Anyone else concerned by the extremely low skill ceiling?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

That's what happens when people get spoiled after years of being able to faceroll the content without putting effort into it.
Imagine if you could get away with only putting 10% of effort into your real life job. It would be really annoying to have to start committing to it eventually. Yet sacrifices must be made.



It's harder to clear stuff in pugs obviously, but i'm using statics as a metric because it's easier to gauge their performance since you have the same 8 people who play together on a regular basis.
What I'm saying is that if the average group took 500 hours to clear the raid back in pre-Creator days, nowadays it takes them 100. And that's proven by the fact that we have thousands more clears than we did back then, meaning the content DID get way easier and more accessible to everyone.

FFLOGS was a lot less used back then.

[Wegente]

FFLOGS was a lot less used back then.

Are you implying there were way more clears back then as well? Are you saying that official data like this one is all false then?

[MariaArvana]

Are you implying there were way more clears back then as well? Are you saying that official data like this one is all false then?

I wouldn't exactly count Gordias as some kind of shining beacon of difficulty when one fight's dps check was severely overtuned to a good 80% of the player base at the time, and the other was mathematically impossible to beat in entry level gear if you executed the fight the intended way. (Several of the world first raiders on Mainpulator were mentioning seeing enrage cast as early as 30s into final phase on the 1st/2nd weeks before weapons were available, or something to that effect.) Midas is a better representation of the post-coil, pre-creator era, and even then it was only a little over two weeks.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today. On top of many, many QoL changes that helped speed up progression (Cooldowns resetting every wipe that was implemented in Creator so you no longer had to do nothing but wait for literal minutes at a time.) better standardized markers (most mechanics that do certain functions (stack, spread, etc.) tend to have standardized markers now, whereas back in the old days it was a relative free-for-all and groups would have to spend more time arbitrarily discerning what certain markers did.) On top of all of that, just plain experience. When Gordias came out, there was only ARR's raid fights worth of experience to build up against. Now, most of the top raiders have been in the game across multiple expansions, having experienced the full spectrum of raid tiers since then.

Outside of creating complex puzzle mechanics, there's not much you can do to slow down the best raiders in this game outside of a large overhaul of the combat system.

Also, all the recent bfa raids took less than two weeks, most of them took less time to beat than UCOB did as a note.

UCOB - 11 days.

Uldir (8 days), Dazar'alor (7 days), crucible (9 days). Only Palace has lasted longer than UCOB at 12 days.

Savage is fine where it is. If people want more challenge Ultimate will keep groups occupied for long periods of time. Even my own group, which had 5/8 people already cleared Ultima Weapon, still took well over three weeks to get our first clear, and we're currently working on week 4 of our UCOB prog.

[Wegente]

I didn't realise we talking about the progress of literally a handful of guilds in the entire game. I thought we were talking about how hardcore guilds in general fare in progression, given that was what was being talked about when I entered this conversation

I used the world first clears as an example because that's how you evaluate the difficulty of a content. When Gordias was cleared by Elysium after around 1 month, most of the playerbase couldn't clear it even several months afterwards.
Because if the world first players took that long, then the more casual playerbase wouldn't have a chance of clearing it before the next raid tier came out.

On the other hand, if the world first is claimed only 12 hours after the tier release, like what happened with Eden, that means the tier is going to be very easily approachable even by the casual playerbase, especially after they get more gear.

What this means is in FFXIV you're far less likely to waste several minutes on a pull only to call for a wipe, because you usually res and just keep going, mechanics permitting. You can even res multiple times and keep going, and even still get a kill.

That's because the DPS checks have become a joke nowadays, and you can clear most fights on the first week even with multiple deaths.
This wasn't the case in Gordias and this wouldn't be the case if the bosses had more HP. If Titan had had its HP buffed by 15% or even just 10%, I'm sure nobody would have cleared the first week, and maybe even the second.

Yet, if the tuning is so lenient, you're going to see clears very early on because you can just ignore mechanics and healer LB3 for example, to get through them.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today.

They would, but they would definitely not take just one day to clear.

The CD resets only affected the time you had to wait between pulls when you finally reached enrage, because before that you would chain-pull regardless since DPS was not the concern before reaching the end of the fight.
And defensive CDs like Hallowed could just be swapped around if they weren't ready yet.

The DPS checks and healing checks were harder, mechanics were more punishing and insta-wipe most of the time, like with bosses getting damage up stacks if you failed them.

Also, all the recent bfa raids took less than two weeks, most of them took less time to beat than UCOB did as a note.

That's still more than a week longer than what Savage clears take today, which is one day or two at most. And I'm pretty sure WoW has been out for a bit longer than FFXIV, so people know how to play that game.

[Penthea]

That's because the DPS checks have become a joke nowadays, and you can clear most fights on the first week even with multiple deaths. This wasn't the case in Gordias

I don't know why you are using Gordias as an example of "better" raiding. It was a mistake. SE even admitted this. The release of content as difficult as that was severely mistimed with Gordias. Coils was no walk in the park but it didn't prepare you for Gordias. None of the HW pre-Alex content prepared you for Gordias. It was so highly tuned that killing one of the bosses was literally impossible without farming for gear first.

It's not good design to be unable to beat a boss with entry level gear even if you're among the best players in the entire game. It really cheapens the idea of a challenge when the wall isn't skill based, but is instead ilvl based. If you lack skill you can keep trying until you improve. If you lack gear then you need to stop, go elsewhere, and come back later. Take a guess as to which one competitive raiders tend to prefer.

But SE didn't completely abandon difficulty and requirements as high as Gordias. We see it with Ultimate now. However unlike Gordias Ultimate is gated behind content that legitimately trains you to be good enough for it. It's in a place in the progression ladder that actually makes sense.

