NO MORE ALEXANDER(NM)!

[Evtrai]

Raiders have no time to appreciate the gear gap between savage gear and antiquated gear with void ark coming in 3.1
Recruitment has become an absolute nightmare because this content is not designed for midcore raiders.
In six weeks, alex will lose it's appeal of gear rewards.

Those are the keypoints that people on this forum don't understand.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

But then the reverse is also true. If NM Alex came out after Savage, casual raiders would have little time to enjoy the gear when Void Ark is just around the corner and are better off just grinding Esoterics.

[Colorful]

Alex normal should have come out one month after savage just like wow does it's LFR and Normal. Also, it should have been designed with the general raiding population in mind.

Small correction, but Normal & Heroic raiding modes come out first and then a week later Mythic, the hardest difficulty comes out. The first wing of LFR (4 bosses, comparable to the entirety of Alexander) comes out alongside it, not the other way around.

[zosia]

Thanks for this reply OP. I hope you don't mind if I save it and quote it in future in threads like this.
You managed to express my opinion really well.

np =)
I don't mind at all.

[zosia]

Small correction, but Normal & Heroic raiding modes come out first and then a week later Mythic, the hardest difficulty comes out. The first wing of LFR (4 bosses, comparable to the entirety of Alexander) comes out alongside it, not the other way around.

Well, thing changed a bit since I played in cata, but they should still do a staggered release to give people a chance to at least be curious about the story. It helps build the hype.

[Dhex]

Alex normal should have come out one month after savage just like wow does it's LFR and Normal. Also, it should have been designed with the general raiding population in mind.

While I see and agree with some of your points I still think removing Normal mode or releasing Normal mode a month after Savage would've exacerbated the "raiding die off" problem.

Asuran gear is i180 - and crafted gear is exorbitantly expensive to fully meld. I consider myself mid-core; I cleared SCoB & FCoB before any nerfs but I have no interest in Savage SCoB. We started on Alexander Savage the day it came out. Faust smacked use down hard. My group was between i180-i185 due to having Normal mode available and we still took about two weeks to clear Alexander Savage F1 - but if we'd been stuck in i180 gear with no route to grow I doubt we would have made it past Faust.

My only point; if you make the barriers to entry too high or delay the tools too long you stonewall people getting into content while it's current. If you want people to stay interested you can but not without giving them a clear pathway to overcome their deficiencies; it kills any interest in your raid just as quickly.

[zosia]

But then the reverse is also true. If NM Alex came out after Savage, casual raiders would have little time to enjoy the gear when Void Ark is just around the corner and are better off just grinding Esoterics.

How so? It took about a month to get a full set of alex normal gear. It' takes about a month of progression to get an a3s clear. Then you actually have to save pages or pray to RNGesus to get a drop.

The time scales are far from being the same. Yes, eso sort of invalidate alex normal gear. They should have made alex normal gear ilvl 200 and then staggered the alex normal realse release by a month.

The eso gear would still have more value than the alex normal gear, because it's up-gradable. Also, this would provide a much larger range of side grades and allow people to play with their stats more freely. I believe this is the 7th mode of conflict resolution called the win win win? jk =p Seriously though, everyone woudl get gear, raiders and non-raider. The side grades would make the accuracy caps less annoying (too much or too little accuracy). There would still be a reason to do both alex normal and farm eso since they both have weekly limits/caps. Then alex savage would have much more mystery about it for the 1st month.

While I see and agree with some of your points I still think removing Normal mode or releasing Normal mode a month after Savage would've exacerbated the "raiding die off" problem.

Asuran gear is i180 - and crafted gear is exorbitantly expensive to fully meld. I consider myself mid-core; I cleared SCoB & FCoB before any nerfs but I have no interest in Savage SCoB. We started on Alexander Savage the day it came out. Faust smacked use down hard. My group was between i180-i185 due to having Normal mode available and we still took about two weeks to clear Alexander Savage F1 - but if we'd been stuck in i180 gear with no route to grow I doubt we would have made it past Faust.

My only point; if you make the barriers to entry too high or delay the tools too long you stonewall people getting into content while it's current. If you want people to stay interested you can but not without giving them a clear pathway to overcome their deficiencies; it kills any interest in your raid just as quickly.

That just goes back to my point of of alex savage not being designed for the general raiding population, I think that was a mistake on the dev teams part. a1s should have been a bit more accessible on day one. Faust was a neat idea. In execution, Faust worked out poorly. People should be stuck progressing on the boss, not trash.

Maybe instead of a hard dps check with faust, it should have been a more mild coordination check since that's what a1s emphasizes more.

You make a good point, but I think if faust would have been more approachable by most groups, then alex normal would have been fine being off set by a month.

[PriscillaX]

Sorry to ruin your perception, but most statics are not groups of friends, you should pay attention to your PF more often. Getting rid of statics and unlocking content actually would allow you to play with more than 7 other friends

yea..... no this sounds terrible consdiering half the people you would end up partying with will ether do no dmg or be shit in general as has been seen in most of the game and will end up with very high tension 95% of the time and more drama will happen. with 7 friends you can be sure there going to dmg and beable to do the content and you can also turst your 7 friends, 7 randoms might as will be treated like they have aids that can be caughty just by being near them.

[KaijinRhada]

Well, thing changed a bit since I played in cata, but they should still do a staggered release to give people a chance to at least be curious about the story. It helps build the hype.

I don't think anything has changed since Cata, in fact, I'm pretty sure LFR came out at the same time as DS normal, and LFR only started from DS and onward. Flex was introduced in Mists, and is nw called normal with their needless nomenclature change. Prior to that and starting with Ulduar did you start seeing hardmode encounters, and then heroic raids came to be with ToGC. From then on people progressed with either 10/25 normal then on to 10/25 heroic being the norm until they introduced LFR and then Flex.

[Ulathskullsplitter]

Sounds to me like most raiders only raid so they can show off their e-peen. And now that most of that has been taken away leaving just the challenge itself most raiders dont want to challenge themselves if they dont have ways to show off while most other players are locked out of the content.

MMO devs have realized there is no sense in catering to the hardcore raiding community, especially in this game. At the end of ARR only about 3% of the NA/EU playerbase had completed FCOB. Whats the point in locking out the other 97% of players. If you want a challenge then go ahead and do Savage, its there for you. If you just want to stroke your e-peen and show off then you're not going to find that here anymore.