Normal/Savage Alexander complaint

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Originally Posted by Krylo

That would mess up gear progression pretty heavily...

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It depends on what ilvl gear the 24 man is going to give. I imagine the one coming out in 3.1 is going to give i200 gear so even if the order was swapped, savage would still be the best gear.

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Originally Posted by Bokuhn

Or they can release both normal and savage on same patch. . I too get burnt out on savage. . With no story it's difficult to be excited on progression.

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This was one of my fears when they said they were releasing a easy story mode I wouldn't say burn out but ya the story was one of the reasons a lot of people did coil I like hard content and story's but the same exact thing they mind as well have cut costs in savage by not outing in cut scenes. And it can be harder to find people for this stuff. Savage will never belong in duty finder so they should make savage mode a 2 full party content. At lest then it can be easier to find people because your more lose with the roles your willing to take.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Please show me on the map where the endgame PvE content is after you have your Ravana weapons after the tome cap.

So we're to log in, run a dungeon once, log out and there's our progression? How about no?

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At the Release of Realm Reborn we had:

Instances
- Wanderer Palace
- Amdapor Keep

Primals
- Ifrit HM
- Garuda HM
- Titan HM

Raid
Coil Turn 1-5

No dailys or weekly PvE stuff (except tome cap). No roulettes. No ex primals. No gold saucer (I know alot of ppl that are still farming for TT cards). No FC stuff. No crafter or gatherer stuff (daily or weekly). No hunts. And some stuf I did forget.

The oder in realising progreesion raid content should be 24 man and normal mode raiding 1st then savage mode later. Content should be realeased based on average ilvle required to completes. Content requiring the lowest ilvl to complete should be released 1st content requiring higher ilvls to complete should be realeased afterwards.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

The oder in realising progreesion raid content should be 24 man and normal mode raiding 1st then savage mode later. Content should be realeased based on average ilvle required to completes. Content requiring the lowest ilvl to complete should be released 1st content requiring higher ilvls to complete should be realeased afterwards.

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I disagree with this. It forces the savage raider to farm normal, which burns them out, or ruins the experience of the raid itself. Normal and savage should be on separate lockouts, or, normal should drop 180 gear. The story and glamour are available to the casual, the power is not.

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Originally Posted by DkDerek

I disagree with this. It forces the savage raider to farm normal, which burns them out, or ruins the experience of the raid itself. Normal and savage should be on separate lockouts, or, normal should drop 180 gear. The story and glamour are available to the casual, the power is not.

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Same lockout, sorry. Cant exit on mobile.

Ya know, I remember the debates over Coil when it became utterly clear that Coil was in fact too hard for the vast majority of players, and so many voices advocated a story mode version of it that preserved the difficulty level of the 'real' coil, because after all it was the progress, challenge and raiding gear drops that mattered. So now we have Alex Normal which is accessible pretty much to all, and Alex Savage which is harder and requires higher gear. This is exactly what the community requested. And as much as you might hate to admit it, it serves the population of players far better than Coil did.

Honestly I am trying to figure out what it is that end game players want. Is it better gear than everyone else? Is it achievements and titles that differentiate them from everyone else? Is it the challenge? Is it the knowledge that they beat something others can't beat?

No, it turns out now that actually it's exclusive story content that they get access to and others do not. Excuse me? If raid gear was not dropping in Savage mode, no one would run it except the really dedicated teams like BG. exclusive story content or otherwise, the first thing raiders in general will say is that if there is not better gear dropping in Savage, they won't run it because it's not worth their time.

It seems to me OP, that you want to have your cake and eat it, and take the cake away from everyone else, until you're finished eating yours. Sounds pretty selfish to me.

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Originally Posted by DkDerek

I disagree with this. It forces the savage raider to farm normal, which burns them out, or ruins the experience of the raid itself. Normal and savage should be on separate lockouts, or, normal should drop 180 gear. The story and glamour are available to the casual, the power is not.