I understand wanting content to be more challenging, and I'm not against this idea, but if you want to be taken seriously by both other players and SE, stop using Gordias as a reference point for good content. It is widely regarded as poorly balanced by both players and the devs.

Midas is a better representation of the post-coil, pre-creator era, and even then it was only a little over two weeks.

Pretty much.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today. On top of many, many QoL changes that helped speed up progression (Cooldowns resetting every wipe that was implemented in Creator so you no longer had to do nothing but wait for literal minutes at a time.) better standardized markers (most mechanics that do certain functions (stack, spread, etc.) tend to have standardized markers now, whereas back in the old days it was a relative free-for-all and groups would have to spend more time arbitrarily discerning what certain markers did.) On top of all of that, just plain experience. When Gordias came out, there was only ARR's raid fights worth of experience to build up against. Now, most of the top raiders have been in the game across multiple expansions, having experienced the full spectrum of raid tiers since then.

Cds resetting is a serious game-changer on its own. No more standing around waiting for them to reset for several minutes, even after an ill-fated pull that ended early. Less guesswork due to standardised markers saves a tonne of time as well. These may seem like small things to some players, but they're actually significant changes that eliminate a lot of wasted time.

[Wegente]

It's not good design to be unable to beat a boss with entry level gear even if you're among the best players in the entire game.

Being able to clear the second or third turn, with multiple deaths, on the first week with no gear is not good design either. It's just a sign of poor tuning.

I know of a group that cleared the second turn of Creator with something like 11 deaths, and they still managed to beat the enrage.
And I've beaten the third turn with 4-5 deaths in Creator and Deltascape as well, in the first week.

I think DPS checks should be a little bit more unforgiving than this, at least in the first week. I'm asking for a middle ground here.

[Penthea]

I know of a group that cleared the second turn of Creator with something like 11 deaths, and they still managed to beat the enrage.
And I've beaten the third turn with 4-5 deaths in Creator and Deltascape as well, on the first week.

I know players who consistently hit 90% + percentile dps on any class they play but that doesn't mean I'm going to start calling the act of dpsing too easy to do.

Judging something based on how exceptional people perform is flawed. You need to look at everyone. You might know of one group who blazed through Creator crazy fast, but you can't say this is even remotely close to how the average static progressed.

I think DPS checks should be a little bit more unforgiving than this, at least on the first week. I'm asking for a middle ground here.

It doesn't seem this way considering you are using a famously overtuned and poorly balanced raid tier as an example of good content, and exceptional players as an indication of how difficult content should be.

It appears you want raid content to be designed around a tiny percentage of players. Raiding is for everyone. That's why there is a gradual progression ladder that starts from the very easy normal modes to the brutal ultimates. It sounds like you want all of savage to be as difficult as end-tier. Sure SE could do it, but not without alienating a huge part of their playerbase. They already did that once and the result was not good.

Again I'm not against raiding being tuned upwards a little, I just doubt that this is what you want given that you use the exceptional as a reference point.

[Wegente]

That's why there is a gradual progression ladder that starts from the very easy normal modes to the brutal ultimates.

But the problem is indeed in the progression ladder which is not gradual at all, since the last boss of the Savage tier only lasts around 12 hours whereas the Ultimate encounters can last up to 11 days like UCOB.

The disparity is too large there. That's why I ask for a middle ground and a harder Savage raid progression.

[Crushnight]

People getting clever is an expected outcome to utterly overtuned fights. Problem with the current discussion is people forget the context of fights like that but remember the challange think "Ah yes, the good ol days." It's literally the "old man" syndrome - how everything was better before the modern era, but conveniently forgetting that people had shorter life expectancy, more disease, less food, crappier quality of life, and a lot more struggle. In here, people are forgetting all the garbage that people had to put up with. Never mind that for anyone who did clear that content and actively participated in it were literally trialed by fury and hellfire and therefor their standards are skewed as it were.

Sorry bit far back raided after posting comment and went straight to sleep after, yea i'm under no delusion of past raids some felt good to clear and some were just awful, no raid tier has been immune to issues. Midas's A7S beam +DoT tick could kill someone before you could react due to server ticks lets also not forget the buggy mess of A6S where your could straight up wipe for no fault of the players, phase pushing of Creator was a problem. Delta's glorious Alte Rolte who was easier than extreme Susano on their respective launches, Sigma's Gaurdian who my group firmly believe Kefka pilots due to it randomly start targeting a tank for beam before doing a complete 180* turn killing every non tank as it fired, Alphascape's Middy who no one seems to like as a savage fight to the length of A12S.

Currently a big problem I have with savage fights(some Exs too) is the random Enrage timer, some pulls get longer some get shorter due to whatever pattern the boss decides to do (It has been an issue since Gordias Jigglybutt was the 1st time i really noticed it), i think this should stop period, they should have a set time only and the boss stops casting/doing its pattern the moment its enrage timer has gone over and wipes the group.

Are you implying there were way more clears back then as well? Are you saying that official data like this one is all false then?

Ah i remember this my group was part of the 38k A2S people, we were both happy and worried seeing that number, it felt like we were part of a small club but at the same time it worried us that if anyone was unable to make it we were unlikely to find pugs to replace and this drove morale down hard both looking at A3S/A4S clear rates due to our 2 day a week/3 hrs per day schedule, we eventually got A3S down in patch 3.1 and we tried A4S but ultimately decided not to bother as we felt we weren't going to kill it before patch 3.2 launched.

What also didn't help Gordias was that the weapon was ilv 210 which was equal to the upgraded tomestone weapon/relic weapon at the time so the only real incentives for A4S was BiS and a mount.