NO MORE ALEXANDER(NM)!

[Verius_Nox]

dyable gear, exclusive mount, challenge.
you wanting more stuff is fine.
you wanting to reduce other people's content so you can have more exclusivity is selfish and egotistical
As it is right now, no content is held back from you. You have more exclusives.
what you want is not more content, but reduced content for 99% of people who are not like you.

Never said to take away normal mode, but thanks for playing assumptions.

[PriscillaX]

I don't think Alex normal should be completely removed, but I do think it should either come out a few months after savage (Reverse 24-man and Normal releases) or not drop any gear. That way it is not part of the progression chain and you won't have to do it at all to gear up for savage.

problem is that if they had made it drop nothing it would end up like all the old content you run it once and its never runed again by like 75% of the community and thus it woudl end up like ct is now hour plus long queues which works if alex savage was doable like coil was but that not the case because more then like they get stomped by "faust the wrecking" and nothing would change you still have the 5 to 10% of people who are able to clear a3 and a4 while the rest cant because very obvious reason.

[hagare]

The raids have no challenge, they're packed with nothing but artificial difficulty and follow the same format as the rest of the game, stand here, move there, kill that, move that here, heal through that, buff that, burn boss and then break you win! One little mess up and everyone is dead, this game is about as challenging as playing any modern day one hit kill fps online.

1. no challenge = proven by everyone having the new mount
2. please explain real difficulty
3. So you want this game to turn into a different game?
4. you mean like T9?

Never said to take away normal mode, but thanks for playing assumptions.

the bolded part sure seems to imply that you don't want others to get story mode, because now you have no motivation to do savage due to "no exclusivity".
but sure whatever you say.

If it's a non-raid centric game, as you say, so it shouldn't matter if there is a story, because the game isn't centered around Coil/Alexander.

Or do you simply want to stroke your own ego because now you can have that 1% of content, that as you say the game isn't centered around, without doing anything for it?

There is no exclusive content, not anymore. I got to see the content doing the story mode people like yourself begged for. The 1% of the content you wanted so badly, always you you you you.

You're selfish and egotistical to think all content should be catered exactly for you, even the 1% you yourself said the game isn't even centered around.

PS: no 99%er is asking for the exclusives from savage to be handed to them. Just the 1%er trying to remove content from the 99%er

[Mutemutt]

problem is that if they had made it drop nothing it would end up like all the old content you run it once and its never runed again by like 75% of the community ...

And I would like it that way. I have no complaints about levi/ramuh/shiva hm and how they related to their ex versions. I'm not sure anyone even complains about those. Funnily enough, even you skip over mentioning it in favor of ct and it's pretty much the most obvious example of a "story mode with no gear drop" you can point to in this game. It seemed to work fine for all those primals so I think it would be fine here too.

[Dererk]

problem is that if they had made it drop nothing it would end up like all the old content you run it once and its never runed again by like 75% of the community and thus it woudl end up like ct is now hour plus long queues which works if alex savage was doable like coil was but that not the case because more then like they get stomped by "faust the wrecking" and nothing would change you still have the 5 to 10% of people who are able to clear a3 and a4 while the rest cant because very obvious reason.

Alexander raid roulette. And if people have to be grinding the normal version of a raid to get weekly lock out tokens to do the harder version. There's something wrong. Very wrong.

[lawlHT]

People that didn't want Steps of Faith to be nerfed should be forced to have it as their only roulette until everyone in the community has passed into heavensward. Even now it is a nightmare to pass through in a random group. Story content doesn't have to be a breeze but it should never be a barricade.

Even now it's a nightmare? You can literally turn off your brain and mindlessly spam one combo over and over again and still clear it before the final ward now. It wasn't even difficult in its original iteration, it just forced players to work together towards a goal, something this player base cannot grasp. They want nothing but straight face roll content, and sadly SE is all too willing to give it to them

[hagare]

People that didn't want Steps of Faith to be nerfed should be forced to have it as their only roulette until everyone in the community has passed into heavensward. Even now it is a nightmare to pass through in a random group. Story content doesn't have to be a breeze but it should never be a barricade.

I'm sorry, but I really don't agree with this. Steps got ruined by the nerfs, before when you had to use all mechanics there, there's an epic feel to the fight. It's like you're really pressed for time.
Post nerf it's just a moving dummy fight.

