Was Coil 2 and Ramuh extreme over tune?

[Sapphic]

Never have I thought trial and error was a bad game design considering it's something you do for almost every thing you do in life. It's interesting and... well... You get to learn something new everyday. And the "casual gamer" stereotype should have another title because not wanting to learn things to do things is beyond the word casual.

There are plenty of casual gamers who enjoy a challenge, as many have pointed out, even the hardest content can be done casually, Even learning it, doesn't need 6 hrs a day 7 days a week. We raid 2-3 nights a week for 2 hrs. Now we one shot t6-8 and making solid progress on turn 9 (Just shy of hitting phase 4). It has took us longer than those who put more time into it weekly, but it doesn't matter. That's with having some casual players in the static.

[CGMidlander]

To reply to myself and pre-empt
...
[Cut for character length]

Landslides are recoverable in early stages of Titan HM. If you aren't getting hit by them in the early stages, then that's a sign that you already know you aren't supposed to be hit by them right?

And so what if you wipe? After the wipe, you can ask the party "What happened?" or look up mechanics on the internet if you want to learn.
Or, you can ask before the fight starts about stuff you should know beforehand. Or, you can get friends who will help you out with the fight's ins and outs.

If it's something that can't really be explained well in a couple sentences (e.g. Turn 5), get friends who will help, or look up mechanics beforehand if you want to DF. The resources are plentiful and available. All that it takes is a little initiative.

[Hakmatic]

Still do not explain how you que for turn 9 to check if others have cleared previous turns prior. You CANNOT que for turn 9 unless you have cleared t6-8 that week. If you have cleared t6-8 that week, you cannot enter into them again until the following weekly reset.

Learn what you are saying before you say it ^^

Of 8 people only one has to be saved to t9. So if i took a party of 7 people with me that hasnt cleared t6-8 and im on t9 it will pull them to t9. And that doesnt mean that the person with the t9 save actually beat t6-8 either, they could have been pulled to t9 as well. So stop trying to correct that guy. Correct yourself first.

[Triston]

snip

We're discussing game design here though; the burden should never be on the player to use 3rd party sources in order to play your game. Having friends or asking is definitely a good solution, because friends are more likely to be patient with wipes or explain things you don't know, but a game should never require a player look it up on youtube before queuing in order to make a passable attempt at it, even though somehow that has become the expected norm within the player community that every player walks around with all knowledge of all mechanics of all fights.

[Exstal]

That's actually fair, it's the reasoning I used for Mog; on the other hand a new player wouldn't know about the time crunch involved. DPS checks in HM will be automatically passed just by virtue of having i90; when you reach EX you need to actually know what order to push your buttons in.

Good King Moggly Mog is quite possibly my most detested fight in this game. The difference between HM and EM is so ridiculous I can't believe SE likes fights like this. EM punishes you for DPSing hard, punishes you for DPSing out of turn, punishes you for every minor mistake. It's a dumb fight. Although, I sell the fight to other people, I always groan and moan when we have to do it.

Of 8 people only one has to be saved to t9. So if i took a party of 7 people with me that hasnt cleared t6-8 and im on t9 it will pull them to t9. And that doesnt mean that the person with the t9 save actually beat t6-8 either, they could have been pulled to t9 as well. So stop trying to correct that guy. Correct yourself first.

He was right, however.

How do you check if a person has cleared turns 1, 2, and 3..if the only way to check is if they have turn 4 available to go into? So for that week they can't go into Turns 1-3...which defeats the purpose of having a PF group looking for more people for weekly clear. If you *know* they've defeated those turns, and you bring them every week, that has a special name, "static".

[Krr]

That's with having some casual players in the static.

Statics are generally not accessible to players who are 'casual' in any way. Preparing to join one and keeping up with the job-experience like curve in item level with them takes a considerable amount of time and energy.

Once you join a static, it is easy to play casually. Before then, you basically cannot to make a good attempt at being in one without playing consistently and keeping in touch with prospective members or openings in-game or going third-party and making applications. *If* anyone is looking for your best role(s).

