Unpopular suggestion: Make raiding (great) rewarding again.

[zosia]

The subject title is "make raiding rewarding AGAIN", which implies that it was once this way but isn't anymore for whatever reason. Plus the OP hardly suggested anything substantial, but what appears to be simple glamour-related tweaks.

semantics friend, This is a suggestion thread, lets not derail it with with what will inevitably be a fruitless back and forth. If you want to talk about suggestions and the merits of those ideas, I think that is great. Dragging in the past poor reward structure to make some semantic point will only distract from the purpose of this thread.

[StrejdaTom]

The subject title is "make raiding rewarding AGAIN", which implies that it was once this way but isn't anymore for whatever reason. Plus the OP hardly suggested anything substantial, but what appears to be simple glamour-related tweaks.

You are overthinking it, I made this title as a poor joke, nothing else.

[Zigabar]

I think they should get rid of story-mode raids. I thought I was raiding for the gear in Coil, but 3.x showed me my reward desire was actually elsewhere (Story).

/HidesFromInevitableAttack

[Welsper59]

Before some weird people rush in yelling at me that the challenging experience itself should be reward - Ok, pick a random dungeon of your choice that doesn't give any rewards and run it 3 hours a day, 4 times a week for atleast 2 months, then return and we can talk, minimal itemlevel of course so you can get a challenging experience.

I didn't realize people were dumb enough to intentionally do stuff that only serves to burn themselves out without that carrot on a stick... scratch that, I know there are, but that's besides the point. You folks need to learn some restraint. Too much of a good thing can be bad. Keep in mind that the challenge doesn't necessarily come exclusively from beating the raid/dungeon, but the journey leading up to it. Assuming healthy progress is being made with some reward sprinkled around, spending time trying to beat something (i.e. the challenge) IS a reward of sorts, but not literally in typical sense. The "reward" is experiencing something new, akin to how we enjoy doing new content when it's released. Once you've done it though, you've already earned your reward and really won't get it again from the same activity. Also remember that unless dungeons require teamwork and cooperation on-par with the most difficult raids available, there really is no comparison on the matter with looking at a dungeon for the experience itself.

The way I look at it on that matter is how I experienced WoW raiding, since I don't really do it here... and from what I can tell, raiding in XIV doesn't offer as much. I'll just give two examples where progression in raids was a reward by itself. Fighting the Lich King and experiencing those unique little dialogue exchanges and mandatory events (like the raid being wiped intentionally at the start of the last phase only to be rez'd later) was something very memorable, far more than the reward for many of us. Likewise with Ragnaros 2.0. Normal mode, you fought him in a similar fashion as the old vanilla version, where it's only his upper body showing. In Heroic (i.e. Savage) mode however, an extra final phase was added that makes him come out and you fight him whole for the first time in the games existence. The initial experience by itself was worth the struggle, but not so much worth most of the wipes that came after that first experience. The digital rewards generally made it worth doing, at least for a little while.

At point when Yoshida told us, that he understands how fast ilvl raises and that it will slow down in 3.0, plus there will be horizontal progression to some degree. So i expected FCoB gear to stay highest ilvl at least till 3.4 (excluding Alex gear) and that it will be absolutely necessary for 1st Alex.

Wait, why would you think that? I mean, I get the horizontal progression comment and if we didn't level from to 50 to 60, sure, but... we did, and that wasn't something we didn't know about going in. I'd say this is more like you shot yourself in the foot for not factoring in the actual level difference.

[SendohJin]

normal mode simply shouldn't have left side gear, that automatically makes the raiding gear more relevant. the Coil design of it not being dyeable and having it be craftable later is a much better system (though the crafted version should come out sooner).

make Normal mode another daily roulette to get tomes and spread the accessories out inside, that way everyone can still experience the story and it wouldn't be instantly irrelevant.

[FeliAiko]

I think that every long time raider's answer would be T1-12. But I am no selfish person, I understand that casual people want to enjoy "raiding" too, story too, etc.
I just want to return to the T1-12 as close as possible and feel atleast a bit like a special snowflake!

I know we did't have mounts and titles (except savage), but we won't get exclusive story too, so I am improvising here.

