Quote Originally Posted by Renato View Post
And I totally get that...But at the same time, this wasn't the case before since ARR and HW expansion. Why change it now to give Savage Raiders some kind of reward in the form of a fight and locking normal players out when they weren't doing that before? Savage raiders could have still gotten that fight and would have gotten a better reward/trophy in the form of a weapon or gear that normal players couldn't achieve. THAT was the real reward in my opinion. I can accept that fact that I will never have that gear but to completely lock out a portion of the a fight just seems dumb to me.
Because raiders requested something unique for them. Creator severely reduced the challenging aspect of Savage, thus Neo Exdeath and God Kefka were an attempt to keep Savage feeling special. While Ultimate filled the challenge demand. Bear in mind, Savage inevitably becomes incredibly easy to unsync. Neo Exdeath will be a shell of his former self if attempted i370 or i400 gear. So they opportunity for people to gather friends together and clear it down the road remains. Ultimate, on the other hand, purposely utilized preexisting assets to limit its development cost and time. The actual impact on other content due to its implementation is likely very minimal. I'd argue maybe the dungeon omitted in odd numbered patches at most accounts for Ultimate.

From a more financial perspective, I suspect they made this changes to keep raiders subscribed. It's a very common tread that many raiders either enter a raid log cycle or simply leave entirely until the next tier. They have little to no reason to bother with odd numbered patches otherwise.

At the end of the day, this is a theme park MMO, which entails "something for everyone." Virtually every aspect of this game caters towards the casual playerbase. Raiders simply want our slice of the piece too, however small it may be.