The labor market comparison some people make is apt. You either fall into one thanks to friends or spend a lot of time looking.

[Roris]

This game has a couple of trial and error mechanics that don't really make much sense within the flow of the fight, for lack of a better word, until they're figured out, and even then they're just kinda thrown in there and just kinda work because they do.

Stuff like having people stand on the Ballistic Missile circles to break them, why does it even work? Is it because it targets more than two people and it confuses the Avatar? Or standing on the white circles to remove Garrote after the Ghost dies, why does it remove the debuff? Is it because you're picking one of the chains that broke off from it? Or standing on the Neurolinks to reduce damage from two attacks, is it because they are linked to Twintania and she absorbs part of the damage even though she doesn't really take damage from those attacks and throughout the rest of the fight it's bad to stand on them?

All these explanations are really farfetched because I just pulled them out of my butt and I guess they work but they're really hamfisted, and the truth is they just work because they do with no real explanation given as the fight goes along. Sure it's a videogame and not every little mechanic has to be justified and explained or even make sense, although the majority of the other mechanics in the game do make more sense, and these mechanics aren't really hard to deal with either. Still those three examples are a pet peeve of mine and personally it'd be better if they weren't just thrown in there and flowed better and had some justification to them, but maybe they do who knows.

[subteraneanbird]

You're totally off on the Twintania one though. The neurolinks are pieces of Twintania's shackle, that severely reduce her power. This is why standing in them weakens you. This is why she gains attacks as they break off. She even has a slow debuff at the start of the fight that goes away later on. The neurolinks also don't protect from two specific attacks. They protect from all sorts of attacks, but they weaken you too so that's a bad strat for a fight with multiple intense dps checks. Allagan technology sure is something.

As for the topic on hand, I actually disagree with some assertions. Like how no one should ever need to check third party sources to play your game. People have different learning capabilities. Sometimes it is nearly impossible for the game itself to be able to teach you. I think its important to remember that the medium has limitations. I also think everyone has a really narrow and exclusionary definition of learning coming into this thread that's just kinda ugly. If someone wants to do the I'm a Big Girl and Deserve This tuned fights, all the knowledge and resources exist to help them get there. Not always in the game itself, no, but a big part of an MMO is the community built around it. It's not perfect but nothing is. I dunno, that's just my take on it.

[Krr]

I will continue to disagree with the assertion that brand new 50s with no prior experience in raiding who are skyrocketed to i90+ should be immediately thrust into un-puggable, instant death encounters and that "community resources" will help them do anything but stress out and quit when faced with certain fights as their first "real deal" encounters, like Twintania. After all, isn't a common social problem in the MMO community a divide between elitist progression raiders and those who just want to play an enjoyable game with their friends? It results in alienating, materialistic behavior, even among close groups - because in these stressful, binary, endgame fights, trying to tutor along a player who won't even be in your core group becomes stressful and unfun.

Even close-knit, mid-size FCs have this problem frequently, IME - a group of elite players leaving others in the dust, because the modern encounter design doesn't encourage learning and helping, merely succeeding, and that game design actively puts stress on the social bonds players try to form.

The progression curve might've been great in 2.1 and even into 2.2, but if you've played in recent months it's actually been arising as a pretty serious problem.

A big part of an MMO is its community - and this one proves harsh, alienating, and unfriendly to those who aren't already at the absolute top percent of their game. Good game design won't fix that by itself, but it can alleviate and change player behavior on a total whim - just look at hunts on various servers.

[Edenholt]

snip

So, you're telling me that this casual game, which YoshiP himself admit he is keeping as easy as possible to not scare new players away, is too complicated for the social/casual player?
Look, my FC is composed of 8 players, my static, we have fun together, we help each other with everything, from crafting to tactics. Don't blame the game because people are mean, because they are the same everywhere. The game have a handful of encounters that require coordination and commitiment, the hardest content in the game. It require you to improve and learn from your and the next guy's mistakes. People have tons of