Chaotic is midcore, in case you were wondering

[Menriq]

I can only speak to my own experience, but imo a tiered raid system with scaling rewards solves this quite elegantly. And can be done with minimal effort on the devs part (relatively speaking of course).

Taking Alliance Raid as an example: The current Alliance Raid we have now would be the base level. Fairly low ilvl requirement, low stakes, easy to recover from a potential wipe.

You then get Alliance Raid (Hard). Same raid, same bosses, mostly the same mechanics. Increase the minimum ilvl requirement, increase the ilvl of the rewards, and ramp up the damage and hp of the bosses. Add one or two new mechanics to each boss, but keep the bulk of the fights relatively the same, just harder to deal with and recover from because of the incoming damage and time the fight takes due to increased hp.

Lastly Alliance Raid (Expert). Same deal increase ilvl requirement, ilvl of reward, boss hp and damage. Add one more new mechanic per boss. Give the final boss a new phase.

I know at a glance this may seem just like the Normal Trial to Extreme Trial system we have now, but the ramp-up is way more gradual than that. Because the bulk of the mechanics are similar in a tiered raid system a player can play on a lower difficulty to essentially "train" themselves to take on a higher difficulty, or choose to go straight to the higher difficulty if they want to challenge and meet the ilvl requirement. This is currently not what we have. At this time doing a Trial on normal does not in any way prepare you for doing it on Extreme. Same with Normal Raid to Savage Raid. The two tiers are just far too different mechanically for it to be considered a true "tiered" system.

I said this in a different thread, but it applies here.

I agree options are always a good thing. However, there are already complaints about there not being enough content. How many people would be happy if there was even less content because all we got for a patch was a raid with 7 different versions? Not only that, but now (even in this thread) you'll want content between EX and Savage, which mean even more versions. That's not even opening the can of worms of the ilevel of the rewards between all the different versions.

[jonimated]

I said this in a different thread, but it applies here.

I agree options are always a good thing. However, there are already complaints about there not being enough content. How many people would be happy if there was even less content because all we got for a patch was a raid with 7 different versions? Not only that, but now (even in this thread) you'll want content between EX and Savage, which mean even more versions. That's not even opening the can of worms of the ilevel of the rewards between all the different versions.

I'm not sure why often in this community suggesting something new also means that we don't get something we already have. That doesn't have to be the case. FFXIV is big enough, and makes enough money, that it's possible to have everything. SE putting forth the people, funds, and effort to actually do that is another matter entirely. I just don't think we should ever be dismissing suggestions on the grounds that it may remove something we already have and enjoy. It's possible to have both things.

Also I want to be clear my suggestion never included 7 different raid versions. It was 3. And I never suggested having content between EX and Savage. I don't want that. I think the current difficulty jump between EX and Savage is perfectly fine. Perhaps someone else did in this thread, I don't know, but please don't conflate my suggestions with someone else's.

[Menriq]

I'm not sure why often in this community suggesting something new also means that we don't get something we already have. That doesn't have to be the case. FFXIV is big enough, and makes enough money, that it's possible to have everything. SE putting forth the people, funds, and effort to actually do that is another matter entirely. I just don't think we should ever be dismissing suggestions on the grounds that it may remove something we already have and enjoy. It's possible to have both things.

Also I want to be clear my suggestion never included 7 different raid versions. It was 3. And I never suggested having content between EX and Savage. I don't want that. I think the current difficulty jump between EX and Savage is perfectly fine. Perhaps someone else did in this thread, I don't know, but please don't conflate my suggestions with someone else's.

But your suggestion is in the same vein as theirs. That's seeing the forest for the trees. You suggest content between AR and EX. Others want content between EX and Savage. You are saying the current difficulty jump between EX and Savage is fine, and others aren't. Meanwhile, people are saying the jump from AR to EX is fine, and you are saying it isn't.

[CidHeiral]

FFXIV is big enough, and makes enough money, that it's possible to have everything.

