Please consider changing the role of normal mode Alexander in future patches

[Eidolon]

I thought savage was gated by i200 gear, which is eso.

It's a mix. I'm not sure if people would clear or not at i180 - as we had a mix of i180/i190 when groups were clearing A1/2.

I think that a3+ served to be gated by i200, which was Eso gear as you said. But that's actually pretty normal progression and is fine. It meant you were getting drops from A1/2 whcih also helped with A3+, that's pretty normal for most mid-core groups.

[StouterTaru]

So you want top tier content to be beaten within a few hours of it being released, and on farm mode week 2? Why not just ask for all lockouts removed so you can get all your gear in a few days then unsub for 6 months?

[Miscreant]

So you want top tier content to be beaten within a few hours of it being released, and on farm mode week 2? Why not just ask for all lockouts removed so you can get all your gear in a few days then unsub for 6 months?

Did you read the thread before posting? The OP wants Alex NM gear to not be a requirement for entering Savage early on as he feels it spoils the raid, I'm guessing by already knowing the basic mechanics and Story. It has nothing to do with making Savage easier.

just go look at any discussion that involves "casual" players getting a decent level of loot for completing non-raid content. and drown in the deluge of raiders making grandiose claims of "sacrifice" and "hard work" being why they "deserve" the best loot in the game.

Well it does have merit to it, raiding isn't a full time job unless your in the leading groups, but the fights take time to learn. You don't necessarily need to put in twenty hours a week, it could be four a week, but when you kill the fight you have still invested a larger portion of time into that fight than you would for Alexander Normal or an Ex Primal. The rewards match the required effort, you can't deny that. If it helps you put it into perspective my group downed A1 (normal) within 20-30 minutes, it took us seven hours of play time to down A1S, thats roughly 14-21 times the time invested into normal, hence why the rewards are +20 ilevels higher.

I think that a3+ served to be gated by i200, which was Eso gear as you said. But that's actually pretty normal progression and is fine. It meant you were getting drops from A1/2 whcih also helped with A3+, that's pretty normal for most mid-core groups.

I kind of see it as Alexander Normal replaced the requirement of our previous raids gear as we were fresh 60. In SCoB and FCoB the first two turns were doable with the gear from the previous raid, in Alexander Savage it was Alexander Normal that took the previous raids place. When you reached the third turn in SCoB and FCoB there was a big dps check in which you needed some drops and tome gear from the current raids to complete, the same is with A3S now...well unless you were a top tier raid group like Lucrezia or Elysium.

[JMadFour]

/snip

i'm not debating this. i believe bleeding edge raiders should have the best gear. i'm fine with that.

He was wondering where people get the impression that you need to dedicate your life to raiding, that's all I was saying. it's because raiders make it sound that way when they argue against non-raiders getting decent loot.

[Miscreant]

i'm not debating this. i believe bleeding edge raiders should have the best gear. i'm fine with that.

He was wondering where people get the impression that you need to dedicate your life to raiding, that's all I was saying. it's because raiders make it sound that way when they argue against non-raiders getting decent loot.

Yeah that image is complete rubbish, I work a 9-5 post degree job and have still managed to progress in all of the raids at an acceptable pace, I've never had the time to compete with the hardcore guys but I'm in the last phase of A3S now with raiding for roughy 10-12 hours a week. People don't even need to raid that frequently four hours is probably enough to have raids cleared before a new one is introduced.

That's the effect it would have though. The only way they would remove this relatively minor treadmill is if they replaced it with another one, which would be bitched about just as much.

In a way you would be right and in a way not, the first two floors would be easier now with Eso gear, but at the time they would be just as hard in 180 gear. I don't see why the system he suggested should have any knock on effect on A3S though as you shouldn't really be using Alexander Normal gear by that point anyway.

The only thing that was cool about it was seeing Bahamut's head, because c'mon, it's his head! That's what was Coil awesome, the awesome setting, facing off in unknown creations of the Allagan, learning more about the Allagan and Bahamut himself. Alexander pales in comparison, and I stated it's not because it was difficult, it's because Alexander's story is a joke in comparison. They could have done amazing things with Alexander, but they decided to take the silly route. Have you guys seen Alexander in FF9 and Type 0? This one is just... bleh in comparison.

