-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT| Raiders of the Void Ark
- Thread starter Trojita
- Start date
Silvawuff
Member
I'm really tempted to bite on this today. I was sort of waiting for it to go on sale or something, but I don't think that'll happen any time soon. I know this gasses out hard endgame right now.
For someone who quit right after the Keeper of the Lake patch, is this game worth diving into now, or should I wait for a few more content patches?
Also do we know how far away the next big one will be?
For someone who quit right after the Keeper of the Lake patch, is this game worth diving into now, or should I wait for a few more content patches?
Also do we know how far away the next big one will be?
lilojigsaw
Member
Try this for the hotbar
To display more hotbars, simply go to to the 'System' Menu, hit 'Character Configuration.' Then at the second to last icon on the bottom left of the window, there's a 'hotbar settings' button. Click that, and you'll have the option to display up to 10 hotbars
Faint hints of a scandal but nothing concrete as yet...
There should be enough out now to keep you busy until the next content patch which is coming up in a month or two I think.
The impression I get from out-of-FC gossip is that fuses are shortening in general and morale is wilting in a lot of groups. Pushing 6 or 7 weeks on the same content, when it's the only thing left in the game to do for many, is going to be a thing. It also doesn't help that groups seem to wall in general earlier, and hitting enrage doesn't neceesarily even mean you're really close to actually clearing (maybe one day... If I learn to DPS...) Plus now we've seen A4S videos, and one of the prevailing strats is just... Ignoring mechanics makes it not super appealing to get to.
We've been more or less okay as a group, but we're calling days earlier when things aren't gelling. Or our ninja really really wants McDonalds.
We've been more or less okay as a group, but we're calling days earlier when things aren't gelling. Or our ninja really really wants McDonalds.
SliceSabre
Banned
I believe Yoshi in the Producer letter said that they were scared that Savage was too hard right before it was finally beaten.
It'll get Echo at some point and the rest of us will hit our heads at it soon enough.
It'll get Echo at some point and the rest of us will hit our heads at it soon enough.
Thank you so much! That worked. But can I make for example one of my hotbars smaller?
SliceSabre
Banned
You'd do that from the HUD menu. Allows you to hide, move and adjust the size of various menus, bars and such.
lilojigsaw
Member
Try HUD layout -> click on item -> Ctrl+home
Honestly I think the later fights might need mechanical adjustments instead. First, we may not actually be getting Echo this time. Second, for A3S I don't see it helping all that much in the short term.
Also even if we got it, it'd be months from now, when the content is no longer relevant.
Edit: Just to be clear what sort of mechanical nerfs I'm talking about. If it were me, in A3S I'd be focusing more on loosening up the timings slightly. One or two seconds more for everyone to debuff swap, one or two seconds more for tanks to position the hands when they glow, etc etc. A handful of little things like that would actually nerf it a lot more than most people probably realize.
Also, to be clear, again I'm thinking along the lines of, "how do we make this more fun for people that aren't bleeding edge progression types." I really do think it was a mistake to balance the one real raid for bleeding edge progression types. I mean I guess that's great for those types of players, but that's a small minority among those that raid in this game.
RPGCrazied
Member
Really need to do the next primal fight, Lady of the Vortex, been putting it off lately. Is this the last fight before all those end game quests at 50?
Couple little things left afterward, but you're getting close.
SliceSabre
Banned
I feel like that card description could apply here in some way.
Savage might not get echo, since there's already an easy mode.
I supposed people would complain about not being able to get that gear though.
RPGCrazied
Member
Watched the fight on youtube, this looks like another annoying fight. The gist I get is hide behind rocks when she jumps up, and kill the adds that pop up.
The fact that it's been weeks since A4S has been cleared, and there are still less than ten groups that've cleared it, should probably be an indicator that it probably is just a hair too hard.
But, I'll leave it at that for now I guess. Anymore and I think I'll be entering into, "he doth protest too much," territory.
But, I'll leave it at that for now I guess. Anymore and I think I'll be entering into, "he doth protest too much," territory.
Heh, didn't even notice that.
There aren't a lot of floater types in this game. Either you raid or you don't. Bleeding edge only happens in the first few weeks. As gear catches up everything becomes a bit easier. I still stand by that the community as a whole started this raid cycle undergeared for what we needed and just now around 190+ are getting close to where SE wanted us to be when we were gonna start challenging for clears.
Tuned a bit high? I think so. As it stands you need to be at or over 200 to stand a chance in A4 (I'm assuming) which requires quite a bit of time. I think that the mentality of how SE wants us to raid has changed since we all started (2 years ago) and some people are slower to catch up than before.
You could hide a low DPS behind tank DPS in 2.x. Now that Tank DPS isn't expected but mandatory, you need everyone to be clicking and not taking a night off. That's a lot to ask of people and there's no real way I can see for them to ease that. If you make less tank DPS required, it would ease things up but perhaps too much so the difficulty becomes lessened. Maybe the outgoing damage is a bit too much too frequently.