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No, you choose to do that to yourself. There is nothing forcing you to run and rerun content until you burn out. If your focus is too narrow, you will always find this issue in a game.

I'm surprised the white knights have not shown up yet to ruin this thread by thinking everything is awesome and there is no such thing as getting burned out.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

The oder in realising progreesion raid content should be 24 man and normal mode raiding 1st then savage mode later. Content should be realeased based on average ilvle required to completes. Content requiring the lowest ilvl to complete should be released 1st content requiring higher ilvls to complete should be realeased afterwards.

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I'm honestly glad it's not as linear as that.
I like having a harder raid released that's really above our gear level and then they release stepping stones like CT to help people get to that point.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

No, it turns out now that actually it's exclusive story content that they get access to and others do not. Excuse me? If raid gear was not dropping in Savage mode, no one would run it except the really dedicated teams like BG. exclusive story content or otherwise, the first thing raiders in general will say is that if there is not better gear dropping in Savage, they won't run it because it's not worth their time.

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You've missed the point, they want to experience the story through progression, not on these watered down fights that provide no real challenge or reward outside of bits of gear. We're forced to run Normal mode before Savage, it ruins the story, it ruins the wow factor when you first see a new boss and their room. You plough through all of the floors so fast that theirs no time to speculate about whats next in-between.

For me personally I have no problem with normal mode being in the game or it dropping gear, I think its a good thing for the casual fan base. But for the next round of Alexander raids I would like for Savage and Normal to be separate entities, with neither being a requirement for the other.

I to agree that it sucks doing basically the same fight but harder. But I still think it was the best way to go, for allowing everyone to see all content. The solution is to make the savage mechanics more interesting. WoW hit a gold mine with Uldah, then ignored it. They had gates within the normal fight itself, it you did X than the fight would get harder with different mechanics. This it what I'd like to see.

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

You've missed the point, they want to experience the story through progression, not on these watered down fights that provide no real challenge or reward outside of bits of gear. We're forced to run Normal mode before Savage, it ruins the story, it ruins the wow factor when you first see a new boss and their room. You plough through all of the floors so fast that theirs no time to speculate about whats next in-between.

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I don't think that the story needs to be altered significantly, nor limited in one vs the other. What is required though is some form of change-up in the Bosses, trash and mechanics used so that even though the story is largely unchanged, the actual experience and fights are different.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

No, it turns out now that actually it's exclusive story content that they get access to and others do not. Excuse me? If raid gear was not dropping in Savage mode, no one would run it except the really dedicated teams like BG. exclusive story content or otherwise, the first thing raiders in general will say is that if there is not better gear dropping in Savage, they won't run it because it's not worth their time.

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it's not exclusivity, it's priority and awe. seeing Twintania, Nael, Phoenix, Bahamut for the first time in Coil after completing the difficult fight before them is rewarding.

high skill players should be rewarded for their skill. they should earn that storyline and earn that final fight with the big boss.

everybody else can wait to the next patch for the story mode.

Several things are going on with savage/normal Alexander that hopefully SE is learning from.

First and foremost the drop system for normal Alexander, while certainly better than previous loot mechanics, is still pretty terrible in implementation. SE needs to really work on humane design. Unnecessary item bloat paired with unnecessary loot restrictions make normal mode loot just about the least engaging system yet. These days, if you join a group farming Alex Four be prepared for every single person to need/want a shaft. Who wants to do Alexander gordias 8 times a week? Time to phase out the seven superfluous items that normal mode drops and replace them with one item. Trade in one item for a belt/accessory, two for hands, hats or boots, and four items for pants or body. This lets us effectively use normal mode to gear up secondary classes without completely burning out and it still has the same total time required to gear a class in full i190 gear.

