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

Originally Posted by Alahra

On the flip side, midcore players won't "step up" to content that's too challenging (which is what we've seen with Savage) the same way that hardcore ones will "step down" to content that's less challenging than they would like (as long as, again, it's still challenging enough).

This is hard to give a definite answer to. I would be interested to see how hard Savage would of been to approach if midcore players had something more FCoB level before hand. The mechanics in general would be familiar at least.

Originally Posted by Velhart

This is hard to give a definite answer to. I would be interested to see how hard Savage would of been to approach if midcore players had something more FCoB level before hand. The mechanics in general would be familiar at least.

Based on the WoW numbers, where they have the two intermediate difficulties and see similar levels of player engagement, I suspect it might not have made a huge difference. That's something I'd like to be wrong about though.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's practical even with a much larger development team (if it's even possible) to get small enough gradients to get people from where Alexander Normal is to where Alexander Savage is. Even more so if you're doing it by repeating the same fights multiple times at slightly higher difficulty each time.

It'd be interesting to know how many people who couldn't beat A3S prior to having weapons from Thordan extreme obtained them and went on to beat A3S.

Originally Posted by Alahra

II'd say a lot of midcore players still buy them, too. Hell, when my static cleared FCOB, we beat the DPS check at the very literal last second. Bahamut's final attack (was it Terraflare? I don't remember) finished its cast bar, the animation played, and then we got the fade to black from the last bit of his health ticked down. We wouldn't have done it that night if it weren't for food and pots.

They definitely do, I would consider myself midcore - as with my static. We are on A2S now, and we still use potions and food on A1S. That said, when I run out of potions and food, I am not largely concerned with going to get more. We're beating A1S with more than enough time on enrage.

In other words, midcore users use them, but it's not as necessary as it is with hardcore groups that work to beat A1S in ilvl 192 gear shortly after release.

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

For people who didn't do coil even when it was DF accessible, it's a different problem altogether; Why were they not doing coil despite it being accessible on DF with echo (which essentially trivializes the fight)? .

Echo and nerfs certainly made most turns DF friendly.
My sticking points were with t5 and t9 which remained giant brick walls for quite some time as echo did nothing to help with things like divebombs and the mechanic was never adjusted to my knowledge.

A few of my friends were unwilling to try coil at all until we could undersize it in Heavensward since they were afraid of screwing up with people they didn't know.
I myself know how terrible it feels to be the cause of a group's failure but my desire to see the story made me willing to try every now and then.

Originally Posted by Velhart

You should focus more on making an actual argument instead of trying to point out how I phrased it.

What is there to argue? I assumed you were using the normal definition of common sense, which made it sound like you were trying to claim what you were saying was a fact. You've clarified that you weren't, and that you were actually just asserting an opinion. I'm not going to tell you your opinion is wrong, even if I have a different one.

Originally Posted by Kaurie

I doubt this made much of a difference. If all of my SMN stats were made to INT equivalents using stat weights - I had with my 200 eso weapon 3404 INT. With my Relic, I am at 3445. Thordan EX would have been about half way in between. That 40 INT gain to my relic is roughly a 1% increase in INT, and has indeed given me about a 1% increase in DPS - from 1333 to 1343 on my dummy parse. The issue is that all stats, including weapon damage and main stat, are becoming less important with each gear step (diminishing returns and all).

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was thinking less in terms of the actual contribution from the weapons themselves (though that's obviously a factor) and more that Thordan Ex requires more coordination than A1S or A2S, but less than A3S, so it could have functioned as a stepping stone in terms of actual fight difficulty.

Originally Posted by Dzian

Again COP was an example of this. there were many complaints of it being too difficult but at the same time it was content that many people persevered with and eventually overcame. because the rewards for making progress were epic.

CoP was in kind of a weird place anyway. A lot of the difficulty was due to the content being level capped, and people lacking appropriate gear because of inventory or resource limitations.

The lack of balance between FFXI's jobs could also be very significant. My static had problems on very different fights than most groups, due to our composition lacking jobs with high burst damage. We cleared the first airship battle, with Omega and Ultima, in a single attempt, but were stuck on Tenzen for quite some time. We eventually beat it by having me tank it as thief, using Perfect Dodge to make his weapon skills miss and delay Cosmic Elucidation, giving us enough time to make it through.

Even looking at the Promyvion fights, many players got through them by taking summoners and rangers as the only damage sources, because their high damage two hour abilities let you get through the much more deadly low HP component of the fight much faster. For some people, perseverance was simply leveling up a job that made it easier.

There's not really anything similar available in FFXIV, because no composition change is going to make your group significantly stronger.

I'm also not sure that any of the fights in CoP required the same level of coordination that most of the raid encounters in FFXIV do.