A3S nerfs incoming

[Giantbane]

Alex savage isnt the first one that got nerfed in history of FFXIV.
I was not trying to attack Giant, it was meant generally.

Edit: What makes Alex Savage Special is that yoshi himself said that they expected more players to clear it by now!

Alex Savage is also special in that it pretty much only exists as a challenge. The gear locked behind it isn't any more powerful than Eso or Diadem gear, the skins are just just dyeable versions of Alex Normal, and there isn't any story to it. There's really not a whole lot of reason to clear it other than the challenge of doing so.

I will agree there isn't any good middle tier content between Alex normal mode and A3S. That's also an issue.

[zosia]

I will be sure to use arguments IF you bring arguments yourself. All you did was say that "raiders deserve the best rewards because they raid".
You said they "trivialize raid rewards", something that personally I disagree, and you came back saying that I have a nauseating entitlement sense, so, in a way, you kinda said that they should focus on raid rewards. That's not a strawman I created, it was simple an answer to your statement about entitlement.

No, that is not what I meant. Insinuating that I made some statement that this game should cater to hardcore players is the strawman because that's not my position. You're assuming my position off of one statement.

What you seem to fail to understand is that the current savage scene doesn't affect only raiders, nor the solution is to appeal only to them. If this game wants to live and last long, they need to get to a parameter where casual, softcore, midcore and hardcore raiders are pleased, not to mention taking into account the crafters/gatherers and in-game economy issues.

No, what you seem to fail to understand that is that I DO understand and I often refer to the wow content model as being a good version of verticle progression that has something to offer that is satisfying to all types of players. Check your assumptions yo!

This is not as simple as "give BiS to the hardest content in game and we're done". They need to reward every type of effort, be it time sink relic quests, DF story-mode players, midcore raiders and hardcore alike. ALL your points made here only appeal to YOUR demographic, and that's why I said it was egoistical. Try thinking outside of the box a little, take a walk on someone else's shoes, and try to be a little more understanding, because your posts brought nothing constructive to the discussion until now.

I agree it's not that simple. Also, go check my post history and see for yourself. I tried being reasonable, empathetic and compromising and it got us nothing and it was never even commented on by a CM. It only showed me how the community on the OF feels towards raiders. I don't care to act nice or civil anymore because your side is always fast to generalize and cry foul at any concern we have the you deem elitist.

w/e we both added nothing of value here and will any of this really matter? Nope.

[ViktorMestrovic]

Thordan is a joke.. honestly.. Nothing wrong with the difficulty level. 40 + wins.. never had the item I want drop lol.. but hey.. I could still buy the weapons I wanted. If anything about savage gets nerfed, it should just be that in a4s the first quarantine target shouldn't be selectable for the third quarantine. Quarantine hits some job much much harder in terms of dps loss whereas others lose virtually nothing *cough* ninja *cough monk* HP should be reduce on the manipulator only...
to encourage clean gameplay that doesn't involve cheese strats like letting the Straf doll live or sacrificing people on purpose for royal pentacles. My group is clearing a3s in 10:25, a1s is 4:23 (some clear it in 3 minutes) a2s so fast that the final bomb from the second last wave is dropping while we're doing the actual final wave. Despite how high our dps, I still believe that A4S needs an hp nerf to the manipulator to encourage the fight mechanics to be performed properly. Cheese strat is not working as intended. In terms of a3s nerfs... ugh.. what do you expect? magnets -> brain check -> digi passes.. again.. clean management strategy and brain check negates the difficulties associated with digi.. Not sure what people expect from a3s.. nerfed damage on the splashes or cascades? Not really necessary.. nerfed damage of the hands in p4? The i205 weapons and charity twines have already solved dps related issues. The fights don't need to be nerfed.. common sense just needs to be applied. If you don't understand how to DPS well, look up some online guides or tutorials for your job.. check out fflogs to see the rotations or CD management of other jobs. *******Understand how rear and flank positionals work in this game******* Very little space or movement is required to land positionals. A greedy melee partner not understanding this fundamental mechanic of the game can cause horrendous undue hardship and wipes by giving other players no where to dodge ground aoe or sluice. Many groups are wipes by greedy, ambitious fflog stacking players. If you can do both with consistency then there's no problem.. but a lot of the time.. people staring at dps meters and hoping others pick up the slack for them with mechanics ends up wiping groups. (moving around for positionals while healers try to pass dig, etc. Going for greedy hits on targets which tanks are hitting & have drainage tethers on them.) A3S and A4S are not difficult mechanically. If situational awareness is too hard for you, become a crafter and earn gil instead.
The content is meant to be approached intelligently and a great number of players are too lazy. Too lazy to work on their rotations with the training dummies, too lazy to check ability timings, etc. The most difficult part of a3s and a4s is creating a team of 8 people who are not lazy, understand how to get the most out of their class and possess situational awareness. The players who aren't learning the mechanics after a month of doing the content continue to make the same mistakes 2 or 3 months later. tl;dr it isn't a mechanics problem, it's a player problem. Bad players holding good players back.. the story of MANY MANY groups that just about any raider can relate to. This content can be unforgiving, but that's the point. Hell.. 1 player dc after 5 minutes... 2 others players died compensating for the dc person(DPS).. still cleared a3s in 12ish minutes that same attempt and discovered a dc player = 1 chest, despite all players not clearing that week. Anyone asking for a nerf outside of hp on the manipulator to encourage the intended mechanics checks is Just stating that they or someone in their team is not a good player. Many groups disbanded from 3.1 to present. It sucks to have to replace great people who are not good players, but is necessary sometimes to succeed in this environment.

