Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[elemental10]

How about......

SE makes something REALLY hard and challenging (think BEYOND Savage and more to do with precise mechanics AND strict DPS check) and you need these special weapons you can get with our tokens. The weapons have special stuff on them (I like when something has an upside and a downside, like +50 STR but -10% HP but not necessarily this style), and the effects will only activate when you're in that instance.

Oh yeah. Sounds like something we already have....... AHEMMORALEINPVPAHEM

Just a thought. It IS a PVE game (as a lot of people has already announced it with a megaphone or without), so how about we make something that's already in the game but into the CORE of the game (which hopefully means clearing instances and get rewards).

Otherwise, we're all probably looking at an endgame where our ilvl is 600ish but our stats are... in equal percentage as to when we first equipped the job.

[Yukiko]

How about......

SE makes something REALLY hard and challenging (think BEYOND Savage and more to do with precise mechanics AND strict DPS check) and you need these special weapons you can get with our tokens. The weapons have special stuff on them (I like when something has an upside and a downside, like +50 STR but -10% HP but not necessarily this style), and the effects will only activate when you're in that instance.

And those weapons we can buy from mogstation -> Congratulation, we have one of many pay2win games!

In 1.x we had "Nael Deus Darnus" where it was recommended to have and use "Lunar Curtains" (a consumable item).

[Zojha]

The reality is there really are only a few things in this game that have true, natural longevity and actually help build the bonds and friendships that keep people immersed within the community.

And all three of those...are minority nichés.

Crafting, especially endgame crafting, requires too much effort and dedication for most people (Or maybe it just isn't fun?), which is why there's little competition for high end crafts even on the more populated servers like Balmung, but the few who do put up with it tend to make a killing with oligopoly pricing.
PvP is renown for being dead on NA/EU servers. Long queue times no matter what you queue for, typically only one game mode gets played at all.
And raiding, well...how much of the total population raids? How much are even doing extreme primals while they're current, for that matter? I don't know, I only hear of permanently abysmal clear rates across the board (When compared to the total population of able 60s). Only about 60% cleared Alex "normal" IIRC.

I find that rather curious to be honest. Maybe it's time to invent "fun"/mainstream content with longevity?

[Granyala]

But, from those three things, I think the one with the obvious widest appeal is raiding.

Hate to burst your bubble here but: No it is not and it never has been.
Only a tiny fraction of the playerbase (< 5%) raids Mythic in WoW.
WoW is MUCH more raid centric than FF, so I'd expect the # of people that participate in savage to be equal or even less.
Bleeding edge raiding isn't and never has been popular with the masses.

What is popular are the normal raid modes (and extreme mode primals to a lesser extend) that can be done via duty finder or PF.
It's the same ting in WoW when you look at the numbers for normal (PF) and LFR (DF) raiding.

[Brian_]

I missed the part where I said HARD-CORE PROGRESSION raiding.

Just because the NA scene is currently in a state of disrepair where their mid-core and casual raiding population have been shredded to pieces by a complete and total lack of content that caters to them doesn't mean that they never existed.

But if people want to try and say raiding isn't the core aspect of this game, then remove EX-trials, remove 24-mans, remove Coil from your 2.X memory, and remove Alexander from HW. Instead, you can have more Diadem and more dungeons that you spam for weekly tomestones used to purchase now meaningless gear. You can have more Postal Moogle quests and more Beast Tribe grinds.

Look at the actual census data we have. More than half of the active 60s who cleared HW's story went on to clear Alexander. That's definitely not a minority. Even if we're looking at Savage, when looking at the JP bubble the SE devs reside in, they still had a ~7% clear-rate for A4S across all JP servers and a 16% clear rate on their largest server. That's just clear rate. That's not considering the much larger population that attempted the content. For content as difficult as A4S was, I'd say that a clear-rate that high probably represents a significantly larger raiding population.

But, returning to my point, it is about content with actual longevity and depth that can attract and retain players. For the content i listed -- Raiding, Crafting, and PvP, when the content finds its mark, it hooks people and keeps them playing the game for a long time. The same cannot be said for a lot of other content this game offers. I have not met a single person who is addicted to Lords of Verminion or Diadem and only logs on to queue for that. As such, I see no issue with further developing and incentivizing content that can retain players.

