Lets Talk ARR Content Revival: Coil

Hallo! Just dropping in to kinda bring up something dear to me!

So over the past year or two I have been getting more and more of a urge to go back and run older content like The Unending Coil of Bahamut and time and time again I have mentioned how it was a shame that SE abandoned it after ARR.

So this is where I kinda have some very strong opinions on this and I wanted to share them:

Coil is one of my favorite raids hands down, the bosses are challenging when synced, it actually requires significant amount of progression, the fights are one of a kind, mechanics actually have to be followed, the story ties very heavily into the base game, and so on!

So.. I have to ask, why is it SE abandoned it so clearly? Is there -any- way that they can revive it? Giving players a chance to experience what those of us who have played since ARR managed to?

That requires too much effort for this community apparently. Don't be surprised if they cut raids all together.

They even made a thread complaining that unsync'd content might be harder in the future too.

As far i know they didn't "abandon" it, the story for it was completed.

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Originally Posted by JiraTyanu

So.. I have to ask, why is it SE abandoned it so clearly? Is there -any- way that they can revive it? Giving players a chance to experience what those of us who have played since ARR managed to?

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You mean other than playing it synched?
What kind of a revival did you have in mind?

Something like using it as a new raid specifically for blue mages and stuff with a system allowing it to be played through synced? Just a shot in the dark, something to give it new life.

I'd say you have a better shot at requesting something like what they're doing for the Unreal trials. Make the coils (and other old raids, I guess?) consistent up-to-date max level content with new rewards.

There isn't really going to be a good way to keep them in the state they are without recycling them into new endgame and I'm not sure how well that'd go across.

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Originally Posted by Ammokkx

I'd say you have a better shot at requesting something like what they're doing for the Unreal trials. Make the coils (and other old raids, I guess?) consistent up-to-date max level content with new rewards.

There isn't really going to be a good way to keep them in the state they are without recycling them into new endgame and I'm not sure how well that'd go across.

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That would also be very nice, I'd love to do coil again at max level!

They could develop an Unreal-esque system for older raids, which I do think they should, albeit more rewarding than what is currently there with Unreal trials

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Originally Posted by MPK

That requires too much effort for this community apparently. Don't be surprised if they cut raids all together.

They even made a thread complaining that unsync'd content might be harder in the future too.

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Take your irrelevant comments elsewhere.

I would LOVE to see Coil brought back into the spotlight somehow. It was by far the best 8 man in both battles and in story that we have had yet. I may be bias being a legacy player and having it tie so hard into version 1, but man it was fantastic. I always get excited when someone wants me to help take them through it.

And the Bahamut weapons are still imo the best looking weapons in the game.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

I would LOVE to see Coil brought back into the spotlight somehow. It was by far the best 8 man in both battles and in story that we have had yet. I may be bias being a legacy player and having it tie so hard into version 1, but man it was fantastic. I always get excited when someone wants me to help take them through it.

And the Bahamut weapons are still imo the best looking weapons in the game.

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RIGHT?! It's so much fun and rewards some of the best looking items! To the point that.. it's actually still one of the most glamour farmed raids lol

Unreal raids sounds like the best bet, particularly because of the format that they come out in allotments (which helps focus players onto one specific, makes the relearning and funneling aspects more likely to succeed).


Although I wonder if players were given the choice of a new hard content or a remixed old content which they'd prefer.



I thought the presentation of the first raids were neat, I like the idea of exploring (akin to dungeons I suppose). I'd never play it (not interested in playing so good that it feels like work lol - I like to use skills and stuff but if I turn and talk to my wife for half a second I don't want the entire dungeon to be ruined because it just caused 6 people to wipe, or alternatively and more likely someone else keeps ruining it all and the 1 hour I had available is largely wasted time (imo, I know some people enjoy banging their head against the wall, aspirational content as I see some people calling it now - Packetdancer I think started it lol)), but it was why I suggested ultimate 'raids' (zones), like coil and like most WoW raids (thinking more WoW, since you had branching paths/wings in that), might be something special for those hardcore players. Progression of areas adds a lot to the flow (and to watching them I think, rather than simply one boxed room over and over).



