Please add the Savage exclusive phase of O4S to O4N

[Aldora]

I also prefer they keep "it" in Savage exclusively. The good thing about Coil was that you wanted to clear it in order to see the story unfold. It motivated people to run it and give it their all.

With the way Alexander was set up, that motivation was gone, since there wasn't anything new to see in Savage (apart from ruthless mechanics). So, if they added something to V4 Savage that Normal doesn't have, it would motivate more people to go clear it themselves.

I would, if i could get our group back together for it. (^_^ )

[Fawkes]

I also prefer they keep "it" in Savage exclusively. The good thing about Coil was that you wanted to clear it in order to see the story unfold. It motivated people to run it and give it their all.

With the way Alexander was set up, that motivation was gone, since there wasn't anything new to see in Savage (apart from ruthless mechanics). So, if they added something to V4 Savage that Normal doesn't have, it would motivate more people to go clear it themselves.

Except the whole reason we have normal mode now is because story/gear/whatever wasn't enough motivation to get people to do coil.

[Lambdafish]

Except the whole reason we have normal mode now is because story/gear/whatever wasn't enough motivation to get people to do coil.

Meaning that having the "exclusive bit" be directly involved with the encounter (extra flashy stuff and attacks) rather than the story is a very fair compromise.

[Fawkes]

Meaning that having the "exclusive bit" be directly involved with the encounter (extra flashy stuff and attacks) rather than the story is a very fair compromise.

No, it doesn't mean that at all.

They skimped on the story this time and went heavy on referential fights instead. The stuff with Cid talking to a cartoon chocobo isn't the interesting part that people want to see.

[Aldora]

Except the whole reason we have normal mode now is because story/gear/whatever wasn't enough motivation to get people to do coil.

Not entirely. The main reason behind it was not because people didn’t have the “motivation” to do it, but they believed it to be too hard for them to complete. Because if that, they felt left out on the story that Coil brought with it, which was an essential part of the story revolving Dalamud and the Calamity (which created the world of ARR as we know it).

On the other side there were Hardcore raiders who felt that Coil in its current state was “Too easy”. So, you had the “It’s too hard” and “It’s too easy” camp when it comes to Coil. In order to give the Hardcore raiders something to do, SE decided to implement the Savage mode as an experiment, to see how well it was received among the Hardcore Raiders.

The Hardcore Raiding group like the difficulty that Savage brought, but their current rewards (Titles through Achievements) wasn’t enough to run it multiple times and help others clear the same content.

With that in mind, SE created Alexander Normal and Savage. With it, you had a Normal mode with which everyone should be able to clear it and watch the story unfold. Players who wanted to be challenged could run Savage, in which they could get the strongest gear available until the next tier was released.

But, when looking at the difficulty of both modes, the “midcore” raiders felt that the Normal mode was too easy and the savage mode too hard. Since their main focus was to watch the story unfold, they’d simply clear the Normal mode but were left unsatisfied since it was too easy. On the other side, aside from the gear that dropped in Savage, there was nothing new to be found in Savage, next to the increase in difficulty.

When they hit the walls in A3S as well as Midas Savage, they simply stopped running the Savage content, because they felt it wasn’t worth it.

After creating the “Creator” Tier, SE felt that they found a difficulty setting for Savage which will be doable for more than just the top tier hardcore raiders. At that moment, they saw an increase in players running Savage again.

On the other hand, the Top Tier Raiders felt that “Creator” was too easy and that they wanted more difficult content. This will always be a battle that SE has to deal with. Creating content so that a significant amount of people will run it to make it worth their investments.

So, if the savage version of the fight contains an element which will give it a completely new feeling to it and get people interested in experiencing it themselves, then that’s a good development. Most people running the Deltascape won’t be able to clear Savage as easy as the Top Tier Raiding community and if their motivation to experience the “new phase” is high enough, they will invest time into clearing it themselves, which will result in people playing the game for a longer period of time.

Ideally, i’d like to see 3 modes for the 8-man raids, namely “Normal” for players who solely want to clear the raid for the story, “Savage” for the players who want to have a bit of a challenge in clearing it (at the level of the the Final Coil of Bahamut) and “Brutal” for the Top Tier Raiding Scene who live for the ruthless battles and tight dps/healer checks which require a party performing at incredible levels of skill and teamwork.