The second thing going on here is that square enix is using terrible boss design in an effort to "win." It is very clear with this savage mode that Square Enix is letting it's ego get in the way of developing fun content. Rather than making encounters that are interesting they are straight up making encounters with brutal dps/hps requirements because we keep exceeding their projected metrics. If you develop a game as if your players need to be beaten you can't win. Either we will consistently be better than you expect or you will eventually make something so punishing we just a don't enjoy trying anymore. An ancillary effect of this ego contest is that they also completely neutered crafting to prevent people from gaining a slight edge through melded gear. Butchering side content to prevent a fraction of your playerbase from being marginally better is not good design.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I don't think that the story needs to be altered significantly, nor limited in one vs the other. What is required though is some form of change-up in the Bosses, trash and mechanics used so that even though the story is largely unchanged, the actual experience and fights are different.

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The fights do feel different in savage, obviously A1 & 2 are basically the same as they are the starter floors but A3 is a massive step up from the normal mode in terms of mechanics.

And it's not a matter of exclusivity, it's just that clearing one should not a requirement to do the other.

To me the best way would have been to make Law gear I190, clearing Alexander Normal not being a requirement for Alexander Savage and releasing them at the same time. But this has already been and gone now, we will have to see how they handle the next raid.

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

The fights do feel different in savage, obviously A1 & 2 are basically the same as they are the starter floors but A3 is a massive step up from the normal mode in terms of mechanics.

And it's not a matter of exclusivity, it's just that clearing one should not a requirement to do the other.

To me the best way would have been to make Law gear I190, clearing Alexander Normal not being a requirement for Alexander Savage and releasing them at the same time. But this has already been and gone now, we will have to see how they handle the next raid.

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Perhaps they will allow those who have cleared Alex Savage as it stands to continue to the next part in Savage mode, that would make sense to me, and it would appear to resolve the issue completely by creating literally two separate paths that have the same starting point. If the second part of Alexander requires to be cleared in normal mode before undertaking Savage, even if you have already cleared the first part in Savage mode, that would be a problem in my opinion. I really hope that they maintain the two paths through Alexander separately to provide the raid experience for raiders and the less demanding experience for everyone else.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

high skill players should be rewarded for their skill.

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That's what the top tier gear drops are for, unless I am mistaken.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

they should earn that storyline and earn that final fight with the big boss.

everybody else can wait to the next patch for the story mode.

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Why? So you can be a special snowflake (to quote the usual Forum response)? Seriously though, why do you think you should get some special story elements all to yourself, even on a timed exclusivity, when you are already being rewarded with gear that those other players will likely never see, except on someone else.

Saying "everybody else can wait to the next patch for the story mode" about some content in a story driven game sounds pretty entitled, especially as you are clearly rewarded with the raid gear and additional achievement/titles in game. If the story is completely optional and has no bearing on the main story, then it's less of an issue to me, but if the story ties into the main story line, it should never be gated by real raid content.

Here we go again...
Keep things as is... It's perfectly normal to require a normal mode to be cleared before going for a harder mode of the same thing.

Avoid burning out by simply doing things in a pace that suit you rather than force yourself to do everything as fast as possible.
What do you gain by rushing? Bragging rights?

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

You've missed the point, they want to experience the story through progression, not on these watered down fights that provide no real challenge or reward outside of bits of gear. We're forced to run Normal mode before Savage, it ruins the story, it ruins the wow factor when you first see a new boss and their room. You plough through all of the floors so fast that theirs no time to speculate about whats next in-between.

For me personally I have no problem with normal mode being in the game or it dropping gear, I think its a good thing for the casual fan base. But for the next round of Alexander raids I would like for Savage and Normal to be separate entities, with neither being a requirement for the other.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

it's not exclusivity, it's priority and awe. seeing Twintania, Nael, Phoenix, Bahamut for the first time in Coil after completing the difficult fight before them is rewarding.

high skill players should be rewarded for their skill. they should earn that storyline and earn that final fight with the big boss.

everybody else can wait to the next patch for the story mode.

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While I'm completely on this side of the fence, it's a tough compromise.
I think difficulty modes diminish the novelty of the encounter.

