Please consider changing the role of normal mode Alexander in future patches

[StouterTaru]

So you want top tier content to be beaten within a few hours of it being released, and on farm mode week 2? Why not just ask for all lockouts removed so you can get all your gear in a few days then unsub for 6 months?

[JMadFour]

Not sure where this stigma comes from that apparently you need to dedicate your life to raiding in order to succeed and make it a second job. *snip*

I'm just not sure why casual players spit on the harder content, thinking they have to quit their job and put their kids up for adoption in order to complete it.

because many "hardcore raiders" like to make it sound that way in order to justify their rewards being 200% better than everyone else's. not just in this game, in practically any MMO with raiding. especially if the game has both hardcore raiding and meaningful pvp.

just go look at any discussion that involves "casual" players getting a decent level of loot for completing non-raid content. and drown in the deluge of raiders making grandiose claims of "sacrifice" and "hard work" being why they "deserve" the best loot in the game.

Raiders like to float between "it's the hardest thing in the world and it takes more sacrifice and hard work and effort and dedication" and "oh you can just pop in for 2 hours a week it's not that bad" whenever one extreme suits the argument better.

[Eidolon]

I thought savage was gated by i200 gear, which is eso.

It's a mix. I'm not sure if people would clear or not at i180 - as we had a mix of i180/i190 when groups were clearing A1/2.

I think that a3+ served to be gated by i200, which was Eso gear as you said. But that's actually pretty normal progression and is fine. It meant you were getting drops from A1/2 whcih also helped with A3+, that's pretty normal for most mid-core groups.

[Miscreant]

So you want top tier content to be beaten within a few hours of it being released, and on farm mode week 2? Why not just ask for all lockouts removed so you can get all your gear in a few days then unsub for 6 months?

Did you read the thread before posting? The OP wants Alex NM gear to not be a requirement for entering Savage early on as he feels it spoils the raid, I'm guessing by already knowing the basic mechanics and Story. It has nothing to do with making Savage easier.

just go look at any discussion that involves "casual" players getting a decent level of loot for completing non-raid content. and drown in the deluge of raiders making grandiose claims of "sacrifice" and "hard work" being why they "deserve" the best loot in the game.

Well it does have merit to it, raiding isn't a full time job unless your in the leading groups, but the fights take time to learn. You don't necessarily need to put in twenty hours a week, it could be four a week, but when you kill the fight you have still invested a larger portion of time into that fight than you would for Alexander Normal or an Ex Primal. The rewards match the required effort, you can't deny that. If it helps you put it into perspective my group downed A1 (normal) within 20-30 minutes, it took us seven hours of play time to down A1S, thats roughly 14-21 times the time invested into normal, hence why the rewards are +20 ilevels higher.

I think that a3+ served to be gated by i200, which was Eso gear as you said. But that's actually pretty normal progression and is fine. It meant you were getting drops from A1/2 whcih also helped with A3+, that's pretty normal for most mid-core groups.

I kind of see it as Alexander Normal replaced the requirement of our previous raids gear as we were fresh 60. In SCoB and FCoB the first two turns were doable with the gear from the previous raid, in Alexander Savage it was Alexander Normal that took the previous raids place. When you reached the third turn in SCoB and FCoB there was a big dps check in which you needed some drops and tome gear from the current raids to complete, the same is with A3S now...well unless you were a top tier raid group like Lucrezia or Elysium.

[Colorful]

So you want top tier content to be beaten within a few hours of it being released, and on farm mode week 2? Why not just ask for all lockouts removed so you can get all your gear in a few days then unsub for 6 months?

This is what would happen if it were tuned with i180 in mind, but only by the top raiders. Also the reason Mythic Archimonde was downed fairly quickly in WoW. I'm not quite sure if artificially extending the content's length is any better, though. I don't get where this unsub stigma comes from, as long as they keep giving a good amount of content every 3-4 months as I feel it was worth the money, I'll sub for that duration of time. If not, I'll unsub. You know what I don't feel is worth $15 for 4 months is though? 2 dungeons and 2 extreme primals. If it wasn't for Alexander I would have been unsubbed, not only did it give me something to do for an entire month and a week, it gave me a cool glamour set and a nice experience with the raid.

