Are the raid tiers "too hard?"

[Morningstar1337]

(Also a non-raider)

I feel like for the next version, if Raiders want to raid the savage version, they have to clear the Previous tier first.

To be more clear:

• The First raid (Savage) for obvious reasons only needs the Story-mode version to be cleared at worse
• The Second raid(Savage) however would require players to clear the last floor of the previous raid in Savage.
• The Third raid (Savage) would likewise have a similar requirement; clearing the last floor of the previous raid in Savage.

The problem I see with this is for people thatstarted raiding when the 2nd/3rd tier is up. In this case I would propose removing the lock on the 2nd tier when the 3rd tier is out (and unlocking the 3rd tier when the next xpac is out) or leaving it as is and use it to test a player's dedication.

The one think i should also say is they when making niche content, expect the results to be scaled down, but as long as they find Clear rates unsatisfactory then nerfs will be inevitable.

[ADVSS]

1st raid: Bahamut still there and about to wake up
2nd raid: We need the magick cheese, uplander.

sounds really hard and challenging, right? Love the gold background to every floor, it really makes it feel like superstar stuff

more seriously: how well are shortcuts implemented from coil vs alexander? it seems to me that coil would let a raid team cut the crap moreso than alex does. alex seems like a bad endurance run, where you are already burnt out before you get to the final boss. Maybe give raids more lee-way. So you killed the four musketeers, ok you can continue to wipe on the big boss the rest of the week. I'm only offering contrasts whether they seem right, or effective idk. Just seems logical to me.

[Rikku1987]

It's not too hard but ...only 4 encounters. It would be fine if there would be some midcore content but everything you touch in this game out of savage(and current EX primal) is just too easy even for casual/non-raiders.

We need Midcore content, not as hard as savage but still a little challenging. Old turns(A1s-A4s) are obsolete and overnerfed due to ilvl increase, echo and mechanic nerfs,but its difficulty now is not savage, i'd call it Midcore content(somewhere between EX primals and current savage turns)... sadly there's no reason to enter them except A4s for the mount.

[Lambdafish]

My issue with alex savage is not its difficulty but its rewards. Compared to coil, what happened is savage got harder AND less rewarding. Yes, it still gave top tier gear, but the gear was neither interesting or unique (the same gear could be gotten, and would have already been forced on you by alex NM gear progression), and you also didn't get the story tied to Alexander through the savage raids. Because of this, it became not only harder to beat the content, but also harder to find people to beat the content with (then the server jumping happened and the devs started to notice).

• The First raid (Savage) for obvious reasons only needs the Story-mode version to be cleared at worse
• The Second raid(Savage) however would require players to clear the last floor of the previous raid in Savage.
• The Third raid (Savage) would likewise have a similar requirement; clearing the last floor of the previous raid in Savage.

With the current clear rates, this would be the final bullet to kill the raid scene for good. It's a terrible idea.

[Lovescake]

as a raider i can agree with alot of what you guys say, even the non raiders seem to think in a similar way about how the content is meant to be challenging, the rewards i will agree though have been a bit.. underpar, the gear is available from normal mode, except its a dyable version (which alot of people also complained about since they said the normal gear sets should be dyable?!?) as well as the catch up patch basically kills the raid scenes by offering raid equivelant gear (despite it not being a "best in slot piece, it is still on par with raid gear) which basically makes all the work done pretty pointless.

[Reinha]

Are the raid tiers "too hard?"

I think the answer depends on what the purpose of savage raids is in this game.

Is it supposed to be a challenging mode of game play available to most players at the end of the progression chain? In that case, it's too hard because not all players can meet the scheduling and composition requirements while it's still current content. What I mean by that is, compare it to the difficulty of extreme trials. They are challenging but still quite possible to do without a static and with less optimal comps like WHM / AST.

Or is savage rather supposed to be a mode of game play that is challenging even to the best players in the world, requires a carefully thought out comp made of FoTM jobs, puts immense pressure on statics to the point where some of them break apart, is virtually impossible to do with a PuG until months of gear growth has nerfed it and even then remains so hard that the majority of people don't even care to try it? In that case it is just the right difficulty.

I don't think the rewards have much to do with how many people give it a try. When content is fun to do people will do it regardless, and when content is not fun or accessible people won't do it even if it dropped everything they've ever wanted. That's not to say the rewards shouldn't be improved for completing the most difficult mode in the game. I'm saying it won't have an effect on how many raiders there are.

