My thinking about Alex normal/savage. Issue IMHO inside

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Originally Posted by Dante_V

Whatever they do the next alex nm needs to be harder IMO. It's just not engaging or challenging as it is now and it wears you down by the time you hit savage. Def needs to be a middle ground.

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Sorry to say but people who intend to do savage at any point are not the audience normal mode was created for. Now that airship exploration is coming you guys will hopefully not have to grind future nm alex floors and the forums will be clean of all the complaints how nm is too easy. Don't like it, don't do it.

I'm not saying a 3rd difficulty shouldn't be added. I would actually love a difficulty which could be pugged via PF but would offer a bigger challenge than nm. When does it end though? WoW ended up adding a 4th difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I'm not saying a 3rd difficulty shouldn't be added. I would actually love a difficulty which could be pugged via PF but would offer a bigger challenge than nm. When does it end though? WoW ended up adding a 4th difficulty.

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You say that as if every single release of standard coil turns didn't do exactly this when they were released.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

You say that as if every single release of standard coil turns didn't do exactly this when they were released.

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You can pug Savage 1 and 2, what's your point? I think you know what they're requesting.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

You can pug Savage 1 and 2, what's your point? I think you know what they're requesting.

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Oh i do, my point is simply that we had that option when it came to the BCoB series as a whole at least for a larger number of players, it was just many of the complaints during that time have gotten us where we are now.

Don't get me wrong i think the story mode addition was a good idea on paper but it was just poorly executed, had it been like coil with echo like they were advertising it as and not designed in a way that the gear rewards (combined with Esoterics) would be necessary to complete savage this whole thing would have gone down differently.

Instead there's now this odd imbalance of players; ones who have completed Savage Alex, ones who may complete it, and others who will never step foot into it at all, and for some of these players they're unfortunately looking at fighting the same 2 possibly 3 bosses for a 6-8 month period depending on the group. That's if they even stick with it that long as many groups are already disbanding or not bothering with it at all.

The airship content many keep hoping for is very quickly starting to sound like it'll be a bandaid that doesn't really solve the issue of our current raid design and gear distribution systems, if anything it might cause more issues if it turns out to be another version of hunts.

But here's hoping they prove that wrong and it's everything players are hoping it will be.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

Don't get me wrong i think the story mode addition was a good idea on paper but it was just poorly executed, had it been like coil with echo like they were advertising it as and not designed in a way that the gear rewards (combined with Esoterics) would be necessary to complete savage this whole thing would have gone down differently.

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Story mode is not the issue for the majority of players. It allowed tenfold an amount of people to see what 8 man raiding is like, story included. Savage is the problem. How it requires nm gear (or waiting for eso gear) and story completion, how the difficulty curve is too steep and how there are no new mechanics compared to normal, are all problems to do with savage. When the only people complaining about the raiding situation are savage raiders it should be obvious that the fix should start there, either by adding a third difficulty or changing savage to be more forgiving. Leave normal mode alone.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

Wait wut? this game has most involving crafting system i have ever encountered, instead of "press button to craft" you actually need a rotation and manage you buffs while doing that.

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You never played EQ2.

Absolutely loved its crafting system. Fail to counter that? In the beginning, it could *kill* you. Literally. Forge on isle of Refuge, best boss.

There was no rotation and there was no macro crafting. Spontaneously react to conditions that pop up or lose power(spent on abilities), progress, durability, hp or all.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

You never played EQ2.

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Off topic. Vanguard crafting was pretty cool. But my favorite was SWG pre CU. Even the resources had different stats that randomised every fortnight. Different values of the stats affected different outcomes of the finished item. Add in expermintation to improve certain aspects made it extremely open. Found an awesome comnination of experimentation and resources? make a blue print and mass produce in a player made factory.

All loot (pretty much) was crafted and did decay to broken so had to replace which kept the market open, plus you found you're favorite crafters and stayed with them.

I used to buy armor by the crateload XD High kinetic resist crafted armor for PvE, high stun resist for PvP.