A3S mechanics seem fine, honestly, but they're clearly not for everyone. There's something on a base level that feels a bit off, and it may be the amount of outgoing damage versus healing power? I'm not sure since I'm a dps so what do I know. All I know is that so far Alex Savage doesn't feel an awful lot different than Coil did on the base level. There's more to deal with and there are actual DPS mechanics, which is kind of cool to see. I'll be interested to see how the encounters are tweaked going forward especially in Alexander Part 2: The Gobbening.
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
Probably first one logged in right after maintenance.
Game is much deader than usual but we are the most active FC on the server. Always people on. Probably be back to 100+ members online again after 3.1. It's been this way between patch cycles since 2.0.
irfaanator
Banned
itd be like you were playing on ps4
RPGCrazied
Member
I love it, kinda hard to go back to a mouse and keyboard MMO.
Never played the ps4 version, only the original game from years ago.
How is managing the hotbar / skills?
irfaanator
Banned
just means controller support is very good
A3S/A4S are basically a seperate difficulty tier from A1S and A2S. There's no real ramp up or preparation, which I think is why it's such a problem. We're missing a transitional floor to ease from the "old coil" of 1 and 2 to the Savage of 3. With the number of ways a single mistake can tank a run, 3S kind of reminds me of T7... But T7 had a really lenient fight enrage. It expected you to execute mechanics precisely every time, but in exchange eased up on DPS requirements. 3 isn't doing that, which just makes it different.
The only real mechanic adjustment I think would be justified would be better handling of debuff passes. I know, I know, latency, but there are one or two ways the Wash Away into Digititis in P1 can just be awful, and standing on your debuff buddy and counting to 3 and then watching the debuff just never pass is annoying. It's the only time the fight can occasionally feel unfair to me.
The only real mechanic adjustment I think would be justified would be better handling of debuff passes. I know, I know, latency, but there are one or two ways the Wash Away into Digititis in P1 can just be awful, and standing on your debuff buddy and counting to 3 and then watching the debuff just never pass is annoying. It's the only time the fight can occasionally feel unfair to me.
Pellegri Testament
Member
They kinda do though when it comes to whether it's worth development costs or not. It's also not a good sign when your content is so hard that it breaks up the majority of statics that try it, because so few of them know when to take a break and come back when everyone isn't chewing off each others heads. The fights shouldn't be "can my longtime static stay together during this before we kill each other?"
Savage Alex probably cost them very little to actually develop, because it's tweaking variables and adding a few new mechanics to each floor. The vast majority of the work was already done.
SliceSabre
Banned
It wasn't until recently that I bothered to look at what A3S looks like but...wow. That is a more intense experience right from the first punch than I was expecting.
Yeah, that's the mechanic that I dislike the most in that fight, since RNG or server latency can just doom the run so easily. I'm not particularly fond of the glowing clap/spread mechanic either, but that's more me not liking the telegraph they chose for it. Still, even that you can compensate for with strategy and knowing the timing well enough.
Can't really comment on any mechanics past that, save for saying that Holmgang should Bind adds. XD
Other way around actually. The devs create the toughest versions of the fights first, then take stuff out until they think they have something easy enough story-modes. This is probably in part why storymode fights often feel less interesting.
Critical Elk
Neo Member
Something something holmgang should be on cd from using it to ignore wash away's knockback?
CD is only three minutes long, should be back up again before the add phase is done. Unless that phase is a lot shorter than I'm expecting.
Moot point since it doesn't work on adds either way, but it'd be nice if the bind effect was something other than annoying (in a raid environment,) for once.
tiggerkiddo
Member
I have just chosen to see how the next tier of Alex Savage will be. Trying to find a group in my time slot is tough enough. There are other things to do in the meantime. Would love to try it but the time commitment of first finding a static and putting in the hours to get to that point is more than I care for.
lazybones18
Banned
maybe now you'll stop hogging the damn leaderboard
HylianScribe
Member
As I've said a few times now, the problem with just having savage "as-is" is that you don't have the equivalent of Coil this time around. Normal Alex is not coil, it's Crystal Tower/DR Trial level of difficulty, meant for mass consumption like any of the story content. EX Primals are the next step up, then Coil and the first half of Alex Savage. Then there is the second half of Alex Savage and Savage Coil. In HW, we lack a comprehensive Coil tier to satiate a larger percentage of players interested in end game content. They're not quite the critical mass audience the majority of the content is made for, but they're also a significantly larger base than the .1% elite progression groups. This demographic is likely your long haul dedicated players who stay subbed and have very high activity/playtime.
