8 man endgame content should go back to the 2.x method (no baby mode) Hear me out...

Granted I am in favor of harder lockouts for MSQ, but the reality is todays gaming climate would not welcome such a change. It it cause people to leave the game which is bad for everyone.

YouTube exists. You better believe I'll be monitoring it for the 5.45 Bozja story, since there zero chance I'm ever setting foot in there.
Why would Lore only revealed in Savage be any different? [Yes, I've seen what Gaia does in E12S too, and Ryne's Hraesvalgr "outfit".]

As I've said, I think there are a lot of people who believe they are good who would like to see the game population cleaved of a lot of the bads.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

And there's no reason anyone should listen to the players who want the game to do worse.

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I think that's a matter of definition -- a lot of people think the game is doing pretty bad when the braindeads control progress.

(I'm not one of those type of people. I'd be, more, one of the "braindeads".)

uhhhh Youtube still exist and if you lock lore behind content I literally care less about in FF14 I still will not do it lol

No, just no.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

YouTube exists. You better believe I'll be monitoring it for the 5.45 Bozja story, since there zero chance I'm ever setting foot in there.
Why would Lore only revealed in Savage be any different? [Yes, I've seen what Gaia does in E12S too, and Ryne's Hraesvalgr "outfit".]

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Because if you start needing to get even more lore from youtube than playing the game then people realize that youtube is free and the game isn't.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

YouTube exists. You better believe I'll be monitoring it for the 5.45 Bozja story, since there zero chance I'm ever setting foot in there.
Why would Lore only revealed in Savage be any different? [Yes, I've seen what Gaia does in E12S too, and Ryne's Hraesvalgr "outfit".]

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Cool, but there's a difference between watching it on YT vs. doing it, and seeing my character there.

Right right... but this is a Final Fantasy first & foremost & those ain't that hard even hardest fights can be easily cheesed in FF single player counterparts, majority of player base are here for story & if you gate it behind hard content with no difficulty choice you'd just going effectively kill XIV. Not only do we have a heavily story focused community but we're also in time of casual MMOs succeeding whilst MMOs try to be old school hardcore drop off the face of the planet faster then when they did Greed only Ivalice.

As for Coil I'd hardly say it was Savage ever, it suffered from bad ping & bugs at launch but it certainly was not up to standards that would later become Savage series of raids in XIV & a third of that Raid series is literal trash with no bosses or Trash with extra health called a boss, Coils has like 5 - 6 actual bosses & everything else was trash packs.

Though in end only wish you'd probably get is them dropping Savage/Exs if they had choose a difficulty the Devs would most likely keep Normal Mode since that's the majority of player base with how low Savage/Ex clears are.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Difficulty is all personal opinion whats hard to one person is a snooze fest to another.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

In short, not wanting more hardcore challenging group content is not the same as not wanting more challenging content.

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Thoose are good points. A lot of players who want challenging content can't or don't have the will to do it with other people. It always takes a lot of time and effort and other players can make you loose a lot of time.

If they lock story behind some hard content, doing it in the msq could be an idea or in any solo content. Making a more difficult version (alowing ppl to choose) and maybe make the characters react in a different manner after (like chossing what the WoL says). In msq it has to be a small story bonnus, nothing that makes casuals feel like they miss out on a lot of things.
If i remember correctly for the coils, the bonnus at the end was a cutscene with louisoix right? That's a pretty big thing in the story xD maybe that's one of the problems. You can't lock important things like that imo.

In bozja there's some extreme/savage solo fights but how many ppl are actually doing it? I never tried it tbh and don't really care (it's not great to wait so long for 1 try imo). I'm curious to know if other ppl enjoyed that content.

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Originally Posted by Juzjuzz

In bozja there's some extreme/savage solo fights but how many ppl are actually doing it? I never tried it tbh and don't really care (it's not great to wait so long for 1 try imo). I'm curious to know if other ppl enjoyed that content.

