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

[starLivitation]

I know the time of savage raiders having to farm Alexander normal has passed, but I really, really, really do not want to do that again.

I'm fine with normal mode existing, I really am, but PLEASE, do not make me farm that boring junk for 4 weekly lockouts again.

Either make it so that people already doing savage do not need the gear (ie: the gear dropped from normal Alexander '2' is i200 or i205 equivalent), or make it drop no gear at all like the rest of the story mode content.

If you're not going to make the less-skilled/dedicated players do Savage to get the story, please consider not making us Savage raiders do the normal mode to get the gear.

Edit: BEFORE YOU POST, READ THIS: I'm not proposing we remove the current loot, or change the current tier! Please comprehend this point: I do not want to grind the normal mode of the NEXT TIER OF ALEXANDER to be able to do savage when it is released in 3.2. Why do I get the feeling people here only read the title of the thread before posting?

i dont think loot or farming is an issue here. i am sure it can be improved, I.E do not force raiders to do milti runs to win loot token for their drops, like for instance, i have todo A4 Savage 10 times in a row in DF to get 1 shaft in one of the weeks, this is not super enjoyable offcourse.

but the real issue is, the 2 raids are almost identical, except for a few small changaes , but require higher gear check, which means, doing the savvage while challanging, there is nothing new or fresh about it, except the actuall challange.

whats worse is the theme, heavenswards expansion was based on dragons and knights, but in alexander we are dealign with lifeless robots and stupid luminate goblins from brayfox lvl 32 dungen. super boring theme, i am not very exciting when i go to raid than when i was fighting pheonox or bahamont or nael van darus, those were nice design fights, even turn5 was something special. too bad.

[KarstenS]

To the "you dont need to do Alexander normal, just wait for Eso gear" fraction:

The requirement to start the unlocking quest for savage is finishing the final quest of Alexander normal

[Eidolon]

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.

Here's the counter though:



The First Coil of Bahamut: Required Tomestones of Philosphy (uncapped) gear for going in (And I'm sure people went with less.)
The Second Coil of Bahamut: Required Tomestones of Mythology (uncapped) gear for going in -OR- First Coil gear (Uncapped).
The Third Coil of Bahamut: Required Tomestones of Soldiery (uncapped) gear for going in -OR- second coil gear (uncapped)

Alexander:
Requires a mix of Law (uncapped) + Alexander Story (capped) to go in.

The difference is pretty clear - we're forced to rely on Alexander story for entrance into Savage. This is because SE created a gap and filled it with Alexander Story gear.

By making it so Law is i180
Alexander is i190
Eso is 200
Savage is 210

They created "Logical steps" that work, but provide no sidegrades for Law and limit customization, as well as stagger the ability to clear content effectively with an artifical cap. I'm sure more groups would've cleared a1/2/3 had they not be bottlenecked by gear drops.

Solution:

Remove Alexander (Story) drop or make it an unlimited sidegrade option to the uncapped tomestone gear. Thus, you make it so people have more diversity in gear choices, while simultaneously not staggering them.

[Rin_Kuroi]

Alex normal sucks because of how gear drops work. If I could run it like a roulette I wouldnt feel nearly as burnt out on it.

[Miscreant]

snip

I don't get how thats a counter, you just repeated what I said back to me O_O

What I was trying to get at is that hopefully the second Alexander raids normal mode wont be required for it's savage counter part as we will have the previous raids gear. The damage is done with this raid, no suggestion can rewrite whats already happened.

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.

I just remembered the cutscenes where Louisoix was watching you in BCoB too, BCoB's story was better than Alexanders so far I guess, hopefully things turn around soon. If Alexander actually becomes mobile it could become pretty exciting.

[Akiza]

Good questions, which I have my opinionated answers to! First, I think normal mode should be renamed "story mode" in it's current form. I have two opinions on this, so here goes:

1: OPTIMALLY, I would see the normal mode Alexander floors added to a story mode roulette along with the research facility and singularity reactor. It's only slightly more difficult than those two, and IMO on par with the chrysalis. It rewards no gear, except maybe a ring or pet or something at the end as your "reward" for completing the story. It's released the same time as savage, but savage raiders do not have to farm it in order to get gear.

2: Alternatively: The raid rewards gear, but it is on par with gear levels already obtained (Imagine if the current tier of normal alexander rewarded i180 gear instead) Then the non-savage-raiders would still have their glamour, their story, and their content, while savage raiders would STILL not have to farm the content.

I want the main takeaway here to be (and not so much for you, for everyone reading, since you seem to understand where I'm coming from) that I don't want to deny the less-dedicated players anything at all, I just (and I feel like I've repeated myself a bunch saying this) do not want to be forced to farm it prior to savage.

Alexander Normal mode ilvl is 190 Alexander Savage ilvl is 210 so that make Alexander Normal filler gear for casuls until they get Esoric.

