So what is this about content becoming harder with the Savage cleared in 9 hours

[Volgia]

Oh, it filtered quite a few people, which makes me sad that we didn't keep that level of difficulty. We were literally asking for a "Savage" difficulty, and SE delivered. I know my static enjoyed slamming into the Pepsi Man wall, with Hands of Pain. Shame it got neutered because people couldn't accept that the mode called "Savage" required skill.

Right, but also imagine having to wait what was it, 7 minutes on each pull to have all your cooldowns reset. The gameplay between ARR and HW changed requiring healers and tanks DPS to matter especially on the first few weeks, where as SB, ShB and EW have already trained people to map out their support DPS to the max. It's just not comparable to the game today, I think I'll agree that they should have tuned the DPS checks to be tighter, your rotation should at least matter that much given how streamlined every job is.

Now this might just be me, but there's something so weird about making old savage kind of meaningless, that we need to make every expansion an "Introduction to savage" which means the difficulty of the first four floors is always mixed. Dunno about the solution to that though...

[Isala]

Right, but also imagine having to wait what was it, 7 minutes on each pull to have all your cooldowns reset. The gameplay between ARR and HW changed requiring healers and tanks DPS to matter especially on the first few weeks, where as SB, ShB and EW have already trained people to map out their support DPS to the max. It's just not comparable to the game today, I think I'll agree that they should have tuned the DPS checks to be tighter, your rotation should at least matter that much given how streamlined every job is.

Now this might just be me, but there's something so weird about making old savage kind of meaningless, that we need to make every expansion an "Introduction to savage" which means the difficulty of the first four floors is always mixed. Dunno about the solution to that though...

I mean, the solution to that is to just NOT do that. This isn't WoW that lets you skip all of their old expansions. XIV forces you to go through the MSQ, to see every single expansion. There should be an expectation of the player that they will actually have learned the basics of their Jobs after 100 levels, especially if they want to enter hard content.

[LianaThorne]

I mean, the solution to that is to just NOT do that. This isn't WoW that lets you skip all of their old expansions. XIV forces you to go through the MSQ, to see every single expansion. There should be an expectation of the player that they will actually have learned the basics of their Jobs after 100 levels, especially if they want to enter hard content.

You are aware story skips + job skips exist here right? It's not uncommon for people to skip the entire story and rush through whatever expac is left just to get to end game. This game definitely doesn't force you if you have a wallet and are willing to open it.

[Isala]

You are aware story skips + job skips exist here right? It's not uncommon for people to skip the entire story and rush through whatever expac is left just to get to end game. This game definitely doesn't force you if you have a wallet and are willing to open it.

Cool. Stop catering to people that make poor decisions.

Just pointing out that you're incorrect, that's all. No need to get hostile with me lmao. I'm not Square.

Not getting hostile with you. Sorry if it came off that way. Just tired of SE catering to the lowest common denominator. I'd put that in a reply, but I've apparently hit my post limit. I swear, these forums are designed as poorly as the game.

[LianaThorne]

Cool. Stop catering to people that make poor decisions.

Just pointing out that you're incorrect, that's all. No need to get hostile with me lmao. I'm not Square.

[Morphiana]

Since HW, savage / extremes have usually started out at a lower difficulty and have become progressively more difficult with each new wing / trial added. This is not new. It has been this way for seven years.

The launch of a new xpac means you have the most new/returning players. When they kicked up the difficulty in HW right out of the gate they found it harmed the raiding scene for the remainder of the xpac and their bottom line, substantially. Retaining players is hard and as a business that isn't my friend it is their priority to keep the majority of their customers, so they've opted to make the first round tough but not crazy hard then with each subsequent major patch the difficulty rises.

WoW also made changes after the Burning Crusade (original release). When they did the hardcore raiders lost their minds. Then Blizzard posted the numbers, it was something around 1-2% of players cleared Black Temple. 1-2% don't pay the bills, and if they lost every single one of them but gained more players by altering the difficulty, you bet they would, and they did with WOTLK being more successful.

In terms of time line, his pivot to harder content is more recent. This first raid wing has likely been in the works longer than when they discussed the difficulty level. The real test of this will be the next set of extremes / savages and of course the Ultimates.

If nothing else, remember many of these top world first groups have someone just watching / determining what an ability does, another person just doing call outs, and the players just executing what they're directed to do. This is their job, they are professionals. Y'all sound like the guy who watches the plumber work and go "well that's easy" without having gone through it yourself.

No matter how quickly or slowly you beat it, report back by simply answering this question "was it fun?" then go from there. It's a game, it is supposed to be fun first and foremost, if you beat all 4 and say it isn't fun then give productive, actionable feedback.

Don't just say "it was too easy".

• Which mechanics were too easy or not fun?
• Why was it too easy?
• How would you have changed that mechanic to make it reasonably more difficult?

If you can't answer at least the first two of those questions, then you aren't ready to complain about difficulty being too hard or too easy. You need to experience it to have an informed opinion that can provide productive feedback which the devs can use as guidance. More importantly, if you're in the loud minority then it is far more in your interest to give feedback this way otherwise, why change anything if the silent majority are playing and the game's sub numbers are fine?

No matter the game, when devs are interviewed and asked about feedback they all say the same thing, it is the players that posted detailed, productive feedback that helped guide them most in their decision making even if they disagreed with it, it helped in their discussions.

[Volgia]

I mean, the solution to that is to just NOT do that. This isn't WoW that lets you skip all of their old expansions. XIV forces you to go through the MSQ, to see every single expansion. There should be an expectation of the player that they will actually have learned the basics of their Jobs after 100 levels, especially if they want to enter hard content.

So what was your solution for savage? To force every savage player to do HW, SB, ShB and EW savages before hitting DTs?

[Bonoki]

I thought the HW savage difficulty killed statics rofl. There was also a LOT of jank back then, and I think the Ultimate difficulty was brought for people who wanted something more difficult a la HW?

It killed a lot of statics because there were no World/DC Visits. If people were bad on your server, you had to help them get better. Nowadays, if someone is bad you just replace them with someone better. In HW, the server first had actual meaning because of this. It doesn't anymore. A lot of the mechanics were also still new for its time. Direct Hit didn't exist, Accuracy wasted stats, TP was still a thing. If Gordias was repeated now, world racers would crush it. The world races in general were not a thing until Creator. FFlogs also wasn't a popular tool until Creator, the Balance discord was just getting started, optimization wasn't figured out for the longest time, and people struggled to play Physical Range at all. HW had so much going on that those circumstances could never be repeated. This was just a short list, that's not even everything that I could have listed.

[Morphiana]

It killed a lot of statics because there were no World/DC Visits. If people were bad on your server, you had to help them get better. Nowadays, if someone is bad you just replace them with someone better. In HW, the server first had actual meaning because of this. It doesn't anymore.

This is what your post says:

"If we make the raids as hard as HW again, the players who enjoy that difficulty and can clear it are so few they will need to search across every server to find one another to play together, and everyone else will just quit again because it is not accessible to them."

This solution admits that so few players like that level of difficulty on the average raid that you would need to search for them across the entire planet with data center travel to find them / play with them.

That does not solve the problem, it actually highlights how bad of an idea it is to revert back to that difficulty for savage raids upon an xpac's release. That solutions costs SE subs.

[CaedemSanguis]

People who are asking "have you cleared it" in this thread are not Savage raiders lmao.

They literally know nothing. They have no perspective.

That's why they assume everyone is at the same level as them.

I’ve cleared m4s and im not a savage raider, good news