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They're called duels and it's a rng fest getting picked to fight the boss. DPS check isn't mean since a Tank/Healer can easily take it down and really forgiving just they're rather difficult to fight because of the mechanics which will instantly wipe you if you fail to do 1 correct, and you need certain logos and the Manawall Logos to survive the 1 shot mechanic. Beast King has the least room for errors thanks to quake aoes and dealing with random direction debuff while he is going to cleave the whole field in front of him, the AI is smart enough to always go opposite side of you.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

Cool, but there's a difference between watching it on YT vs. doing it, and seeing my character there.

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Does this really need to be spelled out? Of course, there's a difference, but if it's locked behind content or a difficulty I couldn't care less about or turns out to be too frustrating to clear (alien concept but different people have different tolerance levels, despite the forum posters going "lolz content x is braindead easy"), then I'll either watch it on youtube or ignore it. No rocket science.

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Originally Posted by Kamatsu

(...)
Lesson? Locking lore & story behind 'difficulty' does not 'encourage' players to 'get good' as the vocal minority would have you believe. Instead as soon as the game gets too difficult and they find lore, story, progression through MSQ, etc gets blocked by something they can't easily get past or get carried past... they will quit the game and go play something else. They will not keep hitting their heads against a brick wall trying and trying and trying again.

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This, so much.

I mean we are playing game where people queue naked to roulettes so they dont get any hard content. And if we expect even harderd content in future, youre gonna end up with 50 min queue times for one turn.. I run Orbanne monastery a lot for glams (still missing few) and the queue times range from 60 to 120 minutes. Because you need 2 braincells to look where thunder god smashes his swords..

I've joined trials with 2 min elapsed because 6 people left before it even started (The Chrysalis) because it was "too hard" to them and they didnt want to wait someone to finish cutscene. Ive leveled thro Stormblood dungeons lately and ive had healers instantly leave when loading in because it was not satasha or something..

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Originally Posted by Mahoukenshi

As a low-skilled player: As long as it is non-MSQ content, you won't see me complain nor touch the content. I'm all for making optional, but interesting stories beind put behind trials like Eden or raids and adjust the difficulty to whaever seems fitting. I just won't touch it, but that's my decision and I'm mature enough to "live" with the decision (instead of crying for nerfs). Sure, I'll miss the references in MSQ to that stuff if it happens, but I can accepte that.

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Your argument seems to boil down to "there is content I can't do as a low-skilled player, therefore it is fine for an average-skilled player to be locked out too".

That's not how it works.

Content designed for everyone to enjoy should be aimed at the average player's skill level. Challenging high-skill content should exist for those who want the challenge, not for people to feel obliged to do it when they don't want to and don't feel confident taking it on.

I'm here for the story. The side stories are optional in terms of MSQ progress but they can be every bit as important for seeing the whole story of the game.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Your argument seems to boil down to "there is content I can't do as a low-skilled player, therefore it is fine for an average-skilled player to be locked out too".

That's not how it works.

Content designed for everyone to enjoy should be aimed at the average player's skill level. Challenging high-skill content should exist for those who want the challenge, not for people to feel obliged to do it when they don't want to and don't feel confident taking it on.

I'm here for the story. The side stories are optional in terms of MSQ progress but they can be every bit as important for seeing the whole story of the game.

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Not at all. Why should it be fine if others shouldn't be able do the content I'm to stupid for? That'd be the same as the opposite "If I think it's easy mode, everyone must feel the same way as well" I just want MSQ content not locked behind "hard" (by whichever standard) content. I mean, I can't talk about content I will likely never touch for whatever reasons. I was talking about a suitable difficulty (outside of the difficulty modes) to make the overall package of side content a wholesome experience. If I decide to ignore it, that's on me. Not the developers, not the challenge seekers and definitely not the average-skilled players. If the average players is fine with, let's say, Eden story normal difficulty (or around that range), who am I to disagree or forbid others of doing just because I won't? Ultimately I can only talk about myself, nothing more nothing less.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

Casual Players will always find something to complain about, especially if they have to put actual effort into things and stuff. Constantly pandering to them never is a good long-term solution to any game that is worth its salt.

