I think I figured out why Alexander was so poorly received.

[Evangela]

don't forget that the Alexander arc is not over yet. we still haven't defeat Alexander itself. more boring raids are coming.

[FeliAiko]

o.O

24 man in Alexander? The same time?

If it was done in the style of the CT raids, yes.

So far, Void Ark has:

- Better-looking gear (generic for some classes yes, yet still better overall than Gordian sets)
- Better lore backdrop (War of the Magi), and hence potentially more interesting mobs (voidsent, as opposed to robots)
- Return of a character (Diabolos) far more compelling than any of the bosses in Alex

Just a shame the more interesting looking one is relegated to being just 'lesser', 'catch-up' content.

[Evangela]

Void Ark gears look terrible. What happened to the gear design recently?

[Recaldy]

Music is the only good thing about it. Having the story done before the hard stuff removed the motivation to complete the Savage version. Gear looking the same didn't help either.

[Lexia]

If it was done in the style of the CT raids, yes.

So far, Void Ark has:

- Better-looking gear (generic for some classes yes, yet still better overall than Gordian sets)
- Better lore backdrop (War of the Magi), and hence potentially more interesting mobs (voidsent, as opposed to robots)
- Return of a character (Diabolos) far more compelling than any of the bosses in Alex

Just a shame the more interesting looking one is relegated to being just 'lesser', 'catch-up' content.

I think someone mention that a article stated that did/doing it that way so more people can be included in the story and not raider type like coil was. That just what I remember reading but I could be wrong.

[FeliAiko]

I think someone mention that a article stated that did/doing it that way so more people can be included in the story and not raider type like coil was. That just what I remember reading but I could be wrong.

Yeah, I understand why the 24-man raids are made to be less difficult. Just felt that the theme behind this one is better than what we have with Alex so far.

[Devilbringer]

boring story, boring gears, boring BGMs, boring atmosphere, and boring boss fights.

absolutely agree with you, alex savage is not worse to play ..... the whole fck shit is damn boring, thats why i take a break of the game until 3.1
I lost all of my motivation in this game and its not more interesting, i loved all of the Coil turns and story! but Alex savage näh ..... go away with this boring raid..

[Selli]

What happened to the gear design recently?

The only thing I think is wrong with Alexander gear is normal gear's really bleh color scheme. The tank gear looks really good, imo... just not in seafoam green.

I think the healing gear looks rather nice, compared to the casting set. But maybe that's because I know i100 PvP gloves for WHM/AST offset the awful sleeves the gown has. XD

Void Ark's gear isn't hideous, but I am rather sad that every single set has the same colors (excluding the healer set). Kind of makes it feel less individual.

[Kuwagami]

Course what I think Alexander REALLY needs, is pre-nerf T5 twisters. For added WTF.

"Hey guys, does anyone know why there are 5 people dead now ?"

"Nope, they just ate something and dropped dead. I think I saw something like a cast but not sure"

good times, good times... *cries in a corner*

Long story short, original twisters weren't tuned to deal with any latency above 30 ping because all testing is done over LAN internally. So literally hours after the first couple of clears they decided to retune the timing to better accommodate.

actually, you could dodge them by randomly moving when the timer was about to bring twister back. But by coupling :

=> insane latency issues we had back then
=> incredibly tight timer on twister AND enrage (at that time, not overgeared)
=> other shit going on at the same time, especially coral knight + twister

you had a random fight with random death. The first clears were exploiting a critical bug. The following were exploiting z axis glitches. The only legit clear before the twister adjustement (I can't really call it a nerf) had twintania bug in the end so it's unclear if they would have killed it in time or not (most probably yes, but you can never be sure), and was relying on luck on every twister, on top of super precise timer and ability calls.

[Nalien]

Yeah, I understand why the 24-man raids are made to be less difficult. Just felt that the theme behind this one is better than what we have with Alex so far.

Yeah, Void Ark actually has a compelling theme (Mhachi, War of the Magi, Voidsent), Alexanders "theme" is "Remember Alexander? Want some Goblins too?", that's it... Beyond that though, Alexander just doesn't feel like a Raid... Raid level boss encounters, Raid level loot, but the event itself just feels like some lazily slapped together boss fights... The same was true for Coil of course, but Coil at least had an amazing environment to work with... Alexander is just claustrophobic and samey... I'd consider both to be real Raids if they were just one continual encounter, rather than being split up, but Alexander would still come out being fairly meh if they'd done that... Crystal Tower felt like a Raid precisely because it was one big encounter, and Void Ark will feel like a Raid for the same reason (I hope). They got Raids right with Crystal Tower, heck they got it right with Praetorium, but for some reason when it came to Coil and Alexander, they decided to split stuff up... Can you imagine if, for Syrcus Tower, you had to beat Scylla, then re-enter to beat Glasya Labolas, and so on? It just wouldn't work, and that's partly why Coil and Alexander fall short.

Of course, Alexander falls short for many more reasons, but I'd still consider it an improvement if the encounters were set up more like Crystal Tower. Coil, Praetorium, even The Aetherochemical Research Facility (if you strap Thordan on at the end too, damn that would make an epic Raid...) just simply have an epic feel that is completely missing in Alexander... Hell, some dungeons feel more epic, Brayflox's Longstop (both versions) had some foreshadowing for the final boss, for example. The original more so, when the dragon drops down and finished a boss off... Something like that would have perhaps given players more investment in the encounters in Alexander, but instead each boss is brand new. Manipulator and Oppressor are perhaps a nice nod to (I guess) retro Alexander designs, but the player has absolutely no connection or investment in beating any of Alexanders bosses... Was Aiatar the most enthralling villain ever? No, not by a long shot, but having him there right at the start, having him drop down on one of the bosses, that built anticipation for getting to the end of that dungeon, something Alexander completely fails to deliver... It's really quite sad, since we damn well know SE can do better... That's not to say every encounter is like that, the Labyrinth of the Ancients certainly didn't have this, nor did the first Binding Coil, but they at least made up for it with their environments. Twintania didn't make T5 epic, fighting on Bahamuts hand did... On paper Alexander should have had that down, we're fighting inside the iron giant after all, but in practice the interior is just so bland... His whole design is bland, come to think of it... Compare some of the art work we got in the lead up to Heavensward, to this sad robot trying to crawl out of a river we actually got in game... Yeah...

Thinking about it, Alexander just fails as a villain for the same reason the Ascians kinda did... Alexander hasn't done anything, he just needs to be stopped because "Primals are bad!"... At least the Ascians actually did a few bad things on screen, though annoyingly their biggest act (destroying the Isle of Val) happens off screen... Alexander hasn't done a single thing... Couldn't they have slapped a small Goblin settlement off in the distance from Idylshire that we can't actually access, and then had Alexander summoned and Holy Judgement'd the place off the map? That would have built some hype that the actual encounters couldn't live up to, at least... Instead he is just slowly crawling out of the lake and it feels like we're bullying the special needs Primal... Like I said earlier, they probably should have gone with the comic relief style for Alexander, Hildibrand Trials certainly suggest they can deliver on those kinds of encounters, too. Make Alexander secondary to the Illuminati and have them be as goofy as Brayflox's Longstop (Hard) suggested, though I'd probably still be disappointed with that, since Alexander had some epic promotional art in the lead up to Heavensward, and instead it turns out that he is going to spend the next year crawling out of a river... Just what the hell SE... How do you go from "Ancient Dragon God destroyed the realm and vanished, lets find out what happened!" to... to this...

This rant was brought to you by "Finally getting a proper EU data center!"