Middleground between normal/ hard content + coils of bahamut rework

[Gemina]

Extremes don’t have a lot of rewards. We get one per patch. And once you’re done, you’re done. Farming is only needed for the mount. And there’s just ONE per patch. It’s not a proper game mode.

I think perspective accounts for a lot here. The drop rates for the mounts are abysmal, and the crafting mat which typically sales pretty high on its own also has a low drop rate. Weapon drops are great for desynthesis skill ups if they are not desired and provide a chance to obtain the crafting mat, and the most recent EX releases provide respectable weapons that are slightly better than the weapons acquired by tomes, and slightly less good from those acquired through savage raiding. Then there is also the music, and TT card, and some even drop furnishings or other misc items.

Replay factor is also there for those who simply love the fight. This is on the dev team, as if they design a fight that is fun, players will do it because it is fun. Some players also like to teach the fight to others, and will join prog groups even after obtaining all the rewards the duty has to offer.

Unreal trials also should be included. They are old fights, but many if not most players never got a chance to do these fights on release day, and it provides an interesting challenge for them. For the vets, they might enjoy revisiting an old foe, but at the current level cap. Faux Tales rewards are also very plentiful, and provides another mini game to play. Luck and skill are required to obtain these rewards, and I think that is an awesome system to have in the game.

[DixieBellOCE]

Extreme is the middle ground.

Extreme requires more skill and coordination than 'normal' content, but you can easy jump into a PF or even DF sometimes, and complete it with randoms without voice comms.
Extremes build upon the 'normal' versions of them, making the normal version a learning tool for the Extreme.

Savage is a huge step up from Extreme, and requires a lot more focus, time learning, and party coordination.

As someone who mainly plays casually these days, I can still easily jump into an Extreme PF and prog that fight in an hour or two. But Savage isn't really an option without more prep and more time commitment.

Now I do think Coils is in need of a bit of a rework to make it a bit more accessible. That said, if anything is making you disheartened about the lack of player involvement, start a PF for it. No content in this game is 'dead', just because it's not on a roulette doesn't mean you can't find players to join you for it.

This.

Extremes are not hard. They require you to memorize 2-3 mechanics and execute them.

Sit down, learn the fight, Clear and enjoy.

[Absimiliard]

Step 1.) Dungeons on par with savage raids in terms of difficulty.
Step 2.) Actual worthwhile gear (or tome gear upgrade materials) from those dungeons instead of worthless cosmetics that hardly anyone wants.
Step 3.) ????
Step 4.) Profit

You know, what Criterion should have been.

Savage content in and of itself is not that challenging compared to the fights in many other games, but managing to find eight people whose personalities and schedules align is nightmarishly difficult. Getting those clears via PF is basically like getting teeth pulled without anesthetic. Introducing an option with similar difficulty that could be done with four people while yielding comparable rewards would more than satisfy most of the midcore crowd.

[VerdeLuck]

Step 1.) Dungeons on par with savage raids in terms of difficulty.
Step 2.) Actual worthwhile gear (or tome gear upgrade materials) from those dungeons instead of worthless cosmetics that hardly anyone wants.
Step 3.) ????
Step 4.) Profit

You know, what Criterion should have been.

Savage content in and of itself is not that challenging compared to the fights in many other games, but managing to find eight people whose personalities and schedules align is nightmarishly difficult. Getting those clears via PF is basically like getting teeth pulled without anesthetic. Introducing an option with similar difficulty that could be done with four people while yielding comparable rewards would more than satisfy most of the midcore crowd.

Savage difficulty is hardcore content, not midcore content, most people in this thread are asking for midcore content to bridge the gap between story mode and savage raids, not for more hardcore savage content.

[VerdeLuck]

I can't tell for the difficulty part, since i'm actually fine with the current syste. For my wife a mid difficulty could help her since she lack of selfconfident for extrem, it might help her passing the gap and go in extrem fight.
For the bahamut coil i think a "normal" version should be had so people could enjoy both the fight and the story and the current version could be renamed as "savage" just as the other 8 man raid

The problem with doing that is there's already a savage coil of bahamut in the game, Nael has a savage version and a normal version, both beyond what is normally story level difficulty in this game, so what do you do there?

[Absimiliard]

Savage is deemed "hardcore" content primarily because of the amount of organization required for it. In other words, getting a team that can work together is by far the hardest part. The actual fight difficulty really isn't that different from EX, typically. Allowing players to access something comparable with half the required people and suitable rewards would most certainly be satisfactory for the majority. It would be a way to get geared without having to jump straight into savage for progression, thus allowing people that might not otherwise want to do savage due to a lack of confidence, of time, of people they can call on, etc. an avenue of advancement that is much less time-consuming.

