Raider to Non-Raider: an exhibition on thoughts and misconceptions

[zosia]

Well, I suppose I wanted to start off this thread off by venting my frustrations, but I decided to ease into this long read on the note I wish to conclude on: extending the olive branch. Too many times, players of distinctive play styles, raiders and non-raiders alike, are at odds. Our principles on fun and our beliefs about design are seemingly unaligned and that causes us to dig in our heels. Yet, I would propose that the fundamentals of our views are exactly the same. No matter if you're a Raider, non-raider, casual, committed, noob or elite player, we all want the game to be fun and rewarding. I hope after posting this, people who might see raiders as some stereotype with snobbish attitudes gain a greater appreciation for the fact we are just some fellow humans trying to have fun in a game that we enjoy along side you.

I would feel disingenuous if I claimed I did not have a chip on my shoulder. Mainly because of reading these forums daily only to see how poorly any raiding feedback is remarked on. Sure, there are a host of bad ideas, such as simply removing normal alex from the game. But there are good ideas and compromises need to be had. Raiders still make up about 10% of the player base. They need some loving too and when things are not fun, raiders provide feedback about the content designed for them. So, when things are not fun, we come to the forums to provide some feedback only to be met with harsh skepticism, dismissive attitudes, and preconceived misconceptions malformed into trollish responses. Why is it that people want to ruin the gaming experience for anyone, on either side (raider or non-raider), especially if they are trying to provide feedback? It's like 80% of the replies I have seen the last week are "hurr durr, elitist gonna elite, qq moar special snowflakes." Yes we are a minority, but that does not dehumanize us. It does not invalidate what what have to say about the content that IS designed for us. We pay money too, we want the game to succeed too. We want to have fun too!

People in other threads, such as this person (I left their name out), are the reason I wanted to write this thread:

All the tears from the so called hard core raiders are amazing to me. Crying about grinding normal for gear to run savage...aw sorry you can't just walk into the top tier raid.

To be blunt, YOU choose to grind gear in savage. There are other gearing options, but they require a bit more patience than you are willing to show. Oh, but you'll whine that the story in normal mode is the same as Savage and once you've seen it in Normal there is no more incentive to run Savage...except that it sure as hell seems to me that if seeing the story once destroys your incentive to run savage, you'll only ever run it once anyway. Except of course that's not the case since you'll want the gear, minion, mount and title to show how great you are.

So really what is the complaint? Perhaps you are just too impatient to gear up more gradually, and find Savage too difficult without tip-top gear. In which case welcome to the world of every 'casual' player looking at Coil, knowing they'll need HW gear and the echo to get through. How does it feel to be faced with content you're not good enough to beat without mechanically over gearing it?

I think this boils down to Savage being hard enough that even 4 different carrots on a stick are insufficient incentive for wannabe raiders to just run the content, so instead they come here to cry about Normal and demand that filthy casuals be locked out of their precious raid content again. When the truth is, the top tier raiders are farming Savage and the intermediate raiders are either just getting on with grinding gear for Savage, or crying in their mead over repitition (the grind) killing their incentive.

All these so called solutions serve to do Is nothing but place intermediate raiders above/ahead of the general population of the game. Perhaps this is when the pro'bro' raider should whisper 'git gud' in your ear?

This player admits, in other posts, to not even being in the end game, yet they have plenty of opinions to offer up about it that are completely dismissive. The post is riddled with inflammatory language and presumptuous positions that serve only to provoke and already discontent portion of the player base. Why does this person even bother opening the thread if they feel this strongly? How can they offer educated and insightful feedback about alex savage when they don't even attempt it? Countless one-post wonders, on both sides, go into threads to marginalize, complain about complaining, and derail the topic to focus on their own PoV which usually tends to be irrelevant to the OP. Not all ideas are good, but this tier sucks so much that raiders are quitting in droves and it's best to collect feedback from this disparaged part of the player base before there is no raiding community left.

