My thinking about Alex normal/savage. Issue IMHO inside

[Madjames]

It... doesn't look like you raid at all. Unless this is an alt? I dunno, I find it hard to take this thread seriously when it doesn't even seem like you've given the endgame content a fair try. Sorry, but Alexander Normal isn't anything even remotely resembling endgame. :/

I miss Coil. I'm going to go glamour farm the crap out of it sometime soon.

I have raided heroic 10/25 man content as well as normal mode 10/25 in more raids then I can count in other MMORPG's. The problem with this games raiding is that either you raid the way easy stuff or raid the brick wall difficulty which is on par with Heroic mode 10/25 man heroic raids back in WOTLK days of wow. I will not go and bang my head against a wall to do a raid that has only 4 bosses + 1 trash pull, that is not a raid nor is it worth the effort. Sadly normal mode is raiding and is considered end game progression.

I have said other times that the raiding needs to be overhauled. Wow's raiding did it right.

raid finder (easy as alex normal)
10 man regular (not as hard as savage mode alex but significantly more difficult then raid finder.)
10 man heroic (harder then the other 2 listed)

25 man worked the same way

Having only 2 extremes is not a good policy and there needs to be a third difficulty which is the raid I would go to if it was offered. This difficulty being between alex normal and alex savage.

This is my main and my Ilevel is 180. I have seen all the end game raiding this game has to offer in game, on youtube, and research as well as comparing it to my 18 years of MMORPG playing. With all of that in mind, I think I have enough knowledge to gauge how lacking the raiding content in this game is compared to other products on the market.

This game has the potential to be a good all around game (even raiding). The issue is that SE just needs to start making their raids more memorable, time consuming, difficult, and over all fun. I mention Ulduar because it was designed perfectly and was open to many different people (Some for more difficult fights, some for not so difficult but it was how you wanted to play) . You could not clear Ulduar heroic 10 man in one night of raiding, not even on farm unless you spent a good portion of the evening/night time doing it and when that was done you had 10 man regular to do as well as 25 regular/heroic mode to go through as well if you so choose.

I see no reason why SE should not be held to the same standard as other developers when it comes to making end game content. Asking for more content to do that is both more rewarding and time consuming is not a bad request. It would give everyone at end game something to do. I see no issue with asking SE to be held on the same standard that other MMORPGs on the market right now are doing that are F2P. It is kinda sad when a F2P game is pushing out more end game content that is both more rewarding, has multiple difficulty levels, as well as very large raids compared to a subscription. I find it sad that SE's raid size is effectively the size of one hallway and one room when compared with other raids on the market from F2P games that have multiple hallways and rooms divided over a huge castle.

[Ashkendor]

Having only 2 extremes is not a good policy and there needs to be a third difficulty which is the raid I would go to if it was offered. This difficulty being between alex normal and alex savage.

I can't say that I want a bunch more trash added. We find ways around the trash if we can anyway; just look at BCoB's turn 1, where sac pulling became a thing just to avoid it having to deal with it. After that, they started putting in walls that you can't pass till you kill the trash. Ugh. The trash is actually completely removed from Savage Alexander aside from Faust in A1, but he's really more of a mini-boss/gatekeeper/dps gauge much like the ADS was in BCoB. If you can't pass Faust, there's no way you'd pass the boss.

That said, I could totally get on board with another difficulty level. Yes, the community asked for a "story mode" so that more people could experience the story, and SE delivered on that. It's great that it was implemented (the story itself is sorta lackluster, but that's another issue entirely; hopefully it improves with the next raid tier), but you're right that we're missing something. What we have now is "faceroll" and "facedesk", because the difficulty for the higher tier mode was cranked up to 11 instead of staying the same. A1 and A2 are about the same difficulty as FCoB was, but A3 and A4 take it to a whole new level. It'd be nice to have a happy medium somewhere in there instead of a stomp-fest both ways - one for us and one for the raid bosses.

In any case, you should give some thought to participating in endgame instead of turning up your nose at it out of principle. You might actually be pleasantly surprised. You can go back and do the old raid content synced to minimum item level if you want a challenge. T5 in at-level gear was something to contend with. Twintania is still one of the biggest bitches this game ever served up to us. I'm sure Nael Deus Darnus in T9 was probably just as bad in at-level gear, but I haven't experienced that myself as of yet. xD

I personally see a section of a Raid, like the Binding Coil of Bahamut (BCOB), The Second Coil of Bahamut (SCOB), The Final Coil of Bahamut (FCOB) and Alexander: Gordias as 1 Raid with 4 to 5 Bosses which have been divided into separate Turns and Floors, so that groups can queue up for a specific Boss.

This is exactly how I view it.