NO MORE ALEXANDER(NM)!

[zosia]

Yeah!!! All the filthy casuals who'd rather play a game to enjoy a story instead of bashing their skulls in with amazeballz hard content!! Get rid of them! While we're at it, what the hell's with leveling up!? You should be able to kill bosses 1000 levels above you without taking a single point of damage! And what's with all this crafting and gathering!? We just smack our old weapons together until they fuse into one giant massive weapon of extraordinary death!! And towns? There should be no towns, only massive hordes of monsters drooling to gnaw on your bones!! And the planet?? What the... we need another Calamity! Wipe it all out again and make it all Lords of Verminion! Blaaaaargh!!!!

/sarcasm

Rather than posting a hyperbolic reply to the thread title, why don't you actually read through some of the post and actually help come up with a better solution.

[Malzian]

Rather than posting a hyperbolic reply to the thread title, why don't you actually read through some of the post and actually help come up with a better solution.

Yeah, I read through the posts. Honestly, I don't think there's a problem.... I think it's fine, I think NM is there for the right reason, I think Savage is there for the right reason. Are they missing some of the mid-core stuff? Yes, and that's been noted before and maybe they'll do something about it. But I can't help but pour out the sarcasm on a thread that's based off of someone going on saying that everyone should be viewing the game by their standards.

[zosia]

Yeah, I read through the posts. Honestly, I don't think there's a problem.... I think it's fine, I think NM is there for the right reason, I think Savage is there for the right reason. Are they missing some of the mid-core stuff? Yes, and that's been noted before and maybe they'll do something about it. But I can't help but pour out the sarcasm on a thread that's based off of someone going on saying that everyone should be viewing the game by their standards.

Yeah, they talked about midcore content back in ARR. It was supposed to come with heavensward, but it didn't. A matter of fact, they got rid of the only thing close to midcore content, a raid with a difficulty level comparable to coils.

So, you think it's fine that a portion of the player base, much larger than the hardcore crowd, has no content designed for them? That's a big problem my friend. Without a Goldilocks zone of content, people will be left of the unpleasant taste of ice cold porridge (alex NM) or the burning sting of porridge that is too hot (alex SV).

The people who want the "just right" level of difficulty are a much larger portion of the player base than the hardcore raiders and they are getting super bored super fast. I don't think the game wants to lose 10-20% of the players who comprise the midcore crowd.

[Malzian]

Yeah, they talked about midcore content back in ARR. It was supposed to come with heavensward, but it didn't. A matter of fact, they got rid of the only thing close to midcore content, a raid with a difficulty level comparable to coils.

So, you think it's fine that a portion of the player base, much larger than the hardcore crowd, has no content designed for them? That's a big problem my friend. Without a Goldilocks zone of content, people will be left of the unpleasant taste of ice cold porridge (alex NM) or the burning sting of porridge that is too hot (alex SV).

The people who want the "just right" level of difficulty are a much larger portion of the player base than the hardcore raiders and they are getting super bored super fast. I don't think the game wants to lose 10-20% of the players who comprise the midcore crowd.

No, I don't think it's fine...

Yeah, I read through the posts. Honestly, I don't think there's a problem.... I think it's fine, I think NM is there for the right reason, I think Savage is there for the right reason. Are they missing some of the mid-core stuff? Yes, and that's been noted before and maybe they'll do something about it. But I can't help but pour out the sarcasm on a thread that's based off of someone going on saying that everyone should be viewing the game by their standards.

Trust me, I'm in the mid-core crowd and I am feeling the burn of it. However, we don't need to do away with NM and basically cut out a whole other segment of the population. The OP posted about story AND gear motivating people to do content, but Savage -wasn't about that-. Savage was about pushing the bloody edge, about being the top-dog raider and having bragging rights. NM was geared towards people who wanted the story but don't have the time. My 'rant' was about a systemic problem where people seem to think that other people should only ever play the game based on their standards. NM is fine, it serves its purpose. Savage is fine, it serves its purpose. Neither needs to be removed, like was intoned to start in this thread. Hopefully Void Ark will fill the gap, we'll just have to wait and see.

[zosia]

Yeah, I read through the posts. Honestly, I don't think there's a problem.... I think it's fine, I think NM is there for the right reason, I think Savage is there for the right reason. Are they missing some of the mid-core stuff? Yes, and that's been noted before and maybe they'll do something about it. But I can't help but pour out the sarcasm on a thread that's based off of someone going on saying that everyone should be viewing the game by their standards.

No, I don't think it's fine...


Trust me, I'm in the mid-core crowd and I am feeling the burn of it. However, we don't need to do away with NM and basically cut out a whole other segment of the population. The OP posted about story AND gear motivating people to do content, but Savage -wasn't about that-. Savage was about pushing the bloody edge, about being the top-dog raider and having bragging rights. NM was geared towards people who wanted the story but don't have the time. My 'rant' was about a systemic problem where people seem to think that other people should only ever play the game based on their standards. NM is fine, it serves its purpose. Savage is fine, it serves its purpose. Neither needs to be removed, like was intoned to start in this thread. Hopefully Void Ark will fill the gap, we'll just have to wait and see.