Of course since it was brought up, if it's new content or old but still has issues, I'd love for unsync (or a limited job designed to handle stuff solo) exists to the point I can do it later solo :p (many coils can be done solo, a few are a bit goofy though like handling the dragons).

It's not that they abandoned it specifically. It's that like any other content, they created it and then moved onto creating new things.

It's still there and you can still do it minimum item level. Every data center has a minimum item level discord server, and coils are about the most common content in them.

The problem is that there isn't any incentive to do old content minimum item level and no echo, which could be solved simply by awarding a mount for it.

They have in some form revisited the content multiple times though, first with the ultimate raid (which is what you actually named), and then with the blue mage updates that gave us a Morbol mount for doing T5, T9 and T13 minilvl no echo, but of course blue mage isn't the same as normal jobs.

The biggest problem with the Coils raid series is a lack of a normal mode.

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Originally Posted by Styrmwyda

The biggest problem with the Coils raid series is a lack of a normal mode.

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The Coils only ever had normal mode, until they decided to put in Savage Second Coil which is the only series in the set that has a Savage option.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

The Coils only ever had normal mode, until they decided to put in Savage Second Coil which is the only series in the set that has a Savage option.

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Honestly, with the way coils worked back then, the normal mode back then was essentially Extreme/Savage-tier difficulty, with the actual SCoB (Savage) probably being somewhere just above current day savages

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Honestly, with the way coils worked back then, the normal mode back then was essentially Extreme/Savage-tier difficulty, with the actual SCoB (Savage) probably being somewhere just above current day savages

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Yes and no. It was a different time with a different playerbase. There weren't any standards for the raid, other than you had to have defeated Titan Hard Mode and then unlocked it. For the most part with each tier, the first 3 fights were easy to figure out and to beat. Only the last fight of each raid tier really had any teeth, particularly Turns 5 and 9.

The mechanics were more obtuse than today's Savage, but they were also largely more forgiving. DPS checks were also fairly lenient, you were more likely to die to the cavalcade of mechanics than you were to ever see an enrage. And this was before things like The Balance Discord... or even Discord.

Honestly, most of coil is like one step above a normal mode raid by today's standards, but they aren't essentially Savage. There were a lot of fights where you could delegate responsibility to just 3 or so people, and have them handle all of the actual mechanics, while everybody else just performs their role. A ton of people got carried through the coils, even while they were current content.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Honestly, with the way coils worked back then, the normal mode back then was essentially Extreme/Savage-tier difficulty, with the actual SCoB (Savage) probably being somewhere just above current day savages

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Not with how cheeseable a lot of those fights are.
For example, my friend showed me a vid where if you spin Nael real fast she's unable to actually do her mechanics (fun fact that works on Amon in Syrcus Tower too).

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

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Agreed. I think a lot of us just have...what's the opposite of rose colored glasses, when it comes to coil, because back then it was difficult. But compared to todays 8 mans, its a walk in the park. People even struggled with Titan hard back then too and used to buy wins for their relic steps, yet it is now mechanically nothing compared to even something we now see as simple as Twintania or Hades nm. The playerbase has just adapted and changed and now we see things as too easy that would have been too hard back in 2013.

When our first FC group went through coil we had a married couple that consisted of one of the worst healers I have ever encountered and a bard that if they were a bard in real life would have tripped over their bow and snapped it clean in half they were so incompetent, but we still made it through just fine and let them stay since they were friends (or I thought they were, they left the fc the moment they got the final coil win). In today's savage fights, I would have booted them from our group.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Not with how cheeseable a lot of those fights are.
For example, my friend showed me a vid where if you spin Nael real fast she's unable to actually do her mechanics (fun fact that works on Amon in Syrcus Tower too).

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Sure if your intention is to cheese strat it then that's an entirely different story but how about doing that at Level 50, and on every single encounter for a good 11 minutes straight versus at Lv60 with 4 people at +120 above the Item Level cap for the game at the time. Or even executing the mechanics in the way that the developers intended for you to do so, a completely different story then. My point still stands that mechanically these fights were quite easily a cut above normal mode, and as I said, Extreme/Savage, so somewhere between, but I guess this largely comes down to subjectivity than anything. In normal mode, I can queue up and be done within 1-3 wipes at most on any given Eden encounter. Comparatively, coils, even T5 back when I did it nearing the end of ARR was mostly party disbands with people not baiting Divebombs appropriately, nor handling Dreadnaughts, or avoiding Twisters/overlapping them. To a degree, the same reigns true even today with a lot of PF parties on Blue Mage. It took quite a while for people to stop getting divebombed into the wall, see the Twister cast and move around, or burst down dreadnaughts before they decided to wreck people.