Scheduling and organization aside, another big thing that keeps people out of savages is a lack of confidence. There is a clear correlation between better equipment and greater confidence. Having this as an alternate gearing path would most definitely increase the number of players in the savage pool by giving them a better jumping off point for entry, rather than the "sink or swim" setup we have now. If you want a stepladder between normal and EX/savage, this is a really good way to do it. Purely midcore players could simply choose to stick to this content instead of pushing forward. Savage players could bypass it entirely.

[Rongway]

Extremes are not the middle ground. I really hate the one hit kills mechanics. At least they can do is make extremes have more forgiveness. Some of the dance moves we’re required to memorize have like 5 different things we have to look at and do (6.3 extreme).

Extremes are the middle ground because if you fail the choreography you will usually only kill yourself. It's unusual that one person failing to dodge a single attack will wipe the party in extreme. Contrast this to Savage where if one person fails to dodge a single attack they will often take the whole party down with them.

The normal modes would show you the boss attack and the extreme mode will add 3 or 4 moves on top of that move. It would be nice if the devs trained players by making normal mode do the same moves as extreme but slower and more forgiving.

This would make Extremes too easy. Extremes are already easy in that once you know the fight script, you can dodge everything without evening looking at most bosses. The balance is that (1) you must learn the fight on Extreme, which means you must make it through the earlier mechanics in order to see the later ones and (2) the new mechanics are often untelegraphed, so someone has to figure out how best to choreograph them so that everyone lives. By having the story mode fight include all the extreme mechanics at all, let alone with telegraphs, would trivialize the extreme version even more.

The problem with doing that is there's already a savage coil of bahamut in the game, Nael has a savage version and a normal version, both beyond what is normally story level difficulty in this game, so what do you do there?

Second Coil (Savage) isn't really a Savage as we typically understand the term to mean. It's supposed to be the original difficulty of the Second Coil floors before they were nerfed while they were still relevant. There have been so many changes to the combat system since then that it's no longer representative of the original difficulty anyway, so either remove them or leave them as the new actual Savage raids for Second Coil; it doesn't really matter.

[Deveryn]

Step 1.) Dungeons on par with savage raids in terms of difficulty.
Step 2.) Actual worthwhile gear (or tome gear upgrade materials) from those dungeons instead of worthless cosmetics that hardly anyone wants.
Step 3.) ????
Step 4.) Profit

You know, what Criterion should have been.

Savage content in and of itself is not that challenging compared to the fights in many other games, but managing to find eight people whose personalities and schedules align is nightmarishly difficult. Getting those clears via PF is basically like getting teeth pulled without anesthetic. Introducing an option with similar difficulty that could be done with four people while yielding comparable rewards would more than satisfy most of the midcore crowd.

Savage level content for 4 people with those kinds of rewards would interfere with Raids. You either get one or the other and you may as well just have the boss fights because no one wants to deal with trash mobs.

[Absimiliard]

Savage level content for 4 people with those kinds of rewards would interfere with Raids. You either get one or the other and you may as well just have the boss fights because no one wants to deal with trash mobs.

People would still be forced to do savage if they want BiS, and there is a fairly noticeable difference in performance between having your item level capped and having your perfect stats. Besides, giving that kind of option would in fact incentivize more people to step foot in savage by way of giving them a taste of worthwhile gear alongside a nice confidence boost. You know what happens when your gear is good but not great? Most people feel compelled to amend this deficiency ASAP. It's already been proven to work in other, similar games. Why would it not work here?

As for only having boss fights, why not make it so the trash mobs are actually dangerous instead? Give them actual mechanics instead of brain dead AoE spam you avoid by taking a single step to the side. Force people to use those interrupts and CC options if they want to make it through the trash. Basic interrupt usage and a little CC is well within the bounds of what a midcore player should be capable of.

[DixieBellOCE]

People would still be forced to do savage if they want BiS, and there is a fairly noticeable difference in performance between having your item level capped and having your perfect stats. Besides, giving that kind of option would in fact incentivize more people to step foot in Savage by way of giving them a confidence boost. It's already been proven to work in other, similar games. Why would it not work here?

There is a noticeable difference, in high end content.

Nothing except a current ultimate will ever require BiS gear, and the casual playerbase need to remember that.
Crafted gear can get you through 99% of the games content without issues.

Casuals shouldn't care about gear.