My thinking about Alex normal/savage. Issue IMHO inside

[Aldora]

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.

If you would take all Floors from Alexander: Gordias and stitch them together, you would a raid which (in size) is comparable to the “Terrace of Endless Spring”-raid from Mists of Pandaria. If you look at it like that, it doesn’t seem so bad. The only problem is, that we only get 1 of these “Coil” or “Alexander” raids every other (even numbered) patch, so 1 new raid every 6 months.

Next to Coil and Alexander, we also get 24 man Raids, namely The Crystal Tower and now the Void Ark (which will be released with 3.1). These raids however are not divided into separate floors and feels more like a Raid then Coil/Alexander does. We get a new 24-man Raid every other (odd numbered) patch, so like Coil/Alexander, we would get 1 new 24-man Raid every 6 months.

If they follow the same trend as they did in 2.x, we should be seeing 3 8-Man Raids and 3 24-man Raids during the 3.x patch cycle.

The main differences between these 2 types of Raids, is that Coil/Alexander are 8 man Raids, while the Crystal Tower/Void Ark are Alliance (24-main) raids. Next to that, the 24-man raids were a lot easier than their 8-man counterparts and were mostly used as a “stepping stone” for the 8-man raids. But, that was until the release of the Alexander Raid, with it’s “Normal” and “Savage” mode.

While i understand why the FFXIV team decided to split each 8-main Raid into separate Turns / Floors (to save the progress the group has made an give them the opportunity to continue where they left off the next day), they feel extremely small. This is due to the fact that Alexander Normal Floors aren’t difficult to clear. While our group was still working on Coil, we bashed our heads against these bosses for hours before managing a clear. That was something we were working towards as a group. This made the Raid relevant for an extended period of time.

But, now that we’ve farmed Alexander: Gordias for a few weeks, in order to gear our characters for Savage, we’ve lost the drive to keep on farming it. For us, it was starting to feel like a grind, rather than a fun challenge within a few weeks. A real shame.

I don’t want SE to remove Alexander Normal, because it will give people the means to see the whole story, but the difference between Alexander Normal and Savage is a bit too large. If that means that they can add an Alexander “Hard” mode, which is similar to Coil, that would make us a lot happier.

But, also it would be great if we could go through a raid like Alexander: Gordias in one go, like for instance “The Word of Darkness”. Slap a few challenging trash packs here and there and i’d be a very happy Mi’qote indeed. (^_~ )

I’d like to think that FFXIV is still evolving and expanding on things the team has learned through the years with the development with 2.x and Heavensward. I believe that the team has set a basis/foundation for Final Fantasy XIV with 2.x and is trying to expand on it by implementing new types of content for us to partake in (like the Airship Exploration), in 3.0 while maintaining the flow of game they’ve set with 2.x. Once they’ve added different types of content with the upcoming patches, they could start working on improving existing systems like the way they go about creating Raids and creating a more diverse set of encounters which do not depend on one-shot mechanics and high DPS walls.

“Rome wasn’t build in a day.”

So, I’m keeping an open mind when it comes to the development of Heavensward and i look forward to what SE has in store for us with the rest of the 3.x patches (and beyond).

[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.

[melisande]

I stopped reading at "WoW"

[Madjames]

I stopped reading at "WoW"

How come? Other games have done raids a lot better this this. Wow is one of them, SWTOR is another.

[Colorful]

The first raid was crap in SWTOR. I got through the entire regular mode in 3 hours the very first run through with my guild. However, the Palace and raiding since then has improved a whole lot. Star Wars is sci-fi and I left due to it going F2P and the game just being bland. However to me, the Imperial Agents story was the best story I have been through in a long time.

I have not nor will I try wildstar. Not interested at all. Ill stick with FF14 and hope the end game scene gets better.

I'm not the largest fan of sci fi, but SWTOR just falls flat in that regard too. The storytelling was very bland and while that works for fantasy at times, I think you need to step it up when doing sci fi in order to make it more interesting. I mean, when you're throwing the gods of creation, demons and giant dragons at a story it's bound to peak some interests, but scifi can't go around doing that so they need to step it up.

I wouldn't recommend WildStar as is regardless, they're having horrible server issues due to the large load. If your concern is with the F2P model I'd say you don't need to worry, believe it or not it's actually more fair than FFXIV with its subscription. You can buy things on the cash shop with items earned through normal gameplay, or buy them outright with cash. I believe this also includes things like WildStar's Fantasia, just goes to show how greedy SE is. I suppose Blizzard is more to blame for setting that standard though. Otherwise I understand, the cartoony art and gameplay may not be for everyone.

I don't believe FFXIV's endgame will ever get better, we've had FFXIV for 2 years now and and they've stuck to the exact same model, except now we're waiting longer than ever between patches. FFXIV has a lot of great qualities and does many things better than other MMOs on the market currently, but raiding is not one of those things. If your primary interest is raiding I'd suggest two-timing it with a secondary MMO.

[Dante_V]

Whatever they do the next alex nm needs to be harder IMO. It's just not engaging or challenging as it is now and it wears you down by the time you hit savage. Def needs to be a middle ground.

As far as longer and more continuity in raids, I would be all for that. More like an adventure and less like a street fighter match.

[Madjames]

Whatever they do the next alex nm needs to be harder IMO. It's just not engaging or challenging as it is now and it wears you down by the time you hit savage. Def needs to be a middle ground.

As far as longer and more continuity in raids, I would be all for that. More like an adventure and less like a street fighter match.

You said it in far less words then I have and got my whole point across thank you.

[Martin_Arcainess]

Wrong. The most common complaints is that A3S is both poorly designed and is also a brick wall that destroys statics. Including groups that did SCOB savage.

Poorly desgined in what way? It's a tough ass fight as it should be, if a static can't beat it and break up over it then its there problem.

[NFaelivrin]

It's pretty sad that in this forum even the suggestion of "make more fun content for the game" will be responded to with "go back to WoW". I think some people would be happy if we got 1 raid boss per expansion pack, at this rate, or if endgame was just hunts that would instantly give you a full set of i210 gear for a single successful kill. Even the whole "well not everybody raids" excuse falls apart now that we have a normal mode raid that practically everybody can participate in, so if they develop say, 8 raid bosses for Alexander they aren't developing 8 raid bosses just for the 1% of people who raid, they're also developing them for the people who do Alexander Normal, IE: most players.

[Mog77]

If you're not raiding in this game, then what ARE you doing? Farming tomes? Triple Triad? Lol