With that being said, I feel I have vented some of my frustrations and I can move on to the main purpose of this thread, I want to help humanize raiders and non-raiders alike. Now, I can do my part and explain my position as a raider and provide my own thoughts on the raiding community, but please add your own feelings about what it means for you to be a raider or a non-raider.

So, I will get some of the obvious stuff out of the way first:

• Most raiders arn't the douchey elitist stereotype we all have come to know
• We come in an entire spectrum of skill level from just getting by RavEX to World 1st A4S
• Not every raider cares about what loot other players have
• What we derive enjoyment from when raiding differs from player to player.
• Some raiders raid for loot
• Some raiders raid for story
• Some raiders raid for cool armor and vanity
• Some raiders raid for the pure challenge
• Most raiders raid for a combination of those reasons

Now, the less obvious stuff, more just how I personally feel (IE my opinion).

I think raiders have sort of a trifecta as to why they raid. Think of it as an RBG scale where red is story, blue is challenge, and green is gear progression. Most raiders have some even handed combination of motivating factors to raid. We also have to consider people might only care about 1 or 2 of those reasons and completely disregard the others. Either way, I am sure you get the picture, the triforce of raiding so to speak. I am sure every player, raider or not, has this similar trifecta for their preferred content.

If you look at this spectrum and apply it to alex savage, you can see why we are so frustrated as a sect of this game's game community. You guys won the gear argument back at launch of 2.0. There will never be an item level gap between raiders and non-raiders for more than a few months. There is little time to savor standing out with beastly dps or pulling an otherwise impossible pull. It's all the same and it's all standardized. I don't think raiders care in particular about other people having gear. I think raiders just like to show off with a higher level of performance and that stands out more where there is an ilvl gap. They want to be the guy or girl who shows up in your expert and impresses you with their stellar heals, the amount of trash they pulled or the way the boss seemingly melted. If anything, we enjoy peacock-ing our performance much more than just having some ilvl to hold over your head. An ilvl is virtually meaningless unless you can actually make use of it and most of us raider's know that, that's why we are still here despite gear being much less of a raid reward in this game contrasted to other MMO's. Although this particular point is moot, because FFXIV will always tild towards casual persuasions, I think it was important to say so that people get why we care about gear. It's not because we want to just have a higher ilvl, we want our performance to shine. Our performance is far more important to us that ilvl will EVER be.

We will never have the best ilvl and we have to accept that, but we have other rewards to look forward to such as story. In ARR, we still had such a mysterious story. It was difficult for it be spoiled because no one ever talked about it in my LS or FC out of respect for people working on the coil story. In addition, the only way to get the coil story was to either raid, wait for nerfs, or spoil it on youtube. Sure, the coil story had 1.0 backing it, but we only need to look at the absolute amazing story thus far in heavensward to know that SE could have done much better with Alex. Even BCoB was epic. You literally fought on a petrified arm of bahamut while bearing witness to his thralls sneaking about orchestrating a dark rebirth of the dreadwyrm. With Alex, we have a lackluster story that was spoiled from day one. There was no hype, there was no mystery, and even worse, you could not go to reddit or this forum without seeing some form of unlabeled spoilers. Having the lore gated behind a raid with no normal mode restricted the lore to a community that would black ball douches that tried to spoil any of it for other raiders. Having a normal mode diminished the built-in spoiler fail safe many of my LS and FC had.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think having a normal mode is a bad thing! However, the implementation of savage was done all wrong. With zero changes between normal and savage's story or build-up, savage was stale before it even showed up to the dinner table. We had a stale story going into a mind numbingly hard raid. This was a huge blow for many of us. We expected and understood that our gear is a fleeting reward, at best. But so many of us, myself included, had such high hopes for the story only to find it hard turned to ash in our mouths upon tasting the savage version.

