To be honest, Alex Savage is a failure.

[ashwich]

Part of the issue of this lack of "epicness" i think lies in the fact that there are no Raid "dungeon"s. however grand coil or Alex is supposed to be, all we get to experience is walk into a room, kill a boss, leave. The entire thing should be 1 dungeon (with 4 bosses), lockout saved per week basis. They just need to not get lazy and design the place.

Basically they need to make the raid more like voidark. with less people, less facerolling.

[Belhi]

This is why they eventually nerf coil to the point that you can PF or even DF it, and honestly at that point if you haven't cleared the turns you've probably didn't care enough to PF it in the first place. Designing content for players isn't simply as clear cut as having a high amount of clear rate or participation (because if 3.0-3.1 was anything to go by, small servers were extremely devastated by transfers because of raiding that no matter the future raid content like midas, the population simply isnt there for a healthy raid environment anymore). You're looking at the clear rates of coil, what about the clear rates of savage in relatively the same time? The lack of incentive is relatively a smaller problem in the grand scheme of things compared to accessibility when it comes to your typical statics.

Even taking into account nerfs a very large amount of people never cleared Coil including people who wanted to. I had multiple people in my FC who never cleared it and they spend weeks in 2.55 grouping up every day and not clearing. Even nerfed Turn 9 killed a lot of groups. I think you would find the actual clear rates on Coil are a rather small percentage of the playerbase and I play on JP servers which often have quite high clear rates in PF.

I'm not saying Savage is 'better'. I'm saying that normal mode version allows accessibility to story. The pros and cons of Savage are many but I don't think the issue with Savage was that everyone got to see the story in NM. A lot of groups quite savage not because of story but because it had fights people found uninteresting and had a much more brutal difficulty primarily caused by dps checks.

[Andevom]

The gears are nice and all, but what's the point of it, when it's gonna be easily replaced in a couple of months?

This is something that I feel will need to be addressed at some point. There has to exist some kind of really powerful gear that has a huge drive to get, takes a good deal of time, but stays relevant for a looooong time.

It's hard to compare things to XI, where there were plenty of long term goals and avenues for desirable gear, because there are many more patch updates in XIV than XI. But honestly, I'd be okay with a longer gap between full patches if they introduced a large-scale piece of content akin to Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, Nyzul and so on.

[Ashkendor]

This is something that I feel will need to be addressed at some point. There has to exist some kind of really powerful gear that has a huge drive to get, takes a good deal of time, but stays relevant for a looooong time.

That's not the kind of game they've built, though. You aren't going to see sets of gear that stay relevant for months or even years like you did in XI because the very basic premise that this game is built on differs so much. The MMO market has simply changed since the heyday of XI and you're not going to find a lot of people that are willing to put in literal years of playtime to grind out a relic weapon. The days of games that expected you to put in that kind of time investment are far in the past.

It's hard to compare things to XI, where there were plenty of long term goals and avenues for desirable gear, because there are many more patch updates in XIV than XI. But honestly, I'd be okay with a longer gap between full patches if they introduced a large-scale piece of content akin to Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, Nyzul and so on.

No thanks. The quick content updates are part of what I like about this game.

[Yukiko]

I wonder who of you have beaten AS8 yet...
Already complaining about boringness and not even seen the last fight?
True, back then when we made coil we had same topic but at least that time the players who complained had cleared the content and had the right to complain...
Still we were not complaining the difficult should be made harder, we were complaining that the mechanics were too boring!

[Ashkendor]

I wonder who of you have beaten AS8 yet...

Are you just unlucky with drops or do you not Savage at all? I don't see even accessories on your character so I can only assume if you do Savage, your group is currently progressing on A5S and I wish you luck with your clear!

Already complaining about boringness and not even seen the last fight?

In any case, you don't have to be on the last fight of a raid tier to be bored with it. Beating your head against the same content week in and week out gets tiring after awhile. It's the reason A3S broke so many statics - repeating the first 3 minutes or 5 minutes or 6 minutes of a fight for weeks on end with no sign of progress is extremely fatiguing. Eventually you start to dread even getting together for raid night. It's good that they slapped A6S with the nerf stick so early on, honestly. It shows that they have an actual goal in mind as far as the difficulty and they're willing to tweak the raid to meet that goal.

True, back then when we made coil we had same topic but at least that time the players who complained had cleared the content and had the right to complain...

I think anyone actively doing any of the current raid tier has the right to voice their opinion on whether or not it meets their expectations. SE apologized for what they did with Gordias and said they were remedying those mistakes with Midas; since they've stated the goal that they had in mind, it's good to give them feedback on whether or not they've accomplished that goal.

Still we were not complaining the difficult should be made harder, we were complaining that the mechanics were too boring!

Some people did complain that they wanted harder content, but honestly that was a very small minority.

[Ceasaria]

Part of why Coils was so epic is because that single raid had an entire back story which was FFXIV 1.0.

There was the story progression from Dalamud, Nael Deus Darnus all from 1.0. Then there was a huge lul period while 2.0 was being built for the whole story of Bahamut to stew within players. Then 2.0 finally came and we got further development and actual Raid content about Bahamut etc. That content/story was locked behind the most challenging content.

I don't think anything else in this game has a chance to compete with something like that ever. I mean how could it? The players desire to do Coils was driven by the story from a whole other game's climactic ending, a 1 year wait, and then an epic story that could only be found by completing the most difficult content.

If SE put the Warriors of Darkness, the Ascians and Zodiarch in one of the next arc of raids, it could beat Coils without a doubt.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

If SE put the Warriors of Darkness, the Ascians and Zodiarch in one of the next arc of raids, it could beat Coils without a doubt.

Considering that they'll be a part of the MSQ most likely, I won't hold my breath on them having raids. Just a typical 8 man trial.

[Andevom]

That's not the kind of game they've built, though. You aren't going to see sets of gear that stay relevant for months or even years like you did in XI because the very basic premise that this game is built on differs so much. The MMO market has simply changed since the heyday of XI and you're not going to find a lot of people that are willing to put in literal years of playtime to grind out a relic weapon. The days of games that expected you to put in that kind of time investment are far in the past.

I do agree there should always be a limit on relevant grindy stuff, but right now it's to an extreme in the other direction. Moreso than it was when 2.0 launched. First Coil stayed relevant much longer than Gordias Savage did.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Considering that they'll be a part of the MSQ most likely, I won't hold my breath on them having raids. Just a typical 8 man trial.

While true, Ceasaria points towards where one of Alexander's major problems lies: lack of an effective lead up.

Alexander itself had little actual threat build up. Our first interaction with it is as an "empty" magic barrier that few (if any) npcs comment on before a scene that occurs after the HW Main Story is completed. Players new to Final Fantasy have little reason to fear Alexander, while only fans that have played FFIV, FFIX and FFXI have an idea of why Alexander activating might be a bad idea.