Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[Remus]

More news from the reddit page! This was translated by elevenmile
Enjoy the read

Mosuu-chan: Raiding prospects from now on. Will the format for raiding be the same as Alexander from there on? If so, how will the difference between normal and savage be from there on?

Yoshida: In other words, A question of "Motivation" eh. For 4.0, we are confirmed to go with Normal and Savage format for the specifications as well. Since we have made it this far, and most players are saved by having the normal mode available for players to access, and thanks for normal mode that the amount of players who can access end contents like this from not being able to do so during Bahamut days, and those who gauged interest on Savage content have since increased. So we would like to remain this way. We also understand that this setup has contributed a lot to the community.

And then comes with the differentiation between Normal and Savage...

Mosuu-chan: For Gordias, bosses from floor 1 to 4 saw no changes and therefore visual wise there were no fresh changes, but for Midas floor 4, bosses saw an additional wings and that added a little motivation. These changes are a welcome addition, so it'd be nice if we can have them.

Yoshida: We thought of wanting to do this for Alexander Creator (Tendou-hen, "The Celestial Chapter") as well, but since we have made this to be just a conclusion to the Alexander chapter, we did not get that involved into those changes. Although, for that portion we're still putting in some adjustments (as in making it as flashy as it can be). Although, there will be some slight changes (between Normal and Savage in terms of something that was mentioned by Mosuu-chan above). People who went through Savage should know this by now but the real battle starts when "entering a certain phase", and that was what I meant by that.

During Bahamut era, we have been told a lot from players as well as our co-workers that we have spent far too much cost making a content that only a certain people would go through, and that we should not invest our cost further on this one. Rather, we don't have much staffs for this. Also, we could have done something if we can have about two skilled developers introduced to us, but then it's not like we did not think through it without them as well. We thought of making Floor 1 - 2 to be normal mode, while 3 - 4 would be Savage and so on. Normal would be the usual story, Savage would be the "What if" story, and so on.

We thought of that a lot, but then who would do so...you see. On the other hand, by putting some lever (As in, a form of pseudo incentive in context) into the rewards it will create this "we have do this!" kind of obsessional and forced incentive onto players so we did not go with it. And even we made it easy and made it a child's play it will just take away the interesting part of such a content so we can't do that as well.

To be frank, we're still working our way around this. Considering we would like to put much care on the raiding culture in Japan that we have cultivated. For Alexander:Creator in 3.4, we would like to see the content walkthrough for this, and determine on which aspect should we adjust on, plus where to lower the difficulty, and think further on what to do next for 4.0 raiding content, along Normal/Savage difficulty.

Since we still have some time before the 4.0 raiding content hits so please let us study further on this. That's how much we have been working our way on.

[FoxyAreku]

That's a shame, it would have been smarter to go back to the Coil format. But at least they can apply the lessons they've learned from Alexander to the future.

[Fynlar]

That's a shame, it would have been smarter to go back to the Coil format.

Pls no. I'd rather get the chance to play through content while it's still actually relevant

[FoxyAreku]

Pls no. I'd rather get the chance to play through content while it's still actually relevant

And you would be able to...?

It would just actually take longer than an hour. If you couldn't do Coil while it was relevant, that's more of a you problem, as there were plenty of pugs back then.

[Vantol]

for Midas floor 4, bosses saw an additional wings and that added a little motivation

M - motivation.

Yoshida's decisions are getting worse and worse. Poor raiders ...

[Canadane]

Pls no. I'd rather get the chance to play through content while it's still actually relevant

Nothing would be stopping you.
I too, much prefer a story reward and this made Coil so much better than Alexander in this regards. I'm not striving and failing to get more lore, I'm doing it for a new price if gear marginally equal to what I'm already wearing.

[AutumnsHollow]

I wish they'd at least delay normal mode so it wasn't up during new raid tiers.

[loreleidiangelo]

I wish they'd at least delay normal mode so it wasn't up during new raid tiers.

This is the best compromise, I think, and what World of Warcraft is currently doing with the Emerald Nightmare raid for Legion.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Nothing would be stopping you.
I too, much prefer a story reward and this made Coil so much better than Alexander in this regards. I'm not striving and failing to get more lore, I'm doing it for a new price if gear marginally equal to what I'm already wearing.

Problem is, unless the difficulty is substantially reduced, people who aren't interested in Savage won't do it. Normal mode exists because those same people complained story was gated by high endgame raid content-- something the vast majority of players do not participate in.

I do hope they make it so normal isn't a requirement. Plenty of raiders I know dislike having most of the fight spoiled since they have to clear normal.

I wish they'd at least delay normal mode so it wasn't up during new raid tiers.

Mhm. That would be a good solution. Push Normal into the "catch up" patch. Raiders get a spoiler free fight and non-raiders get their story, albeit a little later.

[Rikku1987]

Thats good.
Even todays normal mode is too hard for few guys so better stick to 2 difficulties.
Only 1 difficulty would be too easy for 20% and still too hard for 50%.

I'd be fine with 3 difficulty levels even but i guess savage on minimum level is #3