Lastly, the challenge portion of raiding. This has and will always be our bread and butter of raiding. Getting together with a group of your friends and allies to go into battle against an intimidating foe! You stand as a team facing an insurmountable task looking at a visage of difficulty and your fingers begin to twitch with anticipation. Intimidating, yet delightful, a shiver of crawls down your spine following goose bumps as your team inches closer and closer to victory. The the mats gathered, the food cooked, pots made every week, every last gil spent on resources, the countless hours of wipes spanning weeks of blood, sweat, and tears culminate to that moment, that last percent! The defining instance highlighted by such pure intensity that almost no one is talking, the moment right before the boss goes down and many nerdgasams are had. That moment is so thrilling and chilling, it's what so many of us raid for.

Sadly... This sole reason, the heart of what raiding brings to the table for me, is not enough to sustain an entire team of players... Why? Because we are just as diverse as the entire player community of ffxiv. Teams are not perfect, we have weak links, friends we rather play with than kick out over skill short comings. It only takes one weak link in a3s to keep you from getting a kill, would you kick someone out of you raid group to progress? Especially if you have raided with them since 2.0? Our values are also different. Because some raiders want to only raid for that gear prestige, it can be difficult to maintain roster with talented players that can down this content. My team is on a4s and we are losing one of our tanks after he found out that alex gear would not be the theoretical BiS gear in 3.1. It was the last straw for him, he saw no point in sticking around if the gear from alex savage will be inferior in 3.1. He was certainly used to gear becoming outdated, but not while the tier is still vastly under-completed (IE alex savage is not old content yet).

Now, I know what some of you might be saying, these are just typical raid problems and I would agree with you. Part of running a raid team is inevitably replacing someone, but you have to understand that because of the sharp increase in alexander savage, the talent pool shrunk considerably. In ARR, the end game raid, the binding coils, was defeatable by a wider range of skill level among raiders. We have less people who can do this content as well as less motivating factors to compel new talent to step up to the savage game. I would like to reference Golidlox and the three bears here in saying we had the just right porridge in ARR. Coils was not bleeding edge hard and world first groups blew through the challenge, but it was not a push over raid either leaving many raid statics occupied for several months. SE threw the just right porridge out the window and we are stuck with cold version and a too hot version of a raid. This has caused many midcore raiders just to up and leave the game. Even high end raiders peppered throughout the raiding statics on any given server are leaving. It's infrequent for a team to be comprised of 8/8 top server players. its often more like a grab bag of skill levels. Statics are imploding right and left as some of these teams are unable to carry their weak link or two anymore. High end to mid core, people don't want to carry on when the raid is THIS challenging and when its EVEN MORE CHALLENGING to fill a roster after losing people week after week.

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the to humor my ramblings, We are almost done and I will soon wrap this up. Anyways, this is the situation us raiders are contending with now. Many teams are stuck and imploding on a3s. Teams on a4s are fighting to keep a roster full for content that will have 1/3 it's value, bis gear, taken away in 6 weeks. Another 1/3 of the content, the story, has been so underwhelming and unhyped that no one cares about it, and the last 1/3, the challenge, is not well designed for most raiders. This challenge was tailored for lucrezia and sever 1st groups, Alex savage, the only meaningful raid in the game, alienates, disparages, and disenfranchised a lion's share of ARR raiders. What they had is now gone, the four bosses they looked forward to every six month have been tuned so high, only the best of the best raiders will see full clears. The rest of the raiding population will be stuck with the first two floors until there are nerfs, another raid tier, or both.

I hope this gives you insight to as why I raid and why I think other's raid and the problems we are facing. I am sure my assumptions and assertions are close to the mark and I hope that we as a community can hone in on what makes the game fun for raiders and non-raiders alike.

All too quickly we forget that we should not be divided, but united. We should coalesce under the banner of this game, a story and universe we have invested in and love. I want non-raiders to have their cake and enjoy it just as much as I want my own, perhaps we can find a way to share our cake together? We can find a way to communicate as a player base that has the same goals in mind: we want the game to be fun and rewarding. Instead of dismissing feedback so quickly we can elaborate on what would make an idea a better one rather than becoming so quickly polarized over a bad or malformed idea. We have all been guilty of it from time to time, I know I certainly have been, but we need to do something other than argue without purpose.

