Alexander and FFXIV's Future Raid Scene

[Hitoshura]

http://www.novacrystallis.com/2016/0...n-easier-raid/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...alexander_fan/

Very interesting read from an article on a reddit thread.

Ever since its introduction last year, Final Fantasy XIV‘s current raid tier – Alexander – has been a great subject of contention. Some fans feel it doesn’t quite hold up to the previous raid, the Binding Coil of Bahamut; while others are simply tired, broken and find it too difficult to continue out of lack of interest. So what happened? We had the opportunity to speak with producer/director Naoki Yoshida at Gamescom this past week about some of the lessons they’ve learned and what fans can expect going into Patch 3.4. “The player feedback that we received with the Binding Coil of Bahamut series was they wanted more challenge, they wanted more difficult content,” Yoshida explained. “So with this feedback with Alexander we implemented two versions of the same content with Normal Mode and Savage Mode. With Savage Mode, we made it really brutal – really difficult with so many gimmicks and mechanics. “However, we heard feedback from players that now the Savage Mode of Alexander is too difficult. For the next one we’re trying to make it easier because what we want to do is bring more people in to challenge this raid content.” Continuing, Yoshida added it wasn’t just difficulty feedback fans communicated but the narrative design as well. “The other feedback was about the storyline, that the Alexander content lacked in some excitement that we got during the Coil series. In order to bring more excitement we wanted to have this special kind of feature for the final boss in the final installment of Alexander. Because Alexander is a monster who manipulates time there will be some gimmicks, effects and battle situations where you can see those kinds of elements. “That’s something we’d like you to look forward to, however, the development team is currently working really hard on tweaking and balancing all the content.” Check back for our full interview with Yoshida on Final Fantasy XIV this week.

It looks like they plan on either nerfing Savage's difficulty overall or creating a mid tier difficulty in between Normal and Savage. Just speculation on my part obviously, but it's nice to finally see some news that they are going to actually try to make the story at least good, because so far it sucks ass and makes little to no sense other than gobbie cult and mad scientists with experiments. I am also a bit worried because they seem to imply Alexander himself will not be the boss, but will use his gimmicks and element of control of time. If the final boss of the Alexander raid isn't Alexander... what the hell?

[echo]

It only took them a year to figure out the story for Alexander is awful.

[Hitoshura]

That thread was only about 4-5 hours old when I first posted but it seems a lot of people are pissed off at the A3S wall last year, saying it single-handedly killed the raid scene and now a lot of people had trouble with A6S this time around.

What do you all think? Is the current difficulty of Savage acceptable?

Does it need to be nerfed to try to get more of the player base to actually try it?

I myself have only ever cleared A1S back in Gordias, and that honestly did not feel too difficult. We just defeated Nidhogg 2 weeks ago after about a month of attempts and finding our permanent members, finished up, got all our weapons, finally have a full team, and started A5S.

We got the boss down to 37% on our first week, at the pig/ad phase I believe. I honestly think this one is a lot of fun too, not too difficult to OT on Warrior. I hope we get our clear this week so I can see what the fuss about A6S is, though I heard if you die once... you go BACK to the beginning of it. That really, really blows.

[Fiye]

This game needs more difficulty tiers aside of sleep roll and balls to the wall.

A5S was on par with an extreme primal. Anything beyond that though I can't really participate unless I sell my soul to Satan, get out of the Navy, and get a job that's 9-5 or some shit.

Been playing WoW and oh my fucking god is it nice to run dungeons that aren't piss easy.

[Seravi Edalborez]

IMO the problem has never been the high difficulty, though it certainly was a bit of a brick wall in A3S's case. The problem was no middle bridging ground between easymode EX primals and Coil/AlexSavage. This turns a lot of people off who would otherwise be capable but just don't have the time, patience, people, or think it's a waste of time to try.

