NO MORE ALEXANDER(NM)!

[Duelle]

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?

Because Coil was reserved for a select group of people. Said people got content all to themselves and are not happy to see that others get to see similar content now. That's still very much e-peen.

[Bernelli]

Because Coil was reserved for a select group of people. Said people got content all to themselves and are not happy to see that others get to see similar content now. That's still very much e-peen.

Way to stereotype, buddy.

[Sapphic]

Because Coil was reserved for a select group of people. Said people got content all to themselves and are not happy to see that others get to see similar content now. That's still very much e-peen.

Coil wasn't reserverd for anyone so I don't know where you got that from. all it took was a little effort to find or create a static and approach it. The only person stopping themselves from raiding is the one they see in the mirror. No, you don't need to dedicate hours and hours a week (unless you going for world firsts). 2 to 3 hours a week is all to see progression, unless you are that impatient and want it all now now now.

[BubblyBoar]

Hello, I'm a casual. I have absolutely no interest in doing top raid tier content or anything like that. I do not derive satisfaction from challenge in this kind of game. It's just not for me and I do not want to do it. Even at level 60, I still have not done much of coil despite the fact that I want to see the story there. I'll get around to it eventually, but not now.

I enjoy things like triple triad and chocobo racing and I love PvP. But most of all, I enjoy seeing the story in this game. It is one of the main things I play this game (and most any game) for. That said, I am extremely happy that SE decided to put in a story mode for people like me. So that I could see and enjoy the story they created for all the players to see.

As such, I believe it is a bit selfish to ask for that story to be removed or delayed and be locked behind content that a small portion of the community does. I don't mind raiders at all. I'm happy for their victories and support their efforts to challenges themselves. It's good that they get their own gear, titles, mounts, and minions to enjoy and have as a trophy for their hard work. I, however, no not believe that story should be one of these things. And fortunately, SE agrees with this notion.

That said, I am not against (and I don't think anyone is) adding more incentive to top raid content for raiders to strive for. As long as that isn't story, they can have whatever they want. As long as it doesn't leave story mode a barren wasteland (like CT now), I am content. So as long as your solutions does not cause these things, I will fully support you. We all pay the same sub after all.

[Ryel]

Because Coil was reserved for a select group of people. Said people got content all to themselves and are not happy to see that others get to see similar content now. That's still very much e-peen.

No offense but this statement is well... kinda ridiculous.

You're saying coil was "reserved" for a select group of players?

I don't recall any bouncers standing at the entrances in Wineport / Fallgourd / Ceruleum when coil was relevant content, in fact it was quite the opposite as it was open for any full party to enter. The developers later went above and beyond that after adding it to the duty finder by not only adding the echo buff giving players a flat bonus to stats in increasing increments, but also adjusted the difficulty of many mechanics that players were having difficulty with, and literally tossed you gear at level or in some cases many ilvls higher than what was needed to actually complete the content.

Honestly the biggest issues they had with coil that were justifiable complaints were the lockouts and 8 man nature of the content preventing many players from rerunning or playing with the people they wanted to. However can we please not act like they didn't take steps over time to make it as accessible as they could to the majority of the player-base? The reality is simply that many players who were perfectly capable of clearing the content either didn't try (and by try i mean didn't enter at all) or just weren't interested to begin with, I mean there are a large number of players i personally know who were more than capable of doing it at the time but simply were discouraged by the way it was presented, not necessarily the difficulty. In fact I'm willing to bet a large number of the players who actively complain about coil's difficulty and praise Alexander (Normal) for what it is have never even stepped foot in Turn 1 to even try it before the unsynched option was added to the Duty Finder, which is kinda disappointing.

So who exactly was it "reserved" for?

What many players are rightly complaining about is that the way that Alexander (Normal) and by extension Savage were designed and implemented do very little to encourage players to actually take part in the content, and this is coming from someone currently running Savage. This is especially true considering they're billing Savage as the highest tier of content until 3.2 which could very well be at least another 5-6 months from now.

