The disapointment that is Alexander

I think the goblins need to be replaced entirely or have less attention focused on them, it ruins any hope that Alexander could be taken seriously and maybe show the impact of his presence on the enviroment.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

Honestly, and I don't mean this as offensively as it's going to sound, but I very highly doubt your group would be good enough to be competing for any firsts if they can't handle doing proper dps while also doing mechanics. A1 was doable without esoteric gear, and it's almost trivial with it.

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Haha, no offense taken. I was making a point more than anything. My group has competent players that can put out above average dps and learn mechanics quickly - an ability that served us well - and if the real difficulty was doing the mechanics & not the dps check - we'd have been through with no problem. But fair enough, you do need to do proper dps while doing mechanics - but as I see it the balance has shifted far more to the "proper dps" side of the scale than in previous raids which we found more satisfying in difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

They should have released Alexander story and Savage at the same time, because a lot of the boredom is coming from the fact that most of the mechanics were figured out weeks before and the fights themselves have been farmed to death. Making story mode be a stepping stone in progression was a mistake.

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I don't agree with this. WoW has used the normal before hard system for a very long time and their hard mode encounters never suffered from it. It's purely a flaw in A1's fight design.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

I don't agree with this. WoW has used the normal before hard system for a very long time and their hard mode encounters never suffered from it. It's purely a flaw in A1's fight design.

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You're right there. The prerelease of story isn't a problem (for me) for floors 3S and 4S, but is a humongous problem for A1S and to some degree A2S. Having said that, many people would find the aesthetics and such very boring because of the timing, so it's still a problem for some.

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Originally Posted by HReincarnate

Haha, no offense taken. I was making a point more than anything. My group has competent players that can put out above average dps and learn mechanics quickly - an ability that served us well - and if the real difficulty was doing the mechanics & not the dps check - we'd have been through with no problem. But fair enough, you do need to do proper dps while doing mechanics - but as I see it the balance has shifted far more to the "proper dps" side of the scale than in previous raids which we found more satisfying in difficulty.

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That's just part of raiding though. It's not just a game of simon says, you have to do the mechanics while playing your class in the most optimal way possible. If you can't do both, then you shouldn't clear. A1S just leans more on the side of knowing your class more than the fight, I think.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

That's just part of raiding though. It's not just a game of simon says, you have to do the mechanics while playing your class in the most optimal way possible. If you can't do both, then you shouldn't clear. A1S just leans more on the side of knowing your class more than the fight, I think.

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You're very much right - I just think that they've taken that to the extreme. You could get by before by getting 80% or 90% of your max dps - but now you have to reach that max to progress. I guess they wanted groups like mine to wait for gear - but wtf are we supposed to do in the meantime?

I think they got the balance wrong, and while a high dps check isn't a mistake in and of itself - it can make fights more interesting - I think the extent of the checks is a mistake. Imo they had a good balance between execution of mechanics & your expected dps while doing so in Coil. I make no excuses, we aren't good enough dps wise to get past savage with our current gear, but we were good enough to get past T6 and T10 a few weeks after they came out and we were happy with the balance of those fights. Some people may be happy with savage's difficulty as it is, and I accept that, but people like me aren't and we want to express that.

I am not going to talk about the difficult, because Alexander Savage doesnt interest me at all. If seen alexander normal, while the atmosphere is great couze of the steams and stuff, all the mechanic items, it still doesnt fit the role of a "Raid" not even Close to a "Dungeon".

Every floor is his own instance, and every floor feels just like a Primal Battle, but the Encounters not even feel that scary like Ravana or Bismark, atleast for me.

Raids doesnt automatical mean "lots of Players" for me, they just could have splittet alexander more like the first part of the Crystal Tower. Where i may also just go 1 way like in the dungeons, but atleast i feel like i would "exploring" a new whole zones.

i probably enjoy the medicore Content even more, if they going to release another "Crystal Tower" like Raid, which acutally feels like a raid.

