The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Colt47]

I mean getting back on topic, I think that including something that is less demanding, but still as fully fleshed out as an entire savage tier, would probably help deal with the DPS meter issue as well since it gives more options to provide rewards. Right now savage is an all or nothing deal, but if people could choose to do a toned down version of it that could be completed more easily in PF, while also providing progress towards the same rewards, it would make life a lot better. They don't have anything like it at the moment since normal mode is not even the same thing as the savage mode of an 8 man instance.

[Inanegrain]

I mean getting back on topic, I think that including something that is less demanding, but still as fully fleshed out as an entire savage tier, would probably help deal with the DPS meter issue as well since it gives more options to provide rewards. Right now savage is an all or nothing deal, but if people could choose to do a toned down version of it that could be completed more easily in PF, while also providing progress towards the same rewards, it would make life a lot better. They don't have anything like it at the moment since normal mode is not even the same thing as the savage mode of an 8 man instance.

I'd consider EX and first savage floors to be the remaining bridge.
Get better at ex, move onto trying floor 1, get better at it for how there's still a difficulty gap between the two then move on to the rest of the floors.

[Colt47]

I'd consider EX and first savage floors to be the remaining bridge.
Get better at ex, move onto trying floor 1, get better at it for how there's still a difficulty gap between the two then move on to the rest of the floors.

The issue is what does one consider completion? Midcore content is a fight or a series of fights that can be completed by players who have yet to ramp themselves up to harder content, and usually allows for players to gain the same rewards as provided by the hardcore content at a slower rate. Savage is not a set of single fights, it is an entire series of fights and has to be measured by the hardest fight in the series, which is p3s/p4s under the current tier. Not sure if you read anything back in the earlier posts that I made, but I'll repeat one of the points made for the sake of convenience: The shadowbringers job changes brought up the skill floor and EX content is no longer midcore content. It sort of became it's own thing and a lot of people just skip strait to savage now due to the changes. Unreal is even more-so in it's own kind of world as there's a lot of players who have never once touched it outside of maybe a few times when it got released.

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

[Issaella]

Honestly, it is likely you will clear it. You say that you think the fight is beyond you... but I'm going to point out that from what you've said, you've been in a grand total of... what, two parties for P2S? And you've already seen enrage. That is a great deal better than many people do.

Yes, granted, you probably have other people in there who had cleared the fight before, and who are very well-geared. And even those who haven't cleared the fight can be well-geared by now, given the Aglaia coins to upgrade Radiant gear. Still, to be able to get through to enrage -- even enrage at 25% -- ain't nothing, as far as progress goes. It means you've seen the whole fight! It's less "learning the fight" now, and more "getting practice at doing the mechanics more smoothly".

My original suspicions were confirmed. The party that got to enrage was a unicorn/fluke. The ones since then have been lucky to get to Harma, let alone get past it to Overflow. There is enough despair in PF at this point to turn a certain blue bird grey again. I will reiterate my argument - unless you are significantly more skilled the the average player there are only two types of PF groups - [Duty Complete] that you can't get into and Practice/Completion groups that will remain that way forever without 5-6 experienced players to drag the rest through. There is no kind of uniformity, might as well be starting fresh in every group. Even the ones that are posted as "practice X mechanic" take multiple pulls just to get there if you are lucky and "seen enrage", which is just a euphemism for "walled at enrage".

[Packetdancer]

That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

Meanwhile, the truth is actually sort of the reverse; the Coils of Bahamut raids were basically what would now be considered savage, but people complained (and admittedly, understandably so) that what was functionally the epilogue to 1.x -- and thus potentially very meaningful story for 1.x players -- was locked behind very difficult content.

Hence why Alexander and onwards have the story for the raid series attached to scaled-down versions of the fights, and then have the actual progression raids be wholly optional content.

[Packetdancer]

My original suspicions were confirmed. The party that got to enrage was a unicorn/fluke. The ones since then have been lucky to get to Harma, let alone get past it to Overflow. There is enough despair in PF at this point to turn a certain blue bird grey again. I will reiterate my argument - unless you are significantly more skilled the the average player there are only two types of PF groups - [Duty Complete] that you can't get into and Practice/Completion groups that will remain that way forever without 5-6 experienced players to drag the rest through. There is no kind of uniformity, might as well be starting fresh in every group. Even the ones that are posted as "practice X mechanic" take multiple pulls just to get there if you are lucky and "seen enrage", which is just a euphemism for "walled at enrage".

I mean, it's certainly very frustrating at times! But as I said, party finder is not a fast way to progress the tier. It is a viable way, but yes, you will find yourself sometimes having parties that do very well, and sometimes having parties where it's a P4S "Act IV cleanup" party that can't even make it into phase 2 at all, much less to Act IV. PF is a grab-bag, and what you get can vary widely.

Doing it in PF does not take more skill than doing it with a static; it just takes a lot more patience and stubbornness.

But again: if you find PF frustrating, I highly recommend looking around for a static. There are still statics forming at this point in the tier; not nearly so many as when a tier is fresh, no, but there are people who had life commitments that kept them from starting the tier earlier, or who only just got to endgame, etc. Or people who did PF and want to do a static for next tier, and so are looking to put one together now.