Facing an easy mode version of Bahamut would've been dumb.
The echo was fine to make content more accessible.
But the new content is designed such that Savage is faced with catch up gear from Esoterics and Normal Alexander.
I don't like facing the same boss I face rolled quite a lot already.

Now a lot of bosses go on farm and that might seem the same.
But the first time you experience fighting the boss is important.
Learning the mechanics, seeing the place and seeing the boss really affects how you perceive it later on.
But Normal previews a lot of Savage and even just having the same boss really diminishes the weight of their presence.

You can gimp yourself and not go to normal, but that's a BS solution when it's clearly designed to be used while you work on Savage.
Your first encounter with the bosses has to be on normal too since it's a requirement.

Even if it wasn't, I just don't like difficulty modes.
They break the story. It's not like you'd write a book where the hero faces a ton of challenges and another where it's a walk in the park.
The bard was a clever way to incorporate it. I've liked it since Ultima Extreme to the old Savage.
But those made more sense because it didn't affect how you felt about the story.

I get why these difficulties exist though, because otherwise you exclude players.
It was nice with CT, because the easier raid was completely different.
But that's an issue because people want to experience the story of Coil and Alexander but the difficulty and time commitment doesn't allow them to even step in.
I was fine with the Echo, but that's not enough for a lot of people.

There's no good solution there. I can't see a compromise that makes everyone happy.
If it's the same boss in two difficulties, I'm just not going to feel the same way about it.
The name, image and room of some of the old Coil encounters evoked a certain feeling because it carried the weight of the encounter's difficulty.
But difficulties are also the only way fit everyone into the raid progression, where it's exclusive content otherwise.

Anyway, I don't hate normal. I'm not burnt out by it.
It's not going to break the game and it's good for a lot of people.
It will just diminish the weight of the bosses, encounters and story, and that can't be helped.
It's easier to stomach because it's a goblin raid so it's more upbeat that Coil was.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

At the Release of Realm Reborn we had:

Instances
- Wanderer Palace
- Amdapor Keep

Primals
- Ifrit HM
- Garuda HM
- Titan HM

Raid
Coil Turn 1-5

No dailys or weekly PvE stuff (except tome cap). No roulettes. No ex primals. No gold saucer (I know alot of ppl that are still farming for TT cards). No FC stuff. No crafter or gatherer stuff (daily or weekly). No hunts. And some stuf I did forget.

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Not talking about ARR launch content. Still waiting.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Perhaps they will allow those who have cleared Alex Savage as it stands to continue to the next part in Savage mode, that would make sense to me, and it would appear to resolve the issue completely by creating literally two separate paths that have the same starting point. If the second part of Alexander requires to be cleared in normal mode before undertaking Savage, even if you have already cleared the first part in Savage mode, that would be a problem in my opinion. I really hope that they maintain the two paths through Alexander separately to provide the raid experience for raiders and the less demanding experience for everyone else.

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I completely agree with you on this :)

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

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If they had just made Law gear i190 and us not needing an Alexander Normal clear to do Savage we wouldn't have had the choice over whether we spoil Savage's fights with normal or not, but that's retrospect for you.

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

If they had just made Law gear i190 and us not needing an Alexander Normal clear to do Savage we wouldn't have had the choice over whether we spoil Savage's fights with normal or not, but that's retrospect for you.

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If they had made upgraded law gear and alexander normal gear the same ilevel, noone would run normal more than once. Which would result in people that don't do it right away have less chance of actually clearing it...
Having it better creates incentive for people to actually do it more than once.

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Originally Posted by Nekodar

If they had made upgraded law gear and alexander normal gear the same ilevel, noone would run normal more than once. Which would result in people that don't do it right away have less chance of actually clearing it...
Having it better creates incentive for people to actually do it more than once.

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Thats how Eso and Savage gear works now, both are i210, doesn't any different to make Law Tome gear match Alexander Normal gear. But this has already been and gone now.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

40 man raiding was awful, why on Earth would you want 72 people?