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Originally Posted by HReincarnate

You're very much right - I just think that they've taken that to the extreme. You could get by before by getting 80% or 90% of your max dps - but now you have to reach that max to progress. I guess they wanted groups like mine to wait for gear - but wtf are we supposed to do in the meantime?

I think they got the balance wrong, and while a high dps check isn't a mistake in and of itself - it can make fights more interesting - I think the extent of the checks is a mistake. Imo they had a good balance between execution of mechanics & your expected dps while doing so in Coil. I make no excuses, we aren't good enough dps wise to get past savage with our current gear, but we were good enough to get past T6 and T10 a few weeks after they came out and we were happy with the balance of those fights. Some people may be happy with savage's difficulty as it is, and I accept that, but people like me aren't and we want to express that.

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Just gotta keep trying and give it time. I think it's kinda interesting how they released it before it was possible to be at the 'intended' item level, but still at a doable stage.

I know your frustration though, I would have cleared it myself by now if my static didn't keep falling apart and people having life issues...my MT even quit the game randomly. :( Just gotta keep at it and not get discouraged.

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Originally Posted by HReincarnate

Ah I was waiting for this response. Trust me, if mechanics were the real difficulty of savage I'd be on A3S competing for server first by now. Instead it's the tight dps checks that lock groups out & leave them either beating their heads at a boss with no result, or waiting for gear, despite their ability to execute mechanics and the fact that they cleared Coil without too much trouble.

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Even if you can do every mechanic blindfolded, it doesn't excuse you from doing your job's duties. All gear does is offer relief, whether room for mechanical error or accounting for a less effective rotation.

FFXIV endgame has always been about maintaining job expectations in spite of a barrage of battle mechanics hell-bent on tripping you up. If it were just mechanics, it would be Simon Says. If it were just rotations, it would be a training dummy. Battle content is a synthesis of both. It's like spinning plates while someone throws knives at you--which I guess is also artificially difficult, because there's no emergent or naturally-occurring system of knife-throwing-while-spinning-plates that I'm aware of.

Dead on in nearly every aspect. Compared to Coils, Alexander's Aesthetics are terrible. But, good graphics and pretty art an MMO does not make. I think the OP nailed a lot of the issues, especially the fact that adding some difficulty mechanics to make it raid progression content and changing nothing else was very poorly planned. If you're going to create duplicate content for the casual and hardcore crowd, you need to do it simultaneously and find another method besides gear/dps checks to do it. Otherwise it's just a blatant repetition of content not dissimilar to what already happens with dungeon recycling. It's really the only way they can sustain it in the current model however. Creating truly new content and assets in a vertical MMO is self defeating effort when nobody will touch it 3 months later.

That's not even including the fact that Alex is nearly identical to Coils. Generally speaking, when an expansion adds new endgame content it adds something different to the pool along with more dungeons and raids similar to the previous. At least that's how it has gone in my experience. When XI added expansions it vastly changed the mechanics of it's "Raid" as well. Dynamis, Limbus and Salvage were 10x the size and scope of XIVs raids and they made up only about 10% of the endgame content for their respective expansions as opposed to XIV where the raid is nearly 100% of it.

End of the day, FFXIV is not designed for endgame players nor do I think it ever will be. They have taken vertical progression and made it as linear as can possibly be done and taken content recycling to the extreme. It's one of those MMOs you will play for maybe a year or two at most and then realize you're doing the same thing over and over to no end. I know this is standard for vertical progression MMOs but even in that there can easily be more unique and original content than we have seen.

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Originally Posted by HReincarnate

Trust me, if mechanics were the real difficulty of savage I'd be on A3S competing for server first by now.

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Of course you would. Just like all the other woefully unrecognized raiding gods too pure too skilled for this world.

yh im not hyped too much on the design of alex. But I think the fights themselves are what matters and they are great. I don not like a2 savage, I think it's boring endless trash raid wtf were they thinking but oh well a3 rekts us all, seems like best fight ever. he is the gatekeeper rip everyone.

