Can't make a full premade for Crystal Tower...

[Sfarzoso]

Am glad of this because doing COIL with the freaking communit is hard and most FC are too stuck up and close themselves on 1 group only.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

1. Way to blow things out of proportion. Thanks for assuming that I was calling you a selfish one, or that that rethorical sentence was directed at you and only at you specifically. But anyway, sorry I guess, even if I stand with what I said about unrealistic expectations (keep reading below).

2. Also, regarding what you were suggesting, how is content harder than Coil (because let's face it, with the same base difficulty and 16 more players to coordinate it would be way harder to complete) something for everyone?


3. After how many months? And with what other content? Because, as far as I know, they usually just release those raids and some balance changes, but nothing else. If you want new systems, quests, etc. you have to wait (and pay) for an expansion.

4. To reiterate it, Crystal Tower was said to be content aimed at the more casual playerbase, and balanced around the Duty Finder (not to mention that it doesn't have any limits on it, unlike Coil). I don't know why some people look so surprised about it now, when this isn't news.

And regarding the 8-man limit to go into the DF, I'm sure that it will be changed when they can (or at least I remember them saying so in the Live Letter), but that will just make CT even easier though. So maybe that will be introduced along a hard mode version of it, and everyone will be happy then. Meanwhile just try to tackle that content as a new challenge. Helping/coordinating the other two full parties made of people that you don't know might prove as a good exercise, and maybe you all could end having fun with those random strangers.

Patience is a virtue, or so they say.

(Please bear with me as I added numbers in your quote just to address points specifically without multi-quoting)
1. Well, you did quote me and replied directly to my arguments so forgive me if I assumed that your post was directed at me, but it just seemed logical. If it wasn't, then this is a misunderstanding between us and I hope we can move past that. No hard feelings!

2. More people doesn't necessarily mean that it's harder overall. If you know WoW for instance, compare 25-men Raid Finder with 10-men heroic of the same raid… see what I mean? ^^; Also, while it's true that coordination is harder with more people, it can totally be alleviated with lower enemy damage, more forgiving mechanics, less complicated patterns to remember, etc. Also, CT is supposed to be played as 3 groups of 8, not 1 group of 24 (implying, from what I understand, that you won't ever play with more than 7 other people at a time; excepted perhaps for the last boss, and that might be separate teams as in FF VI). I really think, given that CT is in the DF, from all the experience I have in MMO's, and from what Yoshi said, that CT will be easier / more accessible than Coil.

3. At release or a few months after (1st or second patch). I'm really talking about a single raid, available on day 1, with 6-13 bosses, at least 2 difficulty levels (and sometimes more, but that's rather in the case of an expansion, you're right about that). That's a fair kind of standard for good endgame MMO's—and we wouldn't want ARR to be anything than a good MMO, right?

4. So you agree with me on point 2 on difficulty CT is casual, and it's good that it is. No argument against that. However "balanced around DF" doesn't imply that you can't pre-make the group. Actually all content available on DF right now is pre-makeable. So it was a fair assumption. And a standard in MMO (you'd think the least is a pre-made, whereas a DF isn't always available). There's no way to spin this otherwise.

As for "new challenge", I made quite a wall of text about that already (above, post #339, the part below the second quote). Short story: yeah it's true, but you can't force that on players because it just doesn't fly in practice most of the time, it's frustrating for many and understandably so, sociologically (please read the post if you wish to answer that point because this 'short story' really doesn't cover my thoughts entirely). Please note that I personally understand and actually share your vision, but I know that this subjective opinion of ours is objectively marginal among players, and it's quite provable or rather understandable 'scientifically' (sociology, psychology).

[Yshnal]

(Snip)

1. Yup, I quoted you, but you weren't the only one asking for things and that was directed at everyone as a mere reflexion, not an insult. Moreover, if I wanted to call you something I would have done that directly (not that I would do it). Anyway, no problem.

2. If they would keep the same difficulty that Coil has mechanics-wise, adding more people would do it inherently harder for reasons that you (and almost any raider) know. But if they toned the difficulty down, then yeah. But you're missing the point of CT: it's meant as a stepping stone for those players that can't complete Coil, and to help those players that haven't cleared it yet too. It has always been that way, and it should be looked at from that perspective: there's a gap content and gear wise were CT was going to be at release. Unfortunately it has been released late, but that gap still exists and must be filled properly. Maybe that's not optimal for those of us doing Coil already, but you should look at it from a "new" player's point of view (by new I mean those not at Coil at the moment and those yet to come to ARR).

