I have)