Player Drop Off and Accessibility/Diffculty

[Yeonhee]

Sorry but the 4 savage and 1 ultimate excuse dosn't fly anymore when hadcore raiders have been eating exceptionally good in dawntrail while everyone else had borderline 0 content until Occult Crescent.

They currently have 8 savage raid, 1 ultimate, 1 chaotic, 1 alliance raid (Forked Tower) and for some reason now we also have the Deep dungeon boss accessible by que with the difficulty cranked up to 11.
Meanwhile Casual players have: 8 normal raids, 2 alliance raids, Occult Crescent without an ending because of forked tower, ill be generous and say that the new deep dungeon is casual but its actually debateable due to requirement for entry aaaaaand thats it i guess.

I always laugh when YoshiP says in an interview that they want to make content for everyone from now on and thats why we have the new deep dungeon stuff shoehorned in, while forked tower and chaotic is still unplayable pieces of...content. Somehow the content for everyone means we also get a hard version of things, but for some reason i highly doubt the next ultimate will have a normal mode when you actually survive stuff and normal raids with the savage exclusive boss forms.

All in all lets just stop the copium, its obvious that square wants to cater to the hardcore raiders and it is objectively, actively reducing the playerbase in dawntrail and overall interest in the game.

I'm sorry but I disagree. While I agree about Forked Tower, Chaotic is imo unlikely to get any more of them since it's a nightmare to do, getting 24 people together that have the basic skill to run it and that aren't prog lying isn't an easy thing to do. Occult Cresent released in 7.25 and by that point there was already 8 normal raids and 1 alliance as well as Cosmic Exploration, so I'm not really sure how it has zero content until then.

And saying that the new Deep Dungeon is for hardcore raiders just because you have to do a bunch of easy PotD floors and one laughable boss to access it is just plain ridiculous. Being a casual doesn't mean you somehow are utterly unable to Google how to access new content.

Overall, hardcore raiders have been eating a tad bit better in Dawntrail but again they only have two more raid than usual to do. For a damn long time the devs were unable/unwilling to pump interesting content in good number, it has very little to do with the big evil hardcore raiders.

[AyumiCosplayGlam]

I'm sorry but I disagree. While I agree about Forked Tower, Chaotic is imo unlikely to get any more of them since it's a nightmare to do, getting 24 people together that have the basic skill to run it and that aren't prog lying isn't an easy thing to do. Occult Cresent released in 7.25 and by that point there was already 8 normal raids and 1 alliance as well as Cosmic Exploration, so I'm not really sure how it has zero content until then.

And saying that the new Deep Dungeon is for hardcore raiders just because you have to do a bunch of easy PotD floors and one laughable boss to access it is just plain ridiculous. Being a casual doesn't mean you somehow are utterly unable to Google how to access new content.

Overall, hardcore raiders have been eating a tad bit better in Dawntrail but again they only have two more raid than usual to do. For a damn long time the devs were unable/unwilling to pump interesting content in good number, it has very little to do with the big evil hardcore raiders.

I really do hope you are right about chaotic, because another of those should never,ever see the light of day, all that development time wasted for a week of content for so few people.
Fun fact, it barely has a higher clear rate than Cruiserweight Savage. A 24 man fight has barely higher clear rate than an 8 man savage raid, that is rough.

Forked Tower is a travesty, they should have worked on a normal mode all hands on deck after the backlash... its currently sitting at a 3.7% completion rate on lalachievements. Ultimates have higher clear rate than that...which is beyond embarassing.

Like i said, deep dungeon is debateable, its not hardcore by any means but its definitely not casual either and not because of the difficulty, but the accessibility.
PoTD should not be a requirement for this, plain and simple. Imagine if Occult crestent would require you to complete Eureka and Bozja because it has the same structure, makes 0 sense. Its not hard to create a 5 level tutorial in the unlock quest to teach them how it works, instead they are sent out to PotD...nice one.

Aside from that dumb unlock requirement, it should be in the duty finder, because while at the moment we dont have a population problem with it and parties fill fast, this will not be the case a few weeks from now on and you will be unable to complete it in a reasonable time with the que system and fixed party will be your only option and content that NEEDS you to organize people and keep them around for a relatively long time, is by no means a casual content.

[Yeonhee]

I really do hope you are right about chaotic, because another of those should never,ever see the light of day, all that development time wasted for a week of content for so few people.
Fun fact, it barely has a higher clear rate than Cruiserweight Savage. A 24 man fight has barely higher clear rate than an 8 man savage raid, that is rough.

Forked Tower is a travesty, they should have worked on a normal mode all hands on deck after the backlash... its currently sitting at a 3.7% completion rate on lalachievements. Ultimates have higher clear rate than that...which is beyond embarassing.

Like i said, deep dungeon is debateable, its not hardcore by any means but its definitely not casual either and not because of the difficulty, but the accessibility.
PoTD should not be a requirement for this, plain and simple. Imagine if Occult crestent would require you to complete Eureka and Bozja because it has the same structure, makes 0 sense. Its not hard to create a 5 level tutorial in the unlock quest to teach them how it works, instead they are sent out to PotD...nice one.

Aside from that dumb unlock requirement, it should be in the duty finder, because while at the moment we dont have a population problem with it and parties fill fast, this will not be the case a few weeks from now on and you will be unable to complete it in a reasonable time with the que system and fixed party will be your only option and content that NEEDS you to organize people and keep them around for a relatively long time, is by no means a casual content.

Personally I think Chaotic alliance raid wasn't that much of a bad idea, but it should have been about the difficulty level of an extreme, making it about the difficulty of a savage raid is just stupid. It seems difficult enough to find reliable PF to clear/reclear savages sometimes, I can't imagine how nightmarish it must be for a 24-man raid.

Forked Tower I agree completely. I just cannot understand how they could have thought that making the final raid of a content that is largely casual into savage-level was a good idea. And seeing that even the raiders aren't even interested in it, it makes the dev's decision even more ridiculous.

I honestly think the PotD requirement is fine. It doesn't require you to have completed it all, only the first 50 floors. That's something you can solo in about an evening without that much issues and would also teach you how deep dungeons work. Sure, they could have do it differently but let's be honest here, the requirement isn't so difficult and convoluted that no casual player could do it. Tho I do agree it would be better for everyone if they at least remove the fixed party.

But overall, I don't have much faith that any of these issues would be addressed at some point. People have complained for years now that healers aren't interesting to play in the vast majority of content and yet they still have a 2 buttons damage rotation.

[Kohashi]

Personally I think Chaotic alliance raid wasn't that much of a bad idea, but it should have been about the difficulty level of an extreme, making it about the difficulty of a savage raid is just stupid. It seems difficult enough to find reliable PF to clear/reclear savages sometimes, I can't imagine how nightmarish it must be for a 24-man raid.

And what exactly is savage worthee mechanic in that raid? The hands telegraph? The towers? Sitting with your alliance? The stored mechanics?

Take Rubicante as an example, that fight was vastly more complex than any mechanic Chaotic has. Let's not kid ourselves and shift the blame to the design. There should come a time when people actually take accountability and admit that what made it savage and miserable overall was the people.