[Granyala]

I missed the part where I said HARD-CORE PROGRESSION raiding.

Sorry my dear but that and only that IS raiding.
I don't consider hopping into void ark or clearing Alex normal with DF randoms "raiding".

Raiding is done with a guild or a cooperation of guilds with an as static roster as possible an progress that spans over weeks if not months. That only applies to raiding savage/extremes(to a lesser extent) because everything else can be cleared with PuGs in one session.

It's no secret that the actual raiding content in FF has always been "barebones" and few in Encounter numbers. Which is why I perceive FF-XIV as a lot less raidcentric compared to WoW.

I do agree that the content for the lesser skilled but still organized "midcore" segment (comparable to WoWs heroic (former normal mode) raids) is currently missing, or rather underserved by getting one extreme mode primal per patch.

[Brian_]

I think it's stupid to base your definition of a raid on the degree of commitment it requires. If you needed a static group and weeks of progression to clear a 4 man dungeon, would you suddenly categorize that as a raid? Are people who are limited to PF suddenly not raiders because they aren't a part of a guild or static? Are A5S-A7S no longer raids because you can progress through them with proper preparation in less than a week since that's the cut-off you specified?

I click on my DF tab, see the raid tab, and that is what a raid in FFXIV is. I see their raid finder tab and that is what a raid is. That's SE's objective definition of a raid in this game. You can be an elitist and claim ownership over the title of raider but that doesn't change the actual categorization of this game's content and what I was saying about it.

[Zojha]

Sorry my dear but that and only that IS raiding.

I must admit, I, too, kinda assumed "static" raiding was meant, not things that can be cleared within a week tops via pugs (Like EX trials/24 man raids/normal modes), as those... do not exactly have a whole bunch of longevity and therefore do not have the community building aspect to them.

As for the numbers on longevity raids, well...final coil clear rate was 4,5 on Gilgamesh IIRC, which was the top server out of all NA and EU combined. About 2% average. Far shot from the japanese chocobo at ~16% and like 10% overall. Unofficial numbers, unfortunately, but it fits the current scenario as well, so it might be valid. There's no doubt the raiding situation looks brighter in the JP bubble, but I'm still disinclined to consider it the core of the game. The core of the game is pug-content IMO.

[Brian_]

I think most people despise PuG content and DF/PF toxicity.

To me, the core of this game is small-community content. It's content that allows a group of friends that keep in contact through FC or LS to have fun and hopefully expand and sustain their clique. Dungeons are a bit too small and restricted due to role limits to really support a slightly larger group of friends. Savage raiding has moved away from that in a sense because you can no longer value friendship over skill if you want to progress whereas the difficulty of Coil was tuned to allow for a static of varying skill to clear. Though, if you can find a group of friends on the same page in terms of goals and skill, Savage is great.

So, I don't know why you would say things like EX-trials and Weeping City have no longevity. I frequently end up doing EX-trials to help friends clear / farm, and do Weeping City at least weekly for the materia / glamour or alt gear. Some of the most fun I get in this game is from going into Weeping with a full group of friends and just messing around. The content still has enough bite to keep you awake and it's easy enough to not be stressful. It's a good break from Savage.

[Zojha]

So, I don't know why you would say things like EX-trials and Weeping City have no longevity.

Because if I were to include them, I'd encounter an issue: Why exactly are hunts, dungeons and the diadem not included? Those, too, can be done with friends, two of them even with a larger group. Sure, they are easy enough to be pug'd, but so are EX trials/24 man/normal raids. And as we all know from Ozma wipes and whines, many people do in fact consider this difficulty rather stressful already.

And if you consider those to be a good break for Savage, wouldn't conversely dungeons be a good break from EX trials or normal raids for a less skilled person in the exact same manner? Perhaps the hunt zerg even be a good break from dungeons for even less skilled people? Would not all group content ultimately have the same effect to varying degrees?