The outlook is grim for my brethren and myself. I look upon my FC list and my linkshells and my eyes well up a bit knowing so many of those grey names are gone for ever... My friends, my buddies, people I have shared epic victories with are trickling out of this game over the current raid tier. My FC is vacant, my static disparaged, and my linkshells are ghost towns. The end game raiding community I knew in ARR is virtually gone and there is no new raiding community emerging in it's place.

I love this game, more than any mmo I have played since ff11, but when my friends go, I can't imagine myself wanting to recreate that all over again. It would feel cheap or fake. This is bad for us raiders, we are all feeling this weight press upon us, especially those pushing a3s and a4s.

Understand that this is a make or break tier for many statics out there and we are coming to the forums with our experiences and our feelings about this content we care so deeply about. We, as raiders, need to do a better job about being open minded when it comes to solutions non-raiders have to offer. Non-raiders, if you want to be part of the dialogue, more of you have to indulge in a bit of empathy. Try to understand our perspective and that we are not a bunch of whiny children. Rather, we are a very passionate loyal portion of the player base who is extremely frustrated right now over several reasons. Just saying "you guys are angry you had your stuff taken away" completely minimizes our entire plight. The issues are deeper than the typical e-peen and special snowflake arguments. We want to stick around and play this game, but the current raid, alex savage floors 1-4 is not a sustainable model for a raiding community.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.
Lucius Eventide

edit:typos and missing a few words

[iambanana]

well welcome to post 2010 MMORPG community, where the hardcore player is considered evil, and choosing the better player is considered discrimination.

[Aomine1992]

A big misconception is that every player seems to think that they are more important then the ppl we share the game with...

Casuals think that raiders complain to much and to some extent their right but most of the game is catered to casuals which I see how it's unfair to ppl who dedicate their time and soul to raiding...

Yes raiding needs a huge overhaul but the forums are so fickle some say they want story like coil but then some complain about rewards but say the story doesn't bother them and some Complain about difficulty but thinks the reward is fine...their needs to be a consensus not a this is fine but this is broke argument between players..

I believe that raiders and non-raiders can both agree on just wanting fun content but let's not try to take from one another.

"People have to get out of their own way" simple as that.

[Magis]

well welcome to post 2010 MMORPG community, where the hardcore player is considered evil, and choosing the better player is considered discrimination.

Everyone get's a ribbon!

[TheUltimate3]

I'm not saying you are wrong. Indeed, most of what you are saying I believe is correct.

But let us also not pretend that the Hardcore faction aren't equally as venomous and dismissive as the casual lot.

In the end, (I believe) the goal should be to make sure Savage is more fun and rewarding for those doing it, but make sure Normal does not feel worthless and boring. But everybody likes playing the martyr and the victim.

(And on a more personal note, the thought that the end game raid is considered to hard that people are leaving just makes me weep. And this is from a scrub.)

[Malzian]

Certainly a well thought out and contemplative analysis of the issue at hand, and I will say that the divide between raider and non-raider is a rather contentious issue with a lot of moving parts. I am fortunate enough to see the issue from both sides, having been a long-time hardcore raider pushing the bleeding edge of hardcore content in Lord of the Rings Online for the last several years I played it. I know what the struggles are and I know the joy that can be found in a hard-fought victory.

That being said, unfortunately like it happens with all too many, I no longer have the luxury of the time I once had and my usual window of 8-10pm raids every night just doesn't work any more. The constraints the current hardcore raiding environment is party to just won't work for me in any regard. Many people have said, “If you want to do it, then make the time and do it.” But this doesn't always work in the real world and it's not that I don't -want- to have the time to do it, but that I simply don't have it, like many others.

If you are afforded of a good deal of free time to push the content, then that's good and by all means you should be free to do so. I don't think there's been a single person on the more 'casual' side who has argued that the hard-core raiders should have anything taken away from them, and yet it seems that whenever those in my particular position request that we have something a little bit more suitable for our needs that many in the raiding community come out and decry it as degrading their experience. Like we're asking for a handout instead of a hand-up.