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Speak for yourself, 40 man raiding was glorious. So much more epic than the theme park fights we get now.

72 might be a little much though.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

That's what the top tier gear drops are for, unless I am mistaken.

Why? So you can be a special snowflake (to quote the usual Forum response)? Seriously though, why do you think you should get some special story elements all to yourself, even on a timed exclusivity, when you are already being rewarded with gear that those other players will likely never see, except on someone else.

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i'm not even on that top end and because they deserve it and they earned it.

the gear doesn't always drop and the gear isn't that special. the stats are on the same level as Eso stuff which everyone will get to upgrade in 3.1, the look is the same as the story content, except you can change the color. there's more to the game than just loot. why are you making everything about loot?

you value loot way too much if you think the most skilled players rewarded with only loot is enough.

why do you feel entitled to all of the story content at the same time as people who obviously put in much more effort? i didn't even suggest to deny anyone content, even slowing it downs bother you cause you didn't put in the effort? who is really the entitled one here? who is really the one obsessing over gear?

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Saying "everybody else can wait to the next patch for the story mode" about some content in a story driven game sounds pretty entitled, especially as you are clearly rewarded with the raid gear and additional achievement/titles in game. If the story is completely optional and has no bearing on the main story, then it's less of an issue to me, but if the story ties into the main story line, it should never be gated by real raid content.

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the story is completely optional. the Alex story is not part of the main story line and neither was Coil, neither has any bearing on the main storyline. so you're agreeing it is less of an issue?

Eh... I'm one of the people progressing savage (on A3S atm) and gear isn't a big deal to me. I get it to help progress -- that's it.

I raid for the excitement of the clears. Because I had to farm story mode at first, it made savage less exciting to me. I'm not asking for any sort of change in future content, just sharing my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

Speak for yourself, 40 man raiding was glorious. So much more epic than the theme park fights we get now.

72 might be a little much though.

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When done properly, they were great. Setting them up and maintaining them was horrible as **** though, regardless of having a decent group or not. If people have trouble setting up 8 here, hoo boy...

If you were not in a position of authority for the guild/LS/FC/whatever in actually organizing the raid setup and planning, it wasn't a big deal to experience lol. Mindless mayhem of large groups was fun though, in general. FFXI Dynamis, though requiring specific setups and group responsibilities, was a good example of large groups having fun. It wasn't TOO bad to organize it, but you still encountered a lot of facepalm moments, like key roles having players not be able to enter because they forgot that they did it earlier, all the while the rest of the raid had already entered but can't do much because you're missing tanks/heals/CC responsible players.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

the gear doesn't always drop and the gear isn't that special. the stats are on the same level as Eso stuff which everyone will get to upgrade in 3.1, the look is the same as the story content, except you can change the color. there's more to the game than just loot. why are you making everything about loot?

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I'm not, every raider I have ever met on the other hand has made it clear that it's about loot. The message received loud and clear on many, many occasions is that they do it for the gear. You've been here long enough to remember all the discussions about Savage coil, it boiled down to no new drops = no reason to do it.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

you value loot way too much if you think the most skilled players rewarded with only loot is enough.

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Perhaps you should read my post again, I believe I referenced dedicated teams such as BG in the context of them doing a savage mode Alex whether or not it had better gear drops. The point being that those dedicated and skilled players do it for the challenge, to beat the challenge, to them the gear is nothing more than a means to an end.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

why do you feel entitled to all of the story content at the same time as people who obviously put in much more effort?

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I paid for that story as much as you did, so why should I not get it? Placing story elements behind top tier raids in a story based, paid subscription MMORPG is a poor way to do business and screws over the majority of players in the game. I think most would recognize that those players will never set foot in the top tier raid content.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

i didn't even suggest to deny anyone content, even slowing it downs bother you cause you didn't put in the effort?

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Slowing it down? If it's gated behind savage mode Alexander, it's unlikely anyone but raiders will ever see it; just as the only way 80+% (this is a guesstimate) of the players will ever see the Coil story elements is via You Tube.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

who is really the entitled one here? who is really the one obsessing over gear?