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It's easy to forget out here in internet land where everyone posting here is dedicated enough to the game to be posting on the forums, but the overwhelming majority of players are casual. 99% of players spend 99% of their time not raiding. Most players will never even set foot into a savage raid, let alone clear them in current content. Hell, some people don't even do normal modes more than one time for story purposes. Raids, including savage level ones are definitely important for the game to have, but they're not the MOST important thing. Making sure the casuals are happy is way more important than catering only to the tiny minority that is progression raiders.

You *do* realize that this already exists in the game? That ever since Neo-Exdeath, the last boss of a tier has had an entirely new encounter - often with stroy? Which needs to be beaten to see Ultimates, with - again - story?

... would SE simply saying "Yeah, this stuff is canon, not just the Wandering Minstrel's hallucinations, make you happy?

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Originally Posted by Juzjuzz

In bozja there's some extreme/savage solo fights but how many ppl are actually doing it? I never tried it tbh and don't really care (it's not great to wait so long for 1 try imo). I'm curious to know if other ppl enjoyed that content.

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A decent amount of people prep for these fights, and are in there all the time looking to do them. Arguments are had in shout chat constantly when a random player joins it. They are pretty popular.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

I think that's a matter of definition -- a lot of people think the game is doing pretty bad when the braindeads control progress.

(I'm not one of those type of people. I'd be, more, one of the "braindeads".)

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Yeah they don't like how story content is easy and most things are accessible. But they take all the harder things for granted. The vast majority of players never do anything other than quests, leveling, roulettes and normal raids. We would not have Coils, Savage, Ultimate, Extreme and Unreal modes without casual players paying most of the bills. I think people should keep that in mind when they suggest ways to drive more and more players to YouTube instead of letting everyone enjoy the core game.

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Originally Posted by Mahoukenshi

Not at all. Why should it be fine if others shouldn't be able do the content I'm to stupid for? That'd be the same as the opposite "If I think it's easy mode, everyone must feel the same way as well" I just want MSQ content not locked behind "hard" (by whichever standard) content. I mean, I can't talk about content I will likely never touch for whatever reasons. I was talking about a suitable difficulty (outside of the difficulty modes) to make the overall package of side content a wholesome experience. If I decide to ignore it, that's on me. Not the developers, not the challenge seekers and definitely not the average-skilled players. If the average players is fine with, let's say, Eden story normal difficulty (or around that range), who am I to disagree or forbid others of doing just because I won't? Ultimately I can only talk about myself, nothing more nothing less.

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If that's what you meant, then I'm not sure how people were supposed to infer that from your post.

If if the overall conversation goes:

"Side stories should be locked behind hard content!"
"That wouldn't be a good idea - it should be accessible to the average player."
"Well, I can't even do average, and I don't complain about missing out."

...which of the first two statements is the third one supporting? It certainly sounds to me like you were saying if they locked it behind hard content everyone would just have to deal with it like you do now. Doubly so when your next post is just "oh well, if it's too hard you can watch it on YouTube".

I can't see your argument being in favour of a "suitable experience for the average player", or any mention of keeping MSQ at an average difficulty (which wasn't the argument in the first place).

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

It's easy to forget out here in internet land where everyone posting here is dedicated enough to the game to be posting on the forums, but the overwhelming majority of players are casual. 99% of players spend 99% of their time not raiding. Most players will never even set foot into a savage raid, let alone clear them in current content. Hell, some people don't even do normal modes more than one time for story purposes. Raids, including savage level ones are definitely important for the game to have, but they're not the MOST important thing. Making sure the casuals are happy is way more important than catering only to the tiny minority that is progression raiders.

