Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Zumi]

We don't have a way to compare participation rates (because there's no way to get that information for XIV unless SE decide to tell us), but aren't the completion rates for Savage raiding in XIV extremely comparable to the completion rates for Mythic raiding in WoW, despite Mythic raiding having all these additional rewards that Savage doesn't?

Mythic completion rate Its actually something around 0.001% because they have even more casual players. Count only people who raid its something like 1%. So i guess having the highest ilvl and BiS gear drop all in 1 place doesn't make more people beat it. FFXIV the savage difficulty seems fine I see a lot of groups in PF looking for people to do it so there is plenty of interest in doing it.

[Vantol]

My takeaway from what he said is that the problem with low participation rates isn't rewards, it's that most people just don't find hardcore raiding to be fun, making rewards irrelevant.

Totally not true. I was hardcore raider (finishing each Coil 2rd-4th place on Sargatanas) and I knew 6 other good statics who were beating Coil sooner or later. After 3.0 release only 1 static continued, other 5 fell apart and most of players from those static left the game. Only 4 ppl out of those 56 still play the game, and only 1 raids (he keeps saying that challange is reward itself). The reason for those who left was exactly that rewards are not good enough and don't last enough time.

[Thayos]

The reason for those who left was exactly that rewards are not good enough and don't last enough time.

My bad for misinterpreting your meaning.

However, that means the problem is two-fold. Raiders aren't happy with XIV's raiding, and a large portion of players don't like hardcore raiding as the focus of endgame.

Even if rewards in raids were adjusted to be satisfactory for raiders, we'd still have the larger problem of most people not being interested in hardcore raids, which will cause further subscription retention issues until XIV's endgame is diversified.

[Vantol]

Even if rewards in raids were adjusted to be satisfactory for raiders, we'd still have the larger problem of most people not being interested in hardcore raids

It would at least keep raiders in game and make some new people consider raiding, it's a start. If it doesn't hurt anyone, why not do this?

[Thayos]

It would at least keep raiders in game and make some new people consider raiding, it's a start. If it doesn't hurt anyone, why not do this?

No complaints for me. I don't envy e-peens, ha.

At the same time, if endgame is truly diversified, then the raid community would eventually need to come to terms with not being head and shoulders over everyone else. But that's a long way from happening. For now, I wouldn't care if hardcore raiding dropped iInfinity gear.

[Remus]

Not sure what the problem is with giving those that did the hardest content the best loot in the game. They worked hard for it so they deserve to be above the rest for going beyond what most players do.

[Musashidon]

If it doesn't hurt anyone, why not do this?

if you put the best gear in a raid it hurts everyone who doesn't raid. the most you are currently going to get is your 5 ilvls on your weapon. maybe if you got enough people to back up the idea of screwing over everyone who doesn't raid to make it worth risking losing anyone from that game change you may get it eventually.

(other stuff like mounts and such wouldn't be much of a problem) but gear is a big part of why people play.

[Ibi]

So, your argument is that since clear rates are similar we should skimp on standard raid rewards in this game?

I didn't think I needed to spell out the implication, but apparently I was wrong. Thayos understood the point I was attempting to make. Since Mythic having better rewards than Savage doesn't result in a higher clear rate, it seems like a lack of rewards from Savage probably isn't the explanation for its low participation rate.

Factoring in Heroic, since it's rewarded similarly to mythic, participation rates in wow raiding are higher than FFXIV raiding.

Except that Heroic raiding provides almost none of the "proper incentives" that you say raiding "needs".

Cross-referencing your list of all the things that would be considered "proper incentives", Heroic raiding in WoW generally does not:

• award a new mount (Hellfire Citadel is exceptional in that regard)
• award a new title
• provide the highest ilvl gear
• provide gear with a unique appearance

Heroic raiding in WoW does:

• provide gear that helps with the next tier

So, following your logic through, the mounts, titles, highest gear, and unique gear appearances shouldn't actually be necessary to motivate what you consider an acceptable percentage of players to raid.

Mythic completion rate Its actually something around 0.001% because they have even more casual players. Count only people who raid its something like 1%.

MMO-Champion says 0.4% for Blackrock Foundry (I couldn't find data for Hellfire Citadel). For reference, the clear rate for A8S on NA+EU servers is ~0.46%.

[Vantol]

if you put the best gear in a raid it hurts everyone who doesn't raid. the most you are currently going to get is your 5 ilvls on your weapon. maybe if you got enough people to back up the idea of screwing over everyone who doesn't raid to make it worth risking losing anyone from that game change you may get it eventually.

Then you need just, you know ... raid?

That's like definition of raiding - to have means to be better than anyone and to have unique loot. If "raid" doesn't satisfy those 2 conditions, then it has no meaning and no reasons to do (exactly what we have in FFXIV).

[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.