I am not sure where you are coming from then. There is no problem with what exactly?

[Malzian]

I am not sure where you are coming from then. There is no problem with what exactly?

There is no problem with Alex NM and Alex Savage. NM doesn't need to be removed. Savage does not need to be the only way to raid... this is the core of the original discussion, 'Stop making Alex NM' and that is what I disagree with.

[Colorful]

snp

There are extreme people on both sides, and trying to argue reasonably is going to get you shouted at no matter what you say. Can't remember if it on Reddit or here, but I suggested a 3 tier difficulty raid: Normal, Extreme and Savage. Extreme would be the first to come out, after a month both Normal and Savage would be released so the casuals (including myself) have a place to go, and the best of the best have Savage. This would satisfy all groups at the cost of a little bit more development time. Want to know what I got in response? The same things you see in this thread, "normal was a mistake", "you should have to work for story", and "Alexander normal should have never happened" so I don't even bother anymore. I don't know why people feel so threatened about the majority seeing content they funded.

[TruebladeNuke]

There are extreme people on both sides, and trying to argue reasonably is going to get you shouted at no matter what you say. Can't remember if it on Reddit or here, but I suggested a 3 tier difficulty raid: Normal, Extreme and Savage. Extreme would be the first to come out, after a month both Normal and Savage would be released so the casuals (including myself) have a place to go, and the best of the best have Savage. This would satisfy all groups at the cost of a little bit more development time. Want to know what I got in response? The same things you see in this thread, "normal was a mistake", "you should have to work for story", and "Alexander normal should have never happened" so I don't even bother anymore. I don't know why people feel so threatened about the majority seeing content they funded.

You and me both...

This is exactly why I avoid any discussions about endgame raiding as much as possible. Granted, I find myself posting in these discussions anyway though. Despite that, something bothers me about endgame raiding discussions... and I can't quite put my finger on it... Perhaps I should just go back to never posting in endgame raiding discussions. Because from my own personal experiences on forums, these types of discussions never end well.

[Malzian]

You and me both...

This is exactly why I avoid any discussions about endgame raiding as much as possible. Granted, I find myself posting in these discussions anyway though. Despite that, something bothers me about endgame raiding discussions... and I can't quite put my finger on it... Perhaps I should just go back to never posting in endgame raiding discussions.

I think I understand your reasoning, and it's pretty much the same as mine... you just can't stand that people sit there and say, 'Play the game the way I want you to or GTFO.'

[Evtrai]

There are extreme people on both sides, and trying to argue reasonably is going to get you shouted at no matter what you say. Can't remember if it on Reddit or here, but I suggested a 3 tier difficulty raid: Normal, Extreme and Savage. Extreme would be the first to come out, after a month both Normal and Savage would be released so the casuals (including myself) have a place to go, and the best of the best have Savage. This would satisfy all groups at the cost of a little bit more development time. Want to know what I got in response? The same things you see in this thread, "normal was a mistake", "you should have to work for story", and "Alexander normal should have never happened" so I don't even bother anymore. I don't know why people feel so threatened about the majority seeing content they funded.

Yeah, they totally went wrong with this, I still think for once they should had released both savage and normal at the same time, but savage is extremely hard, the jump of difficulty from AS2 to AS3 is insane, the ammount of dedication you need to clear it is too much, it's not that it's not doable, but it's something that if you play 3 days at night on a static for 2 hours it's gonna take a while to acomplish fine tunning and literally making no mistakes, and to top it off, the tanks and healers have to do extra work and it's taxing on them because they have to also DPS besides doing their role, this is an horrible design choice. The perfect balance of dificulty was Second coil bahamut and his Savage dificulty, as you stated, Savage being the normal dificulty and the later implemented savage dificulty would be the extreme dificulty. Instead, they took it this opposite way they make normal mode, something that people literally cleared even normal players a few hours after it was released and then you have Savage which is something extremely dificult and in no way it compares to binding coil of bahamut.

It absolutely does not help the fact, that the story of Alexander, is the most bland and uninteresting story so far going on, if you compare Alexander on key Final Fantasy games 9 or 11 it's just plain unimpresive, it doesn't help that they literally slap these uninteresting and boring bosses designs, with bland looks, bland areas, the boss mechanics are horrendous since they are DPS checks FOR THE NON DPS, which is trully bizarre. On top of that, it can't be stressed enough that the mechanics are just really poorly made, when you compare at what they did with coils, the mechanics of alexander savage aren't challenging they are just DPS sponges, you could go back to binding coil of bahamut and notice the changes between normal mode and savage and notice that the dificulty lies with dealing with mechanics, small DPS checks here and there but not smashing your buttons until you get carpal tunnel, because otherwise you aren't really going to progress.

Overall, Alexander is the worst content we have seen since 2.0 and hence why people is unmotivated to clear it, even if they had raided before, they just don't care, I don't care anymore, what's the point on me clearing A4S? there's trully nothing, gear will get replaced soon, but it's mainly that it's bland and boring that it doesn't help at all, and thus why people feels that Normal ruined it, which isn't the reason at all.