I work in a similar field and I can tell you with certainty that your description is most definitely not how that works. You always have to work with limited time, resources, and typically a lot of red tape and approvals to get anything done. That's why the devs will often say something is "impossible" and then end up doing it later. They didn't mean it was literally impossible, they just couldn't allocate the time and resources previously and then were able to shuffle things around to make it happen later.

To be clear you should still leave feedback to ask for whatever you want. I'm just clarifying that adding things like a new difficulty absolutely will impact existing content and/or potential other types of new content they would have to kick down the road or abandon entirely.

[Xrono_Amber]

I agree options are always a good thing. However, there are already complaints about there not being enough content. How many people would be happy if there was even less content because all we got for a patch was a raid with 7 different versions?

Not gonna lie, hate this line of thinking so much. Yes, resources are limited. But it is the company's problem to allocate finances and recruit people. I have no desire to excuse them with the phrase “well, they can only do so much content, if you want more, you need to take stuff away from someone else”. This game isn't some side project or in a support state. It's their main game and their main source of revenue. So we need to demand more content from it.

[Havenchild]

Not gonna lie, hate this line of thinking so much. Yes, resources are limited. But it is the company's problem to allocate finances and recruit people. I have no desire to excuse them with the phrase “well, they can only do so much content, if you want more, you need to take stuff away from someone else”. This game isn't some side project or in a support state. It's their main game and their main source of revenue. So we need to demand more content from it.

Sure but we can also be realistic about our expectations. For all the money XIV has made over the years, it's not like the amount of content per patch has changed dramatically and usually centers around 1- 3 items and the rest bug fixes and additions of glam/mounts/minions/emotes. Expecting much more considering nothing has really changed, even since the SHB influx, is a wild fallacy.

[Havenchild]

snip

I don't necessarily disagree with such an approach if they had the bandwidth to do it without sacrificing anything else, however respectfully I don't think this would be popular with XIV's playerbase at all for a few reasons.

1) This playerbase complains about difficulty increases consistently. While you would think that a scaling difficulty would fill the transition, what would instead happen is that the content on the higher end would be dead outright and those same complainers would stay on the bottom tier because they are adverse to challenge, hence why they struggle with things like CAR or don't participate in general EX/Savage or harder content. If they are already unwilling to embrace the harder content, what's stopping them from staying at the bottom? That doesn't fix the content drought they "feel" nor allow them to graduate into harder content.

2) Drops on the harder tiers would have to be exclusive to the harder versions, which is something else the playerbase consistently complains about. (Look at savage mount drops, car mounts etc)

3) Development of such content, which would need new mechanics, rebalancing and testing for each tier will take more time and likely eclipse diverse deployment of different types of content. I can only imagine the uproar people would have when they see a patch have the same content deployed 3 times and still wondering as the party that doesn't care about that "wheres the content for me"

You have to operate from the mindset first that this playerbase is accustomed to babyfied content no matter how many people on these forums try and cry otherwise.
They cry they are lacking content, you point out the world of raiding is awaiting them to jump into at their leisure with vast amounts of content, considering they didn't touch any of it, and they cry it's too difficult and time consuming.

You give them longform content and they complain it's too grindy.

You point out that it is impossible to satisfy this playerbase and they give you the ol "XIV playerbase is not a monolith"

This playerbase is adverse to challenge of all forms, that again, it cannot braindead through. I've been playing since 2.0 and have never felt "there's nothing to do in XIV" but that's also because I actively engage with all the content it offers.

For an MMO thats described as a ThemePark MMO, you sure have a majority of people that only like to get on 1-2 rides. That's simply the truth.

[jonimated]

sinp

I think we just fundamentally disagree on the type of content the game actually has to offer, and who it is serving. Which is fine. This game has a lot of players and not everyone is going to see everything the same.

While I can agree there isn't necessarily a lack of overall content, I think there is a lack of content that servers the entire player base equally. Not everyone is going to want to do all content. I would argue there isn't a single FFXIV player who does literally everything (outside of chronic completionists of course). Everyone only does what appeals to them as a player. Currently we have the ultra-easy content which can be done with little to no effort at all. Then there is the difficult content which requires multiple hours to kill a single fight, for potentially multiple days or even weeks for some people.

