I guess it's time

[Alaltus]

Although I personally dont like having multiple difficulties of the same content, I will agree that getting rid of them at this junction isn't the best option either; however, we do have several minds in this forum so its possible that a middle ground can be achieved if we actually brainstorm rather than dismissing ideas because they dont sound right.

Maybe make normal and savage completely different content. Like for example Normal could be for enjoying linear content with story and lore. While Savage could be big sandboxes designed for exploring the perils of the zone and collecting loot, story/lore stuff in savage could just be little tidbits scattered around the zone. It would be cool to get free reign inside Alexander.

[Fricca]

I'm just going to leave this here.

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE: Does anyone mind restarting this thread with a new and more attractive title, while also taking the list beetle posted so this can spark a more serious discussion?

I've started threads that are basically that... 3 times? And they've fallen into the aether every single time. You say this is what you want, but every time the thread actually pops up it gains no traction whatsoever, while this thread here has refused to die.

Primals:
I'd like to see primals go back to a 3 primals per patch cycle thing.....

If we're going to keep the "core" and still have increasing ilvls per patch, the primals need to be a part of a bigger picture in order to stay relevant.

Although what youre referring to is way nicer than what we have right now, (I believe youre talking about the system we had for Garuda, Titan, and Ifrit EX) where we had to defeat all 3 bosses to get 3 tokens from them and exchange them for a weapon; in the long run their reward will be obsolete and easily be overlooked by new players.. so if they somehow want to make them stay relevant, they need to add bigger value too them (not just by adding ponies please).

The system they had before involved defeating primals as a necessary step to get your relic, which I thought was fun.

8-man Raids:
I wouldn't say remove normal entirely....

I admit it took effort to understand why anyone wouldn't like Normal Mode removed. I understand that it is for players that just want to appreciate the story without going into the trouble of raiding for hours.

The big mistake with Normal Mode is: it was a half-assed version of its intended difficulty-- spoiling some of the detail the real thing has to offer. On top of that they made normal mode relevant at a given time (relevant being highest in ilvl at a time) which made us FARM FOR IT (YES IM MAD ABOUT IT, on top of that they also made it one of the spammable ways to faster get your relic, UGH)

By the time savage came out a lot of my friends were sick of Alex:Gordias. True story.

Fix: 1-man story mode, 4-man story mode, or something like Castrum and Praetorium.

I want Story Mode to have some sort of interaction with the NPCs involved in the story (like Cid was on Castrum), that way I would be more focused in the story (and I would probably actually pay attention to them even if theyre goblins) and NOT the raid itself. Instead, story mode should be story driven and should pave our way into the actual bosses of the intended raid. What does this mean? After doing story mode you can unlock the raid content for every boss you met in the story, and only then they would have the actual mechanic driven boss fight.

This means we get the "tank and spank" a lot of the bosses offered in Castrum and Praetorium (they basically just stood there right? because it was story driven) and then we unlock the raid content after without spoiling any mechanics, and any stage gimmicks, of the actual raid fight.

As for the reverse sync I don't think its too hard to multiply an enemies stat to match a certain level.. It would need testing but its totally doable.

My post is getting too long. By no means do I want to enforce my ideas to the game.. I'm just throwing out what I think is best for it. I enjoyed my stay in this game and is happy for the people still having fun with it.

[Velhart]

snip

Or we can go by a better structure. Completely get rid of story mode or at best make it a 3rd option. Unfortunately developers claim they only have resources for two modes. So if we are under that assumption it should be like this:

Even patch: Normal Mode(FCoB difficulty) > Savage Mode(SCoB Savage difficulty)
Odd patch: Alternate means to get gear to help make Normal Mode easier on checks.
Next even patch: As said above, but the previous tier raids, add an echo buff and gimp the mechanics of normal mode to let less experienced players get through it. For Savage, keep it's ilvl synced to the max you could during that period to retain it's difficulty always even going patches in and it's titles and gear(glamour wise) still mean something.

It is just baffling the way SE thinks raid structure is right now is fine. The content needs to be made first for the intended audience in mind, which is midcore/hardcore, and if you have the resources/time, then sure add a 3rd story mode. They should really look at restructuring how raids are set up for 4.0.

