Don't do chaotic raid again

[caffe_macchiato]

Are you okay?

Hm, this is a challenge. So not only is it unacceptable to criticize the content (get gud) OR to excessively praise it (falseflag troll), it’s also unacceptable to offer a mixed assessment. It’s unacceptable to say that the content is great for hardcore players, but normal players will be abandoned. It’s unacceptable to say it makes a few people very, very happy while not entertaining the majority.

I think I get it. During the time of Stalin, rebuttals against his regime were outlawed. Why? Because rebutting an argument means you’re acknowledging it. Any analysis goes too far. The conclusion: shut up and play the content. End of discussion.

[luca20]

I have been enjoying the fight but I think its a bit too punishing for a 24 man. I have had my whole alliance wiped to the beam stacks more than once because one person went to the wrong spot, taking 8 people with em. theres also the hand wich especially malicious aimed ones can kill multiple people too! a tank died? very likely that you will die to autos.

having this much oportunity for pvp is execive in a fight that requieres 24 people and multiple body checks.

[Avoidy]

It's so funny to me that yoshida waited an additional week to release dawntrail because (in his own words) he wanted to give players time to enjoy the elden ring dlc, but he couldn't hold off a week for chaotic so people could enjoy christmas. But that's unrelated to OP's complaint.

In my mind this is just more "busting your balls in pf until your whole team memorizes the thing" raid content that I'm really not into. This standard of difficulty where you just waste hours of your life "until everyone gets it" isn't enjoyable to me and honestly never has been. It's only gotten worse as the jobs have become more robotic and standardized because I can't even enjoy playing my class while running the content back. I haven't logged on in weeks because there's just nothing substantive to do outside of that tier of content and there hasn't been in months; it's just been savage and ultimate and unreal and now this. This chaotic thing could have been a cool way to revive old alliance raid content that people avoid due to level capping. Imagine fun stuff like dun scaith or orbonne, but now you get your whole kit. Alliance Raid (unreal) style, or something. The difficulty could've been a nudge above normal but below extreme, serving as the buffer zone between difficulty segments that many players have been wanting for years. The rewards could have been high ilvl stuff for people who care about that, as well as dyeable versions of the undyeable armor sets that people love from these alliance raids. idk, maybe it's too simple or would've felt recycled. I can really only speak for myself when I say that reviving old content and making it enjoyable in 2024 at a difficulty level that felt approachable to everyone would've been more enjoyable than yet another single floating lady boss fight in a floating void arena that you get to "prog" with 23 strangers until most of them stop dying to the same thing over an hour in.

Not even saying "don't do it again" because I'm sure there're people who love this stuff. Just, there's a really clear 2-tier difficulty system in this game that needs to be addressed. You're either falling asleep in normal mode, or you're busting your balls in pf until everyone learns the synchronized dance. For people who fall in the middle of that, or don't really find themselves enjoying either type of difficulty (hello), there just isn't anything to look forward to until next year *maybe*.

[Rekko]

It's so funny to me that yoshida waited an additional week to release dawntrail because (in his own words) he wanted to give players time to enjoy the elden ring dlc, but he couldn't hold off a week for chaotic so people could enjoy christmas.

That's because Christmas isn't that big of a deal in Japan.

Also, to echo some peoples complaints so far, DT has had several bits of High Tier content now. Savage, Extremes, Unreal, Ultimate, and now Chaotic. Whereas mid core players are left leveling everything or simply playing other games.

I've been playing since 1.0 and honestly im starting to get bored and might unsub if it doesn't change. While i appreciate the extra time its had on devs to push out content, it really doesn't help with that extra month between patches.

[BigCheez]

That's because Christmas isn't that big of a deal in Japan.

Also, to echo some peoples complaints so far, DT has had several bits of High Tier content now. Savage, Extremes, Unreal, Ultimate, and now Chaotic. Whereas mid core players are left leveling everything or simply playing other games.

I've been playing since 1.0 and honestly im starting to get bored and might unsub if it doesn't change. While i appreciate the extra time its had on devs to push out content, it really doesn't help with that extra month between patches.

It's actually because Christmas won't affect their sales figures while competing with Elden Ring on expansion launch would.

RE: the rest of your post - unreal, extreme and savage are firmly midcore content. I don't consider anything other than ultimate to be specifically hardcore content. I know a lot of people who aren't particularly good at or invested in the game and they still clear savage. It takes them months of raiding one or two nights per week to get it done, but they get it done eventually.

