Discussion : How to boost Alexander attractiveness ?

[Caelestia]

First of all, this is not a whiny thread, it's just to see how we could make Alexander Raid feel more epic, as right now its just lethargic droids and some dumb goblins who think they can control the world.
Remember what we were used to for the past 2 years : Badass Dreadwyrm who nearly destroy the wolrd.

The point here is to think of what are the flaws in Alexander, which make it less desirable than Coil was.
We can open a discussion with people opinions on what make you feel like Alexander is poorly designed, and to begin with, here are my thoughts about it.

First, lets talk about the music. Coil musics had, to me, an epic feel, some epic music as we can ear in some blockbusters trailers, that is entertaining music, thats the kind of music that drives you through the fight, the kind of music where you could just slay a marmot and feels like you did something amazing.
On the other hand, Alexander musics are just, meh... some randoms words attached together on some metal music, nah i just dont feel it. Give me T13 with A4 music and im pretty sure i'll dislike it. This music in Alexander is not appealing at all, i remember doing T13 and unmute FFXIV each time before raid, now i cant even imagine doing that for A4 because i would rather just listen to some old 2.X music or even listen to something totally different.

Then, there is the scenery of the raid. Even cut in 4 turns, Coil environnement was so impressive; Bahamut Hand for T5, Holocharts for T9, the circle of life representation on T13 floor, even mid-raid bosses had some pretty good looking places (T1, T7, T11).
Here with Alexander, we are locked up in some metalic primal who is in a lethargic state, where every room feels just empty, seems like what all they did was just put 4 walls 1 floor and thats it here is A1, same goes for A2-4. No room feels impressive in this raiding tier, even A4, the least charismatic boss ever in FFXIV don't have an epic room to balance.

Talking about the encounters. First the feeling of discovering a new encounter :
- T1-T4, "well, good looking boss", T5, "WTF !".
- T6-8, "well, good looking boss", T9, "WTF !".
- T10-11, "well, good looking boss", T12, "WTF !", T13, "WTF²²²²² !"
For Alexander:
- A1-2, "well some pathetic droids, oh and goblins...".
- A3, "oh something new that's cool"
- A4, "well, going back to random looking droid"

Now lets talk about difficulty.
Normal is here to let casuals enjoy the story. In my opinion the story of Alexander is not worth discovering, whereas Coil was worth discovring.
The diffuculty is on par with CT so their goal for this mode is reached.
With Savage on the other hand, i think that A1S/A2S should have been a bit harder, because it pales in comparaison to A3S/A4S, or they could have made it 6 encounters (with 2 mid-core fights between A2S and A3S).
From my point of view, A3S is the only fight that deserve the Savage title, A1S/A2S are too easy (cleaned in less than a day), and A4S has just bad designed mecanics (im sorry but a fight where the main mecanics can be avoided by "sacrifying" ourselves is just very bad design). So in a way if A1S/12S had been a bit harder, and A4S wasn't a total mecanic mess, it would have been totally perfect in term of savage difficulty.
But at least they succeded in giving us something more consistent than Coil in term of progression duration (T13 was 4 days, A4S was a bit more than a month so overall it seems ok even if they can improve on some points).

Finally, a point that i haven't seen a lot since the begining of ARR, but during last weeks i tried to play again other games just to take a small breath, and i realised a big point in raiding environnement.
Why on earth did they put CT's bosses in an ENTIRE instance and they can't do it with Coil/Alexander. Seriously ? What about putting all bosses in a complete environnement ? They showed us they can make it with CT, why don't they do it with 8man raids ?
It's only my opinion but i think Coil had this flaw (several encounters in several rooms and nothing to connect them with eachothers except a small bland room between each turn) and they are making the mistake again with Alexander. I can't be sure, but i think this last point can be the begining of the revamp of their mindset for creating 8man raids (if they want to start somewhere, better be there)


I know it's a lot of text to read, and my english isn't perfect but i had to say it on the forums maybe a community manager will go over here and pass on the idea to the brainstorming team (yeah, yeah i can forever hope xD).