[Sunako]

Thordan is ilvl 190 content and most of us have 200 - 210 pieces in every slot so it should be piece of cake. Even while solohealing as healer you can dps 50% of time.

[ViktorMestrovic]

Thordan is great.. people can die left and right and still be ressed to clear anyway. There are just certain spots where you cannot mess up. It's a very recoverable fight with flashy mechanics designed to distract you from how simplistic each mechanic really is.

[Fevelle]

Thordan is ilvl 190 content and most of us have 200 - 210 pieces in every slot so it should be piece of cake. Even while solohealing as healer you can dps 50% of time.

That's what you would assume with a static. Of the 5 times I attempted it on Exodus, 3 times I had to deal with people dying to Meteorain at 20 seconds into fight and all the 5 with people who could not dodge the lance dives (not to mention tanks failing on Blade Dance and eating it with 0 CDs). On all times, I had to raise at least 4 times BEFORE meteor phase, and that's with a co-healer also helping. If SQEX wants PUG-able content, it needs to be undertuned just like AN, or to a maximum of VA difficult.

[RiceisNice]

That's what you would assume with a static. Of the 5 times I attempted it on Exodus, 3 times I had to deal with people dying to Meteorain at 20 seconds into fight and all the 5 with people who could not dodge the lance dives (not to mention tanks failing on Blade Dance and eating it with 0 CDs). On all times, I had to raise at least 4 times BEFORE meteor phase, and that's with a co-healer also helping. If SQEX wants PUG-able content, it needs to be undertuned just like AN, or to a maximum of VA difficult.

The thing is, I don't see EX primals as being the "pug-able" content (espesically when you can't DF for it), PF formation at the minimum. You have content like VA, CT and nerfed coils for that.

[Sunako]

I killed thordan myself with partyfinder group before static. I have killed it over 50x and only 10 kills are with static. Rest of the kills are with "farm" party. Some of the farm parties are wipe fests, some can actually farm it. It just depend on luck what kind of group you get but the same was in the ravana, shiva, leviathan, titan ex back in days.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Blizzard don't even have 30-40% participation in their four difficulties. Reading through this thread you'll find that instead of banging their head against a boss for months most people will, or have, just quit either due to them tiring of it or fellow static members. Four months on four bosses is enough to drive anyone to quit.

I think you don't really understand just how few people even do raids.
If 30-40% of the population was even attempting alexander savage it would be something for S-E to be bragging about for having the best attendance of any MMO raid ever

as it stands now i would have a ton more fun just having a farm night for alexander than player A quits because it's no fun then player B quits because A was his friend then going through 3-6 sets of recruits before finding 2 new ones that can handle dps check while doing mechanics and by then player C quits because he's just tired of being stagnant training new recruits then more testing and training to find a competent new guy then player D decides progression isn't going fast enough and server transfers to be one of the recruits of another group going through the same thing and it just goes round and round

You both are misinterpreting what I said. That percentage was merely a random example to cite people quitting over A3's immense difficulty would likely quit later on due to "having nothing to do" if it were nerfed enough they were able to clear it. Shelf life is fine, but there needs to be a wall of some degree maintain a lengthily enough challenge until the next bevy of content is released. Frankly speaking, if people outright quit because they cannot beat A3 savage, they were always going to quit eventually. The issue I take with nerfing it is this presumes all content is meant for everyone. I am a big proponent of midcore level raiding, yet also feel there should be something in the game for those who enjoy brutally difficult challenges. It's the equivalent argument I have towards games that claim to have multiple difficulty levels, but make them all relatively easy.

The operative word there is "you." Conversely, I would have fun preparing for Savage, but I'm also someone who will grind for 7+ hours straight and occasionally enjoys games like Bloodborne, which is notorious for beating the crap out of you until you learn.

Now if they brought in the Echo, I could accept that "nerf" because it appeases both of sides. I still have the opportunity to get tarred and feathered until I finally get it (or die trying!) and others get an easier challenge if they wipe. What I don't want to see is a nerf equivalent to Steps of Faith. While I do appreciate why they did eventually nerf it, SoF went from a legitimate challenge with some interesting mechanics to a complete snooze fest. If they just lowered A3's DPS check slightly, I wouldn't have as much an issue.

One other solution I could get behind is what Mr. Happy grudgingly suggested. They nerf A3, but the next levels of Savage become just as hard to compensate. Basically, it opens up progression and a better opportunity to prepare for the harder challenge ahead.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If normal mode wasn't an undertuned, DF content, then sure. Otherwise, you're acrrying over players who have statics oriented to FCoB slamming their heads onto A3s for the past few months, assuming they were even in a static for that long. Otherwise, if you're omitting savage out of the equation, there's no raid content other than normal mode which is DFable. Being on either (or both) end of the extreme isn't good; If it's too easy, it gets exhausted too quickly. If it's too difficult for most people, well you kinda see where we're at now with the raiding community.

But then is the solution "nerf A3 Savage" or "Establish a midcore level for players who want a challenge, just not one as brutal as A3?" Thordan EX is a prime example of developing a good fight that fits the latter paradigm, though supposedly the devs have said they won't make another quite that difficult, which I find disappointing.