I think what you're referring to is casual content? And I agree, there isn't really enough of it. You just get cut and paste beast tribes, a hildy quest and eventually an exploration zone if you somehow managed to stick out the first year of the expansion while having absolutely nothing to do.

[ovIm]

RE: the rest of your post - unreal, extreme and savage are firmly midcore content. I don't consider anything other than ultimate to be specifically hardcore content. I know a lot of people who aren't particularly good at or invested in the game and they still clear savage. It takes them months of raiding one or two nights per week to get it done, but they get it done eventually.

Savage being midcore content is the greatest lie being told on these forums, and people truly believe that. Its incredible.
Just because you can clear a tier after months does not make it "midcore". Most people can clear any game if they keep banging their head against it and practice playing. That is the player improving/learning, not the game being easy/midcore/casual.

As for whether Unreal and Extreme are midcore - that is definitely debatable. To me, they are not, because they require a certain amount of organization and are not simply "drop in" content.
All these examples though, Unreal, Extreme, and Savage, have a trouble with replayability and longevity.

What this game is lacking, imho, is repeatable, unorganized group battle content. Where you jump in, you do your thing without needing any pre asigned spots, and then its GG and leave. In that vein, I have yet to do more than one lockout of Chaotic, but it seems like at least in P1 you don't exactly need to organize yourself with other party members. A lot of personal responsibility there however, and its very punishing if you make a mistake. We'll see how that develops in the future.

[BigCheez]

Savage being midcore content is the greatest lie being told on these forums, and people truly believe that. Its incredible.
Just because you can clear a tier after months does not make it "midcore". Most people can clear any game if they keep banging their head against it and practice playing. That is the player improving/learning, not the game being easy/midcore/casual.

As for whether Unreal and Extreme are midcore - that is definitely debatable. To me, they are not, because they require a certain amount of organization and are not simply "drop in" content.
All these examples though, Unreal, Extreme, and Savage, have a trouble with replayability and longevity.

What this game is lacking, imho, is repeatable, unorganized group battle content. Where you jump in, you do your thing without needing any pre asigned spots, and then its GG and leave. In that vein, I have yet to do more than one lockout of Chaotic, but it seems like at least in P1 you don't exactly need to organize yourself with other party members. A lot of personal responsibility there however, and its very punishing if you make a mistake. We'll see how that develops in the future.

The fact that you can clear a tier on content after months of approaching it casually definitely does make it midcore.

Unreal and extreme are on the lower end of midcore, maybe the top end of casual. You can go in blind and clear in a couple of lockouts (or a couple of pulls in the case of Byakko). If you're unsure as to whether unreal and extreme are midcore, the problem here is your definition of midcore.

"Drop-in" content is casual content, not midcore content. Midcore requires some, but not a lot of, commitment. Midcore content is content that you can chip away at without having to spend much time optimising. Unreal, extreme and savage are midcore content.

[AllenThyl]

Savage being midcore content is the greatest lie being told on these forums, and people truly believe that. Its incredible.
Just because you can clear a tier after months does not make it "midcore". Most people can clear any game if they keep banging their head against it and practice playing. That is the player improving/learning, not the game being easy/midcore/casual.

If a "midcore" player is not able to clear more content than a "casual" player, how are they even different categories? It's just distinction without difference. The problem is these labels are usually used to differentiate people's ability to spend time. But the ability to spend time says nothing about people's skill. The "midcore" players are galore in Bozja, having spent a lot of time amassing enough mettle to get all 30 rays, and yet Red Choctober STILL wipes whole dungeons regularly. And let's not even start about the "midcores" facing the earth / fire combo in CLL. Because that is also usually cleared by only a fraction of all participating players.

So yes, at the very least, Unreals and Extremes (certainly the early ones in an expansion) are midcore. Savages can be more debatable, but at least this tier's first turn should be doable for any midcore player.

[ForteNightshade]

Savage being midcore content is the greatest lie being told on these forums, and people truly believe that. Its incredible.
Just because you can clear a tier after months does not make it "midcore". Most people can clear any game if they keep banging their head against it and practice playing. That is the player improving/learning, not the game being easy/midcore/casual.

As for whether Unreal and Extreme are midcore - that is definitely debatable. To me, they are not, because they require a certain amount of organization and are not simply "drop in" content.
All these examples though, Unreal, Extreme, and Savage, have a trouble with replayability and longevity.

