Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Alym]

Here is the problem though, It may have the highest item level for 3.2 but people already know they can get the highest by just waiting until 3.3 which makes people not bother for savage. The weapon might be 5 ilvl higher but people are not going to go through A8S just for 5 ilvl when that is just 1 weapon damage.

But this is the exact way that Coil worked and there were no complaints then about the reward structure. As Vantol mentioned, his friends did Coil and enjoyed it but with Alex, because everyone can see the story and get weaker and undyeable versions of the same gear, the reward structure is poor. This means that exclusive glamour and story are what he and his friends were after. If not having exclusive access to those things means that raiding is horrible now, all it says is that they didn't actually find the raiding enjoyable. The looting, glamour, and story are available in normal and can be made available in even more content that would still be fun even if it didn't have the looting, glamour, and story. That's my point. Maybe raiding isn't failing because of the rewards, but because Alex Savage is not fun and, by extension, maybe raiding isn't actually that fun.

This is the heart of the matter. Alex Savage is not fun, but it's not because Alex Normal exists, in my opinion.

You say Raiders lost nothing but your incorrect they lost exclusive story for raiding. Some people enjoyed raiding and progressing through coil to enjoy the story. Also if people are happy with just story why not just have Savage release first with story but then release normal mode in the catch up patch because that is all they care about.

Semantics, I guess. To me, this is like saying you lost air because someone else started breathing. Raiders didn't lose the story, it's just that more people now have access to it. As for when they release normal, I have no opinion on that. You'd have to ask SE why they release normal and savage at the same time. My guess is that they don't want to leave the largest portion of their playerbase behind - the non-raiders, but who knows?

[Remus]

snip

I see quite a few people say that Alex Savage is terrible because the exclusive story is gone, the rewards are not very great because catch up patch pretty much gives you the same ilvl so whats the point and SE some reason for it would be a good idea to listen to people only at fanfest to increase the difficulty of raiding to the point where midcore can hardly do it. Then they released a fight where they couldn't finish the fights and properly test them playing out how the players would do it and only done certain parts of the fight and A3S and A4S were born and killed the raid community.

[zosia]

Semantics, I guess. To me, this is like saying you lost air because someone else started breathing. Raiders didn't lose the story, it's just tha tmore people now have access to it. As for when they release normal, I have no opinion on that. You'd have to ask SE why they release normal and savage at the same time. My guess is that they don't want to leave the largest portion of their playerbase behind - the non-raiders, but who knows?

I don't think you get how much more awesome a story is when you have to work week after week to get all the cut scenes. With midas normal, you get all the cut scenes day one. There is no epic build up. There is no epic feeling of triumph. There is literally a troll bard telling you it was harder than you remember.

When people say they lost the story, they lost all that I described. Midas normal is just like watching the cut scenes on youtube. It does not feel epic, it does not feel earned. It feels like some cheap trick, just like with HM and EX primals. Why even bother with a raid story at all at this point? That's what we lost.

There is a reason why LFR always had a late release in wow, blizz did not want to spoil the story or the raid for raiders. SE took a big steamy one on the raiding community going from coil to alex and there was never any concessions made to the raiders for it.

[KarstenS]

But this is the exact way that Coil worked and there were no complaints then about the reward structure.

The difference is: With coil we had no gear reset at the start of a new tier.

Alex Savage is not fun, but it's not because Alex Normal exists, in my opinion.

The normal mode right at the start did its part to destroy the atmosphere of the raid. For Alexander Savage you had to do the normal mode to unlock it. You had to farm it for gear. It destroyed the entire feeling of an exploration. An then you enter Savage. There is not much new. No surprises. You already knew nearly everything. No exploration.

There is still the challange. But I miss the other stuff really hard. And BTW: The exclusive glamour too. The normal mode should not hand out the same glamour as Savage. PvP players have their exclusive glamour, so why not for Savage?

[zosia]

no the definition is to do challenging content as a group.

the reward is based on what the game deems it to be. like in 2.0 raids gave the same exact gear as tomes did but then up'd the ilvl of the weapon by 5 to appease the raiders alittle.




it's a video game noone needs gear neither you nor me, but we all want it.

as long as it gets them more subs they are going to keep letting people stay as strong as raiders.

Well, we lost over half the raiding community within a year, I think it's time to start examining why raiders keep leaving this game. As much as you want to believe it, the incentives are not there and it's costing this game subs.

[Musashidon]

Well, we lost over half the raiding community within a year, I think it's time to start examining why raiders keep leaving this game. As much as you want to believe it, the incentives are not there and it's costing this game subs.

it's costing the game subs it can lose as, once casuals start actually jumping ship we will see real numbers drop.

I won't deny that casuals outweigh raiders because your right. With that said though they have been appealing to casuals for awhile and the population is still going down with each patch so is appealing to only casuals really working? They have been doing it for 3 years and quite a few casual friends of mine have left or are tired of tomestone -> Farm tomestone -> Get gear wait till next even patch and repeat.

no idea if it is actually working as SE won't post real numbers how who players or doesn't.

[zosia]

it's costing the game subs it can lose as, once casuals start actually jumping ship we will see real numbers drop.

If casual jump ship because all raid gear is 5 ilvls higher, then maybe they should leave the game? That seems something pretty petty to plant your flag in when you consider how hard raiders work for their gear.

[Alym]

Apart from exclusive story and bosses/arenas, Coil had the same reward structure as Alex Savage. Tome Gear + 10 ilvls for drops, access to tome upgrade gear for an entire patch before non-raiders got them, and BiS weapons until relic caught up in the catch-up patch after. They seem to have abandoned the idea of relic ever being BiS now and offer a mount in A4S, so Alex Savage has bigger rewards over Coil, too.

If you and your 54 friends all stopped raiding during Alex for it not being rewarding enough, what were the big rewards in Coil that kept you all enraptured that Alex currently lacks? Exclusive access to the Coil story, arenas and bosses? Exclusive access to raid gear glamour? If 55 people quit raiding because they no longer had exclusive access to what's usually considered "casual" parts of the game (story and glamour), how can they claim to even like raiding? It just seems like you all did it to not miss out. I don't really want to play a game that makes you play parts you don't enjoy for fear of missing out. That's just me, though.

If people need big shiny lures to raid and will ragequit if they don't get them, maybe raiding just isn't that fun of an activity to begin with. Maybe, like Thayos said, raiding should not be the sole focus. Let's include activities that people want to do without needing to have exclusive rewards attached. It would make for a far better game for many more people and would add a form of horizontal progression people crave if all the activities rewarded BiS-tier gear.

This is coming from someone working on A8S at the moment.

[Vantol]

If you and your 54 friends that all stopped raiding during Alex for it not being rewarding enough, what were the big rewards in Coil that kept you all enraptured that Alex currently lacks?

First to say Yoshida promised Coil gear to be still relevant in 3.0 and also promised ilvls to slow down, so we thought we can just get to 60 and raid Alex in Coil gear (eh?). And second, the real problem, no one expected SE to drop "unsync" thing on us. We spent sooo much time beating Savage Coil to have those unique titles till the end of game. Now anyone can have it, no value in it.

Exclusive access to the Coil story, arenas and bosses?

That too. What's wrong with exclusive content when you put so much time and work into getting it?

[Zojha]

What's wrong with exclusive content when you put so much time and work into getting it?

From a developer point of view:
What's the point of putting effort into content only a fraction of the playerbase will ever see? That's like making a product for a tiny market at the same or bigger cost you could make a product for a big market - with the same payout per product, the sub fee.