Need an up-to-date explanation of savage content and why it is handled the way it is

[Colt47]

The information on how savage is handled in terms of when the loot limit gets unlocked, when echo is enabled, and what the provisions are to make it easier without those two functions is not given very clearly anywhere and it would help a lot.

I've been trying to write down information from various sources, but the approach to handling savage has changed seemingly each expansion and isn't even consistent across the tiers in the same expansion.

1) Does savage have "seasons"?

1a) Why isn't there a phased "stat boost" for the community via echo for handling savage after the first six to eight weeks?

2) Is unlocking savage linked to it becoming old content, or is unlocking it a catchup mechanic for people who are behind or just do not want to have to deal with clearing the first three fights?

3) Why is it setup such that after someone clears savage, they still have to complete the entire sequence in order?

4) Why is a type of content that is intended to take an exceptional amount of time also built such that the ease of the content depends on getting stronger gear, which means farming tomestones via roulette that can potentially lead to someone missing a boost, as well as crafted items such as tinctures that require a completely different and tedious skill set to produce?

[Ransu]

1.) Its generally every other major patch. (Tier 1 was a few weeks after 6.0 launch, tier 2 was 6.2, final tier will be 6.4)

1a) Because the tier is around 8 months long.

2) Its more or less a catchup mechanic I guess. You don't have to have someone in your static pre-clear to skip and you can just jump right into the fight you're trying to prog late into the tier.

3) The same reason other MMO's make you run through the entire raid to get to each boss after the weekly reset? FFXIV doesn't really do old school raid designs anymore where you run through basically an oversized dungeon and clear trash before each boss fight so they have to create some kind of time sink.

4) It honestly doesn't. You can clear the entire tier in the base level crafted gear. I personally prefer it didn't work that way and was more traditional MMO style that actually required progression where you have to upgrade your gear to meet the dps checks in later fights.

[Colt47]

Trying not to get too into that discussion on part 4, but it definitely isn't clearable in base crafted gear. The best teams still have to use the tinctures to clear it in day 1 pentamelded gear and even if the devs are scaling it to be exactly 1 to 1 without those buffs, most people running the content are not min maxing damage and super optimizing the rotations to make that number match.

But definitely agree it is not like other games where the progression in gear is necessary to clear the next tier above it. They do a gear refresh each patch.

More hoping that these questions somehow reach the development team rather than this turning into a community feedback loop of the same stuff. It literally is a quagmire of conflicting going back and forth between people across time.

Right now with the ultimates being released as much more regular content it is starting to make savage feel like it is a competing form of content to ultimate rather than being the step before ultimate. That and if ultimate is now the true super challenge rather than the savage, why is savage being tuned so harshly and lacking in any kind of catch up mechanic that is NOT based on gearing up? It basically adds a huge amount of variance compared to just having flatline 5% echo buff after x weeks and then 10% after y weeks.

This entire expac has become raid groups racing to get stuff done before ultimate drops, and when referring to raid groups this is the masses of groups that are not the week 1-5 clear the tier groups. This is the real mass of people that do the content and may not have the content down until week 12. Sometimes they don't get it down until week 13+.

[Ransu]

Its completely clearable in the base crafted gear and you should always be using tinctures on a clear run regardless of your gear. Extra dps is extra dps. The difficulty is mostly in the mechanics, and the dps check second.

Catchup mechanics early in the tier would completely negate the point of raiding. They unlock it a month before the next tier because the tier is over. I don't see the point in making savage easier only a few weeks after the tier comes out. Its savage, its supposed to be difficult. Its not the end of the world if it takes you longer to clear the tier.

[Colt47]

Its completely clearable in the base crafted gear and you should always be using tinctures on a clear run regardless of your gear. Extra dps is extra dps. The difficulty is mostly in the mechanics, and the dps check second.

Catchup mechanics early in the tier would completely negate the point of raiding. They unlock it a month before the next tier because the tier is over. I don't see the point in making savage easier only a few weeks after the tier comes out. Its savage, its supposed to be difficult. Its not the end of the world if it takes you longer to clear the tier.

