Should anything be done about old Savage content?

[zeth07]

So I just got done sitting in Party Finder for an A8S group which I joined at around 6:30 and by 8:50 the group disbanded before we ever saw 8 people in the group and never went into the content once. A total of 12 players joined that group but never enough to fill it since someone always left after someone else joined because it was taking so long.


Is the only solution to this problem to just constantly sit in PF until you get a group and then magically hope people stick around long enough to clear or get what you want out of it?


Should the developers be doing anything about the OLD Savage content, pre-Stormblood, just so any new players have even a remote chance to get this content done and experience it themselves even unsync'd?


Old Extreme Primals are put into WT, and echo+gear make them faceroll easy, but this isn't necessarily the case for Savage raids which tend to have instant kill mechanics that you can't just skip through power creep.


Duty Finder is never an option and would be basically impossible.


Have the developers ever addressed this in any live letters / interviews that anyone can recall? Or is this kind of a put it out there and forget it situation since it is old content?

[Crescents]

Well first off, if you want to do old Savage raids be prepared to wait, they fill but can take anywhere from 2 to 8 hours, and honestly? what did you expect trying to do it on reset day when most people are doing their weeklys for current content, wait a few days, then try it again if you aren't looking for a complete carry it should fill pretty fast.

[Vnolan]

So I just got done sitting in Party Finder for an A8S group which I joined at around 6:30 and by 8:50 the group disbanded before we ever saw 8 people in the group and never went into the content once.

Because it was A8S. If the party hasn't already cleared or doesn't have much experience with the mechanics, you're looking at a full lockout with no clears, and that's unsynced. If it was A4S or A12s which are easier, it would have filled much faster.

For A8S or other duties that take a while to fill, you need to be patient or you have to start networking with others interested in the same content.

[Aylis]

Have the developers ever addressed this in any live letters / interviews that anyone can recall? Or is this kind of a put it out there and forget it situation since it is old content?

To my knowledge no they haven't addressed it, I don't do savage content but it is something that does need to be addressed. I feel like it is just a put it out there and forget about it, until SE comes up with a reason to shoe horn players back in if there's demand for the older raids. Its an issue SE created for itself in these and a majority of the games other content.

A major lack of long term rewards. Once players get the title, mount, minion, transmog or whatever, that's it, they're basically done with it and have no real reason to go back to it ever again on their own free will. At least until SE brings in the shoe horn. Is tomes I know, but its the same thing really. Once you're capped and done, there's little reason to go back. Along with players wanting the fastest most efficient way of tome farming doesn't help the issue with old savage content at all.

The other being an over reliance on those insta kill mechanics and party based mechanics, like teathers, stack to reduce damage, etc. This is probably going to come out wrong but hear me out, but an over party dependency at all stages doesn't help either, no matter how far advanced you are. What I mean by that is...okay, using my time in EQ. The hardest end game raids. I remember starting out as difficult and many close call situations with 72 players at the raid, to then the same raid being do-able with 34 players, then a party of 6 players, then soloable. With this way new players who never did the raids before could at least experience them by simply out gearing them. Maybe not as they were in their hayday but they could at least see and fight them without needing others who either have zero interest from either just not wanting to, or having done it so many times in the past they just don't care about it anymore, to either finding a partner or trio who may want to do it just for fun. It can be changed if they're willing to break their molds when it comes to designing content.

It's a bad mix issue either way and I doubt its going to change at all.

[HyoMinPark]

So I just got done sitting in Party Finder for an A8S group which I joined at around 6:30 and by 8:50 the group disbanded before we ever saw 8 people in the group and never went into the content once. A total of 12 players joined that group but never enough to fill it since someone always left after someone else joined because it was taking so long.

The main two issues you're facing here is 1. Queuing up for old Savage content, which, in terms of A8S, is still incredibly challenging even at level 70--while you can skip/power through a lot of mechanics, you still have to have a basic understanding of some (notably, Gavel) in order to successfully clear and farm; and 2. Queuing up for old Savage content on a Tuesday when people are either busy with school/work/life, or busy doing their weeklies.

Some people have limited time to play, so they may join the party to see if it goes anywhere, but if it doesn't move in 15~20 minutes, a lot bail to try and get other things done.

