Anyone else concerned by the extremely low skill ceiling?

[Penthea]

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.

You're leaving out some very important points here. Pre-Creator days were totally different to now.

Back then actual raiders were not as common because the game was relatively new so the player population wasn't huge and typically in new games you don't have a wealth of experienced players. I wager most players who raided pre Creator had not raided at that level of difficulty before.

Fast forward to today, more expansions have passed since. Players have had far more time and opportunities to gain raid experience, the player population has risen significantly, and we also have an influx of WoW refugees potentially bringing 5+ years of raid experience with them into the game. On top of that SE have gotten better at making introductory raid content that eases players into the raiding scene, instead of something as overtuned as the first tier of Alex which must have fooled a lot of players into thinking they could never be raid material.

I don't think anyone should be surprised or dismayed that kill rates have increased when there are more players playing, more experienced players playing, and content is balanced in such a way that it draws in more potential raiders. It's a logical progress.

The way you talk reminds me so much of how I have seen many veteran WoW players talk. So many have this idea that the original raiding scene was incredibly difficult, when the fact is it was not compared to now. It was back then because most raiders never raided before WoW, and the idea of playing in such a way was not common in gaming at the time. When WoW's population was growing steadily with each expansion, the kill rate of bosses grew despite the fact that the content became more difficult.

An increase of kill-rate isn't necessarily a sign of content not being difficult enough. Sometimes it's simply a sign that the average skill of the playerbase has risen. Which is a perfectly normal thing to happen if enough time passes.

(and no I'm not saying Vanilla WoW raiding is comparable to Coils, because it is not. I am just pointing out that despite the fact that top-end content became far more difficult in WoW since Vanilla, kill rates increased as time passed)

[Wegente]

I don't think anyone should be surprised or dismayed that kill rates have increased when there are more players playing, more experienced players playing, and content is balanced in such a way that it draws in more potential raiders. It's a logical progress.

Raids in WoW still take a few weeks to complete nowadays. Sure, they're not taking months as they were back in the day and that's because, as you said, people have gotten better over the years, the game mechanics are better understood by the playerbase, etc.

Still, fights can be made harder regardless. Look at UCOB for example, the first group to clear it took 2 weeks, and that fight came out after Creator and Deltascape which both took less than 48 hours to clear.

What I'm asking for is a slight increase in difficulty, so that the more hardcore players can complete the raid in a week or so while the rest of the population can still clear before the release of the next tier.
That way we wouldn't have a huge population of raiders who only log in for their Savage clears on Tuesday and then log out for the rest of the week, or worse, unsub until the new patch get released, making SE lose potential money.

[Penthea]

Raids in WoW still take a few weeks to complete nowadays.

WoW often has three times more bosses per raid tier than FFXIV. There are usually at least ten bosses each tier. FFXIV only has four bosses per raid tier, with the exception of one Coils tier that has five as far as I recall.

So yea of course it takes several weeks to complete a raid tier in WoW. There are significantly more bosses.

What I'm asking for is a slight increase in difficulty, so that the more hardcore players can complete the raid in a week or so while the rest of the population can still clear before the release of the next tier.
That way we wouldn't have a huge population of raiders who only log in for their Savage clears on Tuesday and then log out for the rest of the week, or worse, unsub until the new patch get released, making SE lose potential money.

That's going to happen regardless of what difficulty of content there is in the game. Even casual players have those sort of logging and subbing habits. That's just how some people are. The game's content is not entirely to blame for that. Not everyone does these things out of a lack of things to do. Sometimes people just want to do something else other than FFXIV. I have seen this happen in every multi player game I have played.

As for making content slightly harder, I'm okay with that but I don't see it having the effect you desire from it. As mentioned before, people make habits of logging in rarely at times or unsubbing regularly regardless of their skill level or goals in gaming. Everyone is different, and some people like to have a change of scenery more often than others.

[Wegente]

So yea of course it takes several weeks to complete a raid tier in WoW. There are significantly more bosses.