Also I don't like th music in a1-3 but I LOVE the a4 music so I guess that's k.


I sort miss the allagan themes....but oh well, far superior mechanics and difficulty make up for it.


Probably we have those lore filth ppl who cried that coil locked away beauty and story from most players, so therefore, alexander looks meh aesthetically and is void of any storyline whatsoever so one would assume no more qq, but oh well.


tbh I'm kinda annoyed that people actually complain about alex hm, se didn't ven have to make it and could have just made savage, but no ppl gonna cry anyways.

I'm not a fan of the story, nor the characters. But hopefully we're really just in the 1st part of the Alexander plot, it might turn into a tragedy by the end of it all. But for now I can't quite view Alexander as a threat as it should be ... nor those illuminati as a semi-comic relief.

Agreeing with you, I have no desire to do alexander, everything about it looks dull and boring.

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Originally Posted by Intaki

Of course you would. Just like all the other woefully unrecognized raiding gods too pure too skilled for this world.

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Please read my responses in page 6. It might help if you read the entirety of a thread instead of just jumping at the one response you could make a smartass comment at :P

I agree that Alex story mode is easy, but it should be easy. It is here because people who can't raid wanted to experience the raid's story so it is fine.
IMO they shouldn't even put echo in savage later because of SM.

I don't agree with you on the artifical difficulty at all. From my experience my static was able to pass the DPS check on day 1 but we were failing on stuff like buff management for tank busters and mostly adds management. For A2 I don't agree too, I love the fight. As a BRD I have to think a lot when I can put a few AoEs between DoT refreshing and bursting some primary targets. It doesn't have any shiny new mechanics but it is definitely harder for me than A1.
My opinion will still be the same, artifical difficulty is always used by people who fail to master their rotation (not saying I have mastered it) or their class completely, sorry if you take it as an insult.

EDIT: Personaly I never was fan of stuff like "It is not difficult I haven't cleared it because of <random something>."
Momentally doing good damage in raid is part of each DPS and Tank class (and in some parts even Healers), it is not artifical difficulty, DPS checks are normal mechanics, you can't deny them only because you fail to pass them.

i finished all coils before and this raid tier is complete garbage imo im sorry. im already quite burnt out from farming the normal versions and am cosidering not even finishing the savage mode (curently on as3). again only tiny turns. something like fractal continuum looks 10 times more impressive design wise. again only 4 bosses, probably should say 3 because as2 is just a shody excuse of a turn. as3 i should say as well since its a recycled model.
the story is a joke sidequest.
not only have they cheapened the experience for raiders like someone said but there is also no cool rewards except for the weapon and maybe something else in as4 altho i doubt it.

with all this said i do wonder what the japanese side of the community thinks since they seem to be the only ones the developers will listen to.

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Originally Posted by 4gotmypassword

EDIT: Adventica, while this is true for A2S, A3S and A4S, A1S's difficulty IS, actually artificial. It has next to no new mechanics- I can only think of one- and the difficulty comes pretty much 100% from the lack of gear people have from the fight. So, you're wrong. "See ya".

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-Double prey does more than negligible damage.
-Resin bombs drop slowing poison.
-4 lasers spawn instead of 2, and care has to be given to not lead the adds into poison.
-The bosses have a new tank buster move, that at low gear levels has to be properly mitigated.
-The damage up from them being two close is permanent.
-During their jump, the patterns are changed and they will fire resin bombs before landing.

More than a single change.

(Cleared A1S, A2S, just started on A3S)

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

I don't agree with this. WoW has used the normal before hard system for a very long time and their hard mode encounters never suffered from it. It's purely a flaw in A1's fight design.