That being said i don't believe that Alexander (Normal) was a mistake, In fact i feel it's addition is a positive step forward for the game

However i do support the idea that there should have been 3 tiers of raid difficulty, they needed a baseline Alexander that was on par with Coil releases in the past added first and then an easier (story) mode equivalent to what normal is now added later with a Savage mode rounding out the highest tier/rewards. Additionally raid design in this game is lacking some serious depth, I'm not sure how long the developers expect the playerbase to be content with 4 major (see: interesting) bosses with single hallway raid designs released every 6 - 8 months at this point, it's getting to the point where things are quickly starting to stagnate.

On a side note:

We generally accept that obtaining gear is an acceptable carrot at the end of the stick for completing content, but is there a reason that we feel a good story isn't?

This game has the main story scenario which is, for all intents and purposes designed to be cleared by 100% of the playerbase so why is side story content that has no effect/relevance on the main story expected to be cleared by 100% of the player base as well? No single player is denied the opportunity to enter "difficult" content, if anything the game provides you with the same resources and opportunity as any other player to attempt content so is there a reason that story is considered an unacceptable carrot other than "I want it!"?

Honestly it seems many of the accusations of exclusivity and elitism concerning this issue seem to be misplaced, i don't recall anyone saying that players should be kept out of content itself, only that not all content should be designed with the same difficulty and the same rewards, some players feeling that those rewards may include story and it may require a bit of work to achieve.

[Jamillion]

Wait, what? How does the existence of normal mode in any way sway anyone from running savage (that planned to run it anyway)? Sounds like a lot of QQing over nothing.

[Nadirah]

Wait, what? How does the existence of normal mode in any way sway anyone from running savage (that planned to run it anyway)? Sounds like a lot of QQing over nothing.

Apparently they want story to be exclusive to them.

Seriously. Who cares? Using story exclusivity for a motivation to do savage is stupid.

[Nestama]

Wait, what? How does the existence of normal mode in any way sway anyone from running savage (that planned to run it anyway)? Sounds like a lot of QQing over nothing.

Some people, like myself, were more interested in seeing the story than anything else. While I did have fun learning the fights and being the only caster getting ALL of the gear (I think I was the first to get BiS in my old static), the story was my main incentive. Alexander Savage Floor 1 is just a repeat of Alexander Normal Floor 1, but now the Resin Bombs leave puddles, all DPS need to deal with mini-adds and the bosses hit like trucks with trucks for wheels. It's an easy fight, but everything hits harder (and that fight alone made me lose interest in Savage).

I really wish Alexander NM was on the same difficulty as Extreme Primals. Since the current Extreme Primals are now obsolete, there's pretty much no mid-tier content (worth doing).

[Melch]

Wait, what? How does the existence of normal mode in any way sway anyone from running savage (that planned to run it anyway)? Sounds like a lot of QQing over nothing.

It just makes savage mode less appealing (i.e. there's nothing new to see).

[Kosmos992k]

Guys, I have a question for all of you who post complaints about Alex NM.

Once you have run Alex NM once and enabled Savage mode, why do you ever run Alex NM again?

I know that the answer is "to farm gear", but I have to wonder about that because if you gathered you gear through tomes, and tried to run Alex Savage until you were geared enough, and skilled enough, to beat it. Would you still complain about Normal mode? I think not.

In which case, isn't this a matter of choice? As in, you choose to farm the crap out of Alex Normal for gear to get through Savage more quickly. Almost all the complaints I have read about Alex normal boil down to the imagined requirement to grind the hell out of Alex Normal for gear to do Alex Savage, when in fact it's just one of the ways you can choose to gear your character.

So, I guess what my question boils down to is this, why should players thankful for Alex Normal mode's inclusion pay the price for your desire to gear up more quickly?

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

Hold on there, if you were on the forums for the huge discussions about Coil difficulty (and I think you were), you might remember that many non-casual players suggested or even embraced the idea of a story more only version (Normal Mode) along side the undiluted raid version (Savage). Adding Normal mode doesn't cater solely to more casual players, it resolved one of the deeper chasms that existed between hardcore players and casual players. Yet now we are there again with 'some' hardcore players railing against the normal mode because they burned themselves out by running that instead of Savage in order to more quickly gear up to beat Savage.