My thinking about Alex normal/savage. Issue IMHO inside

[Alahra]

If a Static can't beat a raid due to it's difficulty then quits then it's not the raid fault, people wanted a harder raid they got it.

Not everyone wanted harder raids, though. I was quite happy with FCOB's difficulty, and we weren't really informed prior to release that Savage was going to be a level of difficulty beyond that. The information we got in general suggested that Savage was just the new name for the standard raid difficulty to differentiate it from the "Normal" mode. Instead, we learned after release that Savage leaned more toward the difficulty of SCOB (Savage).

[Spellbinder]

I was quite happy with FCOB's difficulty, and we weren't really informed prior to release that Savage was going to be a level of difficulty beyond that. The information we got in general suggested that Savage was just the new name for the standard raid difficulty to differentiate it from the "Normal" mode.

Maybe not in English, but the JP community was pretty aware of what was coming. (loose translations below)


Player asks Yoshi-P about Alexander at NicoNico Choukaigi 2015 - 4/25/2015
http://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest.../blog/2192330/

K：アレキ零式っていうのは、侵攻編の零式とイコールと考えたらいいのか、それとも真成変プラスアルファなのか？
K: So for Alexander (Savage), would you say it will be about as hard as Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage)? Or closer to Final Coil?

吉田：真成編の零式だと思ってもらっていたほうが、イメージは近いかもしれないです。
Yoshi-P: It might be better to think of it as something closer to a Savage version of Final Coil of Bahamut.

K:じゃあ零式は零式なんですね
K: So Savage really is going to be Savage, then?

吉田：はい
Yoshi-P: Yes

A tweet relaying information from Fan Festival 2014 12/19/2014 - 12/20/2014
https://twitter.com/Sir_gawainPoet/s...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

3.0で実装されるアレクサンダーについて
Alexander in 3.0

・アレクサンダーのハードは零式より、ちょっと難易度高い。
・The "hard" version of Alexander will be a little harder than Savage

・ノーマルとハードにリワード差を設けている
・The rewards for normal and hard will be separate

・だからまずはノーマルをクリアして装備を整えてハードを攻略する。などの段階を踏んでいって欲しい
・First they want us to clear normal to ready our gear, then tackle the hard version

Interview with Yoshi-P - 8/13/2015
http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...13_715888.html

「零式」とは言っても、全くクリアできないと楽しくもなんともないと思うので、1・2層はある程度の難易度で抑えました。頑張れば希望も見えるし勝ちに行けるという風にバトルチームが上手く調整してくれたと思います。3・4層に関してはまさに「零式」というレベルの調整にしてあります。
If you couldn't clear Savage at all I don't think it'd be very fun, so we've toned down the difficutly a little for the first and second floors. The battle team has taken care to design them so players will be able to clear them if they pull together and try hard enough. When you reach the third and fourth floors, that's where the real "Savage" difficulty kicks in.

And for good measure, someone on Reddit picked up on it as well. I guess it was ignored.

Alexander hard will be harder than Savage Coil, drops higher IL than normal - date listed as 8 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...n_savage_coil/

Yoshida's comments during today's Tokaigi event.
Regarding how fast Final Coil was cleared.
・The top raiders were too good
・Everyone else started copying them (rising tide and all that stuff)
・It was not their intention for crafted gear to become necessary. They were supposed to be catch-up gear for returning players.

Regarding Alexander in 3.0
・Alexander Hard will be harder than current Savage Coil.
・Differences between Normal and Hard will mianly be in rewards (different IL)
・Their concept is for people to clear Normal for gear before challenging Hard.

Hard should be impossible without gear from Normal.should would could blah blah blah. Nael shouldn't be beatable in i90 gear...

[Alahra]

Maybe not in English, but the JP community was pretty aware of what was coming. (loose translations below)

Ah, I'd never seen any of that. At least it wasn't a complete bait and switch, I suppose, but I have to admit I'm still pretty bitter. I want to raid.

[Spellbinder]

Ah, I'd never seen any of that. At least it wasn't a complete bait and switch, I suppose, but I have to admit I'm still pretty bitter. I want to raid.

I don't blame you. I enjoyed my time in the Binding Coil of Bahamut series, and I definitely think Final Coil of Bahamut found a nice balance. But when I heard how difficult Savage was going to be for Alexander, I knew I wasn't going to go anywhere near it. Even if it meant I wouldn't get higher item level gear. It's just not worth it for my enjoyment. I've resigned to sticking with normal difficulty, but I will say I was slightly disappointed in how easy it is. With that said, however, I'll stick with easier and refrain from bludgeoning my head into the wall that is Savage.

That's just my take on it. I know there are raiders that aren't satisfied with normal and may just not be up to the challenge of savage, left without a proper middleground. Though as someone mentioned in another thread, if they were to make a second tier inbetween normal and savage, players will probably just complain that they're rehashing content. Balancing the item levels and rewards would probably be a nightmare for the devs as well.

[Alahra]

I know there are raiders that aren't satisfied with normal and may just not be up to the challenge of savage, left without a proper middleground.

I'm definitely one of those. I don't think they can really do anything to save Alexander: Gordias at this point, but I'm hoping we'll see changes for future raid tiers. About the only thing they could have done for *this* tier, with how the item levels are structured, is have Alexander (Hard) provide i200 gear, and perhaps have those items upgradable to i210 with Gobdip/twine/coat (if they did that, they'd probably *not* want those items to drop from the Hard difficulty though--keep them on Savage and, later, Void Ark). But it's too late for that now.