To be honest, Alex Savage is a failure.

[Suirieko]

I'm fairly tired out of my mind, so my writing won't be the best. Was having a discussion with some of my FC mates, and this thread came to my mind. I'm sure I'm not the first to say it, but I really, really dislike the direction that Alexander Savage is taking, and believe me, this is coming from someone who seriously enjoys raiding. I just can't help but feel that I need to speak up.

Here's what made Coil of Bahamut a lot of fun:
A) The fights were a lot of fun. Among my favourites was Turn 5, Turn 6, 7, 9, Turn 10, 11, and 13. Hell Even turn 2 was fun in its own way. These fights were memorable, had crazy but fun gimmicks, and I always finding myself trying to push hard to finish these fights. Bottom line is, almost all of these fights were a lot of fun doing. Only one I didn't like was turn 3 and 4 for obvious reasons.

B) The gears. Many of the gears and weapons were fantastic looking. Some of the best glamour in the game. The fact that people have been asking for dyeable version of these gears speak volume. People still farm the coil for glamour. The major factors in the 'lifetime' of a gear would be the glamour and the stats. For the most part, the coil delivered very well in both of these areas.

C) The story. The fact that it actually had a storyline was the main driving point for me to finish the coil. It answered questions we've had about Bahamut, Louisoix, Alisaie.

Bottom line is, Coil of Bahamut had this sense of epicness that gives a great sense of satisfaction when you progress in these raids. Of all the moments in FFXIV that I've had, I would say that the Coil of Bahamut were one of the best moments I've had in the game. I only regret that I didn't have the FC to do this with. Most of the time in coil, I've been winging through it with PF, which made it a great deal more frustrating, but yet more worthwhile doing it. Turn 9 was by far the most difficult challenge I've ever faced in the game, it was intense, it was insane, chaotic, and it was a lot of fun. There was a lot of joy out of beating Turn 9 and sticking it to Darnus one last time.

And then comes Alexander Savage. The only thing I could say that it delivers is challenge. IT certainly is challenging, but overall most of the mechanics are boring. Alexander 2 was completely boring to the point that I've had trouble with dozing off because it was incredibly repetitive. (I have a seriously exhausting job that drains me everyday). Then again, I was never a big fan of 'gauntlet runs' (See: turn 4).

I actually had a static and for the longest time, we've been stuck with AS3 for a while. To be honest, it was very hard to stay motivated to keep at it because there's really just.. nothing for me to look forward to. Glamour wise, the gears suck. Stat wise, the gears are nice, but very easily replaceable. You could argue that there's the mount at the end, but I could get the mount at any time later on, so I may as well wait until the savage is 'easy' enough to warrant getting the said mount. The "DPS Check" isn't even a challenge, frankly, I feel it's a cheap tactics to 'check' your gears and skills, and it's very annoying when we have to deal with it multiple times.

The ONLY fight I've enjoyed so far is the very first one (double oppressor). I thought it was fun that as a group we had to split up and fight two oppressors, while managing the mechanics.

The fact that the savage is just 'difficult' version of the normal fight is what puts me off the most. I struggled to even maintain the motivation to even bother continuing savage. The gears are nice and all, but what's the point of it, when it's gonna be easily replaced in a couple of months?

Yes I know these fights aren't for the "casuals", that's not the point I ENJOY challenging fights and raids, but these Alexander Savage, especially considering it's based off of one of my favourite summons of all time (Alexander) just makes it a great deal disappointing, and I hope it's not a trend in the future. I feel that SE just went completely lazy in all factors, from the challenge, down to the gears from the fight.

Anyway, that's my opinion, I just needed to vent my issue over it. Agree, or disagree, I don't care. some might fun these fights to be fun (but I don't lol), some might not. It just sucks that for the first time ever, I can't help but feel and think "What's the damn point" yanno? It's not like that I CAN't do the fights (I certainly can) it's more like.. what' the damn point of doing it when there's nothing rewarding out of it, yanno?

anyway TL;DR:

Coil of Bahamut was great, it had a lot of great gears, the story was great, and the fights were memorable.

Alexander Savage fails to deliver on all that, and can't even compare to how fun Coil of Bahamut was. It's boring, I can't be arsed to continue on, and there's nothing that draws me to do so.

And that sucks, because I hate feeling that way in FFXIV and end game.

[Kitfox]

Funny thing, my static was just chatting about this same topic.

Raiding used to have 3 things going for it like you said: Story, Gear and Challenge. Only the last one remains, so it's no wonder the raiding community is dwindling. I get it why they would want the story to be accessible for a bigger audience but that used to be one of the biggest draws for me personally. We don't even have unique gear sets anymore like in Coils...

There's been a lot of talk how A3S and A6S have been ruining the raids due to overtuning, but instead of dumbing down everything until the 'savage' becomes mainstream like Void Ark or something, I think we should focus on the other incentives to keep raiders interested. When the last thing to raid for, the Challenge, disappears, so will the raiders.

We need more incentives to raid, not easier raids, imho.

[Alexftw]

A6S repetitive? All the 4 bosses mechanisms are different LOL(this one isn't even a dps check fight but mechanisms fight). A5S repetitive? Every bomb pattern phase is different. A7S repetitive? (OK this one yeah I admit it's a bit repetitive but the jail order is random and prey/there'd gets switched, plus thunders and beams happen at diff times).

