My thinking about Alex normal/savage. Issue IMHO inside

[Mature]

ALEX normal is the BEST thing that happened to HW. It kinda overshadows the fact that you don't need an static or beg people to help you. You just join the raid with a bunch of people and get on with it. It kinda as well makes people be at the same level equally. I am pleased with this and hopefully it will carry on all the way thru future patches.

[Synestra]

ALEX normal is the BEST thing that happened to HW. It kinda overshadows the fact that you don't need an static or beg people to help you. You just join the raid with a bunch of people and get on with it. It kinda as well makes people be at the same level equally. I am pleased with this and hopefully it will carry on all the way thru future patches.

Tryed it once without static group and dear god it was horrible experience, i gotta give some serious respect for those that DF that thing every time, i simply cannot do it ever again.

[Madjames]

Other games did raiding right other then World of Warcraft.

Look at SWTOR. While the game is not very good, its raiding now as well as its story is 100x better then FF14, sorry. I guess you could say I am used to raids taking more time and actually requiring trash clears that can drop raid equiv. loot.

Will I go into Alex savage? No honestly because its not really a raid. Its 1-2 trash pulls and then one boss and then you are done. However if it was on par with Ulduar or ICC you bet.

I know some will not agree with this thread but that is just how I feel. I come from games where raiding took time, effort, and was challenging.

If a group has Alex Savage on 100% complete farm you effectively can run the whole thing in one night with putting around 1-2 hours in MAX. No raid I have ever done in any other MMORPG was ever completed in an hour or two besides that stupid raid right before ICC. When that was completed we had other end game stuff we could do.

[Colorful]

Other games did raiding right other then World of Warcraft.

Look at SWTOR. While the game is not very good, its raiding now as well as its story is 100x better then FF14, sorry. I guess you could say I am used to raids taking more time and actually requiring trash clears that can drop raid equiv. loot.

I don't know how it is now, but on launch the raiding with SWTOR was pathetic at best, that's not saying FFXIV is any better. Wildstar has the best raids and world design bar none, if only Blizzard or SE snatched up their team instead of hiring from inside. I also found SWTOR's story incredibly boring, but then again I find Star Wars boring. The cutscene system, choices, and voice acting are all significantly better than FFXIV but that's understandable. Yoshida and the team didn't have $200,000,000 to just blow after the disaster that was 1.0.

[Madjames]

I don't know how it is now, but on launch the raiding with SWTOR was pathetic at best, that's not saying FFXIV is any better. Wildstar has the best raids and world design bar none, if only Blizzard or SE snatched up their team instead of hiring from inside. I also found SWTOR's story incredibly boring, but then again I find Star Wars boring. The cutscene system, choices, and voice acting are all significantly better than FFXIV but that's understandable. Yoshida and the team didn't have $200,000,000 to just blow after the disaster that was 1.0.

The first raid was crap in SWTOR. I got through the entire regular mode in 3 hours the very first run through with my guild. However, the Palace and raiding since then has improved a whole lot. Star Wars is sci-fi and I left due to it going F2P and the game just being bland. However to me, the Imperial Agents story was the best story I have been through in a long time.

I have not nor will I try wildstar. Not interested at all. Ill stick with FF14 and hope the end game scene gets better.

[Ashkendor]

I have not nor will I try wildstar. Not interested at all. Ill stick with FF14 and hope the end game scene gets better.

If your idea of "better" is "takes hours and hours to run" you're going to be waiting awhile. This is a theme park MMO, meaning the experience tends to be broad but shallow. There's a wide variety of things to do, but none of them has much in the way of depth. I honestly kind of like the "bite sized" raid design the way it's done now. We get one raid that's split into four very manageable parts. It's nice during progression, because it allows you to effectively "save" your progress if you have limited time per raid session. Get past A1, don't have to do it again till next week and you can practice on A2. I'd rather it be set up that way than to have to deal with getting past A1 every time my static sits down to raid for awhile. If you can progress faster, that's still an option too.

[Madjames]

If your idea of "better" is "takes hours and hours to run" you're going to be waiting awhile. This is a theme park MMO, meaning the experience tends to be broad but shallow. There's a wide variety of things to do, but none of them has much in the way of depth. I honestly kind of like the "bite sized" raid design the way it's done now. We get one raid that's split into four very manageable parts. It's nice during progression, because it allows you to effectively "save" your progress if you have limited time per raid session. Get past A1, don't have to do it again till next week and you can practice on A2. I'd rather it be set up that way than to have to deal with getting past A1 every time my static sits down to raid for awhile. If you can progress faster, that's still an option too.

Wrong here sorry. World of warcraft's raids have 13-15 bosses per raid. Once you get past the first boss it saves that progress. Then you move onto the next raid boss. The raids are huge, and very fun (Looking at you Ulduar and ICC). Those raids were not shallow and crap. They were the best raiding experience I have ever had. The same is said for SWTOR raids as well.