The other issue that is cropping up, and I notice it terribly so on my own server, that even if you manage to make the time, actually getting into a static that is challenging the content is extremely difficult. At this point you need to provide data that proves that you know what you're doing (even if that data is technically against TOS to generate with the current system). A lot of statics are expecting people to come in knowing the mechanics as well, and it's nigh impossible to learn the mechanics of a fight that you've never actually been in since you can't get into the static to do them in the first place.

The drive to beat the content, to get past the head-smashing on that wall drives groups to fall apart, but it also takes those very same groups and gives them the mindset, “If we take anyone who doesn't know things already and makes us have to teach them, we'll never win so we can never take them.” And that mentality only further perpetuates the downward cycle and breaks the raiding community even more.

I've maintained personally, throughout many of these arguments, that the content itself isn't flexible enough. It doesn't allow you to make a mistake without killing you, it's brutal and unforgiving. If you're the kind of person who likes the Souls games, maybe that's just fine. But in trying to appeal to a large audience, which essentially is what all MMOs do, you need to come up with a balance.

Normal Mode was supposed to be that balance, along with providing the gear to get through A1S and A2S while you get your Esoterics and drops from Savage. But the outcry came that it's 'too easy' and that somehow it takes away from the enjoyment people have from running Savage. I will agree that having it be the same bosses takes a little away, but this is also not the first time MMOs have done such a thing, and certainly not the first time we've seen it in XIV. But it seems to me that this outcry is more of a reaction to people getting burnt out in A4S and wanting it all to mean something more than it currently does.

And while you say that this is 'make or break' for the raiders, the main thrust that people who are not the hardcore raiders get out of it is, “You're not really important to this game, it's made for us. Either get to raiding or go back to your rock.” That's the message that's sent whenever someone says, “You don't need this.” or “You don't have a right to see that.” No one wants to be a second-class citizen.

But it all boils down to... whether you raid or not, this is a game. The game is what you make of it, or what you choose not to. If you choose to push the content hard and take it with the seriousness of 'do or die' you will burn out. There's nothing SE or the community at large can do about that. Sometimes you need to take a step back, say to yourself, “Okay, we're not progressing here. Maybe for a while we should go hit something else and see if we can improve ourselves there and then go back.”

The #1 reason that statics breaks... is because most statics don't know when to take a break. It's 'push, push, push' all the time. Something will break, if it's not the raid, then it's the static. And if enough statics break, then the raiding community breaks as well. So please, when you stop and consider why the game isn't fun for you anymore... don't look to the rest of us who, like you, are trying to do the best we can... who pay our subs just like you do (and yes, there is some entitlement to content that comes along with that, same as the raiders have)... and really just want to love the game and enjoy the community.

In conclusion, this game is about -all of us-. Raiders, non-raiders, mid-core, casual, what-have-you. Each part of the community gets something different out of the game, each of us needs something that can cater both to our desires and to the time we are capable to commit to the game. By saying that one group is less or more deserving of deferment only serves to break the community and further push the things that divide us. You're right that the issue isn't about 'special snowflake' arguments, but when a comment such as, “I don't care about your satisfaction with the game, only mine,” is something that can both be said and be looked upon as alright... then the community has far deeper issues than simply a matter of poorly created content.

[zosia]

Certainly a well thought out and contemplative analysis of the issue at hand, and I will say that the divide between raider and non-raider is a rather contentious issue with a lot of moving parts. I am fortunate enough to see the issue from both sides, having been a long-time hardcore raider pushing the bleeding edge of hardcore content in Lord of the Rings Online for the last several years I played it. I know what the struggles are and I know the joy that can be found in a hard-fought victory.


That being said, unfortunately like it happens with all too many, I no longer have the luxury of the time I once had and my usual window of 8-10pm raids every night just doesn't work any more. The constraints the current hardcore raiding environment is party to just won't work for me in any regard. Many people have said, “If you want to do it, then make the time and do it.” But this doesn't always work in the real world and it's not that I don't -want- to have the time to do it, but that I simply don't have it, like many others.

