A3S nerfs incoming

[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.

[RiceisNice]

...

Normal mode can essentially be considered as filler content since it's shelf life isn't that long beyond the gated gearing process. If they had say, FCoB-tier normal mode and savage mode, the former would still last a bit longer, for both the process of gearing and content for players to tackle, while at the same time, savage still present a challenge without making people burnout if they're attempting it over the course of 4 months (when a month or two is spent on the previous tier).

To ride on what you're asying, savage mode being the only raid tier, and even if people do clear it, all that's let is the gearing process behind it then it becomes exhausted. Content needs to have shelf life, but at the same time it shouldn't be overly inacessible for the general population to tide them over until the next content patch.

[Nihility]

And in doing so, they potentially damage the endgame content further. If even say 30-40% of players could clear A3 Savage, then there is nothing left to challenge them until the next patch. Considering that Alexander Savage was released on July 23rd, and the only comparable content would be Thordan EX. This would equate to over six months of nothing to work towards in terms of "hardcore" content. MMOs require some sort of wall to impose upon players to inevitably challenge them or we're just trading one set of complainers for another.

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

[Fevelle]

god ... just why has everything to be nerfed ... just let it be like it is now ... its >>savage<< after all

Because it drops gear relevant to progression. If it was Savage just like Coil, where the rewards were only titles, there woul be no problem to keep it as it is.

[RiceisNice]

Because it drops gear relevant to progression. If it was Savage just like Coil, where the rewards were only titles, there woul be no problem to keep it as it is.

That's half of the problem. The other half is that with how undertuned normal mode is, Savage is the to-go-to raiding content for any and all raid statics. Can you imagine 2.2 to 2.3 if SCoB savage was the only option? That's the case right now with how undertuned Normal mode is; it doesn;t have any lasting shelf life for a typical static group, while at the same time savage requires a lot of time to be put into learning to get progression, something that most groups can't/don' want to commit. Take that and add 3-5 month gaps inbetween this and the next content update, and you got yourself a nasty problem with player burn out.

[Odett]

That's half of the problem. The other half is that with how undertuned normal mode is, Savage is the to-go-to raiding content for any and all raid statics. Can you imagine 2.2 to 2.3 if SCoB savage was the only option? That's the case right now with how undertuned Normal mode is; it doesn;t have any lasting shelf life for a typical static group, while at the same time savage requires a lot of time to be put into learning to get progression, something that most groups can't/don' want to commit. Take that and add 3-5 month gaps inbetween this and the next content update, and you got yourself a nasty problem with player burn out.

Yup. I really can't see the purpose of the current Alex Normal mode because it was not handled very well in terms of content difficulty distribution. We have Alex 1 Normal mode, which is basically "Babby's First Raid", and then they release Void Ark a patch later that's catered to...the same group of players? I don't mind that there are 2 different difficulties for one raid, but it doesn't work very well when they are "too easy" and "very hard". If they keep doing 2 difficulties for Alex in future patches, ramping up the difficulty of Alex Normal to the level of Coil, where it would basically act as a stepping stone to Savage mode, would be a lot better.

You can't do Alex Normal to prepare for Savage right now because the difficulty curve is too big. Having Void Ark be easy mode, Alex Normal be "midcore raid group" mode, and Alex Savage being there for the bleeding edge raiders would be a better system, IMO. The main problem with Alex Savage right now and group disbandment is that groups that could clear Coils are going into Savage mode and getting wrecked because the level of individual player responsibility is much higher, and there isn't really an easy way to tell a friend "we've been raiding since 2.0 BCoB up to FCoB last year, but you're not really up to par for the current raid".

[Colorful]

snip

I believe they consider Alexander Normal to be very successful and are glad more people got to see raid content this time around, unlike with Coil. They weren't very sure of Savage though, mixed response with some people loving it and a lot hating it. Keeping in mind that it's a lot easier to strip a raid of its mechanics and make it easier, than have two challenging difficulties with varying mechanics, I'm thinking they'll scrap Savage and have Normal and Hard/Extreme. But hey, considering we're not getting a new Diadem map in 3.2 and still only 2 dungeons, why not three difficulties? Normal is for the story only, Hard/Extreme is for the gear, and Savage is for the mount and title... and maybe the weapon can only be found in Savage to assure that it isn't dead content? Not sure if people would like that, though, but if they disagree with it, it would make them seem more than a tad hypocritical.

[Yukiko]

Why to bother beating thordan for the stupid gear check if you need to learn the mechanic patterns in savage anyway?
You do not learn anything from thordan that can help in AS4, you just get a better weapon for the gearcheck in there...
Most players i know are upgrading their weekly eso while throwing their heads against the savage mechanics to learn them, even knowing they dont have the gear to beat it...

Alex savage was very bad for the community, i have never seen so many hatred just because DPS, not even coil was ever that bad.
Square Enix have to stop with the lockouts, it does not make any sense that players are not allowed to help others once cleared...
It is good that they try to stop winselling, but those restrictions are hitting the weak and not the selling players!

Edit:

(..) I have never in my life seen so many raid groups break apart and so many people quit raiding and even quit the game because they feel the raiding is just plain not fun

Of course I've also been playing MMO's so long that I can clearly remember when enrage timers were a very soft thing only put in place to prevent goofy tactics like kiting a boss through an entire zone while a single archer plunks away for an hour and a half.
The way they've transitioned into a hard time limit on every single encounter just seems like the laziest design choice possible

Even wildstar, the game advertised towards the 1% of the 1% super hardcore, didn't have stupidly tight enrage timers on bosses if they even had them at all

^this
The hardest content does not come from making tight timers or enrage the whole fight and let everyone preform "perfect" to unforgiving mechanics, its the "challenge" that attracts players and not the "impossibility"...
To overcome the challenge is fun and not to try something impossible (impossible does not mean unbeatable)... Climbing a wall is fun, not breaking through it with your head...

[UBERHAXED]

Why to bother beating thordan for the stupid gear check if you need to learn the mechanic patterns in savage anyway?
You do not learn anything from thordan that can help in AS4, you just get a better weapon for the gearcheck in there...
Most players i know are upgrading their weekly eso while throwing their heads against the savage mechanics to learn them, even knowing they dont have the gear to beat it...

Alex savage was very bad for the community, i have never seen so many hatred just because DPS, not even coil was ever that bad.
Square Enix have to stop with the lockouts, it does not make any sense that players are not allowed to help others once cleared...
It is good that they try to stop winselling, but those restrictions are hitting the weak and not the selling players!

There's nothing stopping players from going back and helping their friends. Are we even playing the same thing?

Edit:

^this
The hardest content does not come from making tight timers or enrage the whole fight and let everyone preform "perfect" to unforgiving mechanics, its the "challenge" that attracts players and not the "impossibility"...
To overcome the challenge is fun and not to try something impossible (impossible does not mean unbeatable)... Climbing a wall is fun, not breaking through it with your head...

But have already beat it 4 months ago with a lot less gear... How exactly is this impossible?

[Iamsomeone]

It's so cute how people keep whining about difficulty and are yet unwilling to improve... Jeessus, this game seriously has the baddest players I've ever seen. Ideology seems to be; " I want everything but I don't wanna work for it". Dem scrubs.