And moreso than before, A3S and A4S are heavily gated (read: reasonable chance of clearing) to 99.9% of the player base by gear checks that don't apply to the .1% (Elysium, Lucrezia, etc) as indicated by the fact they've now cleared all of Alex Savage. As I said before, Alex Savage was, IMO, designed as a screw you to everyone because the designers felt like their work was cleared to quickly and were in probably in a continuous discussion/debate about how to make it so the best of the best couldn't clear their challenging content so quickly. It was a pride thing, IMO. We got A3S and A4S as a result. The devs also gated and removed other options groups were using to circumvent the challenge, ie pentamelded crafted gear. If they refuse to add another difficulty tier to Alex Phase 2, they should re-evaluate their design choices for the next set of raid bosses and maybe tone it down just a little bit on the back half if they want more people to try it and remain actively engaged. But again, I insist they should make a third tier in between Normal and Savage...
I don't think there is anything they can do right now to fix this. We're stuck until 3.2, though I seriously urge the developers to reconsider their approach to progression by introducing a middle tier meant for a larger portion of the players, the more dedicated base that wants to keep playing a lot. Keep the savage mode to reward and challenge the best of the best and give the game some sort of prestige, but be sure that you're not turning off a majority of your players from the game or being more active because you catered to a very small, but very vocal base. Case Study: The downfall of Street Fighter for almost a decade thanks to Third Strike (catering to the most elite players to appease them while alienating most of your fan base). You can say Third Strike was an amazing game, but it came at an extremely high cost.
So again...as I've said numerous times...have three tiers for whatever the next phase of Alex is called. Alexander Phase 2 (meant for a majority 75-90% of the player base), Alexander Phase 2 Hard Mode (meant for a larger part of the fan base 25-50%, and Alexander Phase 2 Savage (meant for a small portion of the fan base, 5-10%). This ensures that you have content relevant for as many people as possible while providing appropriately incremental difficulty options to keep as many players engaged and actively playing while delivering a sense of accomplishment. This also means re-evaluating the reward system. Perhaps something like gear from lower tiers that improve your overall stats so you can challenge the next level might not be the best course of action for rewarding your player base, or at least, shouldn't be the only one. Perhaps unique gear sets (both stat and appearance wise) only drop from savage, so the only way to get this cool looking set is by trying to clear it. And more than just the lame dangling carrot of "you can dye this version!"
But if they're not going to offer this, which is a realistic possibility, they need to offer more content aimed at the target group I described above as being the "Coil" tier. Either add in more EX primals or something. And stagger them a bit. Perhaps we get an EX primal every two months instead of waiting for a new one every patch? I don't know, that might be unreasonable to ask of the developers, but having more EX Primal content in a steady trickle could alleviate some of the negativity and frustration being expressed right now.
Edit: I acknowledge this could also be more a sign of me getting burned out on raiding and or FF XIV in general, so this is strictly how I view events since HW. Which means I could be totally alone in my point of view.
Okay, time for something lighter.
The New Adventures of Fat Chocobo.
You're welcome.
PS: I agree with Korra here. Savage Coil is fine for the groups that want to really push themselves, and as frustrating as it can be I'm having fun with it. Regardless, there needs to be something long term for the mid-tier that were/are more comfortable with Extreme Primals and FCoB levels of difficulty.
The New Adventures of Fat Chocobo.
You're welcome.
PS: I agree with Korra here. Savage Coil is fine for the groups that want to really push themselves, and as frustrating as it can be I'm having fun with it. Regardless, there needs to be something long term for the mid-tier that were/are more comfortable with Extreme Primals and FCoB levels of difficulty.
They literally fell into the trap of designing content for the 1%. People talked about how Coil was that, but it really wasn't, but it's not like mechanics in AS are something out of this world, it's tuning, with white mages running on fumes for the last 30% of each fight, with a larger number of DPS disabling mechanics than before, stuff like that.
I expected all of Alexander Savage to stay around A1S-A2S difficulty honestly mostly because of the reward system that was preserved from ARR as is. These are not encounters that should be considered repeatable, especially since the old itemization system is kept completely as it was. Moreso than raid design they should reconsider their entire itemization approach; people were already irked enough so many gear tiers popping up the moment you hit 60, and then of course you have Bismarck where Yoshida went "Yeah, should've given it more thought" and ended it at that. I mean, what?
What I personally would prefer is
Story tier: Something trivial weekly (Be creative, maybe a personal teleport reduction bonus, or a ticket to some Sky island inaccessible otherwise, or a chance at a rare Triple Triad card. A +15% esoterics card will keep people running, lemme tell ya.)
Normal tier (roughly FCOB): The other top gear set
Savage tier: The 1% with rewards being exclusive titles/mounts/cosmetic glow for the weapon/early access to the next Big Thing.
Savage raiding for gear that isn't really special is ridiculous.
