Raid Dificulty levles - request to SE

[Eidolon]

But then we'll just go back to the Coil days of people begging SE to "nerf content plz" because they can't experience the story.

SE should just make it so that Story Mode raids come out on the odd numbered patches (so Mhachi and Alexander Story, as an example) and the midcore and hardcore raids come out on even numbers. The midcore and hardcore raids being unrelated to the 'Normal' and each other.

Downside to this idea is that it may delay patches because of the amount of work it would require.

Why would they ask for nerfs anymore than they ask for it now? While I like your idea, I don't quite see how you connect the dots. They also only nerfed when the content became irrelevent - and even then, they kept the final turn (Turn 5/9) pretty unchanged every time, at that. The only nerfs we really got for those were frequently Echo, at best. And that just made it easier to reach dps/hps/tank checks.



However, as far as making it so it comes out in the Odd number instead of Even number, I dont' find this to be a bad idea. It serves to help in a catchup-patch. The only issue is you create a gap during the start of every patch that would need filling, which isn't currently being addressed (Except by crafted gear - and trust me : I definitely don't want to give crafters a one-up as the only way to progress gear-wise every other patch.)

A way to handle this may to be just reduce the gear by 10 ilevels (See in our current situation: Midan would be i210 instead of i220, and the Lore would be i220, and the Savage would be i230) which helps out all around in keeping all jobs relevent, keeping the gear itself relevant longer, and helps combat the power keep.

The problem if you remove the gear and weekly stuff, will result in people never run it again. Run it 1 time for story and never return, making impossible for new people complete it because the lack of players.

I think Alexader is good as is it.

For me, the current system presents 3 major problems:

1) it makes your alt jobs harder to keep relevant. Because every other patch sees a 30 ilevel raise, the old alt jobs we brought up become irrelevant extremely fast. The baseline becomes Alexamder story gear.

2) it worstens the power creep we saw in the 2.x series. Heck we're currently 3-4x stronger than 2.x. If this happens every expansion we're gonna see absurd numbers - just like wow did.

3) the content becomes irrelevant the moment the next major raid patch comes out. They tried to fight this with anima but let's face it - no one runs Alexander Gordias like they were running coil in the later patches (Especially the most major of 'gatekeeper' turns, because they were trying to catch up to raiders and join the pool - which also served as a great skill-check and kept the community pretty healthy.)

The solution? Make story mode just that - a STORY mode. You don't need gear for it. As a matter of fact, you could actually conceivably give each turn a daily or weekly quest that would give you the previous Savage items (max ilevel) as a reward. This would help people optimize alts, get glamor, keep it relevant, AND mitigate the power creep to its previous levels.

Even if you don't give the previous savage raid rewards, you can add a set of armor there in some way to help. The point is: STORY mode should be a STORY mode; NOT a part of the raid cycle for savage raiders.

Leave trying to force people into outdated content to the Anima grind, which even then imo fails pretty badly to draw people back to the Alexander line because of how long it takes to grind out the items.

[Ragnorak]

You people moaned that coil was too hard and you wanted to be able to see the story. SE gives that to you in 3.0 and you now want that gone because why? Leave as is

[Zojha]

You people moaned that coil was too hard and you wanted to be able to see the story. SE gives that to you in 3.0 and you now want that gone because why? Leave as is

I don't think these are the same people that complained back then...

[FallenArisen0990]

What is the point of all this? Once again, gear doesn't make the player. You could have the best gear in the world and be the worst player in the world. Idk why there is a big focus that Alex Normal shouldn't give gear. Leave the current system alone.

[zmandude24]

Just no since running the same raid 3 times as progression is a shithead idea and the reason I quit WoW.

[Noxifer]

2) it worstens the power creep we saw in the 2.x series. Heck we're currently 3-4x stronger than 2.x. If this happens every expansion we're gonna see absurd numbers - just like wow did.

And not only do we get ilvl upgrades of 30 ilvls instead of 20, but the stat increases are twice that. Made comparison between gear pieces from level 50 gear, i think i120 and i130 or something, and then between i190 and i200, and the difference was close to the double. Meaning that ilvl-wise, 3.0-3.4 (last ilvl upgrade) could be compared to getting patch 2.0-2.6, but statwise it's more comparable to getting 2.0-2.12 (if there were 12 major patches instead of said 12 being counted as a subpatch to 2.1). Math might be off, but I hope what I mean is clear enough ^^;

I get that people (in general) like to feel powerful, and a difference of 2-4 def/mdef and 4-6 points of your main stat on one piece makes little difference when you look at the numbers we're currently sporting (even if said number would be a lot smaller if we didn't have all this gear bloat to begin with), but... it does mean that the power creep is very real. What will it be during 4.0? An increase of 40 ilvls every other patch, with 3x the stat increase we had at 50? It just... doesn't bode well ^^;
(And don't even let me get started on the whole "hey, you get a new gearset every level between 50 and 60!" -_- Sure, the levels take exponentially longer than they did before 50, but still... it makes it close to impossible to gear up, because unless you're really lucky, by the time you've gotten together the entire lvl51 dungeon gear set, you've most likely dinged 52 or even 53 already and don't need it anymore. ;_; )

Sorry for the off-topic ramble. It just bugs me ^^;

As for the raid itself... I don't know if it needs that much adjustment. Though I do think the idea of "don't give loot from normal, but give it a repeatable quest to gain previous raid tier's loot" is an interesting one. You just need to figure out what to do with the first normal tier, or people's motivation to run it will only last until they've gone through it once (for story and to unlock the next one).

I also agree that there needs to be a lot more diversity in the things to do at max level, to keep people interested for at least two out of those three months until next patch.

[Reih]

This problem about levels is going to keep coming as long as SE keeps doing the same iterative content planning. This will keep happening to the <insert current raid> and <insert savage form of current raid>. For this to change they have to change the way they design future content. This is, in my opinion, where the developers should be more creative. There are great devs at SE, make them work for what we pay.

[JerinRycik]

Maybe staggering the phases would work? For example; savage mode on even patches with corresponding story mode on the following odd patch. That way the hard-core raiders and statics get exclusivity and first crack at story and gear, then a patch later the rest of us casuals get the story and gear that's on par or slightly better than current EX dungeon gear. Splits the difference, but wouldn't really add much work to the dev's plates. Refresh rate on content would be the same as it is now, but it would ensentivize savage without sacrificing the casual player base that doesn't have time or skill for savage.

[starLivitation]

I'm just saying here, normal mode is usless, we already have dungens that u can ignore mechanics and survive everything. the same applies to normal alexander, u can ignore many mechanics and it's fine u will finish it. why should there be a gear reward of i220 items, for doing so little in effort? if you wana do it for the story then there should be no drops.

We need a meduim level raid, if u want to put drops in there. eliminate the normal mode as it serve no purpose.

[alimdia]

Story mode: you can go in solo. no loot. you one hit KO the boss and boss can't kill you.

Normal mode: Same as normal at the moment but increase difficulty by 50%. (Also requires SSS pass to queue for in DF)

Savage: same as current savage

BAM
You just want story? Go do story mode.
Want some challenging shit? Do normal mode.
Want some static shit? Do savage mode