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In order, you are and raiders obsess over gear.

Good god, one look at my Lodestone should tell you that I am most certainly not gear obsessed.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

the story is completely optional. the Alex story is not part of the main story line and neither was Coil, neither has any bearing on the main storyline. so you're agreeing it is less of an issue?

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Shall I quote my own post?

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Saying "everybody else can wait to the next patch for the story mode" about some content in a story driven game sounds pretty entitled, especially as you are clearly rewarded with the raid gear and additional achievement/titles in game. If the story is completely optional and has no bearing on the main story, then it's less of an issue to me, but if the story ties into the main story line, it should never be gated by real raid content.

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As I said in my quoted remarks, if the story elements are not part of, and do not relate to, the main story, and are completely optional, then yes it is less of a problem, though it is still problematic IMHO.

You know, it's really funny to me, for nearly two years the arguments over raid content centered around raiders being pissed off because it was possible to gear up to near equivalents of their Allagan and High Allagan gear through alternate means a patch or two after whichever part of coil was released. The discussion revolved around how freaking important it was to raiders to have gear in the raid being unique to them and only available to them. That's the context here. But now, it seems that the argument has morphed into the gear being unimportant? And now it's the story you really desire? Or perhaps you want the gear and the story?

I don't give two craps about raiding gear, I don't raid. I do care about the story and lore in the game. Gating story and/or lore behind difficult content (difficult enough to guarantee most players will never experience it) does not serve the audience of the game. But now, based on your line of argument it seems that actually it's not about the gear, it's about raiders having their own segment of content that is exclusively theirs unless it's nerfed at some point in the future, by which time no one will be running it anyway. You are the one wanting to maintain exclusivity of content to a specific group. I am the one arguing for story elements to be accessible to all.

My gut feeling on this is it has to do with the loot system. If you compare it to Binding Coil or CT, players aren't running the bosses in succession, but rather doing four of the same boss in a row. It's less interesting because the encounters run in a given hour are less varied. Additionally, I think some people try taking pot shots at getting loot in PUGs for Alexander, which is the worst possible idea for gearing up unless the player is just starting Alex.

I experienced burn out on Alex over a month ago, which resulted in the leveling of my brand new ninja character. I'm not really too motivated to grind much of anything at the moment.

I don't personally care about story or exclusivity. The only thing that I care about related to this suggestion is that I had to farm normal. I don't mind that there is a normal mode, but savage would have been much more fun if when I went in I didn't already have the basics of the fight down. The best analogy for how I feel about the normal/savage as implemented would be if SE released LotA as it was. Then later, instead of releasing ST they released LotA II which had all the same fights except each boss had one or two mechanics tweaked. In that situation, I bet most people would be upset too.

The reason I suggested swapping the order of releases is because it keeps the same amount of content for everyone, while giving more variety to those who are raiding.

If we must have a normal mode for people who think they can't raid then I'd prefer savage come out first, then the easier mode for catch up. Story isn't as big of an issue it's more the fact that half the fight is pretty much spoiled and you know which bosses are coming up, takes away from the excitement of progression. I think there's still a lot of room for improvement with the raids in general though but that's another thing altogether.

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Originally Posted by VargasVermillion

If we must have a normal mode for people who think they can't raid then I'd prefer savage come out first, then the easier mode for catch up. Story isn't as big of an issue it's more the fact that half the fight is pretty much spoiled and you know which bosses are coming up, takes away from the excitement of progression. I think there's still a lot of room for improvement with the raids in general though but that's another thing altogether.

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We need real raids that isn't just 1 path of trash then a boss fight and we need to have at lest 2 full party's in said raids.

But yes VargasVermillion I can get behind your suggestion only problem is that the people who would prefer doing the story one will whine till they got their way.