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Funny thing is this is true even of "Raid or Don't play" MMO's such as WoW (although stats might be different now due to them forcing LoR (Looking for Raids - 'casual' tier of raids) into the main story). I remember reading Dev commentary on the old WoW forums back in 2012? or so about the changes to raiding they'd made starting with WotLK and forwards, what their goals were and why they were doing it.

Turns out that even though WoW was known for it's raiding scene, and huge focus was (and still is) on the end-game raids... only 6-7% of the games population had ever set foot into a raid, only 4-5% had beaten the base level raids and only 1% had made it to the top tier Vanilla raid... with less than 0.5% beating it. This in a game where if you went by the forums, social media talk, etc it was super-duper heavy full of raiders and they made up the majority of the playerbase... when in reality the vast majority were casual players who played for the story, the lore, to play with friends, etc.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

:DYou want the 8-man endgame content to supply juicy lore?
Isn't that what Eden did???

Through those raids you learned:
- what the world swallowed by light is like
- why it is the way it is
- that ascians can be corrupted by aether (Eden itself)
- it explains what happened to The Burn and discusses how what they learn here might inform a "solution" to that.
- It gives us another glimpse into the story of The Shadow Lord
- and in the end we see what the future of The First might look like.

I think Eden Litany(?) also briefly touched on the elves that turned into Wetland Wargs in Lakeland, but I'm falling asleep and can't think straight lol.

But yeah, like... Eden was jam packed with lore yo.
And it was, like, lore that directly ties back into the main story, main characters personal history (like Ardbert's), and deepens your understanding of the world.
Is this no good?

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From what I understand their point is more that they think it should go back to how the Coils were done as far as difficulty goes, and from what I have often heard, Coils were pretty much the proto-Savage.. so to me that sounds like the OP wants normal mode removed and for everyone to 'deal with it' and learn Savage.

Now speaking more generally, I admittedly never experienced 'the Coil days', hell, I only started playing back in July, but I do know that 'removing baby mode' and expecting everyone to learn Savage or something halfway to Savage in difficulty is an exceedingly bad idea. People who just want to experience the story don't want to learn the ins and outs of a gruelingly difficult raid series.. most people would more than likely either quit out of frustration or not even bother with it in the first place.

For example, I recently did Eden, no Savage, just normal mode.. partially because I just wanted to experience it's story and see The Empty change and partially because I wanted glamours.. I had an exceptionally unpleasant time with most of the fights because at first all the near instant AoE's and easy to miss visual ques just had me floor tanking more than I was actually contributing. Off course things got better as I did it more often, but frankly I still didn't find it particularly enjoyable content to play.. and again.. that's the supposed 'baby mode' that the OP wants removed.

Even just for the sake of experiencing the story in a logical manner, it's going to be far better structured as:

[cutscene] - [short fight] - [cutscene]

Than:

[cutscene] - [hours or days of learning the fight] - [cutscene]

Ideally normal mode feels challenging, but not so hard you can't scrape through after a few tries. For the sake of story flow, preferably the first try.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Even just for the sake of experiencing the story in a logical manner, it's going to be far better structured as:

[cutscene] - [short fight] - [cutscene]

Than:

[cutscene] - [hours or days of learning the fight] - [cutscene]

Ideally normal mode feels challenging, but not so hard you can't scrape through after a few tries. For the sake of story flow, preferably the first try.

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To be fair, in my experience as a relatively recent starter, the only raid series where I've had to go multiple tries a few times for a story clear has been Eden. Alexander and Omega had for the most part always been first time clears for me, with some exceptions like Alexander Prime and the final two Omega fights.

No, terrible idea to lock story related content in a casual mmo jrpg behind challenging group oriented content. I’m going to say my thoughts on this and please note it isn’t directed at you but at all raiders..

