I really DO hope Alexander's story steps up, but I don't think it can top Coil's.

[Adire]

You want to kill Cid?!?!? WTH is wrong with you dude?!?!?!? Cid is the man!!!!

The man or not, I agree with Theodric's overall idea.

Few stories have gotten me as involved as ones with memorable characters dying. It's a smart choice to make a plot more engaging. Stories where things are happily ever after forever and characters die but don't actually die and show up again get so tiring after a while.

[Alisa180]

Would you rather the raid been about invading Nidhoggs lair with several dragon themed bosses instead?

What do you mean by that? *I'm* perfectly fine with the raid. In fact, I think the aesthetic is pretty damn cool. I wish we had more areas like the lead up to Faust and AS2, they really help establish they feeling that we're navigating the inside of a huge machine. Hopefully the remaining Alex tiers will build on that.

[Colorful]

The man or not, I agree with Theodric's overall idea.

Few stories have gotten me as involved as ones with memorable characters dying. It's a smart choice to make a plot more engaging. Stories where things are happily ever after forever and characters die but don't actually die and show up again get so tiring after a while.

Stories where you kill off the few memorable characters aren't great either, there is a place for killing off characters, but that doesn't mean it should be done to make the story "memorable" and then worse afterwards. I dislike this trend Game of Thrones seems to have started, games, movies and shows try to mimic it but it never works out due to them not having likeable enough characters that remain alive. Recently I've been thinking worse of a story if it kills off an important character for very little purpose other than to have an effect on the player, it was done once recently, we don't need another death so soon afterwards.

[StrejdaTom]

Not only the story has to step up.
I would love to see next raid in 3.2 actually becoming raid instead of 4 primal fights (savage speaking).
I am not talking only about getting trash mobs again, that is just one lazy part of raid, I would rather love to see some more interaction with raid zone (avoiding mobs and sneaking behind them like in FCOB), maybe some randomly created puzzle (so it would be different every week) etc.

By making more difficulties of "raid" SE gave itself a chance to put more effort into raiding, because everyone is now able to experience it. Instead they delivered something, which is so weak compared to Coil.

[Morningstar1337]

The man or not, I agree with Theodric's overall idea.

Few stories have gotten me as involved as ones with memorable characters dying. It's a smart choice to make a plot more engaging. Stories where things are happily ever after forever and characters die but don't actually die and show up again get so tiring after a while.

Of course this means that they would have to gate that part of the content behind CT as well or break the immersion. But then again it;s not Like Cid is the only character that has to die for this purpose, of course that would depend on Brayflox's reputation (Yes I think she will show up somewhere during Alexander, the Illuminati seem to be her archenemies and a cheese recipe is mentioned among the contents of the Enigma Codex, also she has some experience in Primal slaying)

[AeraLure]

Coil mechanics, visuals, setting and sense of urgency are amazing. Love the atmosphere. Story is good too, but I think part of it for me is in comparison to Bahumut's resting place goblins are a bit lol. Alexander mechanics aren't as good as Coil and, for the most part so far, Alexander is a room or two and straight to a primal-like fight. I like the music, and the visuals are fine, but it's not as amazing as Coil so far.

[Dhex]

So a character you don't instantly know everything about is one-dimensional? We're not really supposed to know much about Mide yet beyond glimpses, and they're obviously setting her up for future Alexander patches. I also can't fathom the complete and utter lack of joy and imagination it must take to gain absolutely nothing from exploring Alexander itself. THAT is the discovery within it, and again, it seemed pretty obvious. As for the setup about the raid being "force-fed"...I suppose if you don't see a bunch of explosions your brain can't wrap itself around a concept as a threat? Eeesh. I'd hate to see you try to read a novel.

Here let me stroke my scar and let my sentence taper off again...

Am I *touches scar* interesting... yet?

Does my mystery... *touches scar*

Intrigue you...

*touches scar*

...yet WoL-senpai?

*sighs and touches scar*

[RiceisNice]

I'm taking Alex's story as it is, and it really isn't that bad when you aren't comparing it to Coil. But its lack of MSQ ties hurts it for players who were expecting something 'epic' like Coil again. End of an Era was a one-time thing. There was no way that was going to happen.

Even taking it as is, the threat, sense of urgency or implications just isn't there other than taking their word for it. Finishing burden leaves very little build up for the next section of the raid, and none of the bosses, let alone environment, was really memorable (it felt like we were fighting in someone's basement or workshop, rather than feel like we were transversing through alexander) or otherwise stood out.

Would you rather the raid been about invading Nidhoggs lair with several dragon themed bosses instead?

Nidhogg alone is more interesting than any of the Alexander bosses (including manipulator) or the gobbies themselves. The one time we fought him, he only had one eye and we had one of his eyes surpressing his full power with said eye. Even at the end of the fight we only managed to make him flee (with Esteinin kill stealing us). Now? Nidhogg has both of his eyes and is more blood thirsty than ever, while we have nothing and short one Azure Dragoon.

The difference between him and Alexander in general is that we know for a certain that the former is a threat, know what he is capable of (with half of his power and while being limited), and he's back stronger than ever without any dragon eye on our side.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Part of the problem may have been the 2 week gap between seeing the "Alexander activation" cutscene and the release of story mode. Its hard to feel urgency when you had to wait 2 weeks to begin investigation. Combine that with an uninteresting 4th section boss and no real surprise climax reveal and you get a raid that ends lacklusterly.

I kinda wonder how people would have reacted if it had ended with Living Liquid (a pseudo-legacy boss) instead of Manipulator (a rather plain immobile robot).

[Anapingofness]

Yeah, I hope that they really step it up w/ the Alexander story line.
As it is now it is very lack luster, to say the least. =\