NO MORE ALEXANDER(NM)!

[Eul]

Pssh I don't even touch Alex NM again after I got all healer gear except top and bottom because of the RNG and loot RNG (and weekly loot too). I even not bother with Savage too.

[Kosmos992k]

Raiders: "We need harder raids. I don't care about gear and titles. I just want to tackle harder content."

SE: "OK we added 2 versions of the raid to accommodate everyone, and easy version and a hard version."

Raiders: "But all the filthy casuals have similar gear and can watch all the cutscenes now."

SE: "I thought you didn't care about that stuff. We gave you harder content. Beating it is reward itself."

Raiders: "F*ck no! If I don't have gear, minions, mounts, titles, and special cutscenes to hold over the heads of casuals and allow me to flaunt my superiority, then there's no point!"

SE: "But you just said that it's not about the material rewards..."
Raiders: "It isn't"

SE: "..."

Raiders: "We need harder raids. I don't care about gear and titles. I just want to tackle harder content."

SE: "OK we added a hard version of Binding Coil. The only new reward for it is a title, but we hope you enjoy the challenge.

Raiders: "But this is so hard! We really should at least get some sort of gear reward if we're going to do something this hard."

SE: "I thought you didn't care about that stuff. We gave you harder content. Beating it is reward itself."

Raiders: "F*ck no!"

SE: O-Okay... For Alexander, we've made the regular version a little easier to ensure more players can see the story. For the harder version, we've added gear and a special mount.

Raiders: What is this!? My gear is only marginally better, and the only difference is dye!?!? If I don't have more special gear, titles, and special cutscenes to hold over the heads of casuals and allow me to flaunt my superiority, then there's no point! You have to get rid of the normal mode!!!"

SE: "But during the 2.x series, you just said that it's not about the material rewards..."

Raiders: "It isn't"

SE: "..."

Adjusted that a bit for you.

LOL, thanks for the good laugh, both of you, though I expect some wont see the humour, irony, or truth...

It's funny how in these threads you always see the casuals posting immature stuff like this while the oh so evil raiders are having actual discussions on how to fix aspects the game.

Whats the matter? Too much irony and truth for comfort?

[Spellbinder]

It's funny how in these threads you always see the casuals posting immature stuff like this while the oh so evil raiders are having actual discussions on how to fix aspects the game.

What a lot of non-raiders ignore is that you are not entitled to see every content the game has to offer if you don't work for it. If you don't beat the hardest content in the game, you don't deserve to have the best gear and should not see the story/get the glamour/mounts/whatever, simple as that.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Am I really seeing this right now? Let me remind you that the developers added an extra difficulty level (i.e. Savage) because players ASKED FOR IT. What makes you think just because they added an extra level of difficulty, that players who choose not to play that new difficulty don't deserve anything?

Edit: To make myself clear, I am not advocating that the best gear should not be exclusive to Savage. But to deny players the opportunity to see the story? That's just selfish.

[CosmicKirby]

Savage Alexander sucks because the difficulty spike in A3S is monstrous and seems to exist solely to stop Lucrezia and other groups of that level from repeating what they did in FCOB and destroying the raid tier within the week. They succeeded at this, but its frankly a completely pointless concern and it seems like a lot of the worst design decisions in Heavensward happened solely to slow down the absolute best players in the game...

I can't agree with this enough.

The difficulty is no longer a fun form of challenge that I found myself having in A1S and A2S. The only reason I'm continuing to attempt it is because it's a group activity, not a rewarding activity in and of itself.
I legitimately haven't heard any positive feedback about A3S. Just a lot of frustration and woes.

Edit: To make myself clear, I am not advocating that the best gear should not be exclusive to Savage. But to deny players the opportunity to see the story? That's just selfish.

Well, if that's the way it's set up, then "them's the breaks." You would "deserve" whatever reward Square decided to set by completing the challenge set to earn that reward.
This isn't the case with Savage Alexander, so it really isn't a problem.

Again, what differentiating factor here makes gating the Loot okay, but makes the story not okay? Is it a matter of personal preference? Does the playerbase as a whole (and in a matter that doesn't intend to grossly generalize millions of players) value story over loot? I do not see a convincing argument that such a tangible difference between the two somehow justifies one over the other.

[NFaelivrin]

The fact so many people in these forums bear a furious unending grudge against a minority of players that literally only get four boss fights every six months (at best) to play with would be funny if it wasn't so sad. This is one of the most casual MMOs that exist, the massive majority of the game is designed for accessible casual play. Asking for the one proper raid in the entire game to not be a horrid mess shouldn't even affect you, specially since most people actually want the raid to be less overtuned, not more.