[Dante_V]

Make it more challenging. Being able to df through it in a couple hours blind make it more like a dungeon than a raid. Coil had that feeling of overcoming a challenge. There were certain dungeons that had more captivating and difficult content than alex nm does.

[Februs]

In terms of the "Epic" feel of a Raid, I think you're right. The Coil was far more epic than Alexander, and the stakes in the Coil were a lot higher. Part of the problem is the nature of the Primals we're dealing with and their worshipers.

Spoilers, for those of you who did not complete Bahamut's story line.

In the Coil, we eventually discovered that those responsible for summoning Bahamut were captured dragons that were left in a state of suspended animation and perpetually tortured for 5000 years, and the God they summoned was a EXTREMELY ANGRY MONSTER who wanted to destroy EVERYTHING. By comparison, Alexander is just... there. I don't take Goblin's seriously, for one. They have some interesting Tinker Toys, but there's not a single Goblin that has been even remotely intimidating, so it's difficult to take them seriously. Half the time I'm like, "meh, even if we lost. Who cares? They're Goblins. What's the worst they could do?" And Alexander himself doesn't seem to give a hoot. He's idle. He has no voice. He has no will. I know that's because he's gathering Aether to awaken, but right now he's just a cosmetic environment for us to fight in. By comparison, I don't find him nearly as intimidating as Bahamut.

That being said, it's still early. Bahamut started in a similar way. He wasn't complete, and in the first coil he did not speak or move, so there was a sense of tension that at any moment he might wake up. Alex is similar in this regard, and I'm willing to bet SE will play off of this with each new set of Alex raids, but right now he's just a lump in a lake. We don't even really know what he's capable of. Bahamut had a pretty impressive CG scene where he leveled the Cartenau Flats. Alex has a few rumours and some foggy history .... Not really impressive by comparison.

[Caelestia]

Make it more challenging. Being able to df through it in a couple hours blind make it more like a dungeon than a raid. Coil had that feeling of overcoming a challenge. There were certain dungeons that had more captivating and difficult content than alex nm does.

I'm not specialy talking about NM, i'm talking about the raid itself. In term of difficulty i think NM does exactly what it should do, make casuals players enjoy the story and it's ok for me, if i want challenging content i'll go savage. The flaw i can see there, is that there is no in-between, like content for mid-core players, thoose who are bored with Alex NM and still can't make it through A3S (or even A1S/A2S)

I don't take Goblin's seriously, for one. They have some interesting Tinker Toys, but there's not a single Goblin that has been even remotely intimidating, so it's difficult to take them seriously. Half the time I'm like, "meh, even if we lost. Who cares? They're Goblins. What's the worst they could do?

Pretty much sums up my thoughs of the last 2 months. I'm pretty sure they are so dumb even if we don't fight they couldn't even awake him xD

[Cetonis]

I have the feeling that the focus of your efforts is going to change from goblins to whatever / whomever was responsible for the events three years ago... and (hopefully) that will turn out to be something suitably epic.

As for the "mid-core" argument, making NM harder could have accomplished that for a little while. The only key requirement for NM Alex is that casual players are able to clear it and see the story -eventually-. It wouldn't have been too hard to tune it such that it was actually a pretty reasonable challenge at i180, but pretty easy to clear at i205+echo as 3.2 came around. That way as people clear it (better players earlier, decent players after a few weeks, lesser or slower players down the road) they'd have a little bit of that sense of accomplishment tied to the story.

[MerleSirlos]

If you want to compare Alex(savage only) and coil, you should only compare the first part of Coil, not the full 13 turns....

*T1 was nice, but with lot of trash that people just skipped most of the time. take out the trash, you are left with ACD and Caduceus, who splits in two half way.
A1 we have Faust, and Oppressor who splits half way.

*T2 is in a strange position as the enrage makes the fight easier. so players just wait in front of the boss till enrage and fight it. But it was interesting to have 2 paths depending on your team composition.

*T3, jumping everywhere with nothing in the end, fun break thought.

*T4 was trash waves, like A2.

*I would like to put T5 together with A3 as a mechanically interesting fight.