3. What I was asking you was how many months passed between each big update (as you were talking about raid updates), and if those updates included the same kind of content that 2.1 is bringing or if they just had content for a single playstyle, that being hardcore raiding. What I mean is that, if you look at the overall values of those patches, they're almost equal. However, from my point of view, ARR is doing it better by giving content for each and everyone of us, and not for a single segment of its playerbase. We all pay the same montly sub.

4. I never said otherwise. And you all don't know why there's no 24-man premade for CT, to start with. Knowing Yoshi and what he said in the past, it could be that he wants to make CT as the entry raid for those players new to MMOs, or for those willing to give raiding an opportunity. By making hardcore raiders (experienced players) to play or help those other players, it would be potentially bringing more players to keep raiding or improve as to tackle harder raids (be it Coil or future ones). Moreover, we don't know how will CT progress after each update, so who knows what their plans are for that raid as a whole. If "forcing" this is not right for some, just think of it from the other side: is it right to force everyone that wants to do Coil to do it without the ability to DF it (disclaimer: I don't mean that it should be on the DF, as it's fine as it's now)? They simply can not win, whatever they do, and I guess that they're just trying to make some salomonic decisions.

On the other hand, it could be something as simple as them having to change the way the DF is coded, it being not trivial for whatever reasons, and them not willing to hold CT longer that it has been already. They simply release CT in a completely playable state and fix the other issue at a later time.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

snip

1.
2. I see it from a new player perspective, I really do. Which is related to 4, more on that below.
3. Usually, again considering good MMO's (not utter failures) I'd say 6 months (best case scenario) to 12 (really really at most) for about 10 new bosses. We'll see how ARR fares, I guess we should wait until 2.3 (about a year) to draw conclusions.
(Again, see below on how to make all of it relevant to pretty much any player.)

4. My take on "hardcore" versus "casual" in terms of raiding is that these shouldn't be different instances but rather the same content tuned differently. I really like the WoW model for that because it works brilliantly (liking the game or not is another debate). You just don't have to mix players with difficulty levels, and that's smarter than trying to idealistically hope that everyone gets along. Raid Finder is a proof that it just doesn't happen, because people have different 'goals', some like to focus on 'skill' whereas others see that as a chore; some like it to be fun and cool while others see that as a useless and untimely distraction, borderline trolling. This thread is just a perfect exemplification of these different mindsets, and the fact that they're just not compatible on a regular basis. Which prompts my saying that you can't force the challenge of dealing with different gamers psychology on players, it's a recipe for ugly stories. Those that like it, may PUG on their server, and/or choose the adequate difficulty level, the others just wish to do their 'thing'—whatever that is.

So with difficulty levels, hardcores get their "hard mode" bosses, usually take about 3 months to clear the last boss; casuals clear the "normal mode" in about the same time (obviously hardcores do normal in a few weeks at most, before moving to hard mode; obviously you can't do both during a week). And very recently Blizzard implemented flexible raiding which is a scalable mode from 10 to 25 players without any gear requirement (thus allowing groups of friends to play together without any restriction whatsoever so long as they're more than 10 and less than 25), with a difficulty level a bit under normal mode. I think it's brilliant in theory, and since ARR was built with scalability from scratch, I'm pretty sure it would do wonders here.

For instance, I'd love to have Coil "normal" accessible for casuals thus a bit easier than it is currently to allow AK-geared people to have a shot at it without full DL (no DF, we agree), Coil "hard mode" for hardcores (a bit more difficult than it is currently); same for CT, including a hard more that would make it quite relevant for hardcore raiders. You'd get something like:
• CT normal at iLv80,
• CT hard at iLv90,
• Coil normal at iLv85
• Coil hard at iLv95.
I would LOVE to see that. Twice the content for everyone, no one left behind. CT on DF (eventually allowing pre-mades of up to 24 of course), Coil out of DF. And if there were a flexible Coil (say, scaled for all groups from 6 to 12 people) at iLv80 and flexible CT (scaled for all groups from 8 to 24 people) at iLv75, that would just be icing on the cake.

