New Direction in Content

[Kailok]

Well that, at least, is really good to hear! It gives me more hope in that content and how long it will hopefully last (beyond patch 3.2)

[Kailok]

Would you be happy if they releases Void Ark not on the DF and have second coil difficulty, so you have 23 people out to get you with their voices and shrieks.

I would be happy if they released raid content for catching up that are easy enough for a PUG group and also have progressive raids that are difficult but not unforgiving for a group of players that regularly raid together. There is nothing that says they can't do both. I fully expected Alexander to be raid-type endgame content but instead it was just more arena-based boss fights which, while fun, lack a certain feeling of adventure that I expect from interesting endgame content. What I want is that feeling of being in an endgame raid, whether it be WoW's ICC or FFXI's Sea and Sky, any of SWTOR's Operations or whatever MMO's version of it you'd like. Alexander is intense, but not interesting. I didn't go in and beat A1S/A2S and then be like "oh neeaaaat! that's really cool!" - Sure, when we won it felt great but that was mainly because we were happy we had finally beaten them and achieved something as a group, not because it was fun to do. Some of the most fun I had in Coil was T1 where there was a mini-boss, a decent amount of trash, and a boss that had actual mechanics that, while difficult, were not unforgiving and overly frustrating. It felt like a mini raid dungeon, and I loved it. Hell, even T3, which had no drops at all, was fun to run through because it was a large space to explore and learn the best route to the bottom. Then you get to T4 and T5 and it's nothing but arena boss fights from then on.

I'm actually quite excited for the Exploratory Missions because it actually seems like the first type of content where my group gets to explore and discover, and it also seems like content that will hopefully last longer than a single patch cycle.

edit: said A1 when I meant T1

[Fevelle]

I have all my hopes on the Exploratory Missions since Alex (Savage) is a no no no for me (it doesn't offer me fun, I can't queue anytime I want, it needs dedication, it's stressing). Please don't let me down SQEX!

[Kailok]

I definitely agree - Alexander Savage is definitely intense, but it is not fun and interesting. It's basically just trying to beat the clock without messing up, which is very likely to happen in Savage. It's unforgiving content, which is why it is called Savage, but I think they need something different... More fun and interesting to do with a group of friends. As I said in a post above in reply to someone else, Coil 1 was really fun because you went in, it had a mini-boss, a decent amount of trash, and a boss that had fun mechanics that weren't completely unforgiving. It felt like a mini-raid dungeon and that was some of the most fun I've had in FFXIV raiding.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

I think that's the key thing that a lot of people are wanting. Challenging content that you don't need a static to beat. Or even stuff you can do when your static isn't raiding. But at the end of the day, anything outside of steamroll is extremely lacking in this game. I get that there are casual players, I'm one of them. But even casual players would like a little excitement instead of mashing through content that is ALWAYS 30-40 items levels lower than them even on patch day!!!! It gets old. The fact they haven't even mentioned extreme trials for 3.1 is hugely dissapointing for me.

[Welsper59]

I think they just need to make 2 tiers of Raid content - the LFG version where you get the "catch-up" gear, kind of like how current Alexander exists, and then the more endgame oriented version where you take a small group in and spend some time in there. Sort of how WoW's Ice Crown Citadel worked where you went in and fought trash and each boss had a checkpoint where you could pick up again for the rest of the week. I just miss the "raid feel", and arena-based boss fights do not give any sense of adventure. Sure it feels good to finally win after hours and hours of getting everything just right, but that isn't a raid.

While I certainly share your views on the old school raid exploration format, I am very confident that most raiders will begin to complain about this. FFXIV does not transition well when you throw players into lengthy instances, at least among the player base. The lengthy completion times are fine the first few times, but then it gets to be nothing but a burden. Proof? Dungeons. At first, the idea of a larger dungeon seems like a fun idea, but then think about how you feel running through a regular dungeon your 10th time. Chances are, you and/or your group members, would rather just get straight to the boss so you can call it a night faster.

It's the exact same results over and over again when you give players what they think they want when it comes to style of content. Do you know how much of a godsend it was, to those of us that raided before, when means to go straight to a boss, like with primals, were the new thing? If you asked any WoW player, particularly those that raid normally, most would opt for an option to instantly be sent to the boss after their first clear of an area. This game is not as fast paced as some others, so by adding more travel to something, it feels bigger even if it's not by any means significantly different. T1, for example, sort of feels like it's an entire wing of Naxx, even if it's barely larger than a small area of a dungeon. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people would enjoy it... but we don't like the idea of unnecessarily wasting time, so we would opt not to do it. If someone in the group wants to hurry it up, skip pointless trash and go straight to the boss, I guarantee no one would object in a traditional pre-made raid setting. Think if you had to run through a map like Tam Tara before every boss in Alex Savage. I don't think you'll be singing many praises after your 5th week of clearing the raid, especially when you remember that the game once had it be a norm to just go straight to the boss.

