Adventurers having entered Alexander: Gordias

[Selli]

Wow. That drop between A2 and A3 Savage.

Suddenly, I don't feel so bad for struggling in A3.

[Colorful]

As for Nerf, I suppose Alex Savage will only be "naturally nerfed" by acces to better gear. It would be odd to make it easier when its sole purpose is to be hard.

It's been done in WoW I think, but that's probably due to them removing the mount (or at least making a very drop rate rather than being guaranteed for everyone?) and the achievement no longer being obtainable considering it was no longer current content. I'm willing to bet you're going to see a bunch of people asking for it to be nerfed soon so they have access to the mount. -_-;

[Reynhart]

I'm willing to bet you're going to see a bunch of people asking for it to be nerfed soon so they have access to the mount. -_-;

And a lot of /facepalm if SE comply

[Tyrn]

There's nothing "wrong" with it. It's just a tradeoff. Compared to Coil, more people are doing Alex but less are doing Alex Savage.

I wonder if SE's gamble on handing out the entire story to everyone who wanted to see it for less than a day worth of queuing will cover for the months of sub loss of more midcore people who used to spend the months in between even patches with the big goal of clearing that last boss before the next set came out who now have nothing left to do with Alex storymode done on the first day of release and savage being too hard. I've already seen several people in my linkshells who before during ARR stayed subbbed through the even and odd numbered patches to work on Coil say they're either unsubbing to 3.2 or just straight up quitting the game entirely because they don't care for Alex anymore. If I'm still subbed for the next expansion it will be interesting to see how SE reacts to the sub changes (as they never seem to disclose the real sub numbers) if the extra subs they may have for the initial month where people find storymode worth doing will outweigh the loss they may have for the later months of people who don't have any engaging content to do appropriate for their ability and effort with the game now being completely split between a pond and a mountain with little to nothing in between.

[Reynhart]

I wonder if SE's gamble on handing out the entire story to everyone who wanted to see it for less than a day worth of queuing will cover for the months of sub loss of more midcore people who used to spend the months in between even patches with the big goal of clearing that last boss before the next set came out who now have nothing left to do with Alex storymode done on the first day of release and savage being too hard.

You really should make shorter sentences

I don't think the gamble is to "hand out" the story. I think Alex normal was designed as a closer stepping stone to Savage.

Back in 2.0, the gap between dungeons and coil was HUGE, and even when Crystal Tower was released, it was so different than it basically taught you nothing for Coil.
By doing Alex normal, you can have a grasp at the core mechanics of the raid, and savage is mostly expanding from that.

So, some people might say "Ok, I know the basics, maybe I'll try the next tier". That's also why they talked about implementing "practice mode" for specific phases. This is probably also why Final Coil was "easier" than Second in terms of mechanics and why the new content is THAT focused on DPS check, since gear will eventually make them easier.

I'm pretty sure we'll have more people clearing Alex Savage before 4.0 than people who cleared Coil before 3.0.

[Miscreant]

I'm pretty sure we'll have more people clearing Alex Savage before 4.0 than people who cleared Coil before 3.0.

I honestly don't think that will be the case A3S is going to act as a massive gate to the majority of the casual community and I expect the next raids to be even harder. The biggest gates in Coil were T7 & T9. T7 got nerfed beyond recognition and even with Echo a lot of players took a long time to get past T9, A3S is basically of similar difficulty to T9 and it's the floor before last in the first raid. Then there's the question of will Alexander Savage even get Echo with there already being a normal mode.

But your point about the training mode, and that we are supposedly getting a self parser, those tools might help players get to the standard needed, you never know.

[Colorful]

snip

Honestly I think the majority of people who did Alexander in 3.0 and aren't interested in Savage, far outnumber those who completed any of the Binding Coils while they were current content back. All it is to most people is more content, and that's a silly reason to unsub. I'd be unsubbed myself if it weren't for Alexander, it added a bit more content, and more fun to the 3.0 expansion and is the only end-game raid for us non hardcore players. We do have extreme primals, but you beat Bismarck once only to never step foot in it again, and Ravana 10 times at most per class.

I do believe they need to add a mid tier difficulty for Alexander 2, or whatever it's going to be called though. That's for sure.

[Sapphic]

I've been looking for a static with no interest save a group that pulls 20 hours a week.

If you are having no luck finding a static that fits your hours, why not try creating one? Start with trying to recruit from your FC then advertise in PF and do trial runs.

[Rynia]

I think Alex normal was designed as a closer stepping stone to Savage.

It isn't, though. Alexander normal is utter faceroll content. My static is pretty mid-core for the most part, and the difference between normal and savage is night and day for us - normal was so easy we all got bored and it completely sapped everyone's will to grind for the gear from it so we'd have a chance in Savage. Savage is so hard we literally couldn't push it until we had some eso gear (we cleared it for the first time this week). The gap is too wide because of the gear check, and like Tyrn said, there's nothing in the middle once you've cleared Bismarck and Ravana EX. It's pretty boring knowing you can't do something for x number of weeks until you have the gear, and frustrating bashing your head against it because it's the only thing left to do PvE-wise except cap Esoterics =/ I'm genuinely not surprised people are quitting over this because I know my desire to play the game plummeted because it felt like there was nothing at my level. Yay, more fate/dungeon grinding to level alt classes, I guess ...


Sure, give something to the truly casual, let them have a mode they can faceroll. And make the hardest content super-omg-hard but depreciate in difficulty over time, that's great too! But it is a glaring omission to leave it for weeks on end with nothing except super-casual and super-hardcore, because those two are the most extreme ends of the spectrum and the ones who shout loudest =(

Hopefully Void Ark will fill that gap. But it's still a way off yet and it's already been too long.

[Colorful]

snip

Void Ark is going to be as easy as the CT series, so easier than Alexander normal unfortunately. We'll likely be getting The Singularity Reactor EX though, but after you've cleared that 10 times for whatever you need, you won't need to step in it again unless you want to gear multiple classes. I'd suggest either a mid-tier difficulty for Alexander/Void Ark, or give us more EX primals and reasons to actually run them, like Primal armour that isn't just for glamour. Get your weapon through tokens, but have it drop armour tokens too, 2-5 tokens for a chest piece or something, and cap them weekly.

It doesn't make much sense for the 2nd best gear to come from running incredibly easy dungeons to me honestly.