FFXIV: The State Of Raiding

[Zojha]

And when you die, you have to start a new character - no reviving!

Don't forget the global free for all PvP.

[zosia]

Similar to what people have said here, I have posted this ages ago:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...misconceptions

Alex savage has been some of the worst designed raiding I have ever seen in any game.

What rewards are there for savage raiding? In all honesty, the only rewards are a small vanity item (mount, pet, soon to be a title) and dyable alex gear.

Raiders get no epic story that builds up with every fight you down.
Raiders get no BiS advantage for the next raid tier.
If your group is good enough, you can get 240 before the 3.3 patch. You only have to look through this thread to see many raid teams will not see a midan gob dip or twine before 3.3.

Honestly, it just feeeeels so good to be right! Alex savage raiding has dumpster-ed the raiding community.

No one wanted to do SCoB savage for vanity rewards. What a surprise that a similar reward system did not pan out for raiding in 3.x

You know why LFR works in WoW? Because raiders get showered in amazing rewards that FFXIV has yet to touch.

The ilvl difference in wow raiding gear is superior.
The aesthetics for mythic gear are much more distinct than the lfg gear.
Each wow raid tier comes with multiple mounts, titles, achievements (esp for accomplishing harder feats mid fight), epic BoEs, rare crafting materials).
Wow raids usually incorporate the legendary weapon into the raiding scheme (including LFR so more casual players can complete the quest).

No one wants to raid in this game because sinking 40+ hours into a fight like a4s or a8s to get glamour rewards just aint worth it. You can show up 6 months later, mop up the entire raid tier with 100000% echo and get all the rewards for a fraction of the work.

And don't even get me started on the dev team themselves not being able to beat a4s in it's entirety before releasing it. How does a Dev team think that's a good call? SE, can you use some of that cash shop money to hire decent play testers to vet your fights properly? Looking at how a6s was mismanaged, something tells me the dev team learned very little from gordias.

I predicted the current state of raiding and I can tell you this much: raiding will be dead in this game after the first patch of the next expansion. Raiding needs better rewards (weapons effects, making BiS useful for the next tier, a much higher ilvl in contrast to non-raiding gear), normal mode should come out a few weeks after savage (just like LFR in wow), and ffs can we get enviroments that actually feel like raids again? T1/T3 FELT more like a raid environment than any turn in coil or any floor in alex. This square/circle arena FOR EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER gets to be old fast.

I said this countless times in my previous thread, you only need to look at LOTRO to see what happens to a game when the raiding community gets snubbed/dies. So, unless you want this game to becomes the next LOTRO, I suggest that raiding incentives and design be overhauled for the last installment of alex.

[Melch]

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Itemization, special stats, special effects, special weaponskills that you could unlock by raiding, and higher ilvl would definitely give more incentive for raiding. Also, they should completely remove the normal mode, get a better design for the gear on savage, and a better and more immersive story.

[Hayward]

...

You know as well as I do that kind of exclusivity (and the mentality that comes with it, from the tone of your post) makes MMOs less attractive than they can be (FFXI proved that about as clearly as any).

All this silly talk about segregating servers for "hardcore" players (quotes due to players talking loud and saying nothing) and/or asking for item level differences that would eclipse non-raiders to the point of irreparable game imbalance needs to stop. SE really would shoot themselves in the foot catering to such a small group of players who, in all truth, want to let everyone else know that they're special snowflakes and the rest of us are not.

[Kaurie]

Itemization, special stats, special effects, special weaponskills that you could unlock by raiding, and higher ilvl would definitely give more incentive for raiding. Also, they should completely remove the normal mode, get a better design for the gear on savage, and a better and more immersive story.

I'd love special effects/stats like tier pieces in WoW

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

You know as well as I do that kind of exclusivity (and the mentality that comes with it, from the tone of your post) makes MMOs less attractive than they can be (FFXI proved that about as clearly as any).

All this silly talk about segregating servers for "hardcore" players (quotes due to players talking loud and saying nothing) and/or asking for item level differences that would eclipse non-raiders to the point of irreparable game imbalance needs to stop. SE really would shoot themselves in the foot catering to such a small group of players who, in all truth, want to let everyone else know that they're special snowflakes and the rest of us are not.

