NO MORE ALEXANDER(NM)!

[Ercapote]

NM gives item level 210 gear? News to me.

Raiding is always about and should always be about the social experience above all though. As stated to the person above, clearing difficult content with friends is just tops. But if you don't care for the social experience of raiding or the gear, then the content may just not be for you and you should be happy a story mode exists.

why is so hard for you people to read?

1.social experience you get it everywhere you can get it even in NM in ex roulette in whatever the hell you want as long as your are playing MMO you are constantly playing with the social experience so IDK where are you coming with this, coils are not made for a group of friend once gear get's up anyone will PF any group for savage...

2. there's only 2 reason why u get gear
1- stats
2- glamour/looks
let's put this.... I have the same exact gear that looks exactly the same as the HARDCORE mode of the raid....what's left for the "reward" gear from the hardcore? stats? Cool let me bust my ass on a super high difficulty lvl raid to get gear that will replaced next patch because guess what, we will have 210 from the island and we will be able to upgrade our ESO to 210 with the new 24 man raid. so what's left? glamour? but wait I already have it

so my only motivation to do savage is a small chance to get a flying mount? is that all the reason I will spend my time, patient, dedication and money? a flying mount?

[Synestra]

Sorry to ruin your perception, but most statics are not groups of friends

I think he means that your static members will overtime become your friends, i didnt know any of them IRL but after 2 years of overcoming all kinds of hardships be it in form of raid difficulty/drama i would like to call them friends now, hell i would actually go as far and call them a family.

[StrejdaTom]

Agreed, I have hard time continuing progressing A4s for gear that will be replaced in a few months, a few new mechanics and no lore.

Since Heavensward I had to switch 1 static and replace 5 people who left and from what I heard it is not different for other statics.
Alex is just doing much worse than Coils. Maybe because we have already seen the fights and lore while we were farming NM weekly, or because the fights aren't anything new compared to Coil..

So yeah, they catered to casuals (again), while the content for hardcore players got even worse.

TL;DR: Dirty filthy casuals are in MY game! Take them away so I have room to stroke my ginormous e-peen!

What does the fact that the new true raid offers no new lore, no new glamour and almost no new mechanics to do with e-peen?
Raiders were just used to raid for gear, glamour, story and new mechanics so expansion is a huge downgrade in this area for them/me.

Also whole game is one huge content for casuals - crafts, dungeons, 24man raids, primals (extremes too), Golden Saucer and PvP. Hardcore players had only one thing - raids and even these got incredibly downgraded. Sure, if you don't do savage you don't see it that way, but imagine doing A1-4 2 months for gear and then doing it again for x months in savage version while A1,2 have only a small changes to it, A3 savage is epic I admit that and A4 is just plain boring.

[hagare]

What does the fact that the new true raid offers no new lore, no new glamour and almost no new mechanics to do with e-peen?
Raiders were just used to raid for gear, glamour, story and new mechanics so expansion is a huge downgrade in this area for them/me.

the fact that Alex Savage is only released for the challenge.

[StrejdaTom]

the fact that Alex Savage is only released for the challenge.

That isn't enough to keep 8 people going into it a few times a week, or it atleast seems so from all these 7/8 6/8 statics recruiting daily for A3 or A2.
And the fact that there will be same gear level available sooner than majority of raiding groups (not every FF player, just raiding groups) will even get to A4 doesn't help the popularity of Alex too.

They should have made one easy story mode raid connected to MSQ and one savage raid with its own story not connected to MSQ at all. That way raiders could still raid like in 2.X and people who don't raid wouldn't have story locked behind raiding (I mean savage raiding, NM Alex is on hard primal difficulty).

[Belhi]

That isn't enough to keep 8 people going into it a few times a week, or it atleast seems so from all these 7/8 6/8 statics recruiting daily for A3 or A2.
And the fact that there will be same gear level available sooner than majority of raiding groups (not every FF player, just raiding groups) will even get to A4 doesn't help the popularity of Alex too.

They should have made one easy story mode raid connected to MSQ and one savage raid with its own story not connected to MSQ at all. That way raiders could still raid like in 2.X and people who don't raid wouldn't have story locked behind raiding (I mean savage raiding, NM Alex is on hard primal difficulty).

Your right that it would be easy. It would also be time consuming and mean less of something else.

The blunt reality is that the Hardcore playerbase is a small portion of the playerbase and it makes little sense to cut the large majority of the players out of storytelling from a development standpoint. One of the major complaints I saw about Coils back in 2.x was from players who didn't have the time or skill to commit to structured raiding and as such missed out on some of the best storytelling in the game. Lets be clear here. It's about denying players access to story, not making content they don't want to do. Even if a hardcore player doesn't really enjoy casual gameplay, there is nothing denying them access to any story behind it.

I think its perfectly viable to argue that glamour and such should be put behind savage. I don't think you can put story behind it though without pissing off more players than you would mollify.

[CosmicKirby]

Snip

What quality of the story makes it less reasonable to gate behind a difficult challenge, than gating gear behind the same challenge? Clearly there must be some difference between the two for you to be okay with the latter, but not the former being behind difficult content.

If I purchase a book, am I entitled to understand the intricacies of the plot, characters, story, and the like, simply by virtue of reading it? Am I entitled to also be able to read spin-offs without paying further, what if they were started in the original text?

I'm being rhetorical because I don't see the reason why the story isn't alright to gate, but the gear is, other than entirely personal preference. Which is fine, but you seem to imply otherwise. Do players enjoy story more than gear?

[Nestama]

the fact that Alex Savage is only released for the challenge.

Though most of that challenge appears to be on the healer, since the bosses hit like a falling building made of trucks with sharks with laser beams attached to their head (and some ill-tempered sea bass).

[Zumi]

Though most of that challenge appears to be on the healer, since the bosses hit like a falling building made of trucks with sharks with laser beams attached to their head (and some ill-tempered sea bass).

Only if tanks are wearing str accessories, if using vit then it isn't even bad at all.

[Aarik]

Also whole game is one huge content for casuals - crafts, dungeons, 24man raids, primals (extremes too), Golden Saucer and PvP.

Sorry, I could have swore you said crafting was for casuals these days. You haven't been crafting lately have you? If you did, you would have a clue as to just how agonizing obtaining the new pieces is, especially the blue-crafted master pieces. The only casual part of crafting right now is getting to 60. After that you cry. Oh, and did I mention that once you get your stupidly-agonizing pieces....congrats, there's no use for them! The stuff you can craft SUCKS compared to esoterics AND non-savage Alexander gear.