I expected all of Alexander Savage to stay around A1S-A2S difficulty honestly mostly because of the reward system that was preserved from ARR as is. These are not encounters that should be considered repeatable, especially since the old itemization system is kept completely as it was. Moreso than raid design they should reconsider their entire itemization approach; people were already irked enough so many gear tiers popping up the moment you hit 60, and then of course you have Bismarck where Yoshida went "Yeah, should've given it more thought" and ended it at that. I mean, what?
What I personally would prefer is
Story tier: Something trivial weekly (Be creative, maybe a personal teleport reduction bonus, or a ticket to some Sky island inaccessible otherwise, or a chance at a rare Triple Triad card. A +15% esoterics card will keep people running, lemme tell ya.)
Normal tier (roughly FCOB): The other top gear set
Savage tier: The 1% with rewards being exclusive titles/mounts/cosmetic glow for the weapon/early access to the next Big Thing.
Savage raiding for gear that isn't really special is ridiculous.
Was calling for three tiers a while back when they first announced savage difficulty. Kind of saw this coming.
A thee tier system would be ideal assuming it wouldn't be a total pain in the ass to put together on SE's side.
Althoigh it might be best to reserve judgement until I've cleared everything so who knows.
A thee tier system would be ideal assuming it wouldn't be a total pain in the ass to put together on SE's side.
Althoigh it might be best to reserve judgement until I've cleared everything so who knows.
Eh, top half of that 25-50% were either at T13 by that time, had already cleared Bahamutt, or were very very close to having T12 down. The number of groups to have even cleared A3S by now is negligible, and we're weeks from 3.1.
PS: Kinda agree with Frumix here.
Story: Repeatable content with some entry level gear.
Extreme: FCoB level content with max ilvl dyeable gear.
Savage: Items to add Glow to gear, titles, unique mount. Maybe added during odd numbered patches.
Too late at this point though. Most they could do is adjust 3 and 4, and they couldn't do that without alienating a portion of the player base.
PS: Kinda agree with Frumix here.
Story: Repeatable content with some entry level gear.
Extreme: FCoB level content with max ilvl dyeable gear.
Savage: Items to add Glow to gear, titles, unique mount. Maybe added during odd numbered patches.
Too late at this point though. Most they could do is adjust 3 and 4, and they couldn't do that without alienating a portion of the player base.
HylianScribe
Member
Well, those are the final turns of Coil. I'm also talking about the second to last ones, too. I feel a lot of the 25-50% groups cleared T8 and T12 without poverty assistance, or at least, without significant poverty assistance. That's likely not going to be the case for A3S from the way things are going. Not to mention, a lot of groups will be at what...2 or 2+ months of being stuck on A3S by that time 3.1 hits? That's like...way more time spent on a turn...not even the last turn...for these groups. That kind of suggests there should be another difficulty tier.
Another thing to consider is that I assume a majority of the 25-50% group are "overall better at raiding/playing FF XIV" and thus taking the same time or, in this case, longer than before to clear content is a big sign that the second half of Alex Savage is too difficult for the group.
Finally, I'm not convinced that my labeled 25-50% group applies when viewed in the context of groups that cleared with the extra crutch of poverty upgrades. I would say a smaller group than that got over the hump then. Closer to the 25%. The larger percentage got over the hump when the significant crutches were put in place, echo buff and nerfs to mechanics. Regardless, this only serves to strengthen my argument that why wait so long to offer this solution when you could re-work the crutches into a lower difficulty tier from the start to hook more people in sooner. For some, the promise of echo/nerfs/poverty upgrades turns players off from the game until the odd numbered patches hit. SE is missing out on a chance to capitalize on keeping those people subbed or actively playing if they just introduced the middle tier raid content sooner. Just adjust the rewards, too.
Should probably just define this here rather than tossing out percents.
Tier 1 Raiding: The smallest percentage of the player base, which I call the .1% as a joke but in more seriousness believe is around 5% to maybe 10% at most of the player base. More realistically closer to 5%.
Tier 2 Raiding: A decent size of the player base, but not nearly the majority. I would say anywhere from 25% to maybe 50% at most (honestly this should probably be 25-40% now that I think about it more), though obviously somewhere in between and likely close to 25% than 50%
Tier 3 Raiding: The majority of your player base. Over 50% of players, likely closer to 60-75% of them fall into this category.
Critical Elk
Neo Member
Assuming that handy infographic is correct, the first wash away is at ~77.5s and the phase transition is at ~286s. So it would be back up /o
User Name Here
Member
Any talk of this going F2P?
Game is very successful no reason for it to.
Yup. I adore coil and extreme primals (even with Bismarck EX PTSD) and Savage Alex just doesn't appeal to me the way Coil or the EX primals did.
And even though Coil is easy now compared to what it was at launch it's not what I'd call faceroll easy.