I suppose it also depends on what your idea of difficulty is. I personally disliked that a lot of Final Coil and first tier Alex placed a much higher emphasis on the entire party not fucking up, CONSTANTLY, rather than "6 people doing fine and 2 maybe fucking up slightly more" as that flied during 1st/2nd Coil for the most part (minor exceptions of T7 gaze and T9 divebombs). It feels like taking a break from the action to deal with mechanical bullshit. That said I'm invalidating my own opinion a bit since I think A2S was kind of interesting (if easy/uninspired) and while T10 snowballed very fast with any deaths I also think it was a well-designed fight.

For posterity, fights I think were well-designed (regardless of actual difficulty at-progression): T2, T4, T6, T7, T9 (first and final phases), T10, T11 (minus adds), T13, A1S, A2S. Shiva, Titan, Garuda, and Ravana extremes as well.

Fights I think are meh to bad:
T1 - Split-boss is neat, but they aren't very interesting and it's all basically just attackattackattack. Forgivable since it's the first fight of the first raid tier, but A1S is doing this much better (obviously since it's like 2 years later).
T5 - Feels like an oddly overdesigned fight, snakes are simultaneously boring and annoying, and to this day I don't get what the "intended" method for dealing with Divebombs actually is.
T8 - Tower mechanics made this a fucking chore. I would probably have hated Savage.
T12 - Probably unpopular opinion but it's extremely easy for this fight to snowball out of control at almost any phase (taking longer in the beginning = more bennu = more "phase that hurts", and can't take your time after that, with deaths giving out the extra penalty of boss power up)
Ifrit EX - Fuck Inferno Howl, fuck nails, fuck the hard enrage.
Ramuh EX - Incredibly over-reliant on mechanics to enforce rather than enhance the difficulty.
Leviathan EX - Hysteria ruins an otherwise interesting and well-balanced fight right at the fucking end of it.
Bismarck EX - An interesting encounter but too much waiting around and has very little interaction with the boss. Feels disconnected.

Generally, I like mechanics that just come and go. Not ones you have to babysit forever and cause an instant wipe or near-unrecoverable penalty for messing up. I also dislike "lolrandom" adds like T9 golems or T11 orb/cube/egg because it feels disconnected.

[echo]

Savage does not need a nerf. We need more then 4 fights every 6 months. The first fight of a tier is usually pretty easy and then the difficulty has a gigantic jump and most people give up. If there were 8 fights a tier the difficulty curve would be a lot nicer. At least 2 extreme trials a patch would help people get better for savage. Or everything that isn't savage/extreme trial to not be faceroll so people are forced to finally read tooltips.

[Destinye]

It's funny, because he also said Midas would be easier. While it's not A3S going balls deep in you, it's still not exactly "easier." If anything they REALLY do need to go back to Second Coil difficulty but clearly designed around current ilvl levels. It wasn't impossible, it wasn't too easy, but it took coordination and knowing what to do. Savage Alexander while doable goes from 0-holy fuck far too quickly. Coil actually scaled, so even in attempts ignoring auto-wipe mechanics you could actually progress through it.

Compare that to going from A2S > A3S or A7S > A8S and how it's just..very likely you won't get anywhere for a long time.

[Drexxin]

I personally really enjoy the difficulty of Midas. I think it's perfect. That said, I still enjoyed Coil more. It wasn't just the story or ambiance, though; Alexander has made it impossible to raid with friends I used to enjoy raiding with and getting anywhere. I have to choose one or the other. Essentially, to raid at the pace I was comfortable with, I had to server transfer/join Elysium, so while it felt more rewarding and fun because of how engaging the mechanics were, I miss playing with old friends, which was probably what was most important.

All that said, I think I'd take a hit in difficulty if it meant I could do that again. Honestly, I was happy with SCOB Normal/Savage, where I could raid with my friends in normal and then if I'm with likeminded ambitious individuals I can do Savage on the side. Doubt that's going to happen though.

[Taint]

My biggest gripe with raiding is finding 7 others with like a similar mindset, skill level and schedule. Toning the difficulty down broadens the player base (hopefully) which allows a larger raiding pool.

They also need to open up raids at the mid patch 3.3 or at least 3.35 as examples so players are free to help others without a lockout. Think 2.55 when FCoB was a huge hit.