Okay, so it sounds like what you liked about raiding was the whole theme and atmosphere around it, and not so much the loot. The sense you were searching for answers, and the sense of discovery and revelation as you cleared each turn.

That's fair. Alexander lacks that same magic in comparison, which isn't helped by its comparatively weak story and antagonists (Goblins). I mean, the raid is centered around Alexander but he's not so much the main threat but rather the ones that's trying to activate him. Compared to Coil where the threat was Bahamut himself, alongside the thralls he sent against you (Nael, Louisoix) and the Allagan constructs designed to prevent you reaching him.

[StrejdaTom]

Okay, so it sounds like what you liked about raiding was the whole theme and atmosphere around it, and not so much the loot. The sense you were searching for answers, and the sense of discovery and revelation as you cleared each turn.

That's fair. Alexander lacks that same magic in comparison, which isn't helped by its comparatively weak story and antagonists (Goblins). I mean, the raid is centered around Alexander but he's not so much the main threat but rather the ones that's trying to activate him. Compared to Coil where the threat was Bahamut himself, alongside the thralls he sent against you (Nael, Louisoix) and the Allagan constructs designed to prevent you reaching him.

And we aren't getting anything from that back.
Story must be reachable for all, same for gear, same for the raid environment.
But giving raiders next to no rewards doesn't help too.

[zosia]

Okay, so it sounds like what you liked about raiding was the whole theme and atmosphere around it, and not so much the loot. The sense you were searching for answers, and the sense of discovery and revelation as you cleared each turn. That's fair. Alexander lacks that same magic in comparison, which isn't helped by its comparatively weak story and antagonists (Goblins). I mean, the raid is centered around Alexander but he's not so much the main threat but rather the ones that's trying to activate him. Compared to Coil where the threat was Bahamut himself, alongside the thralls he sent against you (Nael, Louisoix) and the Allagan constructs designed to prevent you reaching him.

But that will never be something a savage raid can capture again because of normal mode. That drive for secret lore and the epic build up boss kill after boss kill is just not there anymore. The worse part is that we have been force fed the story to unlock savage mode, so you can't even selectively preserve the story incentive for savage raiding.

That's why StrejdaTom probably wants to feel a bit like a special snowflake, there is nothing rewarding about the current raiding meta. We want to feel rewarded for time invested, for stepping up our game to the savage level.

[FeliAiko]

But that will never be something a savage raid can capture again because of normal mode. That drive for secret lore and the epic build up boss kill after boss kill is just not there anymore. The worse part is that we have been force fed the story to unlock savage mode, so you can't even selectively preserve the story incentive for savage raiding.

That's why StrejdaTom probably wants to feel a bit like a special snowflake, there is nothing rewarding about the current raiding meta. We want to feel rewarded for time invested, for stepping up our game to the savage level.

That's true, they can't make the story that engaging in that sense anymore. It's 'bad' enough they've taken away the feeling people got from progressing the story in Coil, but the story in itself isn't even that engaging for all its accessibility. No real twists or hook, or even likable characters to make you interested to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the 24 man raids IMO has a better setting and backstory behind it than Alexander does. Imagine if they swapped it around and had the Mhach as the 8-man and Alex as the 24man instead.

[loreleidiangelo]

I think they should get rid of story-mode raids. I thought I was raiding for the gear in Coil, but 3.x showed me my reward desire was actually elsewhere (Story).

/HidesFromInevitableAttack

Alexander's story is so terrible that no one should care if everyone can access it.

More to the point, I'd classify myself as a raider, despite not raiding anymore in THIS game, and I'll never support the idea of stonewalling casuals from seeing the conclusion of a well thought-out, climatic story like Coil's was. The hardcore experience should be DIFFERENT, without reusing the same boss models and mechanics and whatnot, but the end result should be the same.

Example: Midas Savage released first, going through different parts of the primal to see the conclusion of the story. X number of weeks later normal is released, with different bosses and lower ilevel gear so raiders can do it if they want for alts but don't "have" to, with a "oh we found a much easier path through" deus ex machina to explain the vastly different raid experience but ultimately the story conclusion is the same. Or something.

But seriously Alexander is just so bad on so many levels that I have no hope of it being fixed by the time the final tier comes out. I'm just waiting to see if the raid scene improves at all with 4.0.