Thread: DualShocker Interview - 3.5 pt 2 next week, supposedly

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

To me, this suggests that the game might be better off without the raiding tier since it is the raiding meta that is distorting the rest of he game. I'm not suggesting that raiding should, or will be dropped, but so many points in discussions come down to whether or not the proposed change will work for raiders. To me, that says that much of the core eleent of the game is predicated on raiding, and honestly, I think that's unhealthy for the game as a whole. We've been suffering this DPS meta for almost the entire life of FFXIV since ARR. It's time to go in another direction IMHO.

Because no other content matters in terms of balancing. Normal modes and dungeons are complete facerolls. You scarily even need to know your rotation, nevermind anything else. Without Extremes and Savage, the devs have to develop brand new content. Keep in mind, those harder difficulties are more or less the same fights scaled up. It's a simple task to scale existing fights whereas eliminating them completely means you're guaranteed to lose a large portion of your playerbase. The impact wouldn't just be felt on the raid scene either. No raids means you have no need of pots, food or crafted gear, thus putting a sizable dent in the crafting market. You then have to ask what keeps even the casual players interested? If Alexander Normal and Dun Scaith were all we got. Well, you certainly don't need 260 or 270 gear. What motivation do they have to repeatedly run content? There's a massive trickle down effect to removing Savage.

We're suffering this DPS meta because the devs do not offer an alternative. Fight designs all revolve around damage and nothing else. Healers are too powerful, thus they have ample down time and are expected to DPS. Tanks have little use of their tank stance because every fight is entirely predictable. After prog, you'll know when to swap and will inevitably spend the vast majority without it. That all said, plenty of players like the harder PvE focus. You can't just have a game of entirely faceroll content or people will get bored.