Exploratory Islands should be the leading Endgame content NOT Alex Savage

[Colorful]

Why can't they both be leading endgame content? Many people including me want horizontal progression, even if it's within a 6-8 month period. There's no harm in that.

[Gilraen]

Yes, the DPS checks in Alex (Savage) are definitely tighter than they ever were in FCOB. Those going for server firsts and the like have always pressed this hard, but the difference with Savage compared to old Coil is that even with significant gear upgrades, a heavy focus on tank and healer DPS still seems to be required.

It's funny how this is a surprise to so many people even though the developers have said that Savage Alexander was being balanced with healers DDing in mind. This is stated as one of the big surprises they took from Final Coil, how healers weren't only healing. Little wonder Savage Alexander would take that into consideration.

[Malevicton]

What do you mean by "leading?"

People often can't find groups because of the difficulty. If the parts of exploration that drop 210 are near the same difficulty, then it will be way harder to find a 24 person group.

Didn't they already say it could drop 210 gear? What are you asking for here?

[Jayjohn]

If your tanks cant pull 500 dps, they are doing something wrong. Also dps checks in Savage isn't even that hard anymore, the first month was the only time it was difficult to pass the dps checks.

[Derio]

I doubt it. If anything the island will have more to do with the new relic line than endgame.

[Alahra]

It's funny how this is a surprise to so many people even though the developers have said that Savage Alexander was being balanced with healers DDing in mind. This is stated as one of the big surprises they took from Final Coil, how healers weren't only healing. Little wonder Savage Alexander would take that into consideration.

I'm not necessarily *surprised* by it. They're trying to adjust to shifts in the meta. But it does make the content more exclusionary, which may get problematic down the line. It'll really depend on what this new content is like in terms of grind, I think. If people that don't want to do Savage feel like they can reasonably get comparable gear from it, then not being "good enough" to raid (even if they did previously) probably won't matter to them as much.

[Felis]

+ No weekly lockouts.

no weekly lockout = grind
Don't expect a full set of pink gear with the right second stats within the first 2 months. Also it was said that the item level of the gears will be up to 210, which mean that also lower ilevel can drop.
I expect players who avoided the Zodiac quests will not be happy with the droprates ^^

uhhh.. wth is an exploratory island? Doesn't sound like Final Fantasy... wrong game?

[NekoGenesis]

I'm not sure, exactly, of how people feel about having BiS being randomised and dropped from 24-man content. Like many posters have said before on this thread, 24 man content is usually faceroll, and I despairingly envisage a scenario where exploratory content becomes more like Diablo 3-esque dungeon crawl grind where you run the same randomised floor in the hope of getting that 4% ring drop which has a 10% chance of getting the optimal stats on it.

I know if there's even a chance that the i210 aetherial gear for tanks have a chance of getting a VIT/STR/DET/CRIT roll, this would make it very competitive (and depending on stat allocation, most likely more optimal) with the i210 gear available from Savage.

I do not look forward to grinding airship content like I did in similar dungeon crawlers which also offered random loot everytime you killed a boss in the hopes of getting BiS. The burnout would be real and suck all the fun out of end-game.

There is no doubt that implementing such a feature would extend people's subscriptions. The overall content sounds fun. I, however, strongly disagree with having randomized BiS gear as a principle. It causes far more trouble than it is worth. I'd rather have BiS gear come with set stats dropped only from Savage, rather than have them come from a 24-man dungeon.

[Mog77]

I don't understand why everyone wants the reward taken out of raiding. Raiders don't just raid for the "challenge" alone, there is incentive in getting the best gear available. When you remove the novelty of raiding, you alienate the core of the game. I'm sure there are many more casuals than raiders, but they wouldn't play if there wasn't something for them to look forward to, ya know? I'm down for MMOs evolving, but gutting the old system just makes people who liked that style of gameplay want to leave.

TLDR- More horizontal progression plz, stop nerfing raid swag.

[DarkmoonVael]

stuff

So people who raid should get no rewards what-so-ever then from the hardest raids in the game? Even so, the gear we get is of the same ilvl that everyone else can get in the patch after the raid has been released.

Also please show me all these groups that manage to down alexander 1-4 savage in an hour.

Bascally, the gist of your post is that more should be taken away from raiders and given to non-raiders, just because of reasons that are not accurate/make no sense. There is already enough casual content and mid-tier content in the game to cater to this apparent 90% of people you cite as not being able to raid (lets face it, what bars people from raids is skill level, the inability/laziness to make a raid group if they cant find one or schedule), but instead you think raids should give no loot of significance.

Now as for savage coil, it was released at a stage where you could be i110 easily. The content was apparently tuned for i110. The way raids are implimented (with the exception of savage coil) is for people to go in at a low gear level and progress through both skill and gearing up from the gear that drops in the raid. Now, you want to take this gear away, for, quite frankly, silly reasons. So tell me, how can they design the raid content so drops NO gear of significance, yet requires you to gear up to progress? These two do not sit hand in hand.

Also, why do they have to be mutally exclusive like you are trying to suggest? Why can we not have both alexander savage and island exploration being the hardest end game content at the same time?