[PriscillaX]

Alexander raid roulette. And if people have to be grinding the normal version of a raid to get weekly lock out tokens to do the harder version. There's something wrong. Very wrong.

along with that coil roulette that we got right? everyone would try to vote abondon after one wipe like they do now or just stright up leave after seeing the hard turn they got like t9 and t5 which peoepl who still havent beaten after there nerf. but at the same time name one time SE hasnt had a bad idea. *looking at you red scripts and bismark ex*

And I would like it that way. I have no complaints about levi/ramuh/shiva hm and how they related to their ex versions. I'm not sure anyone even complains about those. Funnily enough, even you skip over mentioning it in favor of ct and it's pretty much the most obvious example of a "story mode with no gear drop" you can point to in this game. It seemed to work fine for all those primals so I think it would be fine here too.

expect had they done that noone would complain which goes to the whole "i want gear no one else has" thing which whiny E-peen people have a probelm with at this point. and i agree with you that that how it should have been you should of just had a shitter version of alex be story only and alex savage should of been how coil was with the clearly updated better loot system alex savage has minus the whole "need 8 week just to buy a item if it doesnt drop because rng and dropping the same item every single time" and i only metion CT because anyone who would later try to do it would end up in again hr long queues because noone in there right mind would waste there time on it because of the fact after the frist week its dead content.
and the obvious reason part was point to people in this game being bad and probrarly never even get to clear AS1 and 2 because they ether just dont know they do shit dmg or have the whole "i pay for this game ill play how i want"

[NekoGenesis]

Completely disagree with the premise of the thread. Normal mode was made so that the majority of the playerbase can finish the story without being subjected to Savage-levels of mechanical/gear expectations.

If you want to push yourself to get better at your class and to play in a more serious environment you have Savage which does (or at least should should have in theory) have more mechanics and more checks than their normal mode counterpart. Whether Alex Savage in particular as a raid fulfills this is another matter entirely. I came in after Heavensward got released, and when I did Coil as compared to AS, Coil was much more epic - the storyline, the music, the fights, everything. However, this does not mean that the current system of having Normal/Savage with Alex Savage having only more phat l00tz and possibly the shittiest storyline I've seen in any game (not just MMO) is bad. It just means that Alexander as a raid failed to meet expectations and definitely pales in comparison to FCoB.

The only suggestion that I might make is that Normal/Savage are released at the same time. Most other games release the easier and harder versions of the same raid simultaneously (Dragon Nest - Normal Mode/Hell Mode and TERA Normal Mode and Hard Mode). This would alleviate the burnout felt by some that they had to grind out Normal to acquire the necessary gear to do Savage (which is in essence a harder reiteration of Normal, so after the burnout of grinding Normal, doing the same fight but harder is definitely not as satisfying or rewarding). Of course this would require fine tuning such that if it were to have happened in HW, Alex N/S should have been doable with practice at ilvl180, and gotten easier to do when fully geared with ilvl 190 from Alex Normal (which would have still been gated by weekly lockouts).

[Jetstream_Fox]

1. no challenge = proven by everyone having the new mount
2. please explain real difficulty
3. So you want this game to turn into a different game?
4. you mean like T9?

Artificial Difficulty is 90% of this game when you look at instant kill mechanics, add spawns, general enemy AI and even things as simple as camera angles obstructing the view of the target. Actual difficulty is when the player must learn a method to overcome each enemy in the respective game AND the game reacts to this with making the enemy more aware of the engagement.

For instance Halo, Elites have energy shielding, when the shield is depleted the Elite will at times get into cover to regenerate the shield, or charge the player. Brutes would become enraged once another Brute would die. The AI here is real and not artificial, in Dark Souls the entire game changes as you can't just run and gun or spray and pray if you will, you have to learn weaknesses within yourself and the enemies and look for openings. Nothing is guaranteed unless you use your actual skill to out play the AI.

Artificial Difficulty in this game isn't as clear cut but it's there once you step back and look at the way the game is designed. When a Tank grabs aggro the AI automatically locks on to the tank and thinks that the Tank is the sole enemy, despite a Healer and DPS doing much more then the Tank. Because this game is built with the trinity game design every encounter in this game is already designed to be tackled the same way, what makes it appear harder isn't the mob breaking off and fighting the Healer or DPS, but things like raid wide wipes, mass debuffs, more add spawn. Giving the initial encounter increased difficulty, while the AI is not actually adapting to the player and the situation.

Turning the game into something else? No, not at all. Variety is what this game needs, since the game can't add things like elemental properties, enemy strengths and weaknesses, and gear abilities, without redeveloping everything for a 3rd time, have more battles like Steps of Faith... Despite it proved this community can't handle anything outside the normal circular room boss fights. Making a raid where players need to defended areas points, complete puzzles, deal with traps and utilize key items. Might be to much.