I can relate to what your saying here, I feel the story of Alexander has been underwhelming so far, you could even call it comic relief with all these goblins running around, and Alexander in FFIX was epic, one of my favourite scenes in FF history so this version is a bit underwhelming at the moennt. But the story in BCoB wasn't that great either, Coil didn't actually get interesting until T9 and it wasn't until FCoB that I was really fixated on the story. Give this raid some time, so far we have only seen the foundations of a story so far.

[Colorful]

snip

Yeah I'll definitely wait before calling it a failure, but you have to admit the difference in endings was significant. One is seeing that Bahamut remains, and his head is before you, leaving you waiting for the next part to see what happens next. Alexander is a core to disable Alexander or something? I don't even remember it. There's not much to look forward to, and that girl with the scar is a very cliche and boring character. "I'm going to touch my scar and then remember my entire past"... Don't know what they were thinking with that.

[StouterTaru]

Did you read the thread before posting? The OP wants Alex NM gear to not be a requirement for entering Savage early on as he feels it spoils the raid, I'm guessing by already knowing the basic mechanics and Story. It has nothing to do with making Savage easier.

That's the effect it would have though. The only way they would remove this relatively minor treadmill is if they replaced it with another one, which would be bitched about just as much.

[Eidolon]

I kind of see it as Alexander Normal replaced the requirement of our previous raids gear as we were fresh 60. In SCoB and FCoB the first two turns were doable with the gear from the previous raid, in Alexander Savage it was Alexander Normal that took the previous raids place. When you reached the third turn in SCoB and FCoB there was a big dps check in which you needed some drops and tome gear from the current raids to complete, the same is with A3S now...well unless you were a top tier raid group like Lucrezia or Elysium.

Here's the counter though:



The First Coil of Bahamut: Required Tomestones of Philosphy (uncapped) gear for going in (And I'm sure people went with less.)
The Second Coil of Bahamut: Required Tomestones of Mythology (uncapped) gear for going in -OR- First Coil gear (Uncapped).
The Third Coil of Bahamut: Required Tomestones of Soldiery (uncapped) gear for going in -OR- second coil gear (uncapped)

Alexander:
Requires a mix of Law (uncapped) + Alexander Story (capped) to go in.

The difference is pretty clear - we're forced to rely on Alexander story for entrance into Savage. This is because SE created a gap and filled it with Alexander Story gear.

By making it so Law is i180
Alexander is i190
Eso is 200
Savage is 210

They created "Logical steps" that work, but provide no sidegrades for Law and limit customization, as well as stagger the ability to clear content effectively with an artifical cap. I'm sure more groups would've cleared a1/2/3 had they not be bottlenecked by gear drops.

Solution:

Remove Alexander (Story) drop or make it an unlimited sidegrade option to the uncapped tomestone gear. Thus, you make it so people have more diversity in gear choices, while simultaneously not staggering them.

[Miscreant]

snip

I don't get how thats a counter, you just repeated what I said back to me O_O

What I was trying to get at is that hopefully the second Alexander raids normal mode wont be required for it's savage counter part as we will have the previous raids gear. The damage is done with this raid, no suggestion can rewrite whats already happened.

Yeah I'll definitely wait before calling it a failure, but you have to admit the difference in endings was significant. One is seeing that Bahamut remains, and his head is before you, leaving you waiting for the next part to see what happens next. Alexander is a core to disable Alexander or something? I don't even remember it. There's not much to look forward to, and that girl with the scar is a very cliche and boring character. "I'm going to touch my scar and then remember my entire past"... Don't know what they were thinking with that.

I just remembered the cutscenes where Louisoix was watching you in BCoB too, BCoB's story was better than Alexanders so far I guess, hopefully things turn around soon. If Alexander actually becomes mobile it could become pretty exciting.

[Eidolon]

I don't get how thats a counter, you just repeated what I said back to me O_O

I just remembered the cutscenes where Louisoix was watching you in BCoB too, BCoB's story was better than Alexanders so far I guess, hopefully things turn around soon. If Alexander actually becomes mobile it could become pretty exciting.

What I was trying to get at is that hopefully the second Alexander raids normal mode wont be required for it's savage counter part as we will have the previous raids gear. The damage is done with this raid, no suggestion can rewrite whats already happened.

I suppose, I just wanted to stress that at the moment - they added an extra step, whereas previous, we didn't have this extra 'required' step. We should be able to straight up use Uncapped Tomestones if we want to - Alexander should've been a side alternative for optimization that is also uncapped.

Anyways, my appologies if I'm mayhaps not getting my point across as well as I could. ^^