Diadem and Savage - I can't deal with it anymore

I never saw the issue with casuals wanting to see the story. If you want a reward, then maybe you should try and earn it? If it's too hard for you, then take Yoshida's advice and git gud. The more reasons for people to clear end-game content, the higher the likelihood that a casual fan will devote the time in-game needed to reach that point.

The devs used to talk about how you needed to design content in a way that converts casual players into core players. You needed to establish a path of progression that hooked people.

3.0 is the opposite of that. There is a massive rift between casual and hard-core content and no plausible path of progression.

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I will add however that nothing was EVER going to live up to Coil no matter what, so people's expectations shouldn't have been set that high.

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Coil's story wasn't that good tbh, but it had the power of the opening cutscene as a backdrop so it was enough to build something around. Likewise Void Ark's story is pretty simple but it has the War of the Magi as a backdrop so it doesn't just feel like it's appeared out of nowhere, but is part of this world's history.

Alex, meanwhile, literally just appears on the scene and we're told how he's a threat while doing nothing to demonstrate such. Then the story itself can't decide whether it should be comedic (Illuminati) or serious (scar-girl).

Actually Alex can't do anything, because it is still mostly inactive. The threat comes from the Goblins that want to activate Alexander, which would end an a massive Wasteland.
As a player who didn't played Coil, because I just started with Heavensward, I really liked the begining of the story for Alexander.
Even though the End of Part 1 could have been more intense, like Void Ark. That was done very well to get you hyped for Void Ark Part 2.

Agreed OP.

I haven't really got anything I want to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said, I just want to say that I share the same point of view as the OP and completely agree with what he has said.

Have people forgot the first 5 turns of coil only dropped i90 gear and the weapon from t5 was i90 and was buffed to i95 to appease the raiders. 3.1 is a chance for non raiders to experience high item level and gear alts. Also I primarily raided at launch and I can tell you from my experience a lot of endgame raiders clear content and unsubscribe. So many of my raiding fcs where ghostowns after we cleared content. I have found the casual to semi hardcore raiders are way more loyal to this game and maintain subscribtion. Also I think its a good point that SE gives raiders 5-6 months to show off their gear. At some point there has to be a balance and the game has a whole seems less toxic in between patches due to the fact engamers have moved on and unsubbed. Keep in mind its just my opinion and i know there are some generalizations. Lastly what this game could use is more high level gear obtained from questing and yes RNG in dungeons/instances.

Also id like to point out that I do think is was a mistake that VOID ARK only has i200 gear? Makes me think they meant to release it earlier and had some issues with it.

Void Ark gear being ilv 200 is exactly what they want. Its always been like that to have the 24-man raid gear 10ilv lower then the current top tier raid gear.

VA having i200 gear is intended design. It's the result of Crystal Tower failing to make 2.0 launch, so got held back until 2.1 where it dropped i80 gear. That then became the pattern for every odd-numbered patch, something I was hoping would end with 3.0, but to no avail.

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Originally Posted by Zazriel

he game has a whole seems less toxic in between patches due to the fact engamers have moved on and unsubbed. Keep in mind its just my opinion and i know there are some generalizations. Lastly what this game could use is more high level gear obtained from questing and yes RNG in dungeons/instances.

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From my experience this is completely wrong, all of the lead statics on my server are active all year round, after progression has finished they move on to sales, gearing alts etc, everyone has their friends that they play this game with and they aren't going to stop playing with them just because they have cleared the current raid tier.