If you are afforded of a good deal of free time to push the content, then that's good and by all means you should be free to do so. I don't think there's been a single person on the more 'casual' side who has argued that the hard-core raiders should have anything taken away from them, and yet it seems that whenever those in my particular position request that we have something a little bit more suitable for our needs that many in the raiding community come out and decry it as degrading their experience. Like we're asking for a handout instead of a hand-up.

The other issue that is cropping up, and I notice it terribly so on my own server, that even if you manage to make the time, actually getting into a static that is challenging the content is extremely difficult. At this point you need to provide data that proves that you know what you're doing (even if that data is technically against TOS to generate with the current system). A lot of statics are expecting people to come in knowing the mechanics as well, and it's nigh impossible to learn the mechanics of a fight that you've never actually been in since you can't get into the static to do them in the first place.

The drive to beat the content, to get past the head-smashing on that wall drives groups to fall apart, but it also takes those very same groups and gives them the mindset, “If we take anyone who doesn't know things already and makes us have to teach them, we'll never win so we can never take them.” And that mentality only further perpetuates the downward cycle and breaks the raiding community even more.

I've maintained personally, throughout many of these arguments, that the content itself isn't flexible enough. It doesn't allow you to make a mistake without killing you, it's brutal and unforgiving. If you're the kind of person who likes the Souls games, maybe that's just fine. But in trying to appeal to a large audience, which essentially is what all MMOs do, you need to come up with a balance.

Normal Mode was supposed to be that balance, along with providing the gear to get through A1S and A2S while you get your Esoterics and drops from Savage. But the outcry came that it's 'too easy' and that somehow it takes away from the enjoyment people have from running Savage. I will agree that having it be the same bosses takes a little away, but this is also not the first time MMOs have done such a thing, and certainly not the first time we've seen it in XIV. But it seems to me that this outcry is more of a reaction to people getting burnt out in A4S and wanting it all to mean something more than it currently does.

And while you say that this is 'make or break' for the raiders, the main thrust that people who are not the hardcore raiders get out of it is, “You're not really important to this game, it's made for us. Either get to raiding or go back to your rock.” That's the message that's sent whenever someone says, “You don't need this.” or “You don't have a right to see that.” No one wants to be a second-class citizen.

But it all boils down to... whether you raid or not, this is a game. The game is what you make of it, or what you choose not to. If you choose to push the content hard and take it with the seriousness of 'do or die' you will burn out. There's nothing SE or the community at large can do about that. Sometimes you need to take a step back, say to yourself, “Okay, we're not progressing here. Maybe for a while we should go hit something else and see if we can improve ourselves there and then go back.”

The #1 reason that statics breaks... is because most statics don't know when to take a break. It's 'push, push, push' all the time. Something will break, if it's not the raid, then it's the static. And if enough statics break, then the raiding community breaks as well. So please, when you stop and consider why the game isn't fun for you anymore... don't look to the rest of us who, like you, are trying to do the best we can... who pay our subs just like you do (and yes, there is some entitlement to content that comes along with that, same as the raiders have)... and really just want to love the game and enjoy the community.

In conclusion, this game is about -all of us-. Raiders, non-raiders, mid-core, casual, what-have-you. Each part of the community gets something different out of the game, each of us needs something that can cater both to our desires and to the time we are capable to commit to the game. By saying that one group is less or more deserving of deferment only serves to break the community and further push the things that divide us. You're right that the issue isn't about 'special snowflake' arguments, but when a comment such as, “I don't care about your satisfaction with the game, only mine,” is something that can both be said and be looked upon as alright... then the community has far deeper issues than simply a matter of poorly created content.

Thank you for your critical response. It did not take long for this thread to fall into the similar pattern of each other thread here pertaining to raid content or raiders. I think you make a lot of valid points and I did not even consider that there my be some systemic problems with the community itself. Maybe we are slipping into a more vitriolic community as a whole? A Wow forums reborn?

