The disapointment that is Alexander

[Asierid]

So you're saying we should only compare A1-4 to first coil?

k.

IMO first coil had better story and aesthetics, but to each their own.

What story?

"Oh wow. Look at this cave. I sense my grandpa somewhere down here, lets go!"

That's the first set of turns, right there.

[Elim]

What story?

"Oh wow. Look at this cave. I sense my grandpa somewhere down here, lets go!"

That's the first set of turns, right there.

I'm sure someone can sum up Alex story in one sentence too.

[Asierid]

I'm sure someone can sum up Alex story in one sentence too.

Sure, there are crazy cultist goblins somehow utilizing a death machine that's pretty damn large.

Putting it side by side with the girl who is leading us by the hand into a cave to search for her grandpa, which one of the two sound better?

[Casper]

Gotta agree here. The story of "coil" is not interesting until later turns. The story of Bahamut sure was great -- but that was the entire 1.0 storyline that led to that. Would be a bit unfair to compare ALL of it to just Alexander 1-4.

And yeah, first coil story was as dull as it goes -- if you forget about the background of Bahamut, which was as said 1.0 storyline, not coil, then all we get is a girl looking for grandpa indeed. SCOB gets mildly more interesting, FCOB was were the good stuff really was.

[Colorful]

I'm sure someone can sum up Alex story in one sentence too.

You could sum up the entirely of Heavensward's story in one sentence too by oversimplifying it too y'know, but Binding Coil (1-5) did lack depth and just opens up more questions. The same can be said for Alexander though, although it's ever so slightly better than Turn 1-5. For those saying "well it's better than First Coil, so it's fine", sure it's better, but it's still very lackluster. I expect more from Square Enix, known for their awesome stories. One of the reasons I'd prefer they didn't do continued raids was that they're obviously holding back on the story, and waiting 6 months, and then another 6 months after that to get all of it is a tad annoying.

[Elim]

Sure, there are crazy cultist goblins somehow utilizing a death machine that's pretty damn large.

Putting it side by side with the girl who is leading us by the hand into a cave to search for her grandpa, which two sound better?

lol

Like I said, I found first coils story more interesting. I'm sorry my opinion makes you sad/mad/upset or whatever.

[Shadray]

Really? You're going to play the dictionary gotya game?

Your post seemed to imply that you thought I had pre-judged Alex as being a worse raid than coil before it had all been released.

I was simply pointing out that this was not the case and that I was only talking about the atmosphere.

I apologise if I made it difficult for you to understand that by choosing the wrong word.

[Asierid]

Gotta agree here. The story of "coil" is not interesting until later turns. The story of Bahamut sure was great -- but that was the entire 1.0 storyline that led to that. Would be a bit unfair to compare ALL of it to just Alexander 1-4.

And yeah, first coil story was as dull as it goes -- if you forget about the background of Bahamut, which was as said 1.0 storyline, not coil, then all we get is a girl looking for grandpa indeed. SCOB gets mildly more interesting, FCOB was were the good stuff really was.

Even considering 1.0's story, they made it obvious that something was amiss before Coil had even released.

Least with Alex we get a bunch of crazies that can make explosive toys, tanks, and what have you. On top of the fact that they have what basically amounts to a god damned gundam in terms of size to anything in Eorzea.

I do suggest they use Big-O's theme when it completely surfaces though, that would be pretty cool.

[HorseBoots]

I guess two years is like a billion years ago in forum time. It feels like every time we have this discussion people keep bringing up coil with the most rose tinted goggles on the planet.

I can get it, SCoB and FCoB did an amazing job bringing everything together. But considering this is the first part of a multi-patch raid, I think its only fair we compare this to its older brother, BCoB.

BCoB consisted of...

A snake, re-skinned over a field area trash mob.
A series of spheres, just copy pasted from the initial gatekeeper.
Literally nothing.
A series of mobs placed as a wink and nod to previous FF titles. (Mainly XII and XIII)
And a re-skinned dragon.

Overall there was if I recall, a total of 4 cutscenes married to the initial raid, including the intro and stinger of an outro? It wasn't until the very end did we receive any actual plot to add to the mystery.

I feel the Gordian Knot suffers through the same fate, its the introduction to a new story, but it doesn't benefit from an entire game and a 7 minute CGI movie to build it up.

That's not to say there's nothing to look at when it comes to Alexander as a whole. For one, keep in mind you are traveling up the arm. Imagine being in the underbelly of a cruise ship, you wouldn't be seeing much other than metal and pipes. Alexander is a bastion of mobile knowledge, the only people who would realistically be inside these portions of the moving castle would be technicians and engineers.

But not all of the Gordian Knot is just metal and steam shooting everywhere. Which brings us to A3, the Arm.

The arm's architecture looks almost alien compared to the other floors. Replacing the metal and steam pipes with obelisks of stone and marble. It's makes it clear that Alexander won't just be black and grey metal and steam. I have a feeling in later patches, when we are going deeper into Alexander (Like the actual body.) We will be seeing more architecture to make Alexander feel like an actual place people would live in. Since Alexander IS meant to be a place people would live in.

Also, some food for thought. In the Hinterlands, go fly over that one floating rock embedded into the force field surrounding Alexander that you can land on. Take a nice long look at the shape of that rock, then compare it's shape to Alexander's head poking out of the water.

You may find a suspicious similarity between the two. Weird isn't it?

[Nadirah]

Keep in mind apparently Yoshi-P pretty much flat out said he didn't expect players to clear Savage stuff yet, its designed for a higher gear level, and that most groups here are running at 85% what it was designed for.

In fact, my circle's current expectations are that next savage will be *grossly* overtuned, because this one was cleared too quick.

Basically, Savage is for the 1% until you're in full 200 gear.