The disapointment that is Alexander

[Fendred]

Isn't it more confusing that, story wise, the Sharlayans have yet to reclaim their city state even though it was important enough to erect a gigantic monument to Thaliak and the Final Fantasy equivalent of the Library of Alexandria? Seriously, a nation that automates golems, can turn normal animals into anthropomorphic foot soldiers, and imbue sentience into household items would allow goblins to claim their city? The reason for them leaving doesn't make any sense. The Garlean invasion force is separated from the Sharlayan city-state by hundreds of miles of dragon infested mountain range, and the people living their are arguably as well equipped for battle as the imperials even if they won't admit it.

The order to leave the settlement would be overwhelmingly rejected by its residence, who saw fit to erect a monument in its honor and a library/university. Also, being that the Sharlayans are neutral, the Garleans wouldn't bother invading them until they've already conquered Eorzea from sea to shining sea, which would arguably take a hundred years or more. Also their ground force would have to move through the Dravinian Forelands. They literally had no reason to move anywhere! Even the 6th Umbral Era catastrophe doesn't really play into this because no one saw it coming.

[Kazama]

Lore something something lore

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.

[MisterLucie]

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.

What a stupid comment. The story writers have nothing to do with designing boss mechanics and game functions.

Lore is incredibly important for a lot of people and the bad storyline is one of the major reasons Alex is a bad raid.

The fights are gear gated for normal players and extremely challenging to complete sooner for the most hardcore. They really wanted the majority of people to have to spend probably at least two months getting gear before really progressing into A3 or A4. When you understand this you can tailor your groups experience to know if you should just hold off or keep beating your head against it. It's pretty damn tough!

A1 and 2 savage are roughly balanced with esoteric weapons and a mix of law and alex gear in mind. It should only take 3 weeks for "normal" people to have the gear they need to beat them.

[Colorful]

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.

Lore isn't important? Without lore the gameplay literally has no meaning, if we removed the lore Coil would be about nothing but a giant dragon that blows things up. There's a reason WoW reached 13 million subs during Wrath, and it was because of the importance of the characters in that expansion, such as Arthas. I loved almost everything about Alexander, except the story/lore.

[Fendred]

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.

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.

[Kietsu]

(Sharlayan stuff here)

You ought to get around to the Astrologian storyline sometime. It doesn't make the Sharlayan history completely sensible, but it sheds some light on it nonetheless.