The disapointment that is Alexander

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Originally Posted by Kazama

I do not like this game, at all.

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Ok, that much is clear, Be sure you unsub and look for a game that caters to your needs, You opinion is appreciated, however. Everyone is entitled to one.

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Originally Posted by Alipoprocks

Totally this ^
I chuckled when I read dps check complaints. It's just sad - poor SE can't get anything right. And also, dps checks will be nothing after everyone is i200+

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It's a circle, People complained about to many mechanics, and now everything is a hard DPS check, and that is to much, You just can't win. But if DPS checks were laxed and mechanics were also laxed, they would complain "this is to easy, make it harder!" this simply will never end.

I love how in Coil, they add trash for fun. Players complain, saying its pointless. Now they take out that large amount of trash and make it so you can get to the main fight faster. Now players complain that it feels too small. I lol everytime. This type of mentality never changes, regardless of the MMO.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

FFXIV 2.0 (and onwards) has been out for a little less than two years. FFXI launched on May 16, 2002. By May of 2004, based on this page, there were the following end game events:

- Dynamis
- Sky
- Ground Kings

Dynamis could be done twice a week, King were on a spawn timer, so the only thing there was to do with no limitation was Sky (though even that had timers on all the NMs to drop the pop items for gods).

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- Dynamis = 4 different large scale encounters each equivalent to coils / alex.
- Sky Gods = killing 8 NMs to fight 4 gods to fight one supreme god - 13 fights in all not including farming pop items.
- Ground Kings = What, 5 HNMs during Zilart I think?
- Regular NMs = I don't even know how many there were at this point, lots.
- BCNMs = Over a Dozen battlefields.
- Divine Might = The most challenging fight in the expansion.

This doesn't include the fact crafting and gil played a huge part in endgame which alone made for quite a lot to do. Sure you can spend your time crafting and gathering in XIV but it will never make your character stronger. I know a lot of people hate gil sink mechanics, I personally love it. If I couldn't fight a HNM due to not having a HNMLS I could still buy some of the items with enough effort. It's an entirely different game, in XIV you really don't care about gear or progression until cap, in XI you spent a lot of time getting gear as you leveled. You might get something at level 50 you would use at level 75. It was a journey, not a rush to the end like MMOs are these days.

just speaking of the design, I don't like the theme at all. it's not really the mechanical look in general since the allagan backrounds got quite boring over time as well, but it feels a bit empty...

and the boss designs feel really lazy, except for living liquid and the homage to FFV's liquid flame. it's just too many dull robots. but I'm honest dreadnoughts and ADS were not much better, but at least most other coil bosses delivered, even with the ever returning dive bomb mechanic.

imo from an artistical point most of the new leveling dungeons are much better designed than Alexander.

I'm not gonna talk about difficulty or savage mode at all, since i have no experience in it, cause of motivation (and partial skill) lack of my group.

In the end it is a matter of opinion but if I had to compare alex with coil, i'd prefer the later. Coil just had this feeling of exploration and adventure which alex is lacking atm. but we will see what comes next. I hope it's more than just robots...

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Originally Posted by Blood-Aki

Ok, that much is clear, Be sure you unsub and look for a game that caters to your needs, You opinion is appreciated, however. Everyone is entitled to one.

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Well excuuuuuse me for being attached to something I helped support and refine for half a decade lol. But, you are correct, I don't like what it has become and I unsubbed a month ago :)

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Originally Posted by DukeBurden

I played the free trial of WoW 3 weeks ago. 20 levels was ENOUGH to see where the entire layout for FFXIV was pulled from.

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EQ2 came before WoW did.

The layout was the *exact same*, but with death penalities.

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Originally Posted by Kazama

Well excuuuuuse me for being attached to something I helped support and refine for half a decade lol. But, you are correct, I don't like what it has become and I unsubbed a month ago :)

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If you unsubbed and haven't logged in, it doesn't let you post on the forums. It doesn't let you post on the forums if you haven't logged into the game in 2 weeks. I know, i had to stop playing for a bit to prep for a move.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

If you unsubbed and haven't logged in, it doesn't let you post on the forums. It doesn't let you post on the forums if you haven't logged into the game in 2 weeks. I know, i had to stop playing for a bit to prep for a move.

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Sorry, I can't tell you my secret, but I am in fact unsubbed.

