Thread: The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

Originally Posted by Tenkuu

All content is made with the intent for as many people as possible to clear it, even raids. With Alexander Savage it's clear that almost no one has cleared it, hence forcing them to revise it.

Sounds like nothing but poor design choices if the intent is for everyone to beat it. Heroic Raids in WoW were not meant to be beaten by the average player, they were made and dedicated to the better skilled players seeking a challenge. For crying out loud the mode is called "Savage." If people not willing to better themselves can't beat it under fair conditions, then mission accomplished. All SE should be mostly responsible for is giving access to the content to the player, not dumbing it down to their needs.

Sorry, but like I said, casuals should -not- be taken into account when making raids -unless- the developers can create resources for three difficulty modes. If you can only pick two, then you obviously need to cater it to who the content was designed for, people seeking challenge out of a game that barely provides any. So the common sense thing is have Normal be on lines of Final Coil difficulty, and have Savage be there to take on after you beat Normal for the best of best players. This is what keeps longevity in raiding for two patches over. Catering to casuals only makes it worse.

The issue with raiding is that the only two choices were a mode that was too easy, and a mode that was too hard for a lot of midcore raiding groups. There was no balance. It was one extreme or the other. You can't convince me that you rather have content that's longevity will last a month at best over two modes that would legitimately stretch across two patches and make midcore and hardcore players happy. You know, the two player bases that raiding was designed for.

Sorry, but Casual Joe can wait a patch or two for the story. They dealt with it in 2.0, they can deal with it now. This game severely lacks challenging content and people asking for basically story mode is not helping it and only making it worse.

I would like to "just be able to participate" in the challenging content but ya know... Those weekly caps... Really aint helping with getting there. If you come back from a break, your screwed. This is how SE is trying to keep their customers though. I remember when challenging content was locked behind story content in ffxi. Now its locked behind weekly cap timegates in ffxiv for the ilvl gear everyone wants since you can't buy craftables or have very few options for obtaining gear. No one wants you unless you have a high ilvl. The only reason I'm still playing this game is because of my friends SE, not because of you or what your doing. Just thought I'd let you know.

My issue with raiding and relics are as follows:
First, raiding. Now personally I have no issue with the act thereof. What grates on my nerves raiding here is the inability to behave like human beings, you know with; class, compassion, understanding, in effect a desire to give as well as receive. People are caught with "their" time. Your time is no more valuable than mine. Our clocks work the same way. If you don't want to invest the time in people MMOs are not for you.

Secondly is relics. Here is where it gets a little sketchy for me. I do not MIND grinds so long as they have limitations. To put it into perspective as I have seen many people state RNG is bad if there is no fail safe. In effect if you didn't have the zeta to sacrifice therefore having to fate farm for crystals a fixed number of fates should have rendered out what you needed, refreshing once the limit had been reached. My other complaint is this unmitigated desire to involve free marketing with the relic build, i.e. crafted components or the sub components to make them. I get it, they want gil to exchange hands to keep everything flowing and things like this helps that system work. However, the underlying problem with this, ultimately, is greed. No not everyone is like this I grant you but the exception does not break the rule, it merely shines more light upon it.

You may say things like "level your crafts" or "ask a FC buddy", but what of the people that have no tolerance for crafting? By that I mean they came to this game for the battle content, money was a side note basically they sold something if they found out it could fetch them a decent price and they had no use for it. Crafting does not appeal to all me included. You may say "that's your problem" and you are right, it is. But if I walked up to someone who has no desire to do battle content, only crafting/gathering and they admire my armor stating they wished they had it too and said to them it's their problem for not going to get it that would make me a jerk. What about asking then you say? Well it costs them gil just like it does anyone else.

My point is this: instead of JUST involving a free market system in the making of an end-game weapon they should have offered alternatives to obtain the same items via dungeons. In my mind, like someone on here said, it would have been perfect for Alexander (Gordias) normal. Not everyone has millions to blow.

To counter the "It's not that expensive to get the Crafted Items" argument... two important pieces of information.

• The Anima Weapon was designed, in part, with solo players in mind. Requiring specialist crafted items defeats that purpose, as even assuming they have Grandmaster of the Hand and Grandmaster of the Land, this cannot be completed solo. (By solo, I'm referring to my idiom, where I will Duty Finder and do not care to have a Free Company or much else in terms of social play. Abnormal for an MMO player, I know.)
• Even buying the materials instead of the finished product off the Market Board, the total cost still vastly exceeds the funding of the average casual player. My brother asked me for 90k to buy a Sanuwa mount, so going by that, I can only surmise that the average casual player (who neither gathers nor crafts) has somewhere between 75k and 125k. Even buying all NQ items and finding a crafter to make them for you, and hoping they get it right, that's still not enough for a full set of the 16 items needed to complete the quest. (The overinflation of the Market Board isn't SE's fault, and I'm fortunate that I can gather and craft some of the component items myself, but not everyone who plays casually or solo is.)