I absolutely agree that we are lacking a balance of content. We have two modes of content currently, the slow lane and drag racing with nothing in between. I am hoping so much that the island content in 3.1 is more even handed with it's challenge. Harder than void ark but much more forgiving than savage. Something that is both compelling and rewarding to the higher end casual non-raiders to the mid core raid crowd.

I've read the original post (well, 85% of it at least). I'm getting the impression that you're drawing comparisons between players completing normal Binding Coil of Bahamut and savage Alexander. Is that correct? If so, may I ask why you're not comparing savage to savage?



This was the exact same situation with savage during the 2.x series, and there was nowhere near the same outcry on the forums then as there is now.

I will admit that I have not tried Alexander savage and I have no intention to. I know I do not have the time nor the desire to aspire to that level of play. With that said, I do have a question that has been burning in my mind since the release of Heavensward.

What has changed that made savage so desirable in 3.0, when you couldn't pay your average player to attempt savage during the 2.x series? Why has savage become the new standard, when it was ignored before?

For me, personally, the lack of a reasonable raid tier that I don't have to have anxiety about. As I highlighted in my post, I have been burning my candle at both ends to keep my static tied together, but it's been wearing on me lately.

Back in ARR, normal mode was a fairly challenging raid. It was achievable by your average joe raider. If you put in your time, you would get a kill before any big nerfs, eventually. That is not happening with alex savage. Our team is on a4s, and I feel like we will get a kill before nerfs, but I don't think my static could survive another raid tier this hard.

Also, we have no content to fall back on. In ARR, the raid was digestible within a few months and that kept us sated and happy for that time. Since we are feeling burnt out on savage, we really have no content to fall back on that would keep us challenged. We either continue with a4s or throw in the towel and go our separate ways since a static is not needed for any other content in the game.

To summarize, there is nothing for raiders to fall back to other than 1-2-3 alt tabbed basic difficulty content. You either make the savage cut, fail and burn yourself out, or just stop raiding.

The people who are taking the time to post that they didn't read the OP are the worst people in this thread.

they are indeed exacerbating the issues our community, the ffxiv community, is dealing with. I know it's a long post, but you don't have to kick a dog when they are down just because you don't want to take the time to read what I have written. Thank you for pointing this out.

Gear, pure and simple. Savage Coil gave no upgrade whatsoever over the gear one could get in Normal SCoB, whereas the gear in Savage Alex is a 20 iLvl boost (210 vs. 190).

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about savage second coil. Yes, gear was part of the problem, maybe even the progenitor of the problems surrounding raiding in general, but I think the absolute biggest issue with second coil savage was finding 8/8 people who strictly wanted to raid for the glory of bragging rights. My static had at least two people who did not want to touch second coil savage because it offered no incentives they were interested in, which was gear. Then we had a 3rd person in our static that was not interested in it because of how much more difficult savage was.

So, our solution was to make a hybrid group with our 2nd raiding static from our FC. Of course, that was a flop since it was hard to schedule savage SCoB raid time on top of the schedule of both statics contending with final coil. We tried several times with different statics from different FC's without any luck.

At the end of the day, it was not a big deal for us, and most raiders, since savage second coil was not part of any primary progression path where as savage alex is the only progression raid with teeth now. Alex normal is duty finder-able and you really don't need a static for it.

So, where do the statics of ARR go? The statics that could get a t13 clear but might not make the cut for an a4s clear? Should they farm alex normal until they disband? This is a big part of the problem. There is no fall back content for raiders that can't contend or don't want to contend with savage.

[Dree-Elle]

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about savage second coil. Yes, gear was part of the problem, maybe even the progenitor of the problems surrounding raiding in general, but I think the absolute biggest issue with second coil savage was finding 8/8 people who strictly wanted to raid for the glory of bragging rights.

Which says that yes, it really is largely about the gear, or lack thereof. Therefore, it is hardly a "misconception".

