Solo fight to unlock savage tier

[Fendred]

I think it would help the raiding community out a lot if there was a solo encounter required to unlock the savage tier that replicates the DPS checks found later in the tier. My static has gone through several group members who could not perform a rotation (or even any abilities at all for that matter) while moving. This lead to situations where mechanics were getting cleared, but the enrage timer could not be bested. The members that did know what they were doing tried every little thing in their power to increase damage output, but could do nothing to change the outcome.

The fights are fun. Going through the process of questioning yourself when you are doing everything right is not a fun, and is a major reason parsing exists in FFXIV. Most players are not in a good position to teach another player how to play their job, or what the best setup for that player might be. As the game is built right now, people can go from 24 man raids where players can win through a war of attrition straight into a savage tier raid where a high level of mastery is required. In my opinion, it would be better for all parties involved if we had to clear a performance check as a prerequisite for unlocking the savage tier.

[Rehayem]

Yeah, let's make the entire massively multiplayer game a solo game. What could possibly go wrong.

[Ath192]

Stone Sea Sky is a solo encounter that replicates the DPS checks found later in the tier.

[vapaha]

Did you not see the live letter? That's literally the route the game is going down!

[Minarisweet]

I don't think SE would do that since they don't like gatekeeping players from content that isn't ultimate (except for the fact that everything is gatekept behind msq but that's a different topic...). I wouldn't hate the idea myself but it just seems like to me like something that goes against the dev team's values.

[anhaato]

Yeah, let's make the entire massively multiplayer game a solo game. What could possibly go wrong.

Something like this would be far less of an issue than them making every story-related content have a solo play option.

[DuskTS]

"We are trialing players but they don't meet our performance standards, how could Yoshi-P let this happen?"

[Zomkei]

the DPS checks in these tiers are actually very low, including p4s. i have cleared these fights with numerous deaths, so if you think just one person is holding your group back, you should look at the entire group.

[Fendred]

I don't think SE would do that since they don't like gatekeeping players from content that isn't ultimate (except for the fact that everything is gatekept behind msq but that's a different topic...). I wouldn't hate the idea myself but it just seems like to me like something that goes against the dev team's values.

I agree, and I believe that when the question of "how to generate more DPS" has to be directed at others is where these issues come up. Stone, sky, and sea is helpful and I make a point to use that before a new raid tier. We sat down and talked about what was working for us: What control schemes we were using, UI addons, etc. We never directed it at anyone. We did our best to be in line with how Yoshi wants us to interact with one another. I gave up at P3S because I could see where this was going, and I just want to be a friend. My brother who is on P4S felt forced into giving parses just to get to the end of the tier. Honestly, he's farther than I got and has been treated very badly at times by those same people with the parsers.

[LittleImp]

"We are trialing players but they don't meet our performance standards, how could Yoshi-P let this happen?"

Eh, there's some weird stuff that can happen if you pug a lot due to the lack of barriers. I've had people skip straight into the final savage fight and join a clear party with 0 fight knowledge, and then go berserk in chat when we refuse to teach them the fight from scratch. It ends up being a bad experience for both the new player, and the party they joined.

There's nothing that really sets expectations, so you get a lot of people joining content they aren't ready for, with no real way of knowing what 'ready' actually means. It definitely doesn't help that the difficulty spike between normal and savage is massive either.