To be honest, Alex Savage is a failure.

[Kaurie]

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 weren'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...

I agree they shouldn't stick to repeating the same stale thing over and over, but in addition to dropping the 3rd dungeon - the other 2 have become increasingly uninspired. Dungeons are a big thing in MMO's and they don't all have to be the same thing. So I don't agree with taking resources away from dungeons, I'd agree with putting resources in it to make each one more unique in style, substance and flow. The last time I enjoyed a dungeon on release was Keeper of the Lake, Amdapor Hard and Wanderers Hard. I enjoyed all 3 of these. I've really, really, really hated Dusk Vigil, The Aery, Sohm Al, The Vault, Gubal Library, Fractals, Arboretum. I dislike Neverreap, Aetherochemical, Antitower and Lost City hard.

That said, I want dungeons that are like none of the above that add some mix to how it works. The devs have, for whatever reason, so few resources. They keep spreading them so thin that instead of making a few pieces of quality content, they are making loads of really bad content. Quality over quantity.

As for sticking to the same template. I agree, they need to branch out. However, the design team has showed that they are incapable of designing interesting content outside of their core. So, maybe they need to stick to their strengths.

[FoxyAreku]

How the rest of the world reacts to Alexander is pretty lame too
"He's gonna wake up soon gaiz, he's scary honestly, when he wakes he's gonna mess you up, look he's sucking all the life out of the land" (very slowly if I do say so myself, the grass surrounding Alexander's feet is greener than my lawns and the water is probably pure enough to drink from)

The fish are fine too, I fish next to alexander all the time .-.

[Morzy]

I am bummed the gear is garbage. I enjoy MNK and challenging myself with raiding.. But it is kinda boring...

I hope they dont make more like Alexander.

[KopeAcetic]

The elephant in the room, is that the Old SCOB Savage difficulty has now become the norm for progression. Very few cleared the old savage SCOB raids and those that did, did it for the challenge only. The old coils were tuned mostly perfect for the vast majority of raiders. Now, you are forcing a very large and dwindling pool of raiders attuned to coil difficulties to do savage and the net result is decimation.

It ultimately boils down to Alex NM being a mistake, its too undertuned to be worthwile and Savage being too hard for the majority.

I definitely agree with this. I think the main issue is that there's no non-hardcore raiding tier (I honestly have no idea what else to call non-hardcore raiding because casual doesn't seem to fully cover the sentiment). You either get savage difficulty or feather-duster. They honestly need more people to work on the raid content to make 2 tiers but they don't have the manpower to do it .

[Lithe]

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...

I don't agree. I wish they would make more savage stuff. Actually, they should make more raids and harder content, not JUST alex. I'm not a HC player at all, but I am sick to death of retard mode outside of savage raids. SE needs to make things harder for the good of everyone. I'm not saying make everything gated or savage mode, but they nerfed steps of faith because people said it was too hard. It was not. People just need to learn how to read and how to coordinate. If the baddies want to face roll shit, please go play mobile games. I for one want this game to be challenging, so it feels good when I clear something.

edit: oops

[MilesSaintboroguh]

snip

Steps of Faith got nerfed because it was a gate to 3.0 and it wouldn't look good on Square if their players can't access content they paid for. Not to mention that a lot of people decided to eat a penalty than to deal with people that can't follow instructions.

[Canadane]

Wouldn't mind a Steps of Faith Ex.

[Nalien]

I don't agree. I wish they would make more savage stuff.

Again, I wasn't saying "Don't add difficult content", I was pointing out that the 8-man requirement is what is gating a lot of players interest in Savage, so why make the challenging content 8-man? We have no challenging 4-man content, so I'd suggest dropping Alexander (Savage) for the next expansion, and instead having challenging 4-man content replace it... More accessible as statics are easier to form... Arguably easier to balance... Better chance for loot as well, although that's perhaps an issue they'd need to address (8 people would go from 1 drop a week to 2, for example). Like I said, unless being 8-man is the defining point for raid content, I don't see an issue with this...

I have zero problems with challenging content, in fact I prefer it. That's even part of the reason I don't do Savage anymore, XIV has an awful "Read the Guide" culture that I just don't enjoy, so I'm stuck either finding 7 other people who agree with that and are willing to challenge content blind (and I've just about given up on that), or just read a guide and not enjoy the content at all... That's part of why I love the old 2.0 stuff right now, going in duo and taking things on with odd setups (Paladin + Dark Knight, for example) is far more entertaining than the current relevant content... That's one reason why I also think they should gate stuff behind things like Savage... OK, a small minority will see that story when it is relevant, but what's wrong with that? People seem to claim Coil was wasted development, because so few did it, yet... Coil is still there... People can still go through it and make it fairly trivial these days... What's the problem with how Coil was handled? People didn't get to see the cutscenes when the gear was relevant? Please... There was no reason for them to change the raid story this dramatically IMO... Gated content is perfectly fine when that gate is going to be crushed underfoot by an incoming level cap rise... Same reason the nerfs and Echo bonuses for Coil were entirely pointless IMO...

[Ibi]

OK, a small minority will see that story when it is relevant, but what's wrong with that?

There was an 81-page thread that covered, at length, why some people felt there was something wrong with that. Given that SE added a story mode for Alexander, it's clear that they agreed to some measure.

People seem to claim Coil was wasted development, because so few did it, yet... Coil is still there...

I don't think people felt Coil was wasted development, but that it was a disproportionate amount of development time and resources given the portion of the player base that was able to experience the vast majority of it at the time. That's not limited just to the story aspect of it. You can argue over how compelling it is, but there's a case to be made against any content that 5% of the player base (at best) experiences getting as much development time and resources as Coil did.

People can still go through it and make it fairly trivial these days... What's the problem with how Coil was handled? People didn't get to see the cutscenes when the gear was relevant?

Is it significantly easier (generally to the point of triviality) now? Certainly. That took no small amount of time though, and it does matter to some people that they're unable to see some portion of a story that covers significant parts of the game's lore, especially given how story-driven FFXIV is up to that point.

Would we have seen as many people making the argument for a story mode if we'd had Alexander as the raid in 2.0, and Coil's story had been told through some other method(s)? We'll never know, but I doubt it.

[bass9020]

Just because it has a story why does it have to be face roll easy? Coil was only hard for 3 months at a time, if people didnt want to put the effort into it while it was current then they had to wait. Which again goes back to the instant gratification and the ME ME ME crowd which is the majority. In the end though nothing will ever be like coil again and everything will stay a face roll no matter what the content is. This will keep the % up high on content and nothing will feel "wasted" during current content periods.

Id also like to say that I am by no means an amazing player and struggled a bit all through the coil series but I got it done and the satisfaction I felt after completing them was great. Jump a year or so to Alex and none of that same feeling is there.