[Ashkendor]

So, where do the statics of ARR go? The statics that could get a t13 clear but might not make the cut for an a4s clear? Should they farm alex normal until they disband? This is a big part of the problem. There is no fall back content for raiders that can't contend or don't want to contend with savage.

This is the crux of the problem that my static is running into. We downed A1S on August 18th, only a few weeks after we got in there. We started on A2S the very next week (we beat A1 on our last scheduled raid day of the week) but that's when the problems started. We had a couple of people with persistent real life situations that made them no-show or bail with short notice a few times. None of us were angry about it because real life happens and we all understand that, but the fact of the matter is that it's disappointing for seven people to get together just to sit in a Party Finder for an hour and a half looking for a decent tank. If you don't find one, you go faceroll Normal or farm Ravana or just disband for the night. It's tiring because progress is hideously slow. It makes you feel like you've been doing nothing but A2S even though you're barely touching it. It starts to feel like the first boss of the raid is getting 8/8.

There were two whole weeks where we only got in there for an hour, right after our weekly A1S clear. After that, people's schedules prevented us from raiding again as a static both weeks. Our Bard cleared a few weeks ago with a friend's static, and just last night three more members of our static finally downed it an hour before reset with a solid pug group (now there's an oxymoron, right? :3) that was looking for a similar last-minute miracle. I've heard several variations of "Your static is still on A2S? Omg but that's so easy what's wrong with you guys?" Then they act like issues like pugging a new tank every week shouldn't be holding us back. We could just split up and find new groups, but the fact of the matter is we work well together and we enjoy raiding together, so we tend toward being forgiving with each other almost to a fault. This week, we're trying out our second tank in as many weeks because we finally decided that seven people feeling despondent and stuck was vastly outweighing one person's real life situation.

The sad fact is that pugging for Savage content is horribly hard to do once you're past A1S. The percentage of the playerbase that is past A1 and actually looking for a weekly clear on A2S is woefully low, because most players clearing it are in statics already. It means we end up doing things like getting someone their A1S clear before going into A2S (which sometimes just turns out to be a dreadful waste of time if you're pugging multiple positions in the party), or taking someone that has the A1S clear but zero experience in A2S. We've resigned ourselves to one or no chest clears simply to get the experience in the fight to take back to the static group.

We have some super sharp players that like to push their class limits, but it's really hard to make progress when you can't nail down a solid schedule with an 8/8 team. We're not casuals, but we're also not in there 6 hours a day 7 days a week. Casuals view us as elitist scum. Hardcore raiders view us as filthy casuals. That in and of itself can really wear you down a lot. You start to wonder if there really is something wrong with your group that has you stuck and if it really is worth all the time and effort you're pouring into it.

[siverstorm]

It's tiring because progress is hideously slow. It makes you feel like you've been doing nothing but A2S even though you're barely touching it.

This is sadly one of the biggest reasons groups snapped at a3s. My group spent a significantly long time in there as well, there was a lot of tension because of how long it was taking. It wasn't good.

with a solid pug group (now there's an oxymoron, right? :3) that was looking for a similar last-minute miracle.

Yep, finding a suitable replacement in this game with content at this level is so mind-numbingly difficult. I used to be the recruiter for my old coil group and even then we would sift through so many people, unnaturally low damage, bad attitudes, outright lying about their progression, you name it. Take into account alex savage is more difficult and it amplifies.

Of course NA isn't like the JP servers where they have agreed upon strats that allow them to pug up to A3S even without the need for voice comms.

Casuals view us as elitist scum. Hardcore raiders view us as filthy casuals. That in and of itself can really wear you down a lot. You start to wonder if there really is something wrong with your group that has you stuck and if it really is worth all the time and effort you're pouring into it.

I always choose to ignore those types of people, from both ends of the spectrum. I've made a number of friends within the spectrum that aren't ridiculously toxic for no reason. If you enjoy the company you play with then stick with it, I've seen numerous groups on twitch on various floors. The entertaining ones were always the ones that were obviously getting along vs the ones that spend their time getting catty at each other wearing down morale and such.