[Kosmos992k]

I know the time of savage raiders having to farm Alexander normal has passed, but I really, really, really do not want to do that again.

I'm fine with normal mode existing, I really am, but PLEASE, do not make me farm that boring junk for 4 weekly lockouts again.

Either make it so that people already doing savage do not need the gear (ie: the gear dropped from normal Alexander '2' is i200 or i205 equivalent), or make it drop no gear at all like the rest of the story mode content.

Newsflash for you, all story mode content up to and including HW drops gear to progress players sufficiently to complete the story. In fact gear drops were enhanced and increased in pre HW story content to ensure players are appropriately geared when they enter Ishgard.

I think you will find that as we progress through the patches the lockouts will be eased - as happened with Coil and the Crystal Tower, and so you're effectively complaining about, and asking for something, that's been done every patch since 2.1.

At the end of the day Alex normal provides a path for the mainstream players (aka 'casuals') and Savage provides the end-game challenge that end-game players (aka 'raiders') want and need. As a few have pointed out in this topic, this is what players asked for, and I see no issues with it.

To the "you dont need to do Alexander normal, just wait for Eso gear" fraction:

The requirement to start the unlocking quest for savage is finishing the final quest of Alexander normal

Indeed, so why is the OP grinding Normal mode to death and whining about it?

Then the burnout is really your own fault.

You really are advocating effing over 200k+ people that cleared Alex so the small fraction of that in Savage wouldn't be sick of looking at it? Even if they did wait, you'd still be running it because it's a gear check and that "every edge" thing comes into play.

There's just no pleasing everyone.

Indeed, and by the sounds of things (since the OP seems to be advocating removing gear drops from 'normal' mode, this proposal would simultaneously 'eff' over ever player who's yet to step foot in Normal.

What I am not clear on though is, precisely what is the issue?

As far as I can tel you only need Alex Normal cleared once to unlock Savage, and the OP chooses to grind Alex Normal for gear, but apparently doesn't like the grind and thinks that because of that every other player should be screwed over. Is that about the size of it? Because it surely reads that way in this topic.

I want the main takeaway here to be (and not so much for you, for everyone reading, since you seem to understand where I'm coming from) that I don't want to deny the less-dedicated players anything at all, I just (and I feel like I've repeated myself a bunch saying this) do not want to be forced to farm it prior to savage.

I don't give a damn what you want the main takeaway to be here. The main takeaway I am seeing here is removing gear drops from Alex Normal in order to satisfy your selfish desires. I haven't read such self-indulgent BS on this forum in a long time.

P.S. you're not forced to farm Alex Normal, you *CHOOSE* to farm it, this is a self inflicted wound and your solution serves only yourself.

[Eidolon]

I don't get how thats a counter, you just repeated what I said back to me O_O

I just remembered the cutscenes where Louisoix was watching you in BCoB too, BCoB's story was better than Alexanders so far I guess, hopefully things turn around soon. If Alexander actually becomes mobile it could become pretty exciting.

What I was trying to get at is that hopefully the second Alexander raids normal mode wont be required for it's savage counter part as we will have the previous raids gear. The damage is done with this raid, no suggestion can rewrite whats already happened.

I suppose, I just wanted to stress that at the moment - they added an extra step, whereas previous, we didn't have this extra 'required' step. We should be able to straight up use Uncapped Tomestones if we want to - Alexander should've been a side alternative for optimization that is also uncapped.

Anyways, my appologies if I'm mayhaps not getting my point across as well as I could. ^^

[Miscreant]

snip

Ah sorry I completely misunderstood you, but yeah I see what you mean, I hope that it wont be the case in the next raid, while I don't have any problem with the normal mode, I would personally rather skip the normal mode entirely, I kind of miss the bosses being a surprise. The first time I went into T12 I was an awe, not just for the boss but the setting as well...but without the added pressure of it being a hard fight I doubt that feeling would be recreated so easily.

P.S. you're not forced to farm Alex Normal, you *CHOOSE* to farm it, this is a self inflicted wound and your solution serves only yourself.

Maybe forced is a strong word, but without doing Alexander Normal you aren't getting past Faust on day one. Now consider that players had been looking forward to this raid for months, they wanted to go into A1S on day one.

[CosmicKirby]

snip

Sharing lockouts is an interesting idea, but I'd imagine that it would play out something like this:

Suppose a progression raiding static raids on tuesday thursday and sunday.
Tuesday they try to clear savage 1 and fail. Noone attempts the others turns or turn 1 because then they get locked out of loot.
The group clears turn 1, and later clears turn 2 late sunday.
The entire static now has to farm turns 3 and 4 on monday in order to get their weekly lockouts, as they weren't sure if they were going to complete those turns or not.

Progression raiding statics would find themselves farming heavily on their own time the turns that their group couldn't down. It's not a damning problem with the suggested system, but it's certainly an interesting one.