Finnaly... A8S repetitive? XD. (Even first mechanism has 4 different ways of handling depending in how many stacks you have. And.. 2nd phase forces you to fight all a6s mechanisms at same time and unlike a6s a single mistake wipes us. The good side is less HP meaning phase2 takes less time than a6s).


A1S sure was repetitive. Same phase 2-3 times. A2S was repetitive (adds and adds lol. And bombs phase 4-8). A3S was also repetitive(even more than a7s).

[NailBach]

Brute Justice,

end of argument

[Radxen]

I will agree that Gordias was incredibly boring so much that I had zero interest once I hit a2s, but midas changed quite a lot and it's been tons of fun, me and my group have just been so entertained by mechanics and the mechanic names and actions are pretty funny too. If you haven't given midas a try I suggest you do and try to have fun with it, too many people lose out on the fun of these fights because their mindset is "it's not coil so it's not good"

[Xlantaa]

I agree you with the Arm of the Father (Savage) because it had a very severe DPS check and maybe the Cuff of the Father causse is trash mobs like Turn 4 of Binding Coil. But nothing more. The others fights are just awesome. Coil is better, that is true, but that's not make Alexander bad. Most of the gear is ugly, I agree with you here. Is VERY ugly. I wish the last Alexander has beter dessigns on the gear.

But, I enjoy fights. Cuf of the Son (Savage) is probably one of the funniest battles I fight in this game. Arm of the Son (savage), which are the one we're working now, is very fun too. I cannot wait to fight the Brutal Justice Savage.

[Belhi]

Question to the OP. Are you talking about Gordias and Midas or Gordias only?

I don't think you will find a lot of people arguing your points on Gordias but Midas has been quite a step up from it and mechanically the fights are pretty interesting.

That said, for me personally, Alexander has failed to hit a certain something when it comes to story and ambiance. I suspect that is at least in part because I just cant take the goblins seriously as an enemy even if logically lore wise they are. This undermines the sense of threat and epicness of the raid particularly with what your doing in Coil. Of course Bahamut is a hard act to follow but I still think that with the right Villainous face and theme Alexander could have felt a lot grander.

On a Side note, I actually really like a lot of gear from both wings of Alex. Certainly I wouldn't say the Gordias gear is really inferior in appearance to the Gordias stuff and Im kind of spilt on the Midas vs High Allagan because I really like some of the Midas stuff. That said, that is my personal preference.

The other part of this, the story, is a problematic issue. Its a valid issue but as Yoshi himself said, because only a very small portion of the Playerbase that actually ever cleared coil, return on investment is rather small for the resources put in to produce it. Its a difficult fix. A lot of players were unhappy that they never had the opportunity to see the Coil story because they either didn't have the timetable to allow for being in a static or didn't have the skill to clear the content. Perhaps a solution could be for Savage raids to open up access to details or side stories tied to the raid. Rather than being the only source of the story, Savage fleshes the story out, telling details you don't see in the original.

So for example with Alex, while the NM tells the story of the clash with the Illuminati trying to revive alex, the Savage version is a 'simulation' tied to Alex's subsystems which by completing 'theoretical fights' unlocks an archive journal telling the story of the creation of the Codex, kind of like a prequel.

[LeeraSorlan]

hate alex as well but not for your reasons...while they are indeed valid.

i hate alex because i hate steampunk/mecha type themes. so alex is extremely offputting.


i would definantly do coil, had it had no story or loot, because the fights themselves are very pleasing and enjoyable to do.
alex..however is a pile of trash

[Animarelic]

I agree with the incentive not being there. It was the same problem with Coil because;

Locking the Story behind a difficulty that others may not have the skill or time to invest in isn't fair and was one of the major downsides to Coils. The upside was it forced more people to raid to get the story and lore.

The Walls to unlock more raid content was a problem because it still forced the devs to dumb down content which used more resources instead of what they're doing now. The upside is that it forced more players to raid even with the nerfs just to get to the story and some glams.

The Rewards need to be slightly better because Raiders are taking larger time sinks and risks to complete the content. The Devs still insist on giving Raiders and Non-Raiders the same gear ilv which isn't fair especially if they don't plan to even attempt the content. Only giving out a single weapon isn't that much of an incentive Raiders should have more to show for their investment in taking on the hardest content even if it's only a 5 item level difference to give them a head start on the next tier instead of trying make everyone "equals" at the start of every new raid patch.

[Ceasaria]

I don't know why you compare just A1S-A4S to T1-T13.
If you do, then, just do it with the first coil and Gordias (yeah, it seems you forgot Midas). You like one fight in A1S-A4S and one fight in T1-T5. So what's the problem ? You can't have big epic mortal fight with sensationnal music at the beginning. It's crescendo between each raid and inside the serie of raids itself.

For me, the first serie of raid in 2.0 and 3.0 are not very enjoyable (maybe A3S and T5).
But Midas was very successful for me, maybe even more than second coil (except T9 but i have to beat A8S to verify it).
I'am confident for the last serie of raids.