Issue With End Game Raiding

[HylianBebop]

Alex gordias killed raiding for lots of ppl......

I can say for myself, it almost made me quit the game. The group I was in, which went through several replacements during A3S, spent 3+ months trying to clear it. I didn't get my clear until 4 months after first stepping foot into that turn. Absolutely the worst decision the dev team made was allowing that version of the fight to get through testing (and we all saw how they "tested" it .... SMH). Maybe if it was the last turn people might have dealt with it better, but A4S is actually a worse fight IMO (super boring mechanically). A3S mechanics are actually fun, it's just it was tuned way too high for the majority of groups, and individual skill couldn't carry/overcome anyone's shortcomings during progression for it. I know it got nerfed hard and has echo now, but I would say it's a fun fight even now that everyone should try out since it's less challenging. But yea, I was so close to saying screw it, this is ridiculous. A4S I heard also made a lot of people quit, too.

[Warlyx]

I can say for myself, it almost made me quit the game. The group I was in, which went through several replacements during A3S, spent 3+ months trying to clear it. I didn't get my clear until 4 months after first stepping foot into that turn. Absolutely the worst decision the dev team made was allowing that version of the fight to get through testing (and we all saw how they "tested" it .... SMH). Maybe if it was the last turn people might have dealt with it better, but A4S is actually a worse fight IMO (super boring mechanically). A3S mechanics are actually fun, it's just it was tuned way too high for the majority of groups, and individual skill couldn't carry/overcome anyone's shortcomings during progression for it. I know it got nerfed hard and has echo now, but I would say it's a fun fight even now that everyone should try out since it's less challenging. But yea, I was so close to saying screw it, this is ridiculous. A4S I heard also made a lot of people quit, too.

same here , replaced 3 players (1 left because was bored to tears ) ,and i almost quit , patch took too long , that didnt help either, took weeks until we finally killed a3s....and in the end i still think it wasnt worth it , i wasnt even happy , just saying FINALLY ....ugh

[Awful]

Alex gordias killed raiding for lots of ppl......

It honestly did my old static got to 11% AS3 and we were at it night after night for 2 weeks straight (at least 4 times a week) after that poof no more static. Then I had to refill the slots and it was just a headache, Alex Gordias was just not a good raid the new Midas is but that's because the fights are actually not as soul crushing as the last ones. Still a pain but the problem is Gordias turned off so many raiders that no one (even new players) don't want to do Midas Savage. SE might have screwed it's raiding community this expansion.

Also the rewards still don't justify the means why do raiding (especially back in 3.x...) when you can upgrade your 200 gear for 210 and make the rest of the gear obsolete from raiding? Why bother getting fending when STR was the meta back then? There are so many design flaws even now you can be fully pentamelded and have 240 gear either or, and still in 2 months time the gear is replaced as Lore will be the new non capped currency with the new Void Ark gear being better + with a weekly drop. It's pathetic.

[Alexftw]

I've only cleared A5S and I can empathize I used to be a hardcore raider in 2.0 and now I can barely get anyone from my static consistently on. It really sucks and I'm in the same boat do I keep playing or just quit? It's honestly just a headache to get everyone on and when they do its 1 cycle and we're done till before reset. The raiding needs to change that's for sure but there's not many ideas left that hasn't already been said.

Then replace the people who never come. Honestly I was on same situation on 3.0-3.1 patch. Instead of quitting I kept looking for people who actually commit until I found a decent group.

And its just like you said. If it's easy people will have the 4 bosses on farm on first week and then its login, clear in 1-2hours and logout for the rest of week. The actual fun about savage is the learning process and actually managing to clear it eventually.

Tbh only way I'd want savage to be primal ex dificulty is if they released new raid every 2 months to compensate for the factor of being easy.

But yeah I do agree that there could be a dificulty between savage and normal mode for the average people who don't have time yet want to raid. While its not the perfect solution, it would at least give them something to do.
Or maybe get square to break away from weekly reward system so that people can actually do savage on party finder when they're free. At the moment this system prevents people from raiding outside of their premade schedules. A5S is same dificulty as sepiroth for instance. Yet people do sepiroth on pf all the time.

[Bahd_Monkey]

SE is working on a way to jump to certain phases of a raid for practice:
"On a basic level, this raid finder would have the same function as the Duty Finder, but it would primarily address Savage raids with specific participation requirements.

For example, you would be able to select whether you wanted to go for practice or to clear it by checking a box. If you were going into a raid to practice, you would be able to select the beginning, middle, or end phase of the fight."