With such an endgame content, both extensive and catering to all crowds, I'm pretty sure ARR would soon become a reference. And I like the idea of 5 bosses every 3 months rather than 10 every 6, it makes for a more stable retention, it's better for the community I think.

So, in the case of ARR, we'd have about 5 new bosses every patch (which make a best case scenario of ~10 per 6months), as planned currently (Coil then CT then Coil etc; numbers counting Primal fights). But you'd have to get the 2 difficulty levels (normal/hard or hard/extreme) on day 1 of these bosses release.

Sorry that was long. I just wanted to expose my full opinion, since I think we actually agreed on the basics.

[Yshnal]

(Snip)

But that would require a lot of balancing to keep up each difficulty, and that would draw resources from other things being updated in patches (unrelated to raiding). As I said, they don't have infinite time or an unlimited budget, and they're switching between CT and BC in each big patch for a reason, instead of updating both at once. WoW, and others, can do it because they focus just on that, but I don't think that that's viable here.

In a perfect world we agree that that would be the best way to do it, and I'm sure that SE would like to do it too. But they simply can't without having some trade-offs. That's what I was trying to explain. Maybe they'll do it over time (see primals and hard dungeons as an example), though, but not now.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

But that would require a lot of balancing to keep up each difficulty, and that would draw resources from other things being updated in patches (unrelated to raiding). As I said, they don't have infinite time or an unlimited budget, and they're switching between CT and BC in each big patch for a reason, instead of updating both at once. WoW, and others, can do it because they focus just on that, but I don't think that that's viable here.

In a perfect world we agree that that would be the best way to do it, and I'm sure that SE would like to do it too. But they simply can't without having some trade-offs. That's what I was trying to explain.

You're probably right, this design is a bit idealistic. But even if it's just 4 bosses ever 3 months, even 3, to make it possible, that would still be really interesting because overall everybody gets content (not just 4 for the hardcore forever, or 4 for the casuals forever, making many encounters quite irrelevant for too many players—that costs way too much in the long run, it's just not sustainable, or the amount of content will suffer, as it's easier/cheaper to make the same boss at two difficulty levels than 2 different bosses…). Also WoW doesn't focus just on raiding, far from it. There's PvP, many daily quests, class balancing, pets, scenarios+dungeons (would be 2-4 player content in ARR), etc etc (for every patch, and they make raids only every other patch). I will also say that, if they wish to have the best tuning at the lowest cost possible, they really really need to implement a test server. Otherwise we'll keep seeing adjustments way too long after bosses are released, and errors in loot tables etc. Crowdsourcing your game is the smart way to go, in my humble opinion.

So a multi-difficulty content is really doable I think, if you have the subs obviously but before that the right development model (seems to me they do, just need a test server now). And right now, ARR benefits from a bit too many devs for its real revenue, given the reboot, massive effort etc. (I've never seen a MMO developed by so many people as far as 2.0 is concerned, it's just insane, and it's great), and granted that might change in time to a more reasonable team size (should the wish to actually profit at some point when boxes sales will go down, until the first expansion). But for now, during their first year, I'm pretty sure they can pull it off—much, much content.

And they don't need to do everything at once, as long as they keep the endgame crowd (hardcores but above all casuals) interested and not too grindy, I trust them to have a very decent amount of content a year from now.

Just one thing though, I got a bit confused. Normal modes should be in DF, and hard modes (for CT/Coil) shouldn't. That would be more logical.

[Starplayer]

So to be clear, Can you only enter the DF in an 8 man party? Or can you enter it alone?

[RileyLarson]

This is probably the most disappointing thing they could have said.

[KiriA500]

So to be clear, Can you only enter the DF in an 8 man party? Or can you enter it alone?

It works exactly like the Duty Finder does now, you can enter alone, or with a full group. It just finds you 2 other groups of 8 to enter, making a total of 24 players.

[Alkel]

It works exactly like the Duty Finder does now, you can enter alone, or with a full group. It just finds you 2 other groups of 8 to enter, making a total of 24 players.

How to kill the FC, by Yoshida!
Can we have an official answer, when will be able to do CT with our friends?

atm, CT is forbidden for every FC in this game and we will have to dodge the DF by entering and exiting the CT until our 3 PT are together, which will lead to many complaints.