Just unlock the Raid Tier already!

[Sensui]

This game is in desperate need of rewards that aren't just thrown away in the next patch. Make items that scale up with level increases, similarly to how FF11 Rajas ring or other rewards worked. I want gear that gives ability augments, goddammit. Not just ilvl increases.

[Colt47]

This game is in desperate need of rewards that aren't just thrown away in the next patch. Make items that scale up with level increases, similarly to how FF11 Rajas ring or other rewards worked. I want gear that gives ability augments, goddammit. Not just ilvl increases.

Well, it's more than just that. Savage has some problems that are hard to ignore and this is coming from doing this now since edens second tier.

Player disengagement happens quite frequently due to boredom. Savage is fun when someone is learning something new so it always starts out with everyone being super happy and diving in. However, later steps of the fight have an increasing weight to reach and even one or two people failing earlier mechanics can cost others their chance to continue the learning process. This causes the following issues...

1) People begin to dislike one another, especially those who are holding them back, so statics will usually discard the person and people in PF break groups, costing everyone more time.
2) It makes savage incredibly unpredictable as to how long it will take to get the rewards from it. If someone rides the early wave of people and dances between the flames of purgatory they can come out unscathed, or if they just book a huge amount of time off and smash it down. But even so much as just having ones static break up or having a schedule shift can render what should be a one to two month venture into a six month or more nightmare.
3) It diminishes the value of the rewards to the point that no one feels they are worth it. Even people who clear just don't care about the items anymore, they just care that it is over with since they endured the nightmare and want to salvage or find meaning in all of it.

[Jojoya]

Well, it's more than just that. Savage has some problems that are hard to ignore and this is coming from doing this now since edens second tier.

Player disengagement happens quite frequently due to boredom. Savage is fun when someone is learning something new so it always starts out with everyone being super happy and diving in. However, later steps of the fight have an increasing weight to reach and even one or two people failing earlier mechanics can cost others their chance to continue the learning process. This causes the following issues...

1) People begin to dislike one another, especially those who are holding them back, so statics will usually discard the person and people in PF break groups, costing everyone more time.
2) It makes savage incredibly unpredictable as to how long it will take to get the rewards from it. If someone rides the early wave of people and dances between the flames of purgatory they can come out unscathed, or if they just book a huge amount of time off and smash it down. But even so much as just having ones static break up or having a schedule shift can render what should be a one to two month venture into a six month or more nightmare.
3) It diminishes the value of the rewards to the point that no one feels they are worth it. Even people who clear just don't care about the items anymore, they just care that it is over with since they endured the nightmare and want to salvage or find meaning in all of it.

Part of it is game design but part of it is also a player problem.

Game design - Instead of making the next set of crafted gear a higher item level than the previous Savage, it should be the same item level. That way the previous Savage gear remains relevant into the next tier instead of getting discarded for the new crafted. The new crafted will still be useful for those who don't do Savage and who missed out on a couple of upgrades from the last tier. This would have the added benefit of slowing down power creep, which is extremely noticeable when using latest gear to clear level cap content released at the start of an expansion.

Players - Raid with those you know and like. Having fun together tackling the challenge should outweigh how long it takes to clear and any rewards. The experience just isn't the same when you're raiding with mostly random players you don't know, likely won't see again and only care about getting what they want without concern for others in the party.

[Colt47]

Part of it is game design but part of it is also a player problem.

Game design - Instead of making the next set of crafted gear a higher item level than the previous Savage, it should be the same item level. That way the previous Savage gear remains relevant into the next tier instead of getting discarded for the new crafted. The new crafted will still be useful for those who don't do Savage and who missed out on a couple of upgrades from the last tier. This would have the added benefit of slowing down power creep, which is extremely noticeable when using latest gear to clear level cap content released at the start of an expansion.

Players - Raid with those you know and like. Having fun together tackling the challenge should outweigh how long it takes to clear and any rewards. The experience just isn't the same when you're raiding with mostly random players you don't know, likely won't see again and only care about getting what they want without concern for others in the party.

Power creep isn't as much of the problem as is the way the fights are built. There is no way to manage a fight in PF or even in statics where a single person or two people can cause everyone else to zone out of the content because of being unable to reach the next point in the puzzle they are trying to solve, which means there is a hard cap on how difficult content can be made in this game due to the audience it is primarily targeting. Also it is pretty clear from this tier that they didn't have the capability to test and understand the issues with the current tier of savage. Just dropping the statistics down so the dev team can do the fight and say that these numbers look right, can't account for the much lower level of coordination there is among the community at large.

In essence, the mistake they made was thinking that by simplifying the jobs they could make the savage fights more strict, when in reality the only thing that simplifying the jobs can do is make the savage fights less difficult. And honestly, that is what most people wanted: Less difficult savage that is more predictable in clear rate. Not all the people want that, but the vast majority want it and simply aren't saying it or are oblivious to it, given they actively say they want a challenge yet regret ever spending the time to complete it. The praise and scorn completely fall on how fast people clear, not on the difficulty of the content.