Source letter from the Producer April 12

[KarstenS]

SE is working on a way to jump to certain phases of a raid for practice:
"On a basic level, this raid finder would have the same function as the Duty Finder, but it would primarily address Savage raids with specific participation requirements.

For example, you would be able to select whether you wanted to go for practice or to clear it by checking a box. If you were going into a raid to practice, you would be able to select the beginning, middle, or end phase of the fight."

Source letter from the Producer April 12

In my understanding this option is meant to tell the others which phase you on and want to practise, not which phase you want to start with.

Select a phase would not work as said before by others.

Example:

In A6 normal the enrage timer starts with the pull of the last boss.

In A6S the enrage timer starts with the pull of the first boss. Because of this you are in hurry not to wait for cooldowns when getting to the next one.

If you could select a phase to start with and all cooldows would be ready, it would be very different to regulqar practise.

[LineageRazor]

If you could select a phase to start with and all cooldows would be ready, it would be very different to regulqar practise.

Bear in mind, that simply because it would be different from regular practice doesn't mean that it wouldn't still be USEFUL practice.

While players will eventually need to worry about beating the clock, dealing enough damage to get the job done before enrage, that's not the ONLY thing they have to worry about. Learning the mechanics of the fight, knowing how you have to move and where to stand, that's important, as well. Step one is to stay alive. Step two is to put out enough damage to win the fight while staying alive.

Choosing a phase to start with would be helpful in step one. Once you have the dance down pat, you can start worrying about step two.

Honestly, I doubt SE will ever give us this feature, but there's been so many times where I've ached for it... It's so frustrating having to slog through the early phases just for one chance to practice where the practice is needed.

[KarstenS]

Step one is to stay alive.

[...]

Choosing a phase to start with would be helpful in step one.

For learning of mechanics its also important to know about available cooldowns and learn how to manage them. Not so much for damage dealers. But for tanks and healers. Learning how to move and where to stand is the easiest part for these two roles in the "current" raid tier.

[Garotte14]

I understand you are all saying it's tough, but like I said, statics are breaking up everyday. You just have to be vigilant and persistent. Keep PFs up, post and scour the forums and Reddit recruitment thread. Be specific what you're looking for. Everyday, someone could get a promotion at work or get relocated and have to leave a group. Someone could have a baby, and need to step away. School might be too time consuming and spots are opening up in statics as you're reading this.

I've been there. I had a static break up during T12 and it took me 2 months to find a static. Finally a found a group already clearing T13 who gave me a shot. I went in and one shot T12 and cleared T13 after a few pulls. They were impressed how quickly I picked it up an voilà.

It just takes some patience and determination, but just keep at it and you'll find a group

[Saccharin]

Getting 8 people together to do scheduled content is difficult. And when you have content that requires several weeks of practice to clear and people slam their heads against walls for it, it leads to burn out. Couple this with the fact I believe we're just so far into the game's life cycle now that there might be a diminishing pool of veteran raiders willing to run on a schedule every week (and not enough new, incoming players to replenish the ranks), and you can see why it might be getting harder and harder for people to make this work.

This got me thinking about what possibly could be done. Then an idea popped into my head - how about introducing smaller team compositions for end game raid. Getting maybe 6 people or even as few as 4 together would be much easier than 8, and would possible allow for more groups to exist, increasing the overall active raid scene. So like, a 4-person version of Alex Savage or Coil? I don't know if this could work, but it was a thought. Obviously this would change a lot of the dynamics, but I know other MMOs (including WoW) have done smaller-group compositions while also offering larger group compositions.

Are you kidding. Eight players for a raid is nothing. If people fail at gathering 8 players for a few weeks then they fail at raiding as an FC. You mentioned WoW and their flexible system starts at 10 player - more than FF14s raids.

Let's face it the first tier of Alex proved that FF14 raid player base is just not 'hardcore' and that's why Tier 2 Alex was much easier than the first.

The other solution I know people will bring up is introduce a third tier for raid content, between the "Story" difficulty and Savage. I thought I heard that isn't what the team is looking to do (at least right now), but no idea if that would be considered in the future. Again, I'm not sure this would entirely solve my dilemma - as I said, I wasn't finding the raid content difficult, it was finding a group to play with.

All we need is the current story mode and the savage. FF14 doesn't have the raid playerbase that WoW does so extra modes just bloat an already messy ilevel range and fragment then even more.

Which stinks because right now, I want to raid. I want to be playing the game. But because of these reasons (schedules, limited groups, only wanting to play this job, not wanting to go too far back in progression), I'm getting left out.

If you can't set a few hours a week aside for raiding then you can't raid. Simple.