Normal Mode & Hard Mode Dungeons?!

[Amsai]

Actually, I would retain my large social LS for just such activities as being social, levelin etc. But I would create my own endgame shell/company/whatever with just a group of 8 if SE keeps it low man. So there wouldn't be a problem for me, because noone would be left out of our low-man group. I keep social and endgame seperate, so the people I choose to endgame with would be all I needed. So yes I'd take the same people all the time, to bind us more tightly together, and increase our coordination and synergy.

I don't really care what other people do per se, I was just emphasizing the meaning of epic. However, I still do want low-man content to be the norm, if not the exclusive form of endgame. I dont want to have to join or form a Large group, in order to experience endgame. I hate large playing with large groups of players in endgame for reasons I mentioned earlier in the thread. Limbus and Sky and Sea were not too bad with 18 players, but it was still more fun doing those events with 4-8 players. Dynamis was an absolute abomination, I have only done dynamis a handful of times as a favor to some friends, If they hadnt specifically requested my help on those occaisions I would never have gone, even if I was offered gil to do so.

[Duelle]

Now I won't argue that Large-scale PvE events might be more fun for you, that gets down to your personal preference. But don't mistake fun for epic. Epic means heroic or majestic. There is nothing majestic about having 20 or so other people to fall back on. That implies your weak. And likewise you cant be a heroic when you and 20 or so of your friends are ganging up on something.

Depends on the context. If you're ganging up on some random unknown guy with some magic, yeah that fails. If you're ganging up on a demi-god with a sword that devours souls and can summon armies of undead to fight you while still dealing raid-wide damage and getting lots of outside help from his minions, then it becomes less about you being weak and more about your foe being a f***ing demi-god that could kill you by breathing on you if you did not have the backup to take on him.

Besides, partying (especially in FF) is always about ganging up on someone, so nothing new, really.

[kukurumei]

I believe in old fashion level scaling. Optional quests. That was always one of my grumbles about early CoP. Not enough missions had the "extra quest item to use" fight.

Whether it be "go through all these side quests to find out boss weakness" or "Farm item that disables xyz" or even "Alternate route to BCNM if you want to go around the continent" things.

Basically you can spend tangible effort to weaken bosses, or take it straight up like the true RPGist you are.

I fought my CoPs with preparation. Sometimes I lost, but not many. I had drinks, elixirs, eithers, etc ready. They can usually be enough...except for certain really annoying fights...

There were three problems with CoP method.

-It took a long time before (expansion+update) equipment caught up, even assuming that half the people were even decently equipped with level capped eq. Most of us ran on hand-me-downs.

-There was no incentive for people that did it, to do it again, except under peer pressure. If the missions had repeatable rewards, CoP would have never been a problem (even gil would have been enough incentive)

- There were no side quests or "rewards" to lower difficulty. I mean it would have been so much easier and funner, if you could do a bunch of mini quests to get this item that if used in xyz mission it would raise your level cap by 5 for instance.

If FF14 ever got around to BCNM and level cap for the true RPGing I would put the top three in.

[RedFox]

That's why there should be multiple options for players. Doesn't have to say Hard mode or Normal mode as long as the raid scales to your rank and how many players. Rewards should of course be done accurately. I think/hope Yoshi P knows these issues. He has to considering he plays MMO's.