[Lovescake]

I think the answer depends on what the purpose of savage raids is in this game.

Is it supposed to be a challenging mode of game play available to most players at the end of the progression chain? In that case, it's too hard because not all players canmeet the scheduling and composition requirements while it's still current content. What I mean by that is, compare it to the difficulty of extreme trials. They are challenging but still quite possible to do without a static and with less optimal comps like WHM / AST.

Or is savage rather supposed to be a mode of game play that is challenging even to the best players in the world, requires a carefully thought out comp made of FoTM jobs, puts immense pressure on statics to point where some of them break apart, is virtually impossible to do with a PuG until months of gear growth has nerfed it and even then remains so hard that the majority of people don't even care to try it? In that case it is just the right difficulty.

that is mainly issued by player competence though, party finder groups can kill content in savage, it's been proven. (albeit, its mainly in JP) but even on odin ive seen pug groups for a5-7s as well as a few for people wanting to practice a8s. it just requires people to know their job, of which then it becomes less of an issue to kill the fights.. also we can't compare an end game raid to an extreme trial under any circumstance, and if we were going to, people complain about them just as much for difficulty. (remember the thordan fiasco despite it being extremely well received in terms of difficulty?) and as for your second point, you've severely over-exaggerated the raid contents push, the content is usually designed around the lowest ilvl available given in at a patch cycle. e.g: 220 for midas. the content is relatively challenging, but it doesnt exactly require a "well thought out composition" and it certainly isnt needed for "Months of gear growth" to down these either for pugs, because ability in raid is down to an individual mindset, if you can pull your own then you can do the content. its just mainly execution as a unit rather than an individual from most cases.

[KorenA]

I don't think it's hard but what's the incentive? People did coil for awesome looking gear for bragging rights and story and to see the next part in the story line. Alexander is a copy of each floor with no love. The fights are boring looking with the environment. I actually enjoyed fighting trash in coil, it gave me a sense of immediate action upon entering a vast multi colored map, vs being inside a plain robot who is supposed to have a city inside. I think SE needs to step up the design and story. Give a actual incentive to raid. Don't make it hard where people cannot enjoy it, but at least give it passion. Just my 2 cents...

[DGladius]

Here's my opinion on what I would like raids to be.
- 5-7 bosses per set (even though I know the team probably wouldn't be able to design more than 4 per set for some reason.) and have other bosses to kill on the side (eg extreme primal/trial fights) with relevant gear.
- The savage mode and story mode to be released either at the same time or savage 1-2 weeks earlier. You don't have to clear normal to unlock savage.
- Gear from story should not be good enough to grind for to help with gearing up for savage. Story is for ppl who don't want to do hard raids. There isn't a need for them to have savage raid level gear. There's already gear from dungeons, tomestones and 24 man raids etc to get aside from story mode raid.
- Raid gear should be obtained from beating actual hard bosses, crafting and the highest tomestone currency. Extreme/trials should drop weapons, tokens and currency to buy different armor and accessories at appropriate level for savage.
- savage mode should have gear look very different from story mode gear, be more relevant in terms of how strong it is to prepare for the next set, have titles/mount granted. The people who put in the time to get better as a player and work hard as a team to defeat difficult bosses deserve good rewards.

I know most of these is only possible if the dev team can put out more hard raid bosses than just 4 bosses per set so there is actually more to do for raids. But this is what I would like to see.

- to get players and new players to know how to play their jobs, I would've liked job quests to actually teach you the new skills you learned and how to incorporate them with skills you have learned already into the jobs general rotation and have them practice their rotation to complete the job quests.

[Crushnight]

Personally i feel savage does need more incentive to really go into it because atm it only has the challenge factor when compared to rest of the game's content.
A few ways SE could improve this (and this is my opinion) are:
- have savage be every even patch(raid patch) and story mode every odd patch(catch up patch) this to give incentive for raiders being only ones to get the story for the 1st 3 months but still not isolate people who want the story themselves they just have to wait longer if not willing to put the effort for savage content.
-with the above change also bump up gear recieved from dungeons and story mode to go with the fact it is gear to help you not just glamour
-remove all colour(life) from story mode gear you wear grey blank armour/cloth with barely any detail this is to give the gear reward from savage more purpose to glam fans (myself included )
- give titles/mounts to those that clear each floor make every floor feel more worthwhile to clear.