You aren’t any better at the game than the people who make stuff on WVR just because you’re willing to spend hours remembering things and where to stand and what buttons to press. Raiding content has never been hard, it’s time consuming and requires out of game study but pretty much anyone can do it with commitment.

This should not be a requirement for a side characters story in what is a casual game for most.

However you absolutely should get titles, gear, mounts and achievements for what you do in the same way the WVR does. But please remember that you’re no better than them because you choose to raid and you aren’t entitled to more.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

To be fair, in my experience as a relatively recent starter, the only raid series where I've had to go multiple tries a few times for a story clear has been Eden. Alexander and Omega had for the most part always been first time clears for me, with some exceptions like Alexander Prime and the final two Omega fights.

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Things get easier over time as gear strength goes up and possibly with skill strength adjustments, plus everyone having access to at least the top-tier equipment from that expansion. I wasn't around for Alexander as current content, but Omega feels far less chaotic than it was at the start.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

No, terrible idea to lock story related content in a casual mmo jrpg behind challenging group oriented content. I’m going to say my thoughts on this and please note it isn’t directed at you but at all raiders..

You aren’t any better at the game than the people who make stuff on WVR just because you’re willing to spend hours remembering things and where to stand and what buttons to press. Raiding content has never been hard, it’s time consuming and requires out of game study but pretty much anyone can do it with commitment.

This should not be a requirement for a side characters story in what is a casual game for most.

However you absolutely should get titles, gear, mounts and achievements for what you do in the same way the WVR does. But please remember that you’re no better than them because you choose to raid and you aren’t entitled to more.

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Also I have no objection to ultimates or extra stages of the fight (although it was questionable to add Gaia to E12S and not e12 imo). Like the WVR gets extra cutscenes when doing weaving stuff, nothing wrong with raiders getting little bits here and there too.

But a major arc for a scion needs to be accessible to everyone who does the story, regardless of which end game they choose.

Also, a friendly reminder that Raid Roulette is a thing, and I don't think people want to be locked on massive wipefests with randoms to do it.

There's a good reason coil isn't there.

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Originally Posted by Taikugemu

Also, a friendly reminder that Raid Roulette is a thing, and I don't think people want to be locked on massive wipefests with randoms to do it.

There's a good reason coil isn't there.

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Considering how much people complain about getting extreme trials in Mentor Roulette, I shudder to think what people would say if Mentor Roulette (and Raid Roulette) could give them T9. Much less if they just made Savage the only raid variant and people had to do it for story, so you had things like E8S in there and would be "expected" to quickly teach people Diamond Frost, much less Light Rampant.

I enjoy raiding, I really do. And I'm also all for a bump up in difficulty.
Making things progressively easier affects the playerbase and the general level of gameplay. Because as long as it's neccessary, people will do things up to a certain point. Once you remove this requirement people get more and more careless about it because if it's not neccessary it's okay to forget/ ignore it.
The playerbase adjusts to the level of difficulty to a degree and adapts a mindset that's mostly fitting for it. But only up to a certain point and savage-tier difficulty for story content is way above that limit with the added downside that it not only needs good gameplay but good gameplay and coordination from a whole 8man party.

I spent hours on end teaching people 14 Spears, Chain Lightning, Conflag, Betwixt, Diamond Frost and Light Rampant once savage had unlocked and PF was flocked with people who had a basic interest in savage but noticably lacked preparation and practice. More often than not we didn't get a kill even if it was enrage to kill. Or didn't once get past the mechanic we were supposed to practiced after hours.
That was with people who didn't have a serious interest in savage and just dipped in for a bit of fun/ for science but at least did so of their own will.
Now imagine having to repeat that with players who have 0 interest in savage and feel forced to still do it.
It's unlikely that they will suddenly adapt a completely different mindset and become good players that strategise and optimise just because game "forced" them to run savage-like content. It's more likely they'll watch the cutscenes on YT or play a different game.

