FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[CookieMonsta]

I don't think I can stand another face roll Alex NM style raid tier. The current Savage is the only difficult content left.

[Nezerius]

So if I'm in SE's position, what do I see?

I'd see the entire google sheet census, and realize that it confirms previous comments about raiders transferring to other servers to raid, after the addition of Gordias (Savage). That JP raiders are congregating on Chocobo, causing it to be an outlier with a way higher clear rate compared to other servers.

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...=2&pli=1#gid=0

[Khalithar]

The same fights on multiple difficulties is perfectly fine if it's designed in such a way that different levels of difficulty have different mechanics you have to do. A2S and M4S both have extra mechanics in savage difficulty (extra waves and an extra transformation respectively), adding 1-3 more mechanics to do on normal mode and maybe 3-5 on savage on top of higher numbers being required would actually serve to make the fights feel unique and interesting enough to justify it.

[KarstenS]

The same fights on multiple difficulties is perfectly fine if it's designed in such a way that different levels of difficulty have different mechanics you have to do.

Thats your opinion.

Back in 2.1 we had 3 times Ifrit, Garuda and Titan (Story, HM, Ex). Two times was ok for me. But my motivation to do them a third time got close to zero.

[Khalithar]

Thats your opinion.

Back in 2.1 we had 3 times Ifrit, Garuda and Titan (Story, HM, Ex). Two times was ok for me. But my motivation to do them a third time got close to zero.

Well obviously it's my opinion, I don't see why you felt the need to point that out, but anyway.

The difference in this case is that the intention isn't for everyone to do all three difficulties nor has it ever been, SE stated that Savage mode is NOT for everyone and that is perfectly fine. The OP's suggestion is similar to WoW's model of having three raid difficulties and each one has it's own audience that use it, having a raid more difficult than the standard story mode but not as brutally difficult as Savage is a perfectly reasonable request. Using the WoW example again, there are plenty of guilds in that game that only group up and do LFR casually, then there are the midcore guilds that only do the normal mode and maybe try the occasional Mythic difficulty raid to see how they do, then you have the more devoted raiders that spend tons of time doing the most difficult content until they beat it.

There is nothing wrong with more options. Keeping in mind again, the intention is NOT for everyone to do Savage but whatever difficulty they are most comfortable in. If they added a middling difficulty tier, it wouldn't suddenly cause more people to do Savage mode, it could, it's a possibility of course, but it's not a guarantee.

[KarstenS]

The difference in this case is that the intention isn't for everyone to do all three difficulties nor has it ever been, SE stated that Savage mode is NOT for everyone and that is perfectly fine.

But you miss one fact of this game we had with every primal and also Alexander: you must do the lower difficulties before you can do the higher one. In case of Alexander its the worst of all: you have to farm the lower ones if you don't want spend millions in crafted gear.

When you want to do the highest one, you have not the choice to select the one you want. You have to do them all.

[Nezerius]

Thats your opinion.

Back in 2.1 we had 3 times Ifrit, Garuda and Titan (Story, HM, Ex). Two times was ok for me. But my motivation to do them a third time got close to zero.

These examples are laughable, considering most of these various fight modes were vastly different from one another.
Ifrit, Titan and Garuda story modes were all pre-50 introductions to trial like fights, introducing newer players to various mechanics while telling an overall story.
HM modes of these were more difficult, had different mechanics, didn't play the same as the story mode.
EX modes was another increase in difficulty, with added mechanics, and HM mechanics working differently

While you were fighting the same primal in each mode, you weren't doing the exact same fight with the exact same tactics.

There'd be nothing wrong with having, say, Midas (Story), Midas (Normal), Midas (Savage). They could even make it so only Normal is required to enter Savage, allowing players to ignore the Story mode if they want to.

[Khalithar]

But you miss one fact of this game we had with every primal and also Alexander: you must do the lower difficulties before you can do the higher one. In case of Alexander its the worst of all: you have to farm the lower ones if you don't want spend millions in crafted gear.

When you want to do the highest one, you have not the choice to select the one you want. You have to do them all.

Having to gear up is a part of every MMO yes, but a good part of the issue with this game is SE's own design. Imagine if they removed the weekly limit on getting lore tomestones and added the normal mode difficulty with an ilevel higher than the tomestone gear and removed that stupid arbitrary limit of only having one tomestone ring. If that were the case, you would maybe do midas story for the story/quest completion but you wouldn't need it for gear unless you didn't want to farm tomestones that hard or wanted to try gearing up another Job.

The end result being that you could farm your tomestone set at your pace without needing to do midas story mode (more than maybe the one time through) then once you had enough enough 230 gear to meet whatever dps/heal check the medium difficulty raid has, you could begin gearing up that way. Then once you've spent a few weeks farming the medium difficulty you could either move on to something more difficult or try gearing up other classes. In this model, you only really need to farm one difficulty mode raid with the option of moving to something more difficult if you want. This solution adds midcore content, leaves Savage and Story mode as is, and doesn't make you feel forced to farm the lower difficulty raid to gear up the class you want to raid on.

[KarstenS]

if they removed the weekly limit on getting lore tomestones ....

... they would increase the difficulty of the fights, because currently they are not designed with maxed out gear in mind. They are designed for steps inbetween.

[Khalithar]

... they would increase the difficulty of the fights,

Not if they added a third difficulty mode. Something between story mode and savage mode with the early bosses tuned assuming some 230 gear with later bosses tuned assuming full 230+ would be ideal.