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How similar were the hard fights to normals? A1S and A2S are nearly identical to the story mode fights and are complete excitement killers. A3, at least, has some differences and from what little I've heard of A4 it sounds like T13 levels of pain. Granted, SCoB wasn't much better but with the exception of T9, it had enough differences to be fun for a short while. I wasn't expecting anything revolutionary but at least give us something different instead of rehashing the fights with bigger numbers. Some of the EX primal fights did a better job than A1/2S.

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Originally Posted by RhazeCain

And a4s is beginning to sound like a repeat of that - not so much the 1 problem mechanic, but just sheer difficulty.

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SE are stuck between a rock and a hard place here. If the difficulty was lower, it was always beaten, there'd be multiple threads about how Alex Savage was too easy.

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Originally Posted by HReincarnate

the reason I call it artificial is because it doesn't have to do with the number of mechanics or their execution but just the raw numbers. You could nerf the mechanics to hell and back but most would struggle still to beat the fight because it's all about the dps.

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Originally Posted by HReincarnate

Instead it's the tight dps checks that lock groups out & leave them either beating their heads at a boss with no result, or waiting for gear, despite their ability to execute mechanics and the fact that they cleared Coil without too much trouble.

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How is Alex Savage any different from Final Coil in the first few weeks it was out in this regard?

T11 has effectively 100% uptime outside of the add phase, but groups were still hitting the enrage. T12 is made practically an order of magnitude easier any time you can push the phase change in a way that gives your one fewer Bennu to deal with. Even the best groups in the world needed (or at least made excellent use of) penta-melded crafted gear to beat the enrage.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

I don't agree with this. WoW has used the normal before hard system for a very long time and their hard mode encounters never suffered from it.

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It's not quite the same.

There's only a single week delay and the raids are much larger than FFXIV's. Also, the difficulty that the lower end of the raiding population will clear on (Raid Finder) is not just delayed, but also stagged.

WoW's current raid went into the game on the same day Heavensward released and you still can't fight all the bosses on that difficulty.

Aesthetic wise, that's mostly just taste. I find the corridors and steam stuff very fitting for what should be a cramped place anyways as we're only traveling up the arm. A3's boss is actually an allusion to http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Liquid_Flame

Also considering the last boss, I see it being a function of Alexander itself, instead of goblin cronies or anomalies like the A3 boss. That's why it doesn't move, and killing A4's boss is basically taking a stab at Alexander itself.

Difficulty wise, normal is supposed to be really easy. Not everybody's skill level is the same, and Savage A1 is supposed to be more simple mechanic wise to get most groups started, just like how simple turn 1 coil was. So I don't know how much you were expecting from the early fights.

Story wise, it is not as epic as Coil of Bahamut, but the threat of a massive primal is pretty real, whether or not you can see it visibly to the land. Instead of sitting on our butts and waiting to see if it actually does something, we're taking an initiative on it.

As far as the raiding system as a whole goes, what exactly do you suggest? Not having story mode out before/during the difficult raid? If we put a wait on that, we'd see a thread just like this but in reverse, about how people can't see current stories and etc.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

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Fair point. I still view it as artificial difficulty because upping the numbers is a way of making something more difficult without changing the fight too much. Someone above me listed the ways the fight is different to normal mode but once you've done the normal mode fight, those changes are minuscule & easy to get used to since core mechanics are the same. Btw I'm a healer, but I can say that my group isnt good enough to pass those checks - yet we were able to progress past coils at a steady pace - because the extent of the dps checks was lower and they were more mechanic based. My complaint isnt that dps checks exist, its that they've been made harder while mechanics (especially A1S) have been reduced.

I'm still boggling at folks kvetching about the difficulty of the *first* boss.

Difficulty generally ramps *up*. Imo, first boss should give people false hope of completion because the rest is brutal.