*A4 feels like something new the try for the most hardcore raiders


As for the general feeling of the entire raid, it is a bit unfair to compare both. Coil was a huge artificial moon hidden underneath Eorzea. you know the threat Bahamut represents because you can see the results of his rage that is the calamity. The entire Coil is made to make you feel amazed as how huge it is. T5 is on the palm of Bahamut, it's extremely symbolic as you are all the time in his grip fighting his champions. Even in the end you don't fight him "directly".
Alexander is a complete opposite, as you are inside it. The whole thing is to make you feel oppressed as you are navigating inside a giant deadly machine. And if not for the goblins, Alexander would most likely have already made more damage than Bahamut.

For the music, to each is own, and I like both. As for the story, I agree with you that this first part has a very low impact

As for the last point for OP, if all the bosses were in the same instance, you would have to fight everything each time you enter. Unless you put check points and shortcuts like in T1 and T7 after the trash for example. but if you do that, it ends up being basically the same as the current situation. The main advantage of the current way is to make it easier to farm a specific turn/floor once it is on DF.

[StouterTaru]

Why on earth did they put CT's bosses in an ENTIRE instance and they can't do it with Coil/Alexander. Seriously ? What about putting all bosses in a complete environnement ? They showed us they can make it with CT, why don't they do it with 8man raids ?

1 - Cutscenes. Remember the last two level 50 story line dungeons? Wouldn't work for normal, but savage could work.

2 - Drops. Again would be annoying in normal due to the loot system, but possible in savage. It would take a checkpoint system, but that's nothing new for FFXIV raids.

[Renault]

1 - Cutscenes. Remember the last two level 50 story line dungeons? Wouldn't work for normal, but savage could work.

2 - Drops. Again would be annoying in normal due to the loot system, but possible in savage. It would take a checkpoint system, but that's nothing new for FFXIV raids.

You kind of contradicted your own point. We can have cutscenes without having to have new areas. The last boss area in 5 mans use the checkpoint system to play cutscenes, not sure why that couldn't be implemented to the raids.

[Osteichthyes]

What I find to be most unappealing is just how dull most of the areas are. Coils had some interesting features in relation to colour, but Alex is just all grey and bland. Everything just feels the same, and I know they are limited as to what they can create to maintain the aesthetic, but they could have done a little more. Even thinking about the first coils there was a lot of difference, oranges and blues then into reds, there was a lot of variance.

In relation to savage not being popular, I think it could work if savage was released first then normal mode later. The people who would run normal mode would be less likely to complain (although there would have to be something else for them to do in the meantime), but the hardcore people would be able to jump straight into the action and the fights wouldn't feel stale. This would mean adjusting difficulties to make up for the lack of gear but it's better than no one running the content, because then it is just a waste of resources that could go into making more content.

[Nutz]

You kind of contradicted your own point. We can have cutscenes without having to have new areas. The last boss area in 5 mans use the checkpoint system to play cutscenes, not sure why that couldn't be implemented to the raids.

I believe he was getting at the fact that as far as the story goes when completing each instance of Alexander you view a long cut scene that ends with you leaving to talk to your team in the Hinterlands. Even if it were made such that you didn't leave the area for additional story, having even 1 new player would cause a CM/ Praetorium situation where everyone is sitting around waiting for said player to view the (admittedly boring) cut scenes before progressing, likely resulting in the new player being kicked for viewing cut scenes (reason: AFK).

As to the other things mentioned, to me the story is the worst offender. It's rather dull and as was said, the Goblins don't feel intimidating and are even made to be comically inept most of the time. Sure, they're not the real threat exactly, but Alexander as a threat seems very vague and in the background, at least up to this point.

I actually really like the music, at least for A1-3. The aesthetic also feels appropriate to me. I like the difficulty where it's at (a bit more difficult than CT, but still nothing that requires perfection or very specific coordination), and I feel the fights are decently interesting within those parameters. For me, the story is really the only weak point.

The above is only in reference to hard mode (in reality story/ normal mode -- things shouldn't be labeled 'hard' as the lowest possible tier). I haven't tried, nor do I intend to try Savage mode. Just not the sort of content I'm interested in at the moment (static groups/ sitting in PF forever, exacting DPS checks, etc.).