Should the developers be doing anything about the OLD Savage content, pre-Stormblood, just so any new players have even a remote chance to get this content done and experience it themselves even unsync'd?

Old Extreme Primals are put into WT, and echo+gear make them faceroll easy, but this isn't necessarily the case for Savage raids which tend to have instant kill mechanics that you can't just skip through power creep.

The main issue with this, is that Savage is still on a completely different level than Extremes. Some of the Coil floors may be trivialized now that we're level 70 (they were back when you were 60), but there are still some that you cannot solo or duo (T9, for example, both the "normal" and "savage" versions). Same for some of the Alexander floors: A4S and A12S are easy to clear now (though if people mess up things in later phases of A12S, it can still get dicey), but A8S is still not something that can be easily barreled through or cheesed. Like I said above, A8S is still extremely challenging; Brute Justice is not a pushover even at level 70.

With the Extremes, I think it's more likely that people attempt to queue into them synced directly (since I've seen many threads about how long it takes for ARR Extremes to pop before, back in HW) compared to Savage floors, so the developers added them into WT to try and keep those queues alive (although, that didn't work as intended at all). But the Extremes also do not require as much coordination as a Savage floor may require, even with Savage progressively getting easier.

I'm not sure if they would ever add them to WT. Would give more variety, I think, and they did add in Coil. So maybe one day. But, until then, just expect any PFs for really old content such as A8S to take a while to fill. Especially during the middle of a current tier.

[RiyahArp]

This is the flip side of making it skill-based instead of time based. You can't really change or require it. If they nerfed it, everyone would complain, and if they required it for a reward, a lot of people probably would dislike it.

[Crescents]

but A8S is still not something that can be easily barreled through or cheesed. Like I said above, A8S is still extremely challenging; Brute Justice is not a pushover even at level 70.

Forgot to mention this, but exactly how I feel. You only see roughly 30% of the fight, no second intermission at all, but even still, if you dont know exactly what to do you wont have enough people up for gavel which is an instant wipe don't expect to go in and it be a "face roll" it is much easier now, but its not something like A4S for example where you learn one mechanic and you can reasonably clear.

[zeth07]

This is the flip side of making it skill-based instead of time based. You can't really change or require it. If they nerfed it, everyone would complain, and if they required it for a reward, a lot of people probably would dislike it.

I really didn't want to mention nerfing it directly cause I know how that would turn out in the conversation but we're talking about very old content that almost nobody is doing. For example some of the other people have mentioned that A4S and A12S are "easier" than A8S so people are more likely to do them and it is less of an issue. While I was specifically referring to A8S as what I was doing, I was just putting it out there that should they adjust this kind of old content so these types of things won't still occur YEARS later.

I have to imagine at this point no one should care or "complain" about them nerfing the content since it is largely irrelevant. If we are talking about exact ways, maybe just not get insta-killed by failed mechanics, do a lot of damage or put debuffs but don't wipe the whole party cause of a mistake nowadays.


Just looking at it from a developers stand point, in almost every other piece of content their answer for dealing with "old content" is 1) Echo 2) Unsync'd + Overgearing and 3) Adding new reasons to do old content. In this particular case none of that works in this situation. It helps but considering the circumstances, it doesn't seem like enough. Now imagine someone trying to do this stuff even later on in the game's life and it'd be so rare it would almost literally be dead content.


And before anyone brings it up, no I don't think something like Ultimate Coil should do this, that is a separate thing entirely and should remain a challenge as such.

[KDSilver]

What is actually sad is :

- the dev team put some efforts and time designing those content that become irrelevant with time because rewards aren't interesting anymore
- new players willing to discover the majority of the content can't because those don't attract people anymore

New/current content will always be the most important part, yes, of course, there's nothing to say about that.
But it doesn't mean imo that old content just stay is the dust.

I'm not only talking about Savage however. But the whole content.
I think they should try to think of a way to make the whole FFXIV content be interesting to do at least one time (or more).
It shouldn't takes them a lot of ressources since old content already exists. Just adding some reward ? A new challenge logs especially for clearing old content with reward such as materia, gils (huge amount), materials, I don't know.
I know Khloe exists already for that purpose, but there are content such as old Savage or Diadem for example that can't be on that book => no one will ever spend that much time for one sticker.

There are so many idea they could find.

Anyway. I really wish they could think about it. Even a slight change would be great.