I still had fun, even though it was "easy". For those saying you lose the sense of progression through the story, it's really not fair comparing current Alexander to Final Coil. I may have only done Turn 5 after it was nerfed to hell and back through various means, but it must have been at least 2-3 months trying every now and again on DF to finally beat it (after I moved to the JP servers though...) I felt the satisfaction of beating it, and it was comparable to finally taking down Bismarck, but I disappointed with its end (cliffhanger... got stuck on T9 DF before HW launched). The only thing that was cool about it was seeing Bahamut's head, because c'mon, it's his head! That's what was Coil awesome, the awesome setting, facing off in unknown creations of the Allagan, learning more about the Allagan and Bahamut himself. Alexander pales in comparison, and I stated it's not because it was difficult, it's because Alexander's story is a joke in comparison. They could have done amazing things with Alexander, but they decided to take the silly route. Have you guys seen Alexander in FF9 and Type 0? This one is just... bleh in comparison. This one has shown no threat, just people saying that its going to drain the land of aether, but we all know that won't happen because we'll stop it in the nick of time! The least they could have done is show the areas surrounding it appear "dead".

Anyway that's my rant about its story over, a bit off topic there and I added like nothing onto the topic, but I felt like getting it out.

[JMadFour]

/snip

i'm not debating this. i believe bleeding edge raiders should have the best gear. i'm fine with that.

He was wondering where people get the impression that you need to dedicate your life to raiding, that's all I was saying. it's because raiders make it sound that way when they argue against non-raiders getting decent loot.

[StouterTaru]

Did you read the thread before posting? The OP wants Alex NM gear to not be a requirement for entering Savage early on as he feels it spoils the raid, I'm guessing by already knowing the basic mechanics and Story. It has nothing to do with making Savage easier.

That's the effect it would have though. The only way they would remove this relatively minor treadmill is if they replaced it with another one, which would be bitched about just as much.

[Xaenith]

I dont think they should change anything about this besides maybe the lockouts on normal. Just let people grind it out at once and get it over with since it's not best in slot or anything. That being said I'm pretty sure there *are* actually other options to gear up from what I've heard so you don't literally *have* to do anything you don't want to it's just that you chose to because it was the easiest and/or quickest option. You shouldn't be complaint about anything that you actually chose to do its not they SE held a gun to your head and literally forced you to run it until you go all of the gear from it or anything.

[Miscreant]

i'm not debating this. i believe bleeding edge raiders should have the best gear. i'm fine with that.

He was wondering where people get the impression that you need to dedicate your life to raiding, that's all I was saying. it's because raiders make it sound that way when they argue against non-raiders getting decent loot.

Yeah that image is complete rubbish, I work a 9-5 post degree job and have still managed to progress in all of the raids at an acceptable pace, I've never had the time to compete with the hardcore guys but I'm in the last phase of A3S now with raiding for roughy 10-12 hours a week. People don't even need to raid that frequently four hours is probably enough to have raids cleared before a new one is introduced.

That's the effect it would have though. The only way they would remove this relatively minor treadmill is if they replaced it with another one, which would be bitched about just as much.

In a way you would be right and in a way not, the first two floors would be easier now with Eso gear, but at the time they would be just as hard in 180 gear. I don't see why the system he suggested should have any knock on effect on A3S though as you shouldn't really be using Alexander Normal gear by that point anyway.

The only thing that was cool about it was seeing Bahamut's head, because c'mon, it's his head! That's what was Coil awesome, the awesome setting, facing off in unknown creations of the Allagan, learning more about the Allagan and Bahamut himself. Alexander pales in comparison, and I stated it's not because it was difficult, it's because Alexander's story is a joke in comparison. They could have done amazing things with Alexander, but they decided to take the silly route. Have you guys seen Alexander in FF9 and Type 0? This one is just... bleh in comparison.

I can relate to what your saying here, I feel the story of Alexander has been underwhelming so far, you could even call it comic relief with all these goblins running around, and Alexander in FFIX was epic, one of my favourite scenes in FF history so this version is a bit underwhelming at the moennt. But the story in BCoB wasn't that great either, Coil didn't actually get interesting until T9 and it wasn't until FCoB that I was really fixated on the story. Give this raid some time, so far we have only seen the foundations of a story so far.

[Colorful]

snip

Yeah I'll definitely wait before calling it a failure, but you have to admit the difference in endings was significant. One is seeing that Bahamut remains, and his head is before you, leaving you waiting for the next part to see what happens next. Alexander is a core to disable Alexander or something? I don't even remember it. There's not much to look forward to, and that girl with the scar is a very cliche and boring character. "I'm going to touch my scar and then remember my entire past"... Don't know what they were thinking with that.