Savage gets you dyeable gear, some extra bit on the last boss and a mount. I think that's as far as it should go in terms of extra rewards.
Removing normal mode and tying a huge sidestory to it for the sake of forcing players to improve is taking it too far.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

From what I understand their point is more that they think it should go back to how the Coils were done as far as difficulty goes,

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OP's post wasn't just about difficulty. They mentioned lore a number of times and their TLDR at the end even focused on it.

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Originally Posted by DinahDemiurge

TLDR: I miss skill locked lore content, and I realize my opinion doesn't matter really and I just enjoy the nostalgia of 2.x

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Originally Posted by ItMe

OP's post wasn't just about difficulty. They mentioned lore a number of times and their TLDR at the end even focused on it.

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Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with difficult content but TC is essentially saying put lore and story behind hard content, as they did with Bahamut Arc.

Wow used to do this, they’d sell people the game with videos of illidan stormrage shouting at them, only for them to find that to actually even meet him they’d have to basically do a part time jobs worth of raiding.

It’s just not a great business model and that was a game that was much more raid focused than FFXIV. Most players do not raid beyond raid roulette/Eden’s and most are doing that for the glamour/tomestones as opposed to particularly enjoying raiding.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

Wow used to do this, they’d sell people the game with videos of illidan stormrage shouting at them, only for them to find that to actually even meet him they’d have to basically do a part time jobs worth of raiding.

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SE did it too, showing part of the E12S cutscene in their 5.4 trailer.

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Originally Posted by Novae

SE did it too, showing part of the E12S cutscene in their 5.4 trailer.

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Oh I didn’t notice that! Yeah that was a very weird choice having that particular character be savage only. They could have come up with literally any other additional phase for savage. But I guess it’s fair to say we got 99 percent of the content of the raid in normal mode.

Original WoW was doing a bunch of quests leading up to fighting a big villain... then you either spent the best part of a year raiding before you could fight him or you moved onto the next expansion without ever doing so.

It’s like saying we can’t actually fight Zenos if we don’t raid but don’t worry we can carry on our adventure anyway. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

I honestly kind of wish they would at least add more interesting aspects to jobs other than new shiny nuke damage buttons.

With ranged support being nonexistent, tank aggro management being nonexistent, healers only having 1 button and dps aggro management tools like diversion being gone it feels like the only thing there ever is to do is just mindlessly burn the boss down and maybe mitigate damage, but even mitigating isn't very meaningful.

Call me weird but I preferred when fights were more uncertain and less scripted dpsfests, and you could do something at least a bit meaningful like ripping boss aggro from the tank because you're killing your rotation, or using refresh so that freshly rezzed healer can get back on their feet and back to keeping the party alive a little quicker.

Heck being able to choose between more healing or more dps with Eos/Selene was interesting in a way since you could use Selene in fights where you felt more confident in your healing

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I see it similarly. Too much was taken out and not replaced with anything.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

Oh I didn’t notice that! Yeah that was a very weird choice having that particular character be savage only. They could have come up with literally any other additional phase for savage. But I guess it’s fair to say we got 99 percent of the content of the raid in normal mode.

Original WoW was doing a bunch of quests leading up to fighting a big villain... then you either spent the best part of a year raiding before you could fight him or you moved onto the next expansion without ever doing so.

It’s like saying we can’t actually fight Zenos if we don’t raid but don’t worry we can carry on our adventure anyway. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

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It made more sense in WoW because you weren't the ultimate hero, renowned through the whole realm, feared by your enemies, revered by your allies and so on.
You were some dude with something pointy (or blunt) getting drowned out by the real soldiers while helping out here and there but never really doing something that the NPCs couldn't have. It could've been literally anyone else doing this thing you just did.
The story was more about assembling the manpower and strategising to fight this big bad villain and wether you were part of the big showdown or not didn't really matter lore-wise. You helped (or not) but you were never vital for the success. It was much, much later that your character was renowned and recognized by many NPCs and even lauded as a commander.