Normal mode content should always come out before hard mode content it's game design 101. People complaint about having to do normal mode raid before hard mode want story and gear exclusivity which will anger 80% of the player base. There isn't a game on the market that lets players complete hard mode before beating normal mode since every game forces players to go through normal mode to unlock hard mode difficulty of the game.

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

Thats how Eso and Savage gear works now, both are i210, doesn't any different to make Law Tome gear match Alexander Normal gear. But this has already been and gone now.

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Eso is i200, with upgrade to i210 possible by getting items currently only found in Savage alexander. Both eso and savage is capped.
Law tome and upgrades are uncapped. Alexander normal is capped.
It would make a huge difference if upgraded law tome gear was same ilevel as alex normal.

Don't worry, sit back, take a break! Come here and everyone keep yelling how hard it is, how its too much! And SE will come in, NERF it after the top tier Raid groups complete it, then every raid group will be able to do it! That is their MO isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Dererk

We need real raids that isn't just 1 path of trash then a boss fight and we need to have at lest 2 full party's in said raids.

But yes VargasVermillion I can get behind your suggestion only problem is that the people who would prefer doing the story one will whine till they got their way.

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Only ones I see whining are whining about normal in general.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

Speak for yourself, 40 man raiding was glorious. So much more epic than the theme park fights we get now.

72 might be a little much though.

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You must not have been the raid leader.

Never again. Was worse than herding cats.

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Originally Posted by VargasVermillion

If we must have a normal mode for people who think they can't raid then I'd prefer savage come out first, then the easier mode for catch up. Story isn't as big of an issue it's more the fact that half the fight is pretty much spoiled and you know which bosses are coming up, takes away from the excitement of progression. I think there's still a lot of room for improvement with the raids in general though but that's another thing altogether.

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Except you'd still be farming normal for the leg up the gear gives.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Not talking about ARR launch content. Still waiting.

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Your argument is "we have nothing to do". But your argument sucks as we have got way more different content to do with Heavensward, as we got at ARR release or any patch later. It is not possible to get infinite content within one patch. You have to life with that like everybody else before.

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Originally Posted by Nekodar

Eso is i200, with upgrade to i210 possible by getting items currently only found in Savage alexander. Both eso and savage is capped. Law tome and upgrades are uncapped. Alexander normal is capped.
It would make a huge difference if upgraded law tome gear was same ilevel as alex normal.

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Well we upgrade Law with hunts, have it drop at 180 then upgrade it to 190, it's still the same as Eso, you buy Eso with the intention of it being 210 before long. The gap between 180 and 190 gear out side of progression is redundant, everything can be nuked in 170 as it is. People complain about their not being enough horizontal progression as well, this doesn't necessarily fix it, but it contributes towards solving the problem.

I'm not really sure if you have the experience to talk about how upping law gear by 10 ilevels would affect the balance of the game, 190+ and you still haven't killed Ravana, we did that in Law gear, not even the upgraded Law at that...thats still the hardest non raid content in the game, so please tell me again how Law being i190 would unbalance the game.

Even then this has all been and gone now, Alexander Savage and Normal are out, we've already seen the bosses and the basic mechanics of the raid and you can't take it back. I just hope that for the next set of Alexander raids that clearing the previous Savage is the entry requirement, not clearing the normal mode; and that our 210 gear from clearing this Savage is the minimum gear requirement as opposed to the new normal giving 220.

Outside of this issue though, I have been really enjoying Savage I just feel it could have been handled better, and from the responses in this thread it seems quite a few people running it have somewhat similar opinions, even if they may differ slightly in places. I'm not crying about nerfing anything, I'm just saying I want my progression to surprise me tell me the story and to not have it watered down by content thats an absolute face roll.

What I still don't understand is why they release content "backwards".
Crystal Tower was supposed to be available at launch, but was delayed, so we got i90 from Coil and few months later, i80 from LotA.

Why didn't they release Void Ark BEFORE Alex Savage ? This way, people would have farmed Alex normal, then Void Ark, and then Alex Savage, which would have probably avoid this sense of doing only the same fights back to back.