[Spellbinder]

Again, what differentiating factor here makes gating the Loot okay, but makes the story not okay? Is it a matter of personal preference? Does the playerbase as a whole (and in a matter that doesn't intend to grossly generalize millions of players) value story over loot? I do not see a convincing argument that such a tangible difference between the two somehow justifies one over the other.

Let me flip the question. Why is it okay to remove the story? Should we retroactively remove the cutscenes from Binding Coil of Bahamut and Second Coil of Bahamut so newer players can only see them if they play Savage?

Why should we gut the original version of the encounter to accommodate the newly added difficulty level?

[hagare]

Again, what differentiating factor here makes gating the Loot okay, but makes the story not okay? Is it a matter of personal preference? Does the playerbase as a whole (and in a matter that doesn't intend to grossly generalize millions of players) value story over loot? I do not see a convincing argument that such a tangible difference between the two somehow justifies one over the other.

"them's the breaks."

The fact so many people in these forums bear a furious unending grudge against a minority of players that literally only get four boss fights every six months (at best) to play with would be funny if it wasn't so sad. This is one of the most casual MMOs that exist, the massive majority of the game is designed for accessible casual play. Asking for the one proper raid in the entire game to not be a horrid mess shouldn't even affect you, specially since most people actually want the raid to be less overtuned, not more.

that's not what you people are asking for though.

What a lot of non-raiders ignore is that you are not entitled to see every content the game has to offer if you don't work for it. If you don't beat the hardest content in the game, you don't deserve to have the best gear and should not see the story/get the glamour/mounts/whatever, simple as that. And before someone says "but I pay 15 bucks a month so I am entitled to have all the things you filthy elitist swine!!!!" - Nope. You pay to get access to play on SE's servers.

99% of the game has always been and still is casual content, and there are actually people in here that have the audacity to ask for the removal of that 1% of content that is made for the hardcore crowd and in the same sentence, call raiders egoistic because they'd like to have that 1% of the game for themselves and not ruined by the implementation of something like a normal mode. What a joke.

are 90% of the people screaming to have alex savage removed?
to have gear from savage given in NM?
to have the mount drop obtainable in other ways?
No.

the only ones asking for removal of content are you 1%er.
all I see is you people asking for NM to be removed.
pathetic. What a joke.

[CosmicKirby]

Let me flip the question. Why is it okay to remove the story? Should we retroactively remove the cutscenes from Binding Coil of Bahamut and Second Coil of Bahamut so newer players can only see them if they play Savage?

Because the design of this game often has you, the player, overcome a challenge, circumstance, or grind for a reward. The reward could be many things. loot and story included.
I am not advocating removing anything from content as it stands. I'm asking why many would find gating story to be "selfish" or negative, but gating gear to be fine.

Why should we gut the original version of the encounter to accommodate the newly added difficulty level?

I am not actually in favor of this. I would prefer that the normal version have minimal, if any, interaction with the more difficult savage version.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

Asking for the one proper raid in the entire game to not be a horrid mess shouldn't even affect you, specially since most people actually want the raid to be less overtuned, not more.

I guess what worries me the most was relic wpn and coil were the two things that you could do at max level, and was actually long lasting content. Now, for most people, Alexander is just something you do for an hour each week to get your free prototype gear. And relic still doesn't even exist yet, not sure why they held out on the relic for 5 months lol.

SE is really shooting themselves in the foot right now, especially since a lot of people are playing other games atm. I'm finding myself firing up steam more and more these days instead of FFXIV. The game really needs more content that can't be zerged through in two hours.

[Sapphic]

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.

Sounds to me you don't know what you are talking about. Putting normal mode into the gear progression path, it came out before eso gear, made it mandatory to gear up ready for savage. Which killed off the story (albeit the story imo is lackluster in comparison to coil) and the sense of discovery. IF the bosses in savage would have been different totally than normal that would have satisfied that sense of discovery. Otherwise it is just repeating the exact same content minus the trash at an increased gear check difficulty.

Personally I would have preferred if Alex normal was released when they normally nerf+echo the current top raid, and instead add that so you have the original challenge of savage for those who come later and want to experience the full challenge and the story version for those who want to catch up or just experience the story as I remember those asking for a story mode of coil were fine with not having any gear from it.