I disagree about your point that the player base is adverse to challenge. There's certainly some people for whom challenging content just doesn't appeal to, but as a general sweeping statement I think that's fundamentally untrue. There is a large portion of the player base who isn't being served. Players who crave a challenge, would otherwise have the skill required to be able to clear Extreme/Savage content, but lack the ability to commit the large amount of time required to do so. I know there's a lot of folks out there who would just dismiss this group and say something flippant like "Well the game just isn't for them then. They should leave.", but I don't think that's the right attitude.

I believe an MMO as wide-reaching as FFXIV has a responsibility to serve as many players as possible, and that an MMO as large as FFXIV can do it successfully without sacrificing it's current content. A tiered raid system can achieve this, but it's certainly not the only way to do it. I think there are adjustments that can be made to something like Variant Dungeons which could allow them to fill the gap very easily with little effort. With a few tweaks Deep Dungeons could also fill that gap. It's not impossible. The game already has the seeds to be able to do this.

[Xrono_Amber]

Expecting much more considering nothing has really changed, even since the SHB influx, is a wild fallacy.

It's more of the demand at this point. I don't "expect" them to do more by themselves. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they would try to do even less in future or add even more time between patches. Just because they don't want to do something doesn't mean we had to stop asking for it. How many years passed while we still lack hat-compatibility? Five, if I'm not mistaken. Yet I would still join people who rightfully demand it.

I manage my expectations, I don't expect miracles. But also I will not lower my demands which they can fulfill because they're not fundamentally impossible.

[AyumiCosplayGlam]

I can only speak to my own experience, but imo a tiered raid system with scaling rewards solves this quite elegantly. And can be done with minimal effort on the devs part (relatively speaking of course).

Taking Alliance Raid as an example: The current Alliance Raid we have now would be the base level. Fairly low ilvl requirement, low stakes, easy to recover from a potential wipe.

You then get Alliance Raid (Hard). Same raid, same bosses, mostly the same mechanics. Increase the minimum ilvl requirement, increase the ilvl of the rewards, and ramp up the damage and hp of the bosses. Add one or two new mechanics to each boss, but keep the bulk of the fights relatively the same, just harder to deal with and recover from because of the incoming damage and time the fight takes due to increased hp.

Lastly Alliance Raid (Expert). Same deal increase ilvl requirement, ilvl of reward, boss hp and damage. Add one more new mechanic per boss. Give the final boss a new phase.

I know at a glance this may seem just like the Normal Trial to Extreme Trial system we have now, but the ramp-up is way more gradual than that. Because the bulk of the mechanics are similar in a tiered raid system a player can play on a lower difficulty to essentially "train" themselves to take on a higher difficulty, or choose to go straight to the higher difficulty if they want to challenge and meet the ilvl requirement. This is currently not what we have. At this time doing a Trial on normal does not in any way prepare you for doing it on Extreme. Same with Normal Raid to Savage Raid. The two tiers are just far too different mechanically for it to be considered a true "tiered" system.

To be fair, this is what the majority of players thought chaotic alliance would be when they saw the announcement slide. But then it was revealed to be 1 boss only, and from one of the most overused alliance raids that everyone is sick of and on top of that around savage difficulty. I am not joking, you could physically feel the disappointment in the chat if you were there.

It would already be a huge improvement for an increased difficulty alliance raid if the bosses skip the "let me show you what mechanics i have for the first 5 minutes" phase.
That is perfectly fine for normal alliance, but if we ever do an increased difficulty, they should completely skip that part.

I would also argue that probably the best outcome would be to delete "Main scenario" roulette because it does not serve any real purpose anymore and make a "Max level Alliance Roulette" where every raid is lvl100 so people can actually use their whole kit in older fights. Put moogle tomestone-like system in place for rewards and you instantly created a long form content that most people can enjoy and participate in.

Unreal trials should also not rotate out, just release new ones, but that is another can of worms entirely.