Were I you, I would probably be looking for one of the last of those sets -- someone looking to put together a static for next tier now, but who'll be running the current tier to help the group gel (or to help newcomers feel more confident in savage).

I can't help too directly other than pointing at /r/FFXIVRECRUITMENT, because I'm not on your datacenter; I don't know the datacenter-specific resources that would best help you. (If you needed them on Primal, I've got you covered; I can point to half a dozen different places to help. But for Aether...? Alas.)

[Issaella]

I got my clear on my alt. Died 3 times, no one else died. I'm out of the Practice/Duty Completion zone finally.

[Inanegrain]

The issue is what does one consider completion? Midcore content is a fight or a series of fights that can be completed by players who have yet to ramp themselves up to harder content, and usually allows for players to gain the same rewards as provided by the hardcore content at a slower rate. Savage is not a set of single fights, it is an entire series of fights and has to be measured by the hardest fight in the series, which is p3s/p4s under the current tier. Not sure if you read anything back in the earlier posts that I made, but I'll repeat one of the points made for the sake of convenience: The shadowbringers job changes brought up the skill floor and EX content is no longer midcore content. It sort of became it's own thing and a lot of people just skip strait to savage now due to the changes. Unreal is even more-so in it's own kind of world as there's a lot of players who have never once touched it outside of maybe a few times when it got released.

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

I've mentioned before I took 8 weeks + to clear the final tier of the previous tier and only cleared the 1-2 floors tier before it. If you mean the gap between current EX and P1s is far, I did mention that it'll still be hard for first timers attempting savage. I can't judge EX content as if I was new for any other ex released pass WoL, because every EX is going to be "easy" for me from a certain point onwards.

It's true that EX is "easy", players should start from somewhere and steadily climb. I consider completion when said player finally clears an entire tier. It's understandable if they did not clear the tier in time as it's late into the tier now unless a lot of personal improvement has been made rapidly.
Their choice to skip savage, but I wouldn't recommend jumping straight into savage if new besides getting carried through it because it's P1s, potentially at the cost of others sanity.

[histoireancienne]

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

This is a bit silly. I'm part of what would probably be considered a "midcore" static, based on the experience of most members, our numbers on That Website That Shall Not Be Named, etc. (I'm the "baby" of the group, with only one savage tier under my belt before Pandaemonium). We cleared P4S in 5 weeks as a group (we had some people clear earlier on alts in PF, etc). Our scheduled hours are 6 hours a week, plus an extra 3+ hours for *most* of the group can make while we're progging. But after our scheduled 6 hours a week, everyone's free to head to PF for the week.

I went back and looked at our E9-12 clear, which was not the exact same composition as our Pandaemonium group (still generally the same skill level & frankly, more familiarity between most of the static members that tier - but it was the last tier of an expac, so, harder than this one), but it took us 3 months to clear E12S as a static. That's with ppl who were - on the whole, minus probably me - far better than your average PF. Sniffing that it should take a rando party of randoms less than 2 months to clear a tier seems ... not quite right.

Like I've said earlier, I do wish there was some easier stepping stone to harder content in this game from dead-easy dungeons and trials, or something that teaches you how to play your class better & what you're doing wrong. XIV was my first/only MMO, and I was terrified of "hard" content and being screamed at for underperforming and/or dying. One of the best players I know (now a Triple Legend, great teacher, can flex to multiple roles, etc) had to be coaxed into Normal Raids as a sprout during SB, because they were afraid of "raiding" content & that it was going to be too hard. We both got better (though they're still way, WAY ahead of me, despite the fact I've been playing for years longer XD) because we were in an FC that encouraged getting into harder content in a safe & comfortable way - either with the "FC static" or with FC events on weekends. I learned so much doing current expac Savage & Ex fights with more experienced people who I knew weren't going to scream at me for dying! The only thing that got me into actually doing *actual* Savage raiding was listening to directions really well on an E2S party we had as an FC event, and having 2 ppl say "Oh, she'd probably be more than fine in an on-level Savage." (and I have)

[histoireancienne]

My original suspicions were confirmed. The party that got to enrage was a unicorn/fluke. The ones since then have been lucky to get to Harma, let alone get past it to Overflow. There is enough despair in PF at this point to turn a certain blue bird grey again. I will reiterate my argument - unless you are significantly more skilled the the average player there are only two types of PF groups - [Duty Complete] that you can't get into and Practice/Completion groups that will remain that way forever without 5-6 experienced players to drag the rest through. There is no kind of uniformity, might as well be starting fresh in every group. Even the ones that are posted as "practice X mechanic" take multiple pulls just to get there if you are lucky and "seen enrage", which is just a euphemism for "walled at enrage".

Also, I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but you are in a really bad time to be trying to prog this current Savage tier. No one I know is hopping into PF, and I know a lot of very good, tippy-top raiders who LIKE hopping into practice groups to help in downtimes or at the end of the week when we're all progging or in reclears, etc. My static last met to do the last fight of this current tier in, uh ... March. Most of the ppl I know are doing DSR, so when they're NOT doing DSR, the last thing they want to be doing is hopping into a PF fight. I really would encourage you to find a static for next tier, if your schedule can stand it, or just start PFing earlier.