Oh and I remember launchday crafting in EQ2. watching the botters die in the forge never got old. Then again I remember spending a few hours grinding XP in Fallen Gate and having to walk to Freeport because I was overloaded with copper coins XD

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

Oh and I remember launchday crafting in EQ2. watching the botters die in the forge never got old. Then again I remember spending a few hours grinding XP in Fallen Gate and having to walk to Freeport because I was overloaded with copper coins XD

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I'd always get it exchanged by my tank. Or find a mailbox somewhere to do it.

Still had the best crafting I've ever seen. Never played SWG, not a Star Wars person.

Just can't get into crafting here. Inter-dependencies bother me, too. A lot. *hate* that you essentially have to be an omnicrafter to have any kind of decent success and you have to buy a load of gear. Just annoying.

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Originally Posted by Saccharin

This isn't WoW. This is not hardcore raiding game. Try Alex Savage. Normal difficulty WoW raids can be cleared on the first day.

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Well I don't know about that. Coil was pretty hardcore for most people and took months to clear. Even after months only a few raid groups ever cleared turn 5. I believe raids like Coil are what the OP is referring to.

I'd like to see a raid like Coil added. It doesn't have to be part of the main story just a solid raid that takes time to clear and is more engaging. Everything I am hearing about AS makes it sound like a cluster and not fun at all. Coil was a raid people looked forward to running every week even if all they did was wipe.

My thoughts: 2 things are needed in order to make 8-person raiding better in FFXIV: A few more bosses per raid, and an extra difficulty level - Hard.

Difficulty: Normal vs Hard should be selectable when you first unlock the raid, and extreme/savage should be as it is now - unlocked from the Minstrel when you complete the entire raid on normal/hard (yes, doing either should give credit for the necessary quests, tho hard should not be DF'able until the next patch). If you want a story reason for the difference between Normal and Hard, alright: for Normal mode your team snuck in and caught them unprepared. For Hard mode, you somehow alerted them in advance that you were coming and they were able to prepare some nastier surprises for you.

Bosses: If the raid were changed from having 4 linear single-boss zones to having 1 single-boss entry zone, 2-3 2-boss "wings" (that could be taken on in any order), and a zone with a single end boss, that would be a great start (6-8 bosses instead of 4). Some of the bosses could even be rehashes of older bosses (NOT from Alex, mind you), in order to save dev time.

Loot: All bosses should drop loot, and lockouts should be on a per-boss basis, with Normal being "until you get loot" and hard+ being "one chance per boss + one token per zone". Normal and Hard should (probably) not share a lockout, but people not wanting to do Normal shouldn't have to provided they have the gear or the skill to bypass it.

With regards to the Devs' MO being that stuff should be doable even for people who have little time to play, that's fine. Once a raid like the ones we have is on farm, it only takes about 10-20 minutes (max) per boss to kill each boss, so 2-3 bosses should still be doable in an hour, and the entire raid with 3-4 hours a week. And before content is on farm, 60-90 minutes is plenty of time for semi-casual players to be bashing their heads against a single boss.

Here's an example schedule with a 6-boss raid for which the first 5 bosses (entry and 2 wings) are on farm:

• Day 1: Kill the 5 bosses (15 minutes for the first boss, 30 minutes for each of the wings). Total: 1hr, 15m. If we still have time, get a few practice runs in on the final boss.
• Day 2: Go in and do our best to kill the final boss. Total time: 1.5 - 3 hours, depending on group preference.

For an 8-boss raid, it's similar, except I'd probably allocate 2 hours for the first 7 bosses. Once either is on complete farm, we split the farm between raid days, and perhaps even run each one twice with 4 mains and 4 alts. Even with the double run, a 6-boss raid would be 1.5 hrs per night, and an 8-boss would be 2 hrs per night. It just takes good scheduling and people being on time for the raid (if they're not, they get warned, then benched if it becomes a habit).

--Erim Nelhah