The trash mobs in WOTLK had a Low low % chance to drop raid gear, rare crafting materials, mount parts, and other stuff. You did NOT see it every week you raided, you were lucky to see it one piece every other week if that. The chance is their though that is what makes trash mobs in raids needed and acceptable because of that chance. Some in Ulduar also had a chance of dropping pieces for a mount. If you acquired all of the pieces you could build a motorbike. Again though they were a very low drop rate's. Also when you cleared the trash the first time it would not reset until the whole raid reset once a week. So if the low low drop rate didn't drop anything that week then that was it, you waited for those low drop chance gear/materials until the next week when the raid bosses and trash reset. It was just a little something extra to have a chance at getting stuff is all.

The end game scene in this game sadly needs to be reworked. The raids are shallow. I do not even consider them raids. Four bosses to me is not acceptable when other games offer raids that have 13-15 raid bosses per raid. Why would you be ok with less content to do, when other games offer 10x the content for the same price as the game you are currently playing?

[Niroken]

Other games did raiding right other then World of Warcraft.
Look at SWTOR. While the game is not very good, its raiding now as well as its story is 100x better then FF14, sorry. I guess you could say I am used to raids taking more time and actually requiring trash clears that can drop raid equiv. loot.

What would stop people from just farming trash for raid gear?

[Aldora]

I personally see a section of a Raid, like the Binding Coil of Bahamut (BCOB), The Second Coil of Bahamut (SCOB), The Final Coil of Bahamut (FCOB) and Alexander: Gordias as 1 Raid with 4 to 5 Bosses which have been divided into separate Turns and Floors, so that groups can queue up for a specific Boss.

If you would take all Floors from Alexander: Gordias and stitch them together, you would a raid which (in size) is comparable to the “Terrace of Endless Spring”-raid from Mists of Pandaria. If you look at it like that, it doesn’t seem so bad. The only problem is, that we only get 1 of these “Coil” or “Alexander” raids every other (even numbered) patch, so 1 new raid every 6 months.

Next to Coil and Alexander, we also get 24 man Raids, namely The Crystal Tower and now the Void Ark (which will be released with 3.1). These raids however are not divided into separate floors and feels more like a Raid then Coil/Alexander does. We get a new 24-man Raid every other (odd numbered) patch, so like Coil/Alexander, we would get 1 new 24-man Raid every 6 months.

If they follow the same trend as they did in 2.x, we should be seeing 3 8-Man Raids and 3 24-man Raids during the 3.x patch cycle.

The main differences between these 2 types of Raids, is that Coil/Alexander are 8 man Raids, while the Crystal Tower/Void Ark are Alliance (24-main) raids. Next to that, the 24-man raids were a lot easier than their 8-man counterparts and were mostly used as a “stepping stone” for the 8-man raids. But, that was until the release of the Alexander Raid, with it’s “Normal” and “Savage” mode.

While i understand why the FFXIV team decided to split each 8-main Raid into separate Turns / Floors (to save the progress the group has made an give them the opportunity to continue where they left off the next day), they feel extremely small. This is due to the fact that Alexander Normal Floors aren’t difficult to clear. While our group was still working on Coil, we bashed our heads against these bosses for hours before managing a clear. That was something we were working towards as a group. This made the Raid relevant for an extended period of time.

But, now that we’ve farmed Alexander: Gordias for a few weeks, in order to gear our characters for Savage, we’ve lost the drive to keep on farming it. For us, it was starting to feel like a grind, rather than a fun challenge within a few weeks. A real shame.

I don’t want SE to remove Alexander Normal, because it will give people the means to see the whole story, but the difference between Alexander Normal and Savage is a bit too large. If that means that they can add an Alexander “Hard” mode, which is similar to Coil, that would make us a lot happier.

But, also it would be great if we could go through a raid like Alexander: Gordias in one go, like for instance “The Word of Darkness”. Slap a few challenging trash packs here and there and i’d be a very happy Mi’qote indeed. (^_~ )

I’d like to think that FFXIV is still evolving and expanding on things the team has learned through the years with the development with 2.x and Heavensward. I believe that the team has set a basis/foundation for Final Fantasy XIV with 2.x and is trying to expand on it by implementing new types of content for us to partake in (like the Airship Exploration), in 3.0 while maintaining the flow of game they’ve set with 2.x. Once they’ve added different types of content with the upcoming patches, they could start working on improving existing systems like the way they go about creating Raids and creating a more diverse set of encounters which do not depend on one-shot mechanics and high DPS walls.

“Rome wasn’t build in a day.”

So, I’m keeping an open mind when it comes to the development of Heavensward and i look forward to what SE has in store for us with the rest of the 3.x patches (and beyond).

[melisande]

I stopped reading at "WoW"