Kazama: You among many others here get it. Sadly we are some eliteist or hardcore players demanding to much when people just dont seem to get we are asking for very little compared to everything else thats just catering to casual and lazy gamers in general. Its a cash cow so SE wont do anything drastic until the subscribers show different so lets just hope Blizzard releases a new MMORPG that will take away some of the market and then maybe they will open their eyes and see how this group is unloyal and asking for just money and pure business can kill the heart and love for a game while going too mainstream.

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Originally Posted by Ronzeru

I love how in Coil, they add trash for fun. Players complain, saying its pointless. Now they take out that large amount of trash and make it so you can get to the main fight faster. Now players complain that it feels too small. I lol everytime. This type of mentality never changes, regardless of the MMO.

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Trash: Something everyone ends up trying to avoid.

See: Throne of Thunder LFR, where you always had that one guy that died, ran back, got lost, and managed to aggro EVERY. SINGLE. TRASH MOB. that the tanks insisted *had* to be skiopped, and you spent half an hour doing wipe recovery instead of actually clearing the place because "trash takes too long."

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Originally Posted by Kazama

Sorry, I can't tell you my secret, but I am in fact unsubbed.

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Someone else is playing the account until it's done. Got it.

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Originally Posted by Kazama

Sorry, I can't tell you my secret, but I am in fact unsubbed.

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There is no secret, when you unsub it still lets you post, But it seems you are taking full advantage of posting as much negativity about a game you don't like as possible untill it runs out.

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Originally Posted by Kazama

Lore is not important here until they can make something that isn't a lazy copy of what came before it. Once they figure out how to make fun, engaging content then they can go nuts with story and lore. So far they are failing in both aspects but gameplay is infinitely more important that who dunnit and why.

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Uh, hate to break it to you, but they aren't going to be making anything new or original in terms of strategy. It's taken straight off of WoW. They've gone through all the strategy this system has to offer prior to the expansion. Also, don't do that when quoting someone. You're basically harassing me over bringing up lore. Ironically, its how they've chosen to do loot in combination with increased accessibility that makes the dungeon so horrible. People end up running the bosses multiple times a week until their items drop. It's an incredibly repetitive setup with zero replay value.

Additionally, the kinds of things that should make a player stop and do something, like an enemy speeding themselves up or a giant bee's poison, are entirely trivialized in this system. So the only elements that could force players to react differently to a situation have been purposefully undermined. Instead of giving us more complex rotations, they should have given us situational abilities to let us recover from or counteract such effects. Then they could have made the fights harder by making status effects something to pay attention to.

I think part of why Alexander is lacking in the feeling of adventure and exploration is because of the Easy Mode. In coil, each bit of new content (story and otherwise) came only after a hard-fought victory. Here, it's all cleared after an hour and a half. The savage mode offers more challenge, but no new experiences. I didn't feel excited to see what was next after A3S, only relief that I was done with the fight. I understand the need for more casual content, but maybe easy mode Alexander would be best saved for a patch after hard mode.

I'm more disappointed with how the aesthetic idea doesn't have much impact on the fights or trash. We are inside a giant robot castle with steam power and all that jazz, I feel like the environment should of played more of a role in the fights and not just be there to 'look nice'. Like fighting on a conveyor belt or something. (idk if this would be good or not but it's just an example of what I mean.)

This more or less applies to dungeons in general but I feel trash mechanics are lacking as well, as far as i can see trash as little difference with each other, Just pull and aoe. I Feel labyrinth of the ancients handled trash scenarios the best since they were more than just generic mobs but actual scenarios or if not that they had more environmental hazards/mechanics to compensate.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

I think part of why Alexander is lacking in the feeling of adventure and exploration is because of the Easy Mode. In coil, each bit of new content (story and otherwise) came only after a hard-fought victory. Here, it's all cleared after an hour and a half. The savage mode offers more challenge, but no new experiences. I didn't feel excited to see what was next after A3S, only relief that I was done with the fight. I understand the need for more casual content, but maybe easy mode Alexander would be best saved for a patch after hard mode.

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I also agree with this. I don't find savage as exciting as coil was because I know what bosses are coming up and the general gist of what to expect and the story already revealed, victories feel a little less satisfying to me.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

I think part of why Alexander is lacking in the feeling of adventure and exploration is because of the Easy Mode. In coil, each bit of new content (story and otherwise) came only after a hard-fought victory. Here, it's all cleared after an hour and a half. The savage mode offers more challenge, but no new experiences. I didn't feel excited to see what was next after A3S, only relief that I was done with the fight. I understand the need for more casual content, but maybe easy mode Alexander would be best saved for a patch after hard mode.