Rather than a revival, how about we keep the dungeonesque style of coil for the new raids instead of making them just more EX fights. Or just make it an eight man dungeon with checkpoints, do away with the loot penalty for skipping ahead but still keep the weekly lockout.

Add some interesting mechanics, like make a boss put up a shield (Think Ravana), which causes it to go invulnerable. Trash spawn in the large room and you need to find the bigger trash mob that drops a unique item that goes to the R3 button(or whatever it is on PC), that item is the only thing that can shatter the shield. Everyone has to get this item for Savage, but normal just a couple people. Since in Savage the shield would need eight hits, and each hit depletes the R3 item, hence need all players. Also, yes if you use the R3 item on a trash you basically have to wait until another spawns or something. Also this would be more like steps of faith where you have a boss set on a path, if the boss reaches the end of the path that's a wipe. Also in this room, there are places players need to seek shelter for a room wide AOE that literally burns your HP in seconds.

Or a raid area where you're in a very dark pit, full of respawning trash that can overwhelm a party and you must light the right torches (by standing right next to it) for the paths to keep opening up. Eventually you make your way to the end of this dark area (and have loot off the beaten path to reward the more braver raiders) and have to form a bridge by standing by two unique lanterns while fending off the respawning trash, and a couple mini bosses to spice things up.

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Originally Posted by JiraTyanu

Hallo! Just dropping in to kinda bring up something dear to me!

So over the past year or two I have been getting more and more of a urge to go back and run older content like The Unending Coil of Bahamut and time and time again I have mentioned how it was a shame that SE abandoned it after ARR.

So this is where I kinda have some very strong opinions on this and I wanted to share them:

Coil is one of my favorite raids hands down, the bosses are challenging when synced, it actually requires significant amount of progression, the fights are one of a kind, mechanics actually have to be followed, the story ties very heavily into the base game, and so on!

So.. I have to ask, why is it SE abandoned it so clearly? Is there -any- way that they can revive it? Giving players a chance to experience what those of us who have played since ARR managed to?

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I agree-- the Coil raids and Allagan related storyline in particular were always a solid favourite of mine because of the wonderful story, the evolution of the Leveilleur twins and for the dynamic raid mechanics.

However, to get a proper sense of why it was-- as many players might think-- "abandoned", you have to understand the history that went with it:

• The Coils were essentially the very first high level raid of ARR-- at that time, the Devs were still experimenting with various game mechanics, queue times, network issues and player base participation. Which is why it was such a big deal when Blue Gartr (my former FC on my main character's server, Excalibur) were the world first to beat it.
  
• To give you a perspective, only about 7.4% of all players on PC/PS3/PS4 had beat T5 or Coil Turn 5 by Fall of 2014 (a year after ARR release)-- I forget the exact numbers but it was a huge debate on the forums at the time about how difficult it was due to gear progression and several other factors.
• Then there was the massive bottleneck created from players not being able to beat the original Titan Hard Mode-- which also required players to beat Garuda Hard Mode. Beating Titan Hard Mode unlocked Coil and --if I remember correctly-- the beginning of your relic weapon journey.
  
• The massive bottleneck however was created from network issues and adequate gear stagnation which prevented players from clearing it-- as such the frustrations mounted and only about 1% of the player base could advance through Coil. This is one of the reasons why the Devs introduced the Echo to help more players and Casuals facilitate clears.

Trust me-- you did not want a return of that era. Now, if the question is whether the Devs should make a new iteration of Coil? That might be possible but it will be much better suited to 7.0 or whatever questline that will take us into the Allagan Empire of the past.

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Originally Posted by Ramesses

I agree-- the Coil raids and Allagan related storyline in particular were always a solid favourite of mine because of the wonderful story, the evolution of the Leveilleur twins and for the dynamic raid mechanics.