Alex normal is just fine with the difficulty. Not easy not too hard. It's just average and that's was the point to begin with. Alex story was somehow disappointing but I think the story with Alex is not over yet. Alex is still there and did not vanish even when we deactivate him. Goblins are still around. I think it's just not over yet. For some reason it made perfect sense to link Alex with the goblins. It matches in this game's plot. And let's remember Alex is not made by goblin nor he is of goblin origin. It just goblin who summoned him this time. I would like to see Alex in action though beaming his lasers and spread his wing to something poor and exterminate it. Be it the Garleans or something else. We just need to see him in action somehow. The interiors well they are average to me but that was the point. He is just a big robotic building I didn't expected to see anything more. They tried hard to match the size of the interiors with the actual size when you see him from outside.

If you're wiping on anything that isn't healer related in A1S, you're losing to mechanics.
The DPS check was doable without ESO weapons, and with them it's not even an issue if you're actually handling the mechanics in an intelligent way that ensures the dps can focus on their job.

(Sidenote: interesting to see how others did A2S, or even called it easy. Took my group about 4/5 raiding nights to clear it. Started with the NIN in the robot, then I had to do it as a MCH, probably because finding the bomb with a controller is difficult.)

@CosmcKirby
-Double prey does more than negligible damage.
A big hit, even separated, is not a mechanic.
-Resin bombs drop slowing poison.
This is part of the only mechanic I could think of- poison pools during jumps.
-4 lasers spawn instead of 2, and care has to be given to not lead the adds into poison.
Not a new mechanic.
-The bosses have a new tank buster move, that at low gear levels has to be properly mitigated.
I don't personally think "big attack" classifies as a mechanic.
-The damage up from them being two close is permanent.
Not a mechanic.
-During their jump, the patterns are changed and they will fire resin bombs before landing.
You just mentioned resin bombs twice. This is the one mechanic.

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Originally Posted by 4gotmypassword

@CosmcKirby
-Double prey does more than negligible damage.
A big hit, even separated, is not a mechanic.
-Resin bombs drop slowing poison.
This is part of the only mechanic I could think of- poison pools during jumps.
-4 lasers spawn instead of 2, and care has to be given to not lead the adds into poison.
Not a new mechanic.
-The bosses have a new tank buster move, that at low gear levels has to be properly mitigated.
I don't personally think "big attack" classifies as a mechanic.
-The damage up from them being two close is permanent.
Not a mechanic.
-During their jump, the patterns are changed and they will fire resin bombs before landing.
You just mentioned resin bombs twice. This is the one mechanic.

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They don't drop resin bombs during their jump phase on normal, that's the new change you have to deal with. Especially with it sticking around for a length of time.

4 lasers compared to 2 is new because you have to properly coordinate adds for each one, or it's a wipe. You barely have to think about it on normal.

Double prey happens within the same moments of double raid aoe, and big tank hits. Healing in normal compared to that is massively different, and if you think otherwise, you have never healed it, or never talked to a healer who has.

Additions of tank busters is a mechanic, because the healer and tanks have to deal with it. Tanks have to prepare for it, and mitigate it, and healers have to get ready and heal it or it could lead to a wipe.

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Originally Posted by 4gotmypassword

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Miguel Sicart, who has a PHD in Game studies defines "Game Mechanics" as the following:

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Game mechanics are constructs of rules or methods designed for interaction with the game state, thus providing gameplay.

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Firstly, all of the above are certainly new sets of rules introduced within the fight. The rule of "There are 2 missiles." is now, "There are 4 missiles." This can be extended to the other examples I listed.
Secondly, do this rules provide interaction for the players in a different way? Yes. Players have to intelligently place the Resin bombs, they have to more carefully guide their adds, they have to mitigate the boss better, and they have to heal more intelligently through more difficult forms of damage.
Finally, this certainly accounts for gameplay.

It's not a matter of "are there new mechanics", as there certainly are. Now, are these mechanics different enough? That's a point of contention you can discuss.

