FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[Nezerius]

2. What do you want higher iLvl gear for, if you aren't challenging the hardest stuff in the game on a new raid cycle?

Believe it or not, but some players enjoy some sense of progression in a game, a sense of getting stronger with the things they do for fun, even if they're not doing the hardest stuff the game has to offer.

While I agree that raiders should get first dibs on the very best gear, they're hardly the only group of players that should receive such a type of progression. SE seems to agree with this, considering they've been making it easier to upgrade tomestone gear with every catch up patch.

It was pretty damn demoralizing when we noticed how easy it was after the nerf, when we had spent so long trying to beat that turn.

If SE had been able to get the difficulty scaling from A5S to A8S correct right away, you would never have felt demoralized to begin with. A6S was harder than they intended, so they nerfed it to avoid another A3S situation with statics falling apart left and right.

It's certainly not a challenge for raiders, nor is it "braindead" easy, yet it still allows mid-core or casual players that don't raid, the opportunity to beat a "nerfed" version of the savage raids.. I mean that's effectively what the entire Normal difficulty is there for, and why it was implemented in the first place. If you raided during Coil days, then you would know this.

Except normal Alexander isn't mid-core content. Mid-core content is something along the lines of EX primals. Mid-core players didn't go in and kill Thordan EX/Sephirot EX in an attempt or two, while I can't say the same about any of the normal Alexander fights.

I did raid during the Coil days, and managed to clear both SCoB and FCoB before the addition of the Echo. I'd go as far as saying that Coil was mid-core content, as the amount of mechanics in the fights were in tune with its difficulty.

On the other hand, A3S/A4S were much closer in difficulty to SCoB (Savage). A3S killed off many more statics than even T9 did. Midas lowered the difficulty on dps requirements, but I'd still consider it to be mechanically more difficult than Coil.

5. The current problems with raiding in this game have nothing to do with the difficulty. I won't go into this because it warrants an entirely different discussion and I won't derail the thread here, but difficulty is not the problem. It may be a "reason" why some people don't raid, but that is what Normal mode is for.

Do you honestly think that A3S making a ton of raiders quit the game (or to a lesser extent, quit the raiding scene) didn't have anything to do with how the content was overly difficult in comparison to previous content? (Coil)

[Colt47]

@Bourne_Endeavor There's a lot more to gear in MMORPGs than necessity. I've stated it before in a previous posting, actually, but I'll gladly go over it again since it didn't seem to stick. People are not getting gear because it is necessary: They are getting that highest iLvL gear because it is the end of the vertical content ladder. Once people have the highest level iLvL gear they can either move on to other parts of the game or quit for a while and come back later without that little voice nagging them that they left something unfinished. People don't even need 220 gear to play the game, Bourne, they get it because the game is designed around increasing ones power level by getting better gear.


The point of the larger group tackling savage content is not about the gear. It's about letting people experience those harder and more complex modes in a larger group that has more forgiving conditions thanks to the larger group size. It lets people come back into the game later and still be able to find a group to do these modes, since they can join an oversized group to learn the fight safely, without wasting peoples time, then get to come along on the 8 man runs because they've seen the fight through.

[Toguro]

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I feel like you didn't read the first post... I said Savage was NOT too hard because it is Savage. I said KEEP the difficulty. Also I explained the meaning of brain-dead hard.. You somehow missed that.

I said if the Devs cannot make a 3rd difficulty they will need to nerf Savage because the completion number is too low. The Devs see this it's why they actually said the next raid will be easier. In the end, it doesn't matter if you like hard content like that to the Devs because to them what matters is the longevity of the game and maximum happiness. It's like "make 2% people happy? Or 15%?" decision.

But they can avoid all of that with a 3rd difficulty. I typed a whole bunch of suggestions on that which you seemed to have missed as well.

Lastly, when did I say or imply I wanted i240 gear for no work? When did I imply I don't want to raid?.

I think you should re-read the OP.

I said none of that.

[Jetstream_Fox]

Only in later patch updates not unlike the eventual echo nerf we see. At release, Bloodborne was outright advertised as a game where you will die, repeatedly, endlessly, until you learn.

Then I must have been a minority given I didn't use any tactics up until Vicar and just rushed everything with the blunderbuss and Ax combo on day one. The only difficulty thing for me up until that part of the game which is roughly 25% is the fact 3 out of the 4 bosses you fight completely fill up your screen and make the camera your biggest enemy. Even Gascoigne was easy on day one with that combo and you didn't even need the music box, but this Final Fantasy, not Bloodborne.

T1-5 was not nearly as hard as T6-9 with the exception of Twin mostly due to the part of DB, Twister, and your party composition. Even with Echo, one person could screw up the DB phase or the Twisters and kill everyone. And if you didn't have any characters that could stun DK then that phase also becomes a problem.

There is a difference between overwhelming difficulty and badly designed fights, both Bloodborne and 14 were more subjected to badly designed fights early on, then FF14 started doing overwhelming fights that sent ripples throughout the raiding community. 14 has not found any in between difficult yet for the raids or any other type of content. This is evident with 24 man raids, they should be the hardest type of raid due to the sheer number of people required to tackle the fights.

[HulveinBlitz]

This is evident with 24 man raids, they should be the hardest type of raid due to the sheer number of people required to tackle the fights.

SE actually want you to queue for it, that's why.

[Jetstream_Fox]

SE actually want you to queue for it, that's why.

Which is exactly why I said this game doesn't know what direction to go into and every area of content has issues not just raids. The difficulty scaling is so jumbled it's getting harder and harder for them to make adjustments. If they make 8 man raids too easy than the 24 man raids become next to nothing. If trials are presented to easy on EX then normal becomes a faceroll. And dungeons are such a mess they're not even worth the title of expert dungeons. They can't really nurf or buff much without the possibility of negatively impact other types of content.

[KarstenS]

I've done some coil after it had echo, but hearing about the brutal difficulty of Alex Savage in which all 8 party members have to perform perfectly or wipe, makes me want to avoid it.

Before coil got nerfed and echo, it was not different to what Midas is now. It also had mechanic which all 8 menbers had to perform without mistake.

[KarstenS]

What purpose does that gear serve though? You only need ilvl 240 to make Savage a slightly easier fight. You can theoretically get by with just ilvl 220 crafted gear and a Sephirot EX weapon.

Uhm. No. The world first A8S kill took not this longe because of missing skill. They did need the gear they've got till they finally finished it.

[SDaemon]

Uhm. No. The world first A8S kill took not this longe because of missing skill. They did need the gear they've got till they finally finished it.

Huh? I'm not quite sure I understand you? The world's first A8S kill took what? roughly 17 days. That is hardly enough time to get more than a couple pieces of gear beyond the 220 crafted and the Seph EX weapon.

[KeiranOlive]

Before coil got nerfed and echo, it was not different to what Midas is now. It also had mechanic which all 8 menbers had to perform without mistake.

Nerfed Second Coil was just about right for me, I think. Anything harder or more unforgiving would probably be more stressful than fun. It would have been nice if there was a 3rd difficulty between Midas normal and savage though. I may try savage in the raid finder if I get bored enough. But ultimately, I'm motivated by story and glamour, both of which savage is lacking.