[Spider-Dan]

HW is shaping up to be the CoP of XIV. It's just killed interest in the game at so many levels.

We had a pretty healthy FC at the end of 2.x, with 3 separate groups getting T13 clears plus some stragglers. After A3S, Diadem, and A6S we've been cut down to less than one raid group. (I point out Diadem because we had a couple of FCs merge in specifically for the promise of FC airship content.)

[Kaiyoko]

They also need to open up raids at the mid patch 3.3 or at least 3.35 as examples so players are free to help others without a lockout. Think 2.55 when FCoB was a huge hit.

I agree, not only would it be beneficial for people who didn't clear yet and can then play with friends in other groups, it would allow raid groups to get items they need still from the current tier before going into next. Either a 3.35 patch or a patch similar to 3.38 coming up.

With a 6 week clear we're able to barely get everything we're looking for in the group. For our melee to be versatile with all 3 melees we need 48 weeks of books to have all the melee bodies and weapons if you have bad RNG. Either that or drop the cost for bodies to 4 or 6 books.

The gear will probably even be made irrelevant going into the next tier if they add i250 crafted similar to how they added i220 from i210 this coming tier, so they might as well open the flood gates a little early for people to get some use out of them.

[Taint]

I agree, not only would it be beneficial for people who didn't clear yet and can then play with friends in other groups, it would allow raid groups to get items they need still from the current tier before going into next. Either a 3.35 patch or a patch similar to 3.38 coming up.

With a 6 week clear we're able to barely get everything we're looking for in the group. For our melee to be versatile with all 3 melees we need 48 weeks of books to have all the melee bodies and weapons if you have bad RNG. Either that or drop the cost for bodies to 4 or 6 books.

The gear will probably even be made irrelevant going into the next tier if they add i250 crafted similar to how they added i220 from i210 this coming tier, so they might as well open the flood gates a little early for people to get some use out of them.

Exactly, why protect gear/content that is 100% irrelevant next even update. Its not like Coil where you still had T9 groups going to even enter T10. Nobody touches Gordias savage, there is literally zero reason to.

[Shaano]

The only reason people would go back in is for A4 glamour/mounts. Even then it's mostly when nerfed to hell / run with people who have cleared already. A8 is the first raid tier I don't think I will clear before the next one comes out. Sitting at 2nd intermission and finding a group/times with my work schedule just isn't happening.

[Kaiyoko]

I know some people might not agree, but I'd really like for it to look something like this for specifically raid content:

• Expansion 4.0
  
  • Dungeon left side / tomes left side / hunt left side ilvl to use for raid
  • Trials weapons / accessories ilvl to use for raid, weapons 5 ilvls higher then above gear
  • Crafted left side / right side 5 ilvl higher then dungeon gear (no crafted weapon) and mats come from dungeons, tomes, hunts, blue script equivalent
• 4.01 Release new raid tier 2 weeks later with the capped weekly tomestone
• 4.1 Release story mode for those who can't clear that tier
  
  • Release relic at same level as weekly tomestone weapon
• 4.15 Remove the restriction and relic can be upgraded to raid tiers end weapon ilvl
• 4.2 New raid tier
  
  • You must beat the last fight of the previous raid tier to move onto the new, story mode doesn't count for the normal mode / savage ( what ever you wanna call it ), story mode in 4.3
  • Gear acquisition is the same as the previous tier, dungeon, tomes, hunt gear is same ilvl as prev tier
  • Trials give ilvl equivalent to previous tier.
  • Crafted 5 ilvl higher then previous tiers armor and accessories
• 4.3 Repeat till next Expansion

I don't know how they would fit things like Diadem and Deep Dungeon into the above. I feel like additional content like Diadem and Deep Dungeon can't really be meaningful unless they add more types of stats for meaningful side grades to the game.

Like I said, this is just for raiding related content. I feel like this would get repetitive and boring to people, but this is the best way for them to continue producing a fair raid tier system, while also allowing players to get something meaningful from dungeon content and catch up. I really think they should add something more then raiding for meaningful end-game content, but they seem to not want to add better / unique rewards from other pieces of content.