Due to the changes in the patch cycle we do need the catchup mechanics earlier than the .x8 patches as we are getting an entire extra month at minimum between them.

Social problems notwithstanding from how the game makes it easy to make random individuals anonymous and have that anonymity work against each other. People don't even see each other as humans in PF and even many raid groups.

[Arohk]

Due to the changes in the patch cycle we do need the catchup mechanics earlier than the .x8 patches as we are getting an entire extra month at minimum between them.

Just get good at the game bro.

But honestly, i think the tomestone cap of 450 is too low, should be higher.

You also have the Relic weapons now as a form of catch up mechanic, which are now the 2nd best weapons to get.

[Colt47]

Just get good at the game bro.

But honestly, i think the tomestone cap of 450 is too low, should be higher.

You also have the Relic weapons now as a form of catch up mechanic, which are now the 2nd best weapons to get.

Unlocking p8s so you don't have to do the first three over and over equals easier... how? Catch up mid tier ain't makin it easier and gods knows it ain't changing the gambling wheels on reclears, but I'd rather be doing p8s unlock at the .x5 patch than the .x8 patch with how it works. If you can name anyone who says "you know, I could be doing p8s right now but I just love having lockouts and having to reclear the first three just to get there so much..." I think the entire savage raider forum might start wanting to have a word with you. :P

But yeah apparently I got to git good even though I cleared the tier long before even making this thread. I'm not a top tier raider but I'm certainly in the bulk of them. Also this is running down that rabbit hole on what "good' even means when it usually turns into a self-promoted ego cycle where a single person decides to judge others based on themselves with no concept of what the other guys time commitments are, how long they've played the job they are on, if the gods of patches decides to make the role they play harder than the others, if they are PFing vs having a static... oh, but we have FFLogs now to tell people just how good everyone is, right? Sorry, laughing right now at the whole thing and how absolutely insane it is across just about every single game that has "end game hardcore content" in tab target MMOs. Sunk cost fallacy combined with fancy rewards has been a time tested staple of the genre and perhaps only 1-2% of the people playing the game even experience true end game content without the mental traps. But they still grind the hell out of it for two weeks and take time off.

[Karshan]

What people said above. Also to answer in order :

1) Does savage have "seasons"?
Kinda. On patch X.X, the tier drops.
on X.X1 or X.X1 (one or two weeks later) some adjustements are made to jobs or boss if a real imbalance exists.
on X.X5 some other adjustments for minor imbalance between jobs based on their study of clear data
on X.X8 the limit is lifted
on X.X+1, the echo is added

1a) Why isn't there a phased "stat boost" for the community via echo for handling savage after the first six to eight weeks?
Because it would then be a race for midcore players who want to tackle it (and show they do) without echo. Also by progessively gearing in the tier you already boost a bit, in case you can't manage the checks in crafted gear (the difference between a carfted pentameld set and a non BiS but max ilvl set is a 10% boost in itself)

2) Is unlocking savage linked to it becoming old content, or is unlocking it a catchup mechanic for people who are behind or just do not want to have to deal with clearing the first three fights?
It is both, also you'll notice their cycle is purposely designed to NOT make any content irrelevant from patch day. If they ease Savage, they would kill the need for the next Ex primal and the alliance raid, depopulating those contents from even day 1. So they carefully, progessively add new ways and so put a limit on the existing way. Have you noticed how you can currently upgrade armor and accessories but not the weapon with alliance/hunts, and only will able to do so in 6.38 ? Because if they didn't Rubicante Ex or the relic would have had less appeal to gear secondary jobs.

It's a whole lot of small stuff like that but when you pay attention you see how they do care about content "relevance" and how it affects nerfs/limitations on accessible improvements.

3) Why is it setup such that after someone clears savage, they still have to complete the entire sequence in order?
To populate PF on lower stages even if you only need last stage