What this game is lacking, imho, is repeatable, unorganized group battle content. Where you jump in, you do your thing without needing any pre asigned spots, and then its GG and leave. In that vein, I have yet to do more than one lockout of Chaotic, but it seems like at least in P1 you don't exactly need to organize yourself with other party members. A lot of personal responsibility there however, and its very punishing if you make a mistake. We'll see how that develops in the future.

With the exception of the 4th fight, you can certain argue Savage is midcore content, albeit on the higher end of that proverbial spectrum. It requires organization and far more consistency than something like Bozja but with rare exceptions is still very approachable even for pretty inexperienced players. I mean, my group cleared P1S back in EW with 7 deaths (one of them brick) and 27 damage downs. Yes, some of those resulted in deaths so they don't, technically, count, but it just goes to show how forgiving the earlier fights are. This was week 1, by the way.

While I get the idea of midcore being "drop in" kind of content, when you stand back a little, Eureka/Bozja are relatively easy. You can die but said death is often insignificant. Heck, I've seen four people finish off the Red Chocobo after everyone else died. That usually isn't what people would consider midcore, where your death can happen yet doesn't have much of an impact. I think the bigger problem here is the casual side of the game has become too casual, which clouds perspective. A lot people wouldn't consider casual content to be "Fisher Price levels" either, but that's where dungeons and the like have landed.

For example sake, let's look at Baldur's Gate and its difficulty options. Everyone considers Balanced to be the "casual" playthrough. It's relatively easy but still forgiving whereas Tactician ups the stakes a little. Very few considered it challenging, hence what let to Honor Mode. Which can also be made easy... if you already know everything about the game or look up strategies before. Going in relatively blind, you will almost certainly die to at least a couple Legendary Actions. Some require very specific tactics/builds to trivialize, or good adaptive habits.

Applying this analogy to XIV, you have a pretty reasonable "Casual" (Balance), "Midcore (Tactician) and "Hardcore (Honor Mode) philosophy. Except there's one more option I haven't mentioned yet: Beginner. This widely buffs the players and makes the game incredibly simplistic. You'd have to go out of your way to lose any fight. The BG3 devs have even commented they added that mode specifically for story focused players who want limited stress or dislike combat. Sound a little familiar?

The MSQ, dungeons and the like aren't casual content but essentially XIV's version of "Beginner." And it's this slide that has caused such a rift in the community. Now I do think Chaotic might be a touch too difficult if it's intended to be a long term fixture even if I do like it myself, but the problem, in my opinion, are the lack of any long form content, period. Making Chaotic easier wouldn't accomplish much because you'd farm the rewards quickly and have nothing to do again, much like what happened with Jeuno. Instead, if it released alongside say, the relic grind. Everyone has something to, hopefully, enjoy. That's what XIV has been terrible at. Not at all helped by only servicing one side of the playerbase.

The company's had multiple consecutive quarterly reports with a significant decrease in earnings. They either don't care that they're losing money or have their heads too far up their asses to try and fix it.

While Square Enix as a whole is failing, FFXIV has remained profitable pretty much since it's revival. Dawntrail was still boasting around one million active subs as of the last unofficial census. It has noticed dips, particularly from how few people came back during the free login campaign (worst in the game's history) but still nowhere near enough they'd be panicking. So as it pertains to XIV itself, Menriq is correct: money talks. And enough people are still content with the game. Speaking anecdotally, many friends of mine don't feel there's anything wrong with XIV at the moment. They just quietly play other games and are content to pop on XIV to run roulettes, RP or whatever. Meanwhile, a couple closer friends and I have repeated complained how bored we've been and how DT may be the last expansion for us.

Suffice it to say, opinions are very divisive but people are still playing.

[Avoidy]

That's because Christmas isn't that big of a deal in Japan.

This is a global game that takes money from places other than Japan, yet every time a decision like this has to be made, Japanese priorities come first. I'm sick of Square trying to have all the benefits of a global game (soooooooo much additional revenue) without addressing the challenges of running a global game. We were sitting here dealing with this a couple of years ago too, when they arbitrarily decided to take the game down for maintenance on Halloween, ruining people's in-game event plans on NA, and the excuse players dreamt up for square was "it's okay because japan doesn't care about halloween like we do," like bruh. They'll sure as hell take our money though, right.

The rest of your post I actually agree a lot with. I even edited my post to include my thoughts on it because it's been bubbling up in the back of my head for a while now.