And just to be clear, a lot of people (myself included) like to think of raids like ICC as having been overall fun. The thing that needs to be noted though is that... it was an exception. I mean, the entire feel and design of the place was worked on since WC3 essentially, long before WoW even came to be. Plus, with how popular undead stuff tend to be in today's entertainment, it kinda adds to it. Think back to non-undead related raids or ones without critical lore appeal (like Black Temple with Illidan). SSC wasn't exactly hailed for it's overall raid design. Most of the raids after ICC weren't exactly stellar in upstaging it from raid enjoyment standards. Same for most, if not all vanilla raids. The bosses were memorable, but technically the same could possibly be said here... I mean we get the bosses, just not the whole forgettable raid format.

[UBERHAXED]

I would be happy if they released raid content for catching up that are easy enough for a PUG group and also have progressive raids that are difficult but not unforgiving for a group of players that regularly raid together...

They already do this. They release a PUG version of Alex, and a dedicated group version of Alex. Your issue doesn't seem to be with the difficulty of fights, but the type of fights. Each fight was unique in there own in Alex, but they also couldn't make different bosses for the PUG version (otherwise it's not the same content in PUG mode, it's completely different and people will complain that fights are locked behind raiding again). Similarly, they couldn't make anything else for the pug version otherwise it would be too difficult for a PUG and they couldn't clear it in one go. Look at T2. It was a reasonable fight, and it was not a fight you pointed out as an arena fight. But as soon as they released the pug version, people didn't do the fight as intended, they wanted to destroy any difficulty that was in the fight. They realized that it was a waste of time to make fights that had some decent mechanics on the DF because people will just exploit what they can. They decided to skip the "find the easy way to exploit the fight" version and just release the easy version. Also as a poster above noted, dedication is not desired. The masses want fights so easy that they can clear in one go, the find what they can do to appear not AFK for the following runs.

Alas, content only lasts as long as someone with reasonable time is able to complete it. They gave everyone unlimited law. People can get all 180 gear playing in 2 weeks. Casually (dungeons drop a lot and the gear cost is low). Therefore this lasted 2 weeks. They put a literal cap on the next set so this can't happen. People complain that it was capped, as if they wouldn't just farm for 2 weeks, get all the gear and say the content doesn't last long. Anything that takes 3 months to do (i.e. some high cost item) people will complain that it takes too long and you can't complete in reasonable time if you wanted to take a break. They have weekly caps and lowered cost to alleviate this and people complain that there are caps. Any content that doesn't take that playing every day for 3 months to complete will, obviously, be completed by people who play regularly in less than 3 months. Then people will complain that the content doesn't last the whole 3 months.

I can guarantee you that SE learns from their past mistakes. They cannot make Exploratory Missions last more than a single patch cycle. If old, "invite as many people as you can so we can faceroll it", content remains relevant when a patch releases, then no one will do the new stuff. Like hunts. Especially considering the next patch will likely be a cap increase. They better not make new stuff in old content, or else this is hunts 3.X style all over again.

[UBERHAXED]

I definitely agree - Alexander Savage is definitely intense, but it is not fun and interesting. It's basically just trying to beat the clock without messing up, which is very likely to happen in Savage. It's unforgiving content, which is why it is called Savage, but I think they need something different... More fun and interesting to do with a group of friends. As I said in a post above in reply to someone else, Coil 1 was really fun because you went in, it had a mini-boss, a decent amount of trash, and a boss that had fun mechanics that weren't completely unforgiving. It felt like a mini-raid dungeon and that was some of the most fun I've had in FFXIV raiding.

Similar to now, the vast majority of people did not beat coil in it's release patch because it (mainly just the last couple of floors) was too hard. People then just didn't end up bothering to do it. Then complain that there is story behind the series. This is first coil too.

[Kailok]

Yeah, I know they already do that with Alex and Savage, but in that instance I was referring to raid content like Void Ark or the CT series where there should be a "catch-up" raid, and a progressive raid. It would have been interesting to see if they put all of those fights together into one big raid dungeon with things inside Alexander to explore and unlock, where the bosses weren't completely unforgiving, and then once you get to the checkpoint after the boss you continue to work on that instead of them being 4 separate arena-based boss fights. Then when you decide to do the raid you would be able to decide which checkpoint you want to start from and decide to either push to the next or repeat the same boss the next week. Just ideas, but it would have been interesting to see.

[Myrrodin0569]

i think there should be more character restores then just one....on some games there a restore a character every thirty days and i enjoy that just incase i make a stupid mistake and delete it more then once (i know pretty stupid) but it would give us an oppurtunity to get back our beloved characters