That's not the reason WoW raids take longer to clear. Most bosses in WoW are cleared on the first day by the hardcore guilds, it's usually the last two bosses that are the roadblock.
Those two bosses alone can take up to 2 weeks to be defeated, and it's because they're really hard fights with extremely tight DPS and healing checks. Something that we haven't seen in Savage fights for years.

people make habits of logging in rarely at times or unsubbing regularly regardless of their skill level or goals in gaming. Everyone is different, and some people like to have a change of scenery more often than others.

That's true, but I think most people who play FFXIV to raid wouldn't unsub before at least having cleared the current raid tier, unless they're really bored by the game in general. Having cleared the raid tier in just a few days is the final nail in the coffin for them.

[Penthea]

That's not the reason WoW raids take longer to clear. Most bosses in WoW are cleared on the first day by the hardcore guilds, it's usually the last two bosses that are the roadblock.

Those two bosses alone can take up to 2 weeks to be defeated, and it's because they're really hard fights with extremely tight DPS and healing checks. Something that we haven't seen in Savage fights for years.

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

And there are some things you need to consider.

Firstly tiers often last far longer in WoW than in XIV. I have experienced raid tiers that lasted well over eight months. So it makes sense to make the bosses more difficult if you want the content to be able to last long within that time frame for your average raid teams.

Secondly the attitude and methods towards deaths is very different. In WoW you don't have access to essentially endless combat resses due to long cds and that very few classes can combat res. We often called a wipe the second somebody died because, for example, we needed to save the res for later in the fight. In FFXIV this attitude towards deaths is far less common due to ressing having no cd, every class who can res having access to an instant cast, and of course the existence of heal LB3.

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. In WoW if someone dies too early in the pull, you often just wipe it and start again. This means more wasted time.

That is not to say raiding in FFXIV is easier, some aspects are harder, but deaths are generally significantly less punishing on both progress and time. And then add to the fact that raid teams in WoW are bigger and the more people you have, the more likely it is that someone will mess up.

There are other differences of course but these are among the main reasons why WoW progression takes longer than FFXIV. It's just a different raid environment. Some stuff is harder, some is easier.

Anyway we're going off on a tangent now. The whole point of bringing up WoW was to show that an increased frequency of kills does not necessarily equate to raiding content becoming easier. Not to make direct comparisons of their raiding environments.

That's true, but I think most people who play FFXIV to raid wouldn't unsub before at least having cleared the current raid tier, unless they're really bored by the game in general. Having cleared the raid tier in just a few days is the final nail in the coffin for them.

While that is true, having more difficult content won't change raid logging. That inevitably happens when the amount of goals a player has shrinks due to completing them.

Also raiding can be stressful or intense. Sometimes people raid log during progression to get a break from the game, and then will play other content after they have cleared everything in raiding.

[shibeouya]

What I'm asking for is a slight increase in difficulty, so that the more hardcore players can complete the raid in a week or so while the rest of the population can still clear before the release of the next tier.

You already got Ultimate, let other people enjoy the game without feeling the need to restrict as much content as possible from the general population.

Increase of difficulty will not happen, look at the clear rates from the recent survey, gating too much content towards hardcore will make this game end up like the many other failed MMOs ouut there.

That way we wouldn't have a huge population of raiders who only log in for their Savage clears on Tuesday and then log out for the rest of the week, or worse, unsub until the new patch get released, making SE lose potential money.

Right, if it's between the 5% of raiders who might take a break out of boredom, or the 95% other players who might quit out of frustration because they can't make any progress, I wonder what SE would choose.

And for reference what you described already happened, it's called Gordias. And it pretty much killed the raiding scene for a year. Hence why SE eased up a bit on difficulty so everyone could enjoy the content. They won't go bacck to that, this ship has sailed.

[Deceptus]

Right, if it's between the 5% of raiders who might take a break out of boredom, or the 95% other players who might quit out of frustration because they can't make any progress, I wonder what SE would choose.

And for reference what you described already happened, it's called Gordias. And it pretty much killed the raiding scene for a year. Hence why SE eased up a bit on difficulty so everyone could enjoy the content. They won't go bacck to that, this ship has sailed.

This is the right answer. We already have low tier (dungeons), mid tier (Ex/Savage), and high tier (ultimate) content. The dev's shouldn't be balancing the game around the top 5% of the playerbase. That will lead to failure.