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

[Seraphix2407]

what good is making "exciting content" if its content you cannot experience?

Alot of people have interest but the skill isn't there. The problem with FF14 is it doesnt attract enough people whos into raiding, because the raid is simple as a a4 paper.
And yes skill does matter, many and I talk many I know who parser even simple content as 24 man raid, people do 500-600 dps while you have people who do 1500 plus. Imagine if people put some more weights and wipes most likely be less of, because you skip mechanics. I know its somewhat a bad example but I hope you get my point.

If you want i can provide numbers of end-game raiding clears.

Mostlikely quit because it was pretty much like the same thing as coil just in worse wrapping.

[Kallera]

You must not be talking about end-game raiding, because if you are you have no clue what's going on.

The raiding scene is smaller than it was during coil, the amounts of clears T13 vs A4S in the same amount of time is abysmal, Midas clears are better but still far from as much as coil, did people get bored of raiding or did they simply quit, or was it because it's harder than coil? All of them.

If you want i can provide numbers of end-game raiding clears.

The amount of t13 clears was pretty poor even in its own time. you can't just insist the game no longer be for casual players anymore. Keeping raiding out of reach will only cause people to ignore it, and abandon it when it goes too far.

[RobbieH]

The amount of t13 clears was pretty poor even in its own time. you can't just insist the game no longer be for casual players anymore. Keeping raiding out of reach will only cause people to ignore it, and abandon it when it goes too far.

It was, but Alexander clears were by far worse, was just a comparison.

[Granyala]

Mostlikely quit because it was pretty much like the same thing as coil just in worse wrapping.

I could imagine many a raider (that wasn't there for the actual raid experience) quit when
a) gear got meh
b) story got taken care of in a DF-able tourist mode.

Esp b could have hurt savage clear rates. Why bother wiping 200x on a boss that you have already beaten as a weaker version?
I certainly struggled with that question for years in WoW until I finally came to the conclusion that mythic raiding was no longer worth it to me.

Getting a whole new boss and unknown story development can be a powerful motivator on it's own.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad for the tourist mode. Else I would never have seen Alexander from the inside. But it did have a similar effect that LFR had in WoW, in the sense that many of the lower skilled / short on time folks no longer aspire to be a raider in order to get to see content.

That there is nothing to choose between facerolling ANormal in DF and hitting the proverbial brickwall in ASavage surely doesn't help matters either.

[Kerii]

-snip-

What if they shifted things around a bit? Savage mode comes out first and rewards gear tokens and gear, and the normal mode comes out with the catch up patch and only gives gear tokens that take twice as many to get gear. Would that be enough of an incentive for hardcore raiders to care? Plus with stat allocation, the gear might even be able to last longer.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

What if they shifted things around a bit? Savage mode comes out first and rewards gear tokens and gear, and the normal mode comes out with the catch up patch and only gives gear tokens that take twice as many to get gear. Would that be enough of an incentive for hardcore raiders to care? Plus with stat allocation, the gear might even be able to last longer.

Well, then you'd need to truncate the experience in that you'll have a comparatively smaller ilvl jump, due to the lack of options available at the outset. I can't imagine a 20ilvl jump being appealing after having larger jumps since HW.

[Kerii]

Well, then you'd need to truncate the experience in that you'll have a comparatively smaller ilvl jump, due to the lack of options available at the outset. I can't imagine a 20ilvl jump being appealing after having larger jumps since HW.

The crafted gear is the same iLv as the current normal mode gear. That would just replace normal mode gear in the chain. At the start of the raid it would be Crafted -> Currency -> Raid. Then in the off patch would expand to Crafted -> Currency -> Full Raid gear -> Upgraded Currency -> Raid gear. Really the ilv jump is the exact same. You just give the crafted gear slightly better stats since they don't have to compete with the normal mode gear.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

b) story got taken care of in a DF-able tourist mode.

Esp b could have hurt savage clear rates. Why bother wiping 200x on a boss that you have already beaten as a weaker version?

Because they like the challenge? SE split off the story because it gated far more players that were only interested in the story. I doubt raiders care all that much. Most of the ones I know do the harder content for no other reason than they enjoy the difficulty, and seeing whether they can top themselves or not later.

[Brian_]

As said by the president and CEO of Level 5 when he was a guest on a live letter, from his point of view as someone who just enjoys the game, releasing the story mode really killed a lot of the hype and anticipation behind the hardest tier of raiding. There is no doubt that the story version has given many a reason to not bother with Savage.

[Hayward]

As said by the president and CEO of Level 5 when he was a guest on a live letter, from his point of view as someone who just enjoys the game, releasing the story mode really killed a lot of the hype and anticipation behind the hardest tier of raiding. There is no doubt that the story version has given many a reason to not bother with Savage.

I don't buy that for a second. If you gave any raider truth serum (or a fifth of Wild Irish Rose), they'd probably tell you the story never meant anything to them. The only thing they liked about the Coil story was that they could say "We got to see the story and the commoners didn't". That's all. SE did everyone a service by making story mode Alexander, whether you want to admit it or not. The only negative you and others see is that your security blanket, exclusivity, was pulled out from under you.