Alexander Normal difficulty...

[Cyrus-Wallace]

I've cleared SCOB Savage and trust me, it's not something you'll want to farm every week. It's super hard, even with the current gear it's really challenging. It's something you want to clear and be done with. I think too Alex hard will be like FCOB without echo (maybe a bit harder), but thinking its difficulty will be on par with our SCOB savage is a nonsense.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

Here's the source for the info: http://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest.../blog/2192330/
Could be real, could be made up, idk, wasn't on camera, just some guy asking Yoshida at the event.

Says Alexander Savage difficulty is going to be on the level of what FCOB savage would've been like.
If it's as hard as SCOB savage is, that seems somewhat contradictory with the whole "being considerate with content development costs" idea.

[HaiHai]

They have clearly stated in interviews that, in a nutshell:

Alexander (Hard) = Coil Savage

Alexander (normal) = Coil with echo buff

So at this point we all already know what to expect and what the difficulty levels will feel like. If you have run any of the coils with the echo buff on, then you know what normal Alexander will be like. If you have run savage Coil 2, then you know what Hard Alexander will be like, and if you have run any of the coils without echo, than you can expect Hard Alex to be slightly harder than that.

[Kosmos992k]

They have clearly stated in interviews that, in a nutshell:

Alexander (Hard) = Coil Savage

Alexander (normal) = Coil with echo buff

If that is how it is, then their (Yoshi & SE) hope for a higher completion rate will be utterly crushed.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

Alex normal will be "story mode", you get one piece of gear each week. It will probably be puggable in duty finder.

Alex hard will be "progression mode". you will only be able to complete each encounter once a week and need a premade group.

[KarstenS]

they were pretty clear that Alexander Hard mode is going to be as hard as FCoB Savage

At the announcement of the expansion he said, Alexander hard will be like "current endgame raid, but a little bit harder".

Current andgame raid was FCoB at the time of the announcement.

He never said, it will be like SCoB savage.

[Tannlore]

At the announcement of the expansion he said, Alexander hard will be like "current endgame raid, but a little bit harder".

Current andgame raid was FCoB at the time of the announcement.

He never said, it will be like SCoB savage.

Today he expanded on this and yes, hard more is the equivalent of SCoB savage:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...d_other_stuff/

[KarstenS]

Today he expanded on this and yes, hard more is the equivalent of SCoB savage:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...d_other_stuff/

The text on reddit is

Q. How hard is Alexander Hard?
Y: About as hard as FCOB Savage ← ?!?!?!

and leaves much room for interpretation.

And in earlier questions he confirmed again what I wrote in other threads

Q.Does that mean there'll be something even harder?
Y: Depends on the players' clear rates and requests.
Q. So Alexander was made with player clear rates in mind?
Y: Yup. Looking at the number of player clears, we also have something called Content Costs where we basically want our content to be enjoyable by more people.

I think the clearing rates they have in mind are similar to actual FCoB.

[Felis]

Today he expanded on this and yes, hard more is the equivalent of SCoB savage:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...d_other_stuff/

Q. How hard is Alexander Hard?

Y: About as hard as FCOB Savage ← ?!?!?!

FCoB Savage =/= SCoB Savage
And only the devs know how hard FCoB Savage is before they tuned it down for our FCoB normal mode.