[Seravi Edalborez]

HW is shaping up to be the CoP of XIV. It's just killed interest in the game at so many levels.

I don't really understand this statement. I thought a lot of people agreed CoP was the high point of XIV. If anything I would say ToAU or WotG is when a lot of interest really died out.

@Kaiyoko: You seem to be channeling a "make me do a lot of different events for my gear" like XI's Sky/Sea/Ground/Dynamis/Limbus/whatever roundup went. Which I personally like, but... I don't see change on the horizon

[Kaiyoko]

I don't really understand this statement. I thought a lot of people agreed CoP was the high point of XIV. If anything I would say ToAU or WotG is when a lot of interest really died out.

Pretty sure CoP era to mid ToAU era was the peek for the game. WotG was the true downfall. ToAU gave some of the best content that stretched into WotG with Assaults, Salvage, and Nyzul.

[Kaiyoko]

@Kaiyoko: You seem to be channeling a "make me do a lot of different events for my gear" like XI's Sky/Sea/Ground/Dynamis/Limbus/whatever roundup went. Which I personally like, but... I don't see change on the horizon

I don't see it changing either, but they could at least fix their current system They're building multiple systems for things like Diadem / Deep dungeon, why not utilize them better.

[Seravi Edalborez]

I'll say this: if the gear from literally every non-progression-raid event was bumped up about 20-30 ilvls (however much it needs to be equal to, 5 under at WORST, to raid gear) you'd have a much healthier population never complaining about lack of things to do.

Look at PVP. Gear is pointless. At any given point it's always like 20 ilvls under the top, and Morale basically still means nothing right? Make it equal to raid gear and now people who PvP have a good reward for their hefty time investment.

Deep Dungeon almost has the right idea with glowy weapon. Now make it a good ilvl.

Diadem, the way it was at initial release loot-wise was almost good. Source of RNG-y gear. This alone could fuel the rest of the week's content after lockouts are done with.

Etc etc. If they're worried about pissing off their raid-tier followers, honestly fuck 'em. I'd pretty confidently say the majority would rather have a bigger population of people that WANT to play, rather than a confined population of people who feel like everything is a waste of time except these 4 boss fights and capping their tomes. Bad itemization is still obviously a problem, but this is still probably an improvement.

Clearing the tier doesn't even necessarily give you a lot of satisfaction if you're being dicked over by loot not going your way for weeks on end. Even with the tokens.

[Spider-Dan]

I don't really understand this statement. I thought a lot of people agreed CoP was the high point of XIV. If anything I would say ToAU or WotG is when a lot of interest really died out.

XI had a mass exodus during CoP. Whether it was because people loved WoW, hated CoP, or a mix of both is in the eye of the beholder, but the exodus was definitely there. But XI's subscription peak was definitely during CoP, and fell off before TAU; TAU just stopped the bleeding.

[Katlan]

The problem with the whole "savage" only for Alexander is that they went from Coil tier difficulty that as many/others have said, was challenging but you could still do it with friends as long as they were competent enough, to smash your face tier difficulty without anything in the game that provides a middle tier level of difficulty aside single shot primals.

I really enjoyed Coil tier difficulty. Had a great group of people who i raided with all throughout 2.0 pretty much and made some new friends in the raid group. Some of Coil was pretty hard to my group but we managed to clear everything before the next tier happened, even if it was only 1 month or so before the next tier. But that was the point, it was fun and it was learning mechanics and having a dps check. Now we have more mechanics and a dps check that literally punishes not amazing tier dps and requires healers to need to try to drip out every ounce of dps they can. That's just a bad game design

They said around 35% of the population cleared final coil when it was content. thats a really high number. How many people cleared Coil savage? Probably under 5% of the population. So they made Alexander for that 5%? I don't get their logic and w/e they say regarding it I just don't believe. Midas was supposed to be easier and more towards Coil difficulty level but that really didn't happen.