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I agree with this completely, it is the major downside to doing content with the WoW model where you have to progress through an easy mode then go to a hard mode of the exact same encounter. Like you said I would also prefer hard mode to be released first and easy mode released later and not a required gear progression but made as more of a catch up thing for casual players.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

I think part of why Alexander is lacking in the feeling of adventure and exploration is because of the Easy Mode. In coil, each bit of new content (story and otherwise) came only after a hard-fought victory... I understand the need for more casual content, but maybe easy mode Alexander would be best saved for a patch after hard mode.

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Either that, or tune the NM so that groups need to be pretty skilled to clear it at i180, while groups of average to weaker players can do it at i205 or so, and people in between would get their clears over time and feel somewhat accomplished when they do. Something like Bis EX tuning, except for 180-210 instead of 160-190. Really all that matters is that non-raiders are able to see the story before the next set of floors is added; instead SE made sure everyone could clear the whole thing basically week 1 and eliminated any potential it might have to be a non-trivial goal / accomplishment for people.

I enjoy Alexander normal and Savage. The encounters are bite-sized and easy to organize. There's minimal trash. Normal gives me an easy way to shove 190 gear at my FC members and train people new to raiding, and Savage gives us something to wipe on until 3.1.

My only gripe is that they feel a bit content-light. A fifth instance would have hit the spot, but everything is fun for me, otherwise. I like the Goblins.

I also agree that Alexander NM killed a bit of the Savage excitement. I don't really wanna comment on the story because Coil had a lot going for it in terms of the build up that Alexander hasn't gotten a chance to do yet. I'll wait for the next installment before I'll start formulating a solid opinion on that.

The scenery isn't that bad-- I like that it's a bit different than anything else we've seen. But it does feel cramped and not very fluid. I don't see why SE couldn't have made trash like Coil, where if you clear it through one week, you're done with the trash til reset. I think it would've added onto the overall atmosphere of the raid. In Savage, minor spoiler-- you're just auto-teleported to the fights. There's no trash in A2S or A3S. You're just suddenly there, and I really don't like that. I think it kills the vibe of suspense and the imminent threat of Alexander/what the gobbies have in store for the party.

Having downed A1S and A2S, I've noticed that (thus far) the fights are very much straight out of their NM counterparts, albeit with more HP on the enemies, more damage coming out from the enemies, and maybe a new mechanic per fight. (I haven't been in A3S yet, but will be trying it in an hour, but I've been told it's a bit different.) Had the fights been altered a bit more drastically, I think it would be better. SCoB Savage was fairly different from SCoB normal to the point where it became interesting all over again. But Alexander Savage fails to do that, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Melixy

Having downed A1S and A2S, I've noticed that (thus far) the fights are very much straight out of their NM counterparts, albeit with more HP on the enemies, more damage coming out from the enemies, and maybe a new mechanic per fight. (I haven't been in A3S yet, but will be trying it in an hour, but I've been told it's a bit different.) Had the fights been altered a bit more drastically, I think it would be better. SCoB Savage was fairly different from SCoB normal to the point where it became interesting all over again. But Alexander Savage fails to do that, in my opinion.

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Can confirm AS3 is a lot harder than AS1 or 2, it's kind of like another tier of itself along with AS4, it is the same in essence like many other fights in alex but it has significantly more added mechanics than the previous two and requires a little more attention to detail.

a little more? XD i would say ALOT more attention than a1 and a2.

I couldn't have posted feedback any better than what was already said on the first page, but I can chime in with my Savage Mode exp.

Alexander Turn 1 - Boring. This is just a dps check with four bombs instead of two. There's literally nothing that warrants a challenge here. :(

Alexander Turn 2 - Anoooooother DPS check. My friend has said more than once that she could eat a sandwich while driving the gobwalker, that's how little of a challenge it is. There are some "hairy" moments when you're first learning it from Wave7-9, but once you know what to expect it's a no-brainer.

Alexander Turn 3 - Good lord, difficulty curve explodes. THIS is where the real encounter design came in and you can tell. There's far more to do in this turn - It's a tank check, dps check, healing check and worst of all... a co-ordination check. You know all those turns where you could carry 1-2 mistakes from one subpar player? Yeah, you can't any more.