In the recent Producer Live Letter, the chairman of Level 5 asked Yoshia-P (the person who successfully rebooted Final Fantasy XIV from a disaster to a success) whether he would consider reintroducing the high end raid style like The Binding Coil of Bahamut into the game. That certainly hit the sentiments of a lot of players.
Currently the high end raid belongs to Alexander (Savage). They are basically the same bosses you experienced in Alexander (Normal) but with more complicated mechanics and more deadly. Story-wise it does not have a separate storyline. The storyline was played out during the quests of the Normal mode and you found out and progress with the story as you complete the normal mode. There are now totally eight floors for Alexander (Savage) with the notoriously difficult third floor (A3) that destroyed a lot of raid groups and causing server jumps for high end raiders to find parties that can clear it. The difficulty of the Midas section (floor 5 to 8) was toned down but then people still complained about the difficulty of floor 6, which had been nerfed in the latest patch.
I am never a really high end raider or regard myself as one. A lot of people would even regard me as a casual player (although I don’t know how casual you can be if you log in everyday for several hours) because I do not do high end raids. The fact is, it is not that I am not interested in high end raids but I am usually locked out because I do not have a static raid party. I tried twice to join one but did not really go anywhere as some people were not committed and so they just died their natural deaths when people stopped showing up at raid times. So without a static raid party and just relying on haphazard kind of party finder to try the raids, I soon lost interest.
However, this was not the same for me during the time of The Binding Coil of Bahamut. I was eager to get my hands on to The Coils (as we called it) because I want to know the story. I was first introduced to The Coils by my ex-Free Company (FC) leader and with their patience and help they got me hooked to the story. I would watch YouTube strategies, read about the mechanics and then just kept going back through party finder. Sometimes I even put up my own call for parties just to practice and practice until I cleared them and moved on with the story. The attraction of The Coils was that the story was tied in tightly with the lore of Eorzea and the whole Calamity story arc that ended the first Final Fantasy XIV (as now known as 1.0). So it added a huge value to the whole Eorzean experience when you finally found out what happened in that Calamity and that battle, and how Eorzea avoided complete destruction from the wrath of Bahamut. It was the story that kept me going back no matter how many times I failed. It was not only an accomplishment of skill but also a rewarding experience because you knew the Eorzean world better after The Coils.
In Alexander, however, we had already experienced the story (which was a decent one I must say) so it is only about testing your skills and strength as a party. Sure you get better gear from clearing them as they are high end raids, but then I really did not find much incentives to try it if I didn’t manage to get a party. I still wanted to clear it if opportunity presents as there are gear that I do want, but then if I couldn’t even get a party to practice for future clears, I am not fuss about it either because apart from gear and maybe a bit of satisfaction I did not find it too compelling to stress myself through that. I still enjoy watching other people play and I still hope that I could try and clear as I did with The Coils, but it is no longer a necessity for a complete experience as The Coils was.
Also the Savage mode is kind of too similar a pattern to the Primal Extreme mode, which I still enjoyed so there is really no new experience here. I personally cannot see the difference between Primal Extreme mode and Alexander Savage as they are just both tuned up version of the normal fights, which were still hard at the beginning.
Alexander Savage was a response to people wanting to clear the story as they would want to in The Coils. But for me able to clear The Coils meant I would be rewarded for a new important storyline, so if I already had that done in Alexander Normal why would I care about Savage that much? Also the Savage mode that was introduced to The Second Coil of Bahamut was challenging and fun because it makes a difference to that particular experience. But for Alexander Savage, the appeal was not as great because it just felt like it is just more of the same thing, or maybe even a bit too much of the same thing.
Final Fantasy XIV is an online game that continues to evolve, so I am sure it is hard to please every single adventurer in Eorzea. Yoshida-P had successfully resurrected Eorzea but now it is about continuing to evolve so people who like the old still have something to hold dear to and people who like only new stuff can also have something to keep them interested. It is a hard job and I don’t think I envy them at all. Nonetheless, one of the elements of the future success of the game is whether they could re-engage high end and “casual players” alike to try harder contents such as The Binding Coil of Bahamut, so adventurers will keep coming back and keep the world of Eorzea alive.