I agreed that the whole raiding experience has been lost compared to coil.
Savage should of been released at same time as normal or before but due to tight dps check SE made normal mandatory. To get couple of pieces to beat enraged.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

How similar were the hard fights to normals? A1S and A2S are nearly identical to the story mode fights and are complete excitement killers. A3, at least, has some differences and from what little I've heard of A4 it sounds like T13 levels of pain. Granted, SCoB wasn't much better but with the exception of T9, it had enough differences to be fun for a short while. I wasn't expecting anything revolutionary but at least give us something different instead of rehashing the fights with bigger numbers. Some of the EX primal fights did a better job than A1/2S.

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Usually one, maybe two new mechanics on Mythic. Story(lfr) they *remove* mechanics present in normal and heroic. Normal and heroic are just numbers difference.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Usually one, maybe two new mechanics on Mythic. Story(lfr) they *remove* mechanics present in normal and heroic. Normal and heroic are just numbers difference.

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I haven't played WoD at all, but unless something has changed in the way they design their mythic fights those one or two new mechanics typically completely change the entire fight. They added things to A1/2 in Savage but it barely changes the flow of the fight at all, which is the issue. They're just slightly beefier versions of their normal counterparts instead of being unique encounters.

Compare, say, heroic (or mythic now I guess?) Dark Shamans, Malkorok, Thok, Siegecrafter, etc etc to their normal (or heroic now... these ridiculous name changes) versions and although it's only a few tweaked mechanics they completely changed the entire encounter and made it very challenging.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

Compare, say, heroic (or mythic now I guess?) Dark Shamans, Malkorok, Thok, Siegecrafter, etc etc to their normal (or heroic now... these ridiculous name changes) versions and although it's only a few tweaked mechanics they completely changed the entire encounter and made it very challenging.

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The best part is, the names were changed, solely because people didn't like being told that LFR was kid-gloves. So now, LFR is "normal" even if still fills the exact same gameplay niche as it did before.

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Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

The best part is, the names were changed, solely because people didn't like being told that LFR was kid-gloves. So now, LFR is "normal" even if still fills the exact same gameplay niche as it did before.

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To nitpick, Raid Finder is still Raid Finder. The difficulty formerly known as Flex became Normal.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

To nitpick, Raid Finder is still Raid Finder. The difficulty formerly known as Flex became Normal.

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A nitpick worth making, as I didn't know that, specifically, was the case.

The music is terribad!!!! Stop it with the 15yr girly pop music.

We are in a Final Fantasy. We need epic classical themes!

First stages of the raid.

Already condemning it.

How about you read/look into the lore a bit more before judging a brand new storyline. Heavensward was incredible and I'm sure Alexander will be too, but you have to GIVE IT TIME.

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Originally Posted by BoltNixter

The music is terribad!!!! Stop it with the 15yr girly pop music.

We are in a Final Fantasy. We need epic classical themes!

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The music is literally the best part of the raid D:

There's tons of grand orchestral themes already out there. Variety is a good thing.

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Originally Posted by BoltNixter

The music is terribad!!!! Stop it with the 15yr girly pop music.

We are in a Final Fantasy. We need epic classical themes!

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Agreed, need more like this Ultima I think

What are you on about?

Alexander as a raid is bad because you don't like the look of the first 1/3rd of the raid chain?

and new mechanics = artificial difficulty? You might need to check yer definitions.

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Originally Posted by ZanzhizExaverion

First stages of the raid.

Already condemning it.

How about you read/look into the lore a bit more before judging a brand new storyline. Heavensward was incredible and I'm sure Alexander will be too, but you have to GIVE IT TIME.

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To be fair, the Alex story so far is terrible, and personally I think the deus ex machina issue with Mide set the whole thing off on the wrong foot. Then again, Coil story wasn't good until T5 either but at least T1 started it off well. That being said, the story does have potential to become good, if only because of the mysterious failed summoning 3 years prior. I wouldn't be surprised if the plot twist was Mide and her friend/mentor/whoever-"he"-is were the ones who attempted it.