I think this is the crux of the problem. Is the SE devs can't implement good rewards for doing difficult content, because the people that can't do/ don't like difficult content will feel left out. So the only way I see anything working is to have servers with different difficulty settings, similar to an offline game. Instead of nerfing the game for everyone they can just nerf it for the people that wan't easy/story mode. Blizzard has even tossed around the idea of having "pristine" servers for WoW after losing 1/2 thier subs and having to shut down Nostalrius. Then the people that don't want to hit max level in 2 days and want more difficult 4 man content ect, can have that. And the casual players can also get what they want. I'm definately not a hardcore raider. But with all the nerfs they did in 3.0, I feel like this game has gotten significantly easier since 2.0. I really don't want to see this trend continue. I am just not interested in that.

[CookieMonsta]

I'm sure this is an old argument, but I feel it's relevance still stands strong. Why can't we have real raids where we actually raid a place? Could you have imagined if we had used dungeons to prepare ourselves gear wise for say raiding Castrum Meridium. That to me was closer to an actual raid especially if you have ever done it at minimum ilvl.

Because Alex NM exists for the casuals. I've been called many names because I firmly believe the story is something to be earnt, not given away freely in a faceroll forgettable dungeon. If people want to experience the story without doing the hardwork, youtube it or watch a stream of a cleared group. No incentive means no work.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

No worries; perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my previous posts in regards to my stance. I believe that raids do have a place in an MMO; they have been a staple for years now. But I think it's time they start looking at other forms of endgame because the raiding style of endgame is becoming tedious for myself and many others I've spoken to. While I understand the whole idea of having raids every cycle, I disagree. Make a raid for those who want it, but each cycle should differ with the content added. While it would make raiders more annoyed with the fact they only have the same content, perhaps the gear would stay more viable and be less of a tiresome experience as it stays relevant longer? I think FFXIV has raiding going through its demise due to how good they're with pushing content out every 3-4 months. It shows the vertical progression problem for a company that can actually chug out content like they do.

The problem is that the only endgame progression in the game, at this time, is raiding. Period. There's nothing else unless you want to play another class and complete all the classes. The only progression other than raiding is the relic/anima quests and I'm forever grateful for that. But I'd like more. And Palace of the Dead seems to be a good step. Diadem could have been a good step but was completely and badly handled. I think a lot of us who don't raid want another alternative in the game instead of their general focus of chugging 8/24 man raids.

My argument is that raiding isn't working well because of two things:

1) They chug so much content out that vertical progression weaknesses is showing up their ugly heads and people feel like they honestly don't need to bash their heads in content to them, feels harder, for such little upgrades/rewards they could get later on.

2) The content itself isn't fun. At all. Gordias and Midas aren't fun story wise for a lot of us and some of us get pulled by the story. That's why we're content with storymode and that's it.

There's just a lot of weird little things that FF does right but kinda breaks the mold of raiding. That's why I'm thinking it's time for them to look at other stuff. I will always agree that there is place for raiding in an MMORPG. But I feel like it's high time they explore other avenues and I'm hoping PofD is a good start.

I do feel some form of hybrid horizontal progression could benefit the game. Perhaps gear that boosts abilities by 3-5% or slightly speeds up cooldowns just to offer a little change in flavour. Although that wouldn't help mitigate the feeling of running the same content over and over again. A personal gripe is how short the story has been. 3.1 lasted maybe 90 minutes or so?

In a strange way, I actually like the idea of LoV in theory. If they streamlined it into an almost Pokemon style mini-game where you could "level" your minions it might have worked. Diadem fell into a similar problem with them not really knowing what to do with it. There is still some potential, but it needs a full overhaul. Way I would like to see it handled is a more meaningful sense of exploration. Hell, toss in some fanservice like us getting to see bits of other Final Fantasy worlds. And make it so enemies scale based on the amount of people actually fighting them.

They seem to be exploring other avenues. We'll have to wait and see whether this attempt turns out better than LoV and Diadem. It really needs to for them to keep the whole variety MMO theme going.

[Iromi]

snip

Wow...one of the best posts I've seen in a long time. Nailed it totally..and yeah, it is already dying and will continue to die if they do not wake up and do something. But you know SE...they only do things when the subs drop severely (look at 1.0) lol

[Yukiko]

SE really would shoot themselves in the foot catering to such a small group of players who, in all truth, want to let everyone else know that they're special snowflakes and the rest of us are not.

Thats what they have already done.
We had Coil, then they made some interviews and asked players about "changes" and we got alexander.
The Problem was that they listened to the wrong group of players which resulted in very long living raid groups to disband.
They have seen the damage output of server first groups and recalculated enrage timers and mechanics.
I will not go that far and say coil was easier, but lets compare it with dancing:
It feels as if alexander needs a lot more steps with a much higher frequency than what we had to dance in coil...