Unpopular suggestion: Make raiding (great) rewarding again.

[Welsper59]

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 and not just with gear.

Added the bolded for clarity. I think this is just one of those situations where a group of players has to compromise. Either the people who want to be that special snowflake again (see old school raid prestige) or the players who want the story and easier raiding but aren't able to do Savage difficulty content. Neither side will, of course, but that's the bottomline of the complaint.

IMO, something like this would be the compromise on both ends: Special snowflake team will get little bonus content, be it additional phases or a new boss exclusive to Savage completion, CG, in-game story, fun item drops, or whatever on the matter, while everyone else gets the usual normal outcome. Like how beating non-MMO games on their hardest difficulty tends to do from time to time. Or Algalon in WoW, if anyone knows of that.

I don't see the harm in giving outstanding rewards, going above and beyond, for people who complete the hardest content in the game at the time. Then again, this is coming from someone speaking from the early days of MMORPGs, rather than from today's point of view where everything must be equal to everyone regardless of effort. If their reward is even remotely something I want, that's too good for them just because they can put in "a little" more effort into playing the game, as opposed to my just facerolling to victory. If I can't get it, they shouldn't either... you know, those types.

[Zigabar]

Snip for limit

Hi, inevitable attack! I guess I should've put -This is a personal opinion that many will not agree with- as a disclaimer as well.

[loreleidiangelo]

Hi, inevitable attack! I guess I should've put -This is a personal opinion that many will not agree with- as a disclaimer as well.

You might be a bit thin-skinned if you interpreted that as an attack. Nevertheless, my apologies, as that was not my intention to make you feel persecuted - I was simply suggesting a compromise to our differing opinions.

[Lulu89]

I don't mind if they add more gear/mounts/titles ect to raiding to make it more rewarding.

I hope they don't add more story though. I never got past t9 in ARR and it was really frustrating missing out on the story because of it.
I like that I can see the story with normal mode Alexander and not have to worry about clearing the high end raid.

Just do normal É mode for story O.o

[QuinceTaru]

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.

This right here, alexander fails everywhere where coil shined. The story is terrible, the music is bad(besides brute justice), it also feels disconnected so much from the main story of 3.0 which i think is a big problem. Much of the ARR story had tied in with coil and you had a feeling of wanting to know more, where alexander is so bad most people skip the cs's. And then you have the gear, which only point in game is to make farming the same gear easier. Before people argue yes it does shave seconds off of other things, but nothing in the game is hard enough to warrant the gear besides farming more of it. Which i think is a huge flaw in the game. Anyways these are my thoughts, thanks for the good enlightening thread!

[Brannigan]

Raid rewards are so dead. Easy Mode gear/crafted gear finally put the last nail in the coffin. Now, even if you collect a full set of the best items available and stick top grade materia in all of them, you still throw it all away on patch day because easily obtainable crafted gear is higher item level.

So you're gathering gear just to have it. You never actually get to use it on the next raid. Remember back in 2.4 when people actually still did Nael for ilvl 115 weapons? How many people did Gordias 4 for gear after it was nerfed?

There's a lot of ways to fix this stupid ass situation the devs have created but I doubt we'll get any of them. Instead we'll just get another minion or something.

[Moomba33]

Just do normal É mode for story O.o

That's what I do.
I was saying I hope SE doesn't add exclusive story to the Savage version.

[StrejdaTom]

Snip

Also, Bahamut felt as a huge danger to the world, well it almost destroyed the world once so why not.
Alexander is just sitting in the pond doing nothing (and I am aware of the fact that it moved its hands).

I just don't understand one thing. The bad thing about coil was, that it had epic story, that was locked away from many people. So they made a normal version of Alexander so people could enjoy the story, but at the same time they separated the Alexander story from the MSQ and made it so poor that no one cares. Why?

[FeliAiko]

Also, Bahamut felt as a huge danger to the world, well it almost destroyed the world once so why not.
Alexander is just sitting in the pond doing nothing (and I am aware of the fact that it moved its hands).

I just don't understand one thing. The bad thing about coil was, that it had epic story, that was locked away from many people. So they made a normal version of Alexander so people could enjoy the story, but at the same time they separated the Alexander story from the MSQ and made it so poor that no one cares. Why?

To be fair, Bahamut wasn't really tied to the MSQ. Yes you have the closing moments of 1.0 (which in turn became the opening trailer for 2.0), but it's more like a side story to tie up the loose ends of that event. Alexander had the misfortune of having no such in-game backstory to build off on. He just suddenly appears, and you're told "OMG it's a Primal! He can suck the land dry in days!". Hard to get over on just weak exposition like that. Maybe if he activated and actually destroyed a part of the landscape, then it could've given more gravitas to the in-game dialogue said about him.

[Welsper59]

Also, Bahamut felt as a huge danger to the world, well it almost destroyed the world once so why not.
Alexander is just sitting in the pond doing nothing (and I am aware of the fact that it moved its hands).

I just don't understand one thing. The bad thing about coil was, that it had epic story, that was locked away from many people. So they made a normal version of Alexander so people could enjoy the story, but at the same time they separated the Alexander story from the MSQ and made it so poor that no one cares. Why?

Well it is Bahamut. That bastard is one of the most revered names in RPG history. It almost never detracts from being a representation of raw destructive power and can be appreciated by anyone, even without knowledge of the games. It's kinda hard to follow-up that guy with anything, much less some mobile castle/fortress. I'd like to note that I really like Alexander in the FF series, especially from IX and XI, yet I still recognize how silly of a concept it is, despite how cool it may look in some games. It probably would have been a much less boring build up on story to use Doomtrain for Heavensward, all things considered. I mean, it's technically a machine too.