NO MORE ALEXANDER(NM)!

[FallenArisen0990]

So basically OP wants SE to remove NM. Have SE nerf Alex SM because the mass majority can't clear the content. Good Job OP, you're screwed either way.

[Colorful]

It may be a small portion of the player-base, but it is also a small portion of the total content that gets released.

Small regarding all content released in that patch, yes, but specifically in regard to endgame? No.

But from a developer's perspective it boils down to:

1) Release content that appeals to both the casuals and the hardcore with a high completion rate jumping into the hundreds of thousands in the first month, making the development efforts more worthwhile and giving subscribers more content or...
2) Appeal to those who want exclusive content, likely made up of 2-3% of the 10% of the hardcore group and watch completion rates drop into the tens of thousands for while giving the majority of the players less content, and in turn, less reason to subscribe.

I think the choice would be obvious.

What they do need to work on is a 3rd difficulty in between Normal and Savage.

[Fevelle]

It may be a small portion of the player-base, but it is also a small portion of the total content that gets released.

A whole set of equips, 4 boss battles, a complete questline, Achievements... That's not an small portion of the content, judging by the fact that we only got 2 EX primals and 2 LV60 Dungeons.

Wanting this to be exclusive to extremely hard content is plain egoistic.

That's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. There is no reason to put work towards Savage because people don't do it because there is no reason to do Savage (cause no work was put into it).

A small percentage of people actually care about Triple Triad and Chocobo Racing, better scrap those too.

Savage is there for the sake of the challenge. If you don't want the challenge don't do it. They should put an exclusive achievement to go with the mount and the iLV210 dyeable set, but that's it. And no one said to scrap Savage, they're saying to scrap NM.

[zcrash970]

That's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. There is no reason to put work towards Savage because people don't do it because there is no reason to do Savage (cause no work was put into it).

A small percentage of people actually care about Triple Triad and Chocobo Racing, better scrap those too.

That's kinda of the reason I didn't respond to her.

[Malzian]

I honestly don't remember hearing that term at all before either. Most of these "midcore" players complaining about Alexander are not being very constructive, just whining about a poorly explained difficulty gap.

Mid-core has been around for a while, though it was a terribly small group up until a couple years ago. Back in games like WoW there was really only two tiers, either you were a casual because you didn't do the progression or you were hardcore because you fought through it to raid. Over the past few years there have been more and more people coming in to MMOs and with the over-all population growth the 'mid-core' demographic really expanded.

Mid-core is basically the demographic between the people who either don't have much of any time at all to play or the real desire to push hard into a game... and the group who devotes every last moment of their free time to pushing into the hardest content the game has to offer. The problem is that a large part of the demographic that moved in are people who have lots of other obligations, be it work or family or otherwise. They just don't have the time to devote to 'hardcore' but put in as much as they can to do the best they're able.

The current situation we have with NM is that it's designed to be cleared quickly, so that everyone... even the people who have the least amount of time can get through it. Savage is for the people who can spend several hours a week banging their heads against it. That gap you mentioned is just the right size where people can clear NM for the week, but can't manage to sit with a static to clear through Savage, due to short spans they're able to be online for or because their time schedules don't suit to an 'every night at this time' setup.

The people sitting in that gap are kind of languishing, because there's no challenge for them in NM, but they simply are unable to devote the kind of time necessary to surmount Savage.

[Nestama]

Wait, what? How does the existence of normal mode in any way sway anyone from running savage (that planned to run it anyway)? Sounds like a lot of QQing over nothing.

Some people, like myself, were more interested in seeing the story than anything else. While I did have fun learning the fights and being the only caster getting ALL of the gear (I think I was the first to get BiS in my old static), the story was my main incentive. Alexander Savage Floor 1 is just a repeat of Alexander Normal Floor 1, but now the Resin Bombs leave puddles, all DPS need to deal with mini-adds and the bosses hit like trucks with trucks for wheels. It's an easy fight, but everything hits harder (and that fight alone made me lose interest in Savage).

I really wish Alexander NM was on the same difficulty as Extreme Primals. Since the current Extreme Primals are now obsolete, there's pretty much no mid-tier content (worth doing).

[Fevelle]

That's kinda of the reason I didn't respond to her.

Yeah, because you find it even to put a questline behind extremely hard content just for you, when a lot of players who helped pay for the development of the content won't experience it this way.

[dejavutwo]

A whole set of equips, 4 boss battles, a complete questline, Achievements... That's not an small portion of the content, judging by the fact that we only got 2 EX primals and 2 LV60 Dungeons.

Wanting this to be exclusive to extremely hard content is plain egoistic.

With a 24 man coming up, the new Goldsaucer mini-games, airship exploration, another 2 dungeons, 2 additional trials, and the crafting content that they periodically release.

Honestly, I would probably just be happy if I didn't have to farm normal mode before having gear good enough to to savage.

[Zumi]

What is stopping people from doing savage content? If you look at any of the forums on here people are always recruiting people for savage and in the party finder in game. For me if I am not doing the hardest content in a FF game I wouldn't be playing it. If you want to do the content then you make time and find a group or make one yourself.

[Fevelle]

With a 24 man coming up, the new Goldsaucer mini-games, airship exploration, another 2 dungeons, 2 additional trials, and the crafting content that they periodically release.

And it will cause complains too, because people will be getting the same tier gear people who raid get, but from easier and slow/steady content, and the raiders will cringe and rage again because their equips and rewards aren't the very best and blah blah blah.