To be honest, Alex Savage is a failure.

[Melch]

One of the major things that makes Alexander savage less appealing is the normal mode. We've already seen the bosses, we've already heard the music, we've already saw the cutscenes and the gear design. There's no surprise at all except mechanics.

[randysquirrel]

idc how unpopular it is with the casuals, the fact that coil gated the storyline made it feel awesome when you finally got the next instalment of the story after finally downing the boss, still remember when we at last cleared t9 and t12, those cutscenes...

Alex I don't even remember why we're here, a goblin found something, and then there was another woman who did something. I much prefer the more mechanically driven fights in midas, than gordias, but on its own merits, I only raid because it is the only challenging content available

[Judge_Xero]

Alex I don't even remember why we're here, a goblin found something, and then there was another woman who did something. I much prefer the more mechanically driven fights in midas, than gordias, but on its own merits, I only raid because it is the only challenging content available

Long story short, if the Goblins get Alexander fully functional they will be able to control all the cheese supplies. Basically there will not be any cheese for anyone besides the goblins. Not good....not good at all.

[Mindy_Macready]

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!

I think some people are complaining because we've already seen the cutscenes and music related to the fight.

Since A8S is PROBABLY going to feature mechanics from A8 (ramped up to Savage, of course) people do have the right to complain about that aspect of the fight. Also, what a weird mentality of "you can't complain if you haven't cleared!" - look at A3S. A ton of people had valid complaints about a fight that they were struggling to clear.

[Tyrn]

I think Coil had a stronger storyline because we already knew what happened prior.
"

That and people probably felt more attached to the only story in the game where they had to try to win in order to continue and see the next part, even the guy in my old static who everyone in the group made fun of for "not being able to read" because he always skipped cutscenes shut up on TS and read through each scene when we (slowly) progressed through coil. Unfortunately there isn't anything like it anymore, SE thinks long term goals that build social bonds and tie people to the game are bad and instant gratification nownownow unsub a week after patch is good. I lost more friends just between 3.0 and 3.1 than I ever did from 2.0 to 2.5, I hope SE will change their mind by the next expansion as I don't want to lose any more friends.

[Phireblast]

Why can't we have Savage introduced first, then in a much later catch up patch, introduce normal mode? That way, raiders wouldn't have to worry about their "experience" being tarnished by running normal mode all the time. This **************essentially******** was the case with coil as well. It was available to the top-ish players first, then they mortally nerfed some encounters so people can get by easier to experience it. Casual players have literally everything else to the game catered to them as it is.

but hey, this won't happen

[Nalien]

You know how we lost a dungeon per update for more content like Diadem and Palace of the Dead? I wish they'd do that with Savage... It isn't popular content, so work on something different instead...

Now, don't go taking that as me suggesting we should drop "challenging" content entirely, I'm simply saying do something different with those resources... I'd say the biggest issue with Savage is one of accessibility, you need seven other people on the same page as you, and most can't be bothered with that... So scale it back, give us 4-man Savage encounters instead, that would be much more accessible to everyone, and challenging 4-man content has been something requested for a long time now...

Unless the 8-man requirement is somehow core to the raiding experience, I don't see much problem with that... We'd still get similarly challenging pieces of content, but it would be much more accessible, which means more people will attempt it and justifying gated story/etc. becomes much easier...

Alternatively, I'll default to an old suggestion;

Basically flip the current way Normal/Savage work, and implement the Normal mode after the Savage mode has been cleared...

New Alexander gets released, both Normal and Savage difficulty.
The first quest everyone does is for the Savage difficulty, Normal cannot be accessed.
This quest automatically fails the moment one group on your server finishes it.
Upon a group finishing this quest, the Wandering Minstrel now grants access to the Normal mode.
Since one can imagine some servers may never clear Savage, a date would be set upon World First for Normal to be unlocked.
Savage can still be challenged, and the current reward dynamic remains the same.

You can do some interesting things with this... For starters, it has a built in Server First acknowledger... If your group clears Savage for your server, not only can the Wandering Minstrel acknowledge that in the Normal mode quest, but that Savage quest which only one group can clear? You can attached something special to that... Essentially treat the cutting edge raiding community in a similar way to how PvP and Feast are being handled... Got Server First? Here's a piece of vanity armor/mount/minion/furniture/title/etc. that nobody else on your server will ever have... Other than the other seven people you cleared with, that is...

An exclusive reward like that might drum up some initial hype behind Savage, get more people interested in trying it out... I mean... Is there even a reward for even getting World First at this point? I mean yeah, Yoshida might say congratulations on the forums, but who cares? Mounts and Minions, on the other hand, a lot of people care about those... If everyone knew one was locked behind World/Server First... Well, if it doesn't generate interest in it, it will at the very least create some entertaining drama from entitled crybabies - Can't have enough of that these days...

Right now the only reward I see for Savage at all, is an item level boost which is both not required for any other content in the game, and entirely irrelevant in a game that burns through item levels at the rate XIV does... I have no interest in Savage for pretty much that exact reason... I don't care about the rewards at all, those rewards exist to make Savage easier, and I'm not going to follow the cyclical logic of "I raid to get better gear to raid!"... Even the story doesn't strike me as a good reward... I still haven't done T13, know why? Same reason I'm only just getting Kirin, I don't enjoy finding seven other people to jump rope with, meanwhile I have an absolute blast duoing content... That said, I have no problem with them locking such stuff behind Savage, pretty much for that reason... Not a lot of people cleared Coil when it was relevant, so what? A level cap came in and made clearing it trivial... Those resources weren't wasted on a 1% that cleared Coil, those cutscenes are still there and still available for people to go do...

[Kaurie]

You know how we lost a dungeon per update for more content like Diadem

Are you saying this was a good idea?

[Nalien]

Are you saying this was a good idea?

Yes? Diadem kinda sucks, but the developers should never stick to repeating the same sorry template over and over... Just repeating the same stale thing over and over is going to stagnate the game, they need to take risks making new types of content, rather than hoping their linear dungeon template can carry the game for a few more years...

That third dungeon really amounted to nothing more than the same corridor with a different paint job... I'll admit, I'm kind of lost when people complain about the state of Expert Roulette, two dungeons is repetitive? Really? Three wasn't? Christ... SE could produce ten dungeons for the Expert Roulette, but if they're all the same cookie cutter dungeons we currently get, I'd be bored of them pretty quickly anyway... I'd much rather take a chance on something like Diadem (which actually has plenty of potential, SE is just ignoring it, sadly) than stick to the same tired system...

When they do that, subs will begin dropping en masse.

I think you're vastly overestimating the number of people that care about Savage, and also entirely ignoring the rest of my post...

Like I said, unless 8-man requirements are the key defining point for raid content, I see no reason why we can't scale down challenging content from 8 to 4-man. We'd still have a similar sort of thing going on, we'd still have the challenging content for best rewards, but it would be far more accessible, and arguably easier to balance and fine tune...

[Mindy_Macready]

You know how we lost a dungeon per update for more content like Diadem and Palace of the Dead? I wish they'd do that with Savage... It isn't popular content, so work on something different instead...

When they do that, subs will begin dropping en masse.