[Moomba33]

I'd be fine with story mode raids being solo instances or tank and spanks with no gear. Though of course in the latter case SE would have to stick it in a tome roulette or something to keep queues alive. I also like the idea of more interaction with the story npcs in those instances (as as aside I really like the instances we got with mini npc parties in Heavensward).

I'd also be okay with waiting for nerfs and echo on the condition that SE actually adjusted every fight.
The problem with Coil was they left certain fights as walls with a ton of PUG unfriendly instant wipe mechanics with t5 and t9 causing the most problems. I can't speak for the difficulty of Final Coil since I never reached it synced but if I remember right very few adjustments were made to it overall.

I liked what SE did with Brute Justice in A8 in giving the Savage version an extra phase not seen in normal. I think gameplay focused bonuses for harder modes like that are great and hopefully not too expensive for SE to create.

[RobbieH]

Then they lose people that like how game is. Changing game to chase a group of players at expense of core base sounds like a bad idea to me.

How is it adding more end-game raids and remove weekly tome limit at the expense of anyone?

[Velhart]

How is it adding more end-game raids and remove weekly tome limit at the expense of anyone?

More raids means more development time/resources. Which means more infrequent updates. Weekly lockouts so people are not getting the better stuff immediately and not burning themselves out.

So it is either have more raids with longer waiting periods and increased price of tomestone gear to compensate the unlock, or can do the way it is now.

[KitingGenbu]

I honestly feel there should be something exclusive to doing savage gear wise since less and less people appear to be doing it. Maybe releasing a set bonus to the gear so it pushes people to want to do savage more. A significant item level increase to savage gear wouldn't hurt either, especially if we go with Velhart's idea, since the item levels seem so close that its not even worth doing for some people.

[Claymore65]

How is it adding more end-game raids and remove weekly tome limit at the expense of anyone?

Keep in mind, "Raids" are not free to produce. They require new mechanics, new art/design work, story content/cutscenes, and more. They are not a cheap thing, in fact they're probably one of the most expensive parts of the game. They can't just "Produce More Raids" without either a significant increase in resources, a significant increase in time between patches, or possibly removing other aspects of the game. Even that last option doesn't really work, since you can't just move "non-raid" development resources to "raid development". Believe it or not, there is no magic "game resources" that you can move to any part of a project you like. Artists cannot suddenly produce battle content. Battle content designers can't suddenly switch to making cutscenes. Even programmers, which can be more universal, usually need a significant amount of time to adjust to a new team/type of content. If they could produce "more raids and more dungeons and more content" within the same time frame and cost, they would.

On story mode raids, while I understand some distaste for them, keep in mind they have a very large audience right now. Story mode raids exist so that less-skilled or more casually oriented players can enjoy both the story and most of the mechanics. Casual players do not just want to see the cutscenes. They want to experience the fights in a less stressful environment. Story mode raids are brilliant in that they take extremely expensive to produce content that is normally made only for a small portion of the playerbase and open it up to players of all skill levels. The "raiding" community is almost always a very small portion of the community that requires incredibly expensive content to satisfy, so the "story mode" allows more players to use the content. I totally understand the frustration over it, and the desire for more different raids. Just keep in mind that there is far more participation in "Story mode" raids than "Savage Raids", and you'd need a very good reason to change that significantly. If it were possible they could have three difficulties, but they've already stated that it would cost too many resources.

That said, it would make a lot of sense to include more unique phases and mechanics in the savage mode of the raids. I also believe the rewards for it need to be adjusted and changed. They need to at least have unique models for equipment, though I'd like to see them have some special stats or at least a higher ilvel jump. I just think removing Story mode raids entirely would be a huge mistake.

[RobbieH]

More raids means more development time/resources. Which means more infrequent updates. Weekly lockouts so people are not getting the better stuff immediately and not burning themselves out.

So it is either have more raids with longer waiting periods and increased price of tomestone gear to compensate the unlock, or can do the way it is now.

They still spend resources on raids, they're just doing it wrong.

Also the resources excuse is too used by now, first was the small team excuse, now it's the money excuse, i see excuses everywhere and zero improvements.

Maybe it's time SE invests more in the game.

[MagiusNecros]

I'm fine with more raids. Only if they have a different formula to them. If all it's gonna be is a boss gauntlet with position based mechanics and burn the boss dummy parse phases with mobs thrown in between each one barring the last then they can just stop with them. Would like something different instead of another pretty hallway.