However, to get a proper sense of why it was-- as many players might think-- "abandoned", you have to understand the history that went with it:

• The Coils were essentially the very first high level raid of ARR-- at that time, the Devs were still experimenting with various game mechanics, queue times, network issues and player base participation. Which is why it was such a big deal when Blue Gartr (my former FC on my main character's server, Excalibur) were the world first to beat it.
  
• To give you a perspective, only about 7.4% of all players on PC/PS3/PS4 had beat T5 or Coil Turn 5 by Fall of 2014 (a year after ARR release)-- I forget the exact numbers but it was a huge debate on the forums at the time about how difficult it was due to gear progression and several other factors.
• Then there was the massive bottleneck created from players not being able to beat the original Titan Hard Mode-- which also required players to beat Garuda Hard Mode. Beating Titan Hard Mode unlocked Coil and --if I remember correctly-- the beginning of your relic weapon journey.
  
• The massive bottleneck however was created from network issues and adequate gear stagnation which prevented players from clearing it-- as such the frustrations mounted and only about 1% of the player base could advance through Coil. This is one of the reasons why the Devs introduced the Echo to help more players and Casuals facilitate clears.

Trust me-- you did not want a return of that era. Now, if the question is whether the Devs should make a new iteration of Coil? That might be possible but it will be much better suited to 7.0 or whatever questline that will take us into the Allagan Empire of the past.

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Truth. The most people can hope for in revisiting arr content is Unreal or a new storyline.

Even minilvl sync isn’t accurate due to job changes over the years. Not to mention the server stability.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Sure if your intention is to cheese strat it then that's an entirely different story but how about doing that at Level 50, and on every single encounter for a good 11 minutes straight versus at Lv60 with 4 people at +120 above the Item Level cap for the game at the time. Or even executing the mechanics in the way that the developers intended for you to do so, a completely different story then. My point still stands that mechanically these fights were quite easily a cut above normal mode, and as I said, Extreme/Savage, so somewhere between, but I guess this largely comes down to subjectivity than anything. In normal mode, I can queue up and be done within 1-3 wipes at most on any given Eden encounter. Comparatively, coils, even T5 back when I did it nearing the end of ARR was mostly party disbands with people not baiting Divebombs appropriately, nor handling Dreadnaughts, or avoiding Twisters/overlapping them. To a degree, the same reigns true even today with a lot of PF parties on Blue Mage. It took quite a while for people to stop getting divebombed into the wall, see the Twister cast and move around, or burst down dreadnaughts before they decided to wreck people.

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This is very true, though my point was that they're not really above current savage content when the option to severely cheese them exists.
All I was trying to convey is that many of them are only challenging if you let them be.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

This is very true, though my point was that they're not really above current savage content when the option to severely cheese them exists.
All I was trying to convey is that many of them are only challenging if you let them be.

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If we wanted to get into specifics then cheese mechanics have existed for a long time, granted just not as glaringly obvious as the spin strat, but this strat 'should' exist for nigh on every single boss, it's just variable how difficult or easy it is to pull off.. Exists quite extensively in Palace, but that's different content. But again, normal being between Extreme/Savage, something I didn't really adequately convey in my original post, with Savage SCoB stacking quite well all things considered.. I'm just not willing to readily accept them being in-line with current normal mode, considering the presence of enrages, albeit perhaps lenient; something that pretty much doesn't exist in Normal mode, mechanics are also somewhat egregious with a lot of them potentially leading to instagib, and several times thereover in a single fight, something which you scarce see in current normal mode content. I can quite easily go into any Normal mode encounter of any tier between Gordias and Eden's Verse normal, even when they were current.. But a LOT more complications would arise with doing Coils, different times, different players sure, but the ability of the general populace has gone largely unchanged.

Though I'm not particularly sure why I'm fussed or arguing the point considering I'm wholly in support of them reviving Coils. I just wanted to argue the point that I don't believe Coils is Normal mode in the same sense of our current normal modes.

If they remade coils you almost certainly wouldn’t get what you want.

It would most likely be remade to the level that the current content is.

If you played wow think of what they did when they redid Naxx. Same thing but doable with a random unorganised group. That’s what they’d do to Coils.