They need a stepping stone between EX and savage.

[Colt47]

I was sitting here not even sure how the heck to write this and I think it hit me near the end of it.

Right now we got this situation where there are people that can totally do the high tier of savage within a couple of weeks of launch. But there is a huge swath of people that can only commit limited time to do it and they are all getting funneled into the same progression.

Is it really worth doing an entire savage tier and then only having one or two weeks at the end to even appreciate the rewards? I remember there was a tier where I tried a casual group and we didn't even get all our weapons or mounts. While cosmetics can be sort of a long term goal, it certainly doesn't feel too good to slow burn content and then have the next set of savage mode dropped the next week.

That pushed me into going harder, and I tried out doing mid-tier. That is where all the pacing issues started happening between players, because it seems obvious: If someone wants to get through content faster, you find people that go for more days, right? But then at what cost does this extra time come? It definitely feels like it goes from "this is a part of a game" to being "part time job", pretty fast once someone throws in videos, crafting prep, and other aspects.

It also seems like those who are the most dedicated to savage also tend to be omni-crafters with penta-melded gear. That absolutely blew my mind since that is not exactly a "free" activity when it comes to time.

So stepping back here, if it takes the people who really love savage to literally penta-meld gear for crafting and also at the same time dedicate multiple days just to clear savage fast enough to enjoy the rewards, and the next closest thing to savage is an ex fight that takes literally a day to clear, where is the mid-level raiding content for people that don't pentameld craft and only have enough time for a couple of hours a week? We're getting island sanctuary and stuff like unreal, but then this thing called savage just kind of sits there like this insanely huge mountain to climb compared to all the rest of the content.

I mean it is appreciated that people in this upper level of play come back and help others get through the savage content and make a mid-tier and casual tier even possible in raiding, but this is kind of a problem.

Also, it is kind of weird to make dyable versions of normal raid gear a reward for savage when the base set probably should be dyable to begin with.

[PirateRyanG]

But then when you have that, where do you add an additional tier that are not good enough for your new tier, but too good for the EX tier?

[Deveryn]

If you're going for early clears, pentamelding is definitely going to be necessary, but at this stage people should have already picked up at least one or two full sets of tome gear to be able to run it.

I don't think there's any real way to have any kind of step between EX and Savage because it's really not that big of a leap to begin with. A lot of people just need to step up and stop screwing around as much as they do. There's only so much carrying that can be done.

[ForteNightshade]

Extreme essentially serve that purpose already. They're a step below Savage in most cases, with some being comparable to the first floor albeit with a far more generous enrage. If you can kill Barbariccia consistently, then you're able to tackle the first two floors of Savage. Admittedly, Carbuncle is on the much harder side of fight tier bosses than usual but he's still approachable. Adding a fight between these two feels entirely pointless. Not only would it have no real worthless reward structure, the difficulty difference between the two would be minuscule at best. If they were ever going to add an additional fight, it'd make far more sense to finally commit to Savage being five encounters itself. Although, that's another conversation.

Savage essentially nerfs itself as you obtain tome gear. By this stage of progression, you should have literally a fully set of i620 gear. Come 6.3 in the next few month, you'll be able to upgrade those pieces further. This is a huge advantage for reducing the difficulty. Anyone struggling afterwards in i630 simply needs more practice. No amount of new bosses will help them improve because the tools already exist. If it took you the entirety of eight months to prog through P1-P4, then dedicate what were your pain points and work on them throughout that span of time, and into the next tier so you can cut down on your next prog. For example, my very first Savage clear came in the week of echo being added for Creator. That was with a very casual group where all of us had just started raiding. Fast forward to today and I'm usually clearing the tier within two weeks or less. Now part of that is time availability but I'm simply a better player now than I was way back in 3.4.

What you're asking for already exists in a sense.

[Jeeqbit]

Is it really worth doing an entire savage tier and then only having one or two weeks at the end to even appreciate the rewards?

That does bother me a bit. I have to throw away any previous savage gear and outfit myself with crafted gear.

It definitely feels like it goes from "this is a part of a game" to being "part time job", pretty fast once someone throws in videos, crafting prep, and other aspects.

It's fine being like a job if you clear it fast, but if reality sets in with different paces, recruiting new members, missed days and issues like that which drag it out, then you do feel that lack of free time.

You feel it because if you don't clear quickly, then even when you aren't raiding, you are preparing to raid, capping tomestones, melding, conserving energy, sleeping well, eating at a certain time so you have the energy to raid and don't need to take a break half way through to eat, watching or analyzing strats.

It also seems like those who are the most dedicated to savage also tend to be omni-crafters with penta-melded gear.

I'm not an omni-crafter, but I have one crafter and that is enough to pentameld all my gear after buying it from the market board. I have to sell everything I own, even things I don't want to, just to pay for it on the first day.

where is the mid-level raiding content for people that don't pentameld craft and only have enough time for a couple of hours a week?

Extreme. The first 2 floors are usually about as easy to pug as an extreme as well.

[Deveryn]

That does bother me a bit. I have to throw away any previous savage gear and outfit myself with crafted gear.

Frankly, it's one of the best things I've seen in an MMO, where crafters are often left with nothing to contribute to the end game. Aside from that, it makes for an even playing field for everyone to start over or return to the game. People will complain about pricing. Maybe they should try seeking out help. There are people out there with time and/or money to spare.

[Jeeqbit]

Frankly, it's one of the best things I've seen in an MMO, where crafters are often left with nothing to contribute to the end game. Aside from that, it makes for an even playing field for everyone to start over or return to the game.

If the crafted gear was the same item level as the previous tier's max item level, I think that plenty of people would still need crafted gear, such as those who skipped the previous tier or are new to trying out raids. Some of it might just flat out have better substats and still be desirable over the previous BiS, especially because it can be pentamelded. But it also means that you don't absolutely need to give the gear up because it's the same item level.

[Colt47]

FYI just to clarify, when I said pentamelded gear I meant penta-melded Crafter gear which has a completely different set of arguably more difficult to obtain materia.

After seeing some of the replies it definitely seems like there needs to be a better mid tier level because the kind of comments where we start going down the rabbit hole of "it is okay, just when you have to do X it gets bad", it then begs the question as to why X happened to begin with? If the content is really okay content, why do we have so many people with conflicting amounts of time trying to party together and leading to social issues?

That is an honest content design problem and one of the ones that games like WoW did manage to solve, though unfortunately by the time it did solve it the community had already grown toxic to the point of disrepair.

[Deveryn]

If the content is really okay content, why do we have so many people with conflicting amounts of time trying to party together and leading to social issues?

Because it really comes down to a skill issue. Some catch on faster than others. Some take the time to actually practice the content. Others just think Duty Complete means they can properly get carried.

WoW addresses things through gear and people feel like that's better than a system where you actually have to get good instead of buy good.

[Canadane]

The first couple of fights in a savage tier are the stepping stones.