In FFXIV there is so much focus on the character, a big part of the story literally wouldn't make sense if we didn't finish the fights the story led up to. We have a unique edge over the vast majority of people and it gets frequently mentioned. FFXIV's story focuses on your character, WoW's story on the world as a whole.
The former basically requires you to be there when something big is happening. The latter not.

I'm fine with the status quo of fights like O4S and E12S having something exclusive to savage. You should have been here a few years ago when there was a thread from someone harping why couldn't they could see the cutscene and fight Neo Exodeath in normal mode, lol.

Despite all they did in the end days of ARR to keep adding echo in Final Coil in the final months, there was still a considerable amount of people who did not clear it. I remember queuing in DF all the time to help people clear when it was unlocked. Sometimes you were successful, sometimes not.

There were dud parties at-times. So I don't miss that aspect where there were people who really had no business trying hard end-game content when they didn't know their job well. You get a bad tank or healer? You knew this wasn't happening in the first 30 seconds of T13.

In one way I enjoyed the aspect you had to take a leap into harder content to get the canon part of the story. Plus there was "The Final Witness" title allure, probably one of the best titles this game has ever graced on a player at the time. The legends titles today don't seem to have that same caliber, but that's maybe because we are several in now.

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Originally Posted by technole

I'm fine with the status quo of fights like O4S and E12S having something exclusive to savage. You should have been here a few years ago when there was a thread from someone harping why couldn't they could see the cutscene and fight Neo Exodeath in normal mode, lol.

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Actually it started with A8S by having Brute Justice go Winged Brute Justice, A12S (Alexander) didn't however. Checkpoint started with O4S however Eden didn't do this till E12S. E3S did battle form change with Neo-Leviathan glowing augmenting his mechanics and adding new ones. And I guess E7S with Tornado form even though it lasted like a couple mins?

Anyway the main purpose is to remove any hints from the normal mode since Raiders will scavenge data the normal bosses use and Savage usually uses all of them with modifications, except the exclusive battle form. It gives Savage identity and provides a need of challenge. SE learned this with A12S being cleared way too quickly since A9S-A12S did essentially the same thing as normal mode with modified mechanics that were too easy to figure out.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

Actually it started with A8S by having Brute Justice go Winged Brute Justice, A12S (Alexander) didn't however. Checkpoint started with O4S however Eden didn't do this till E12S. E3S did battle form change with Neo-Leviathan glowing augmenting his mechanics and adding new ones. And I guess E7S with Tornado form even though it lasted like a couple mins?

Anyway the main purpose is to remove any hints from the normal mode since Raiders will scavenge data the normal bosses use and Savage usually uses all of them with modifications, except the exclusive battle form. It gives Savage identity and provides a need of challenge. SE learned this with A12S being cleared way too quickly since A9S-A12S did essentially the same thing as normal mode with modified mechanics that were too easy to figure out.

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YoshiP was on-record saying they liked how Alexander Creator turned out and that was the savage difficulty they were always going to strive for going forward. He didn't say it was too fast. They have kept to that since then, only real change was tightening the heal and DPS checks.

A8S doesn't count it still had intermissions and everything that was remotely different aside from gavel and the water. Sudo designed it, and he was the best battle designer they ever had and he's no longer there. He also did O3S/O4S and UCoB.

It's all battle designer specific because fights like E7S was designed by someone new to savage for the first time. There are many newer battle designers now, and the guy who designed Cruise Chaser in A11S is now the battle lead.

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Originally Posted by technole

YoshiP was on-record saying they liked how Alexander Creator turned out and that was the savage difficulty they were always going to strive for going forward. He didn't say it was too fast. They have kept to that since then, only real change was tightening the heal and DPS checks.

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Never claimed it from Yoship words it was simply cleared too quickly which was 2 days. Adding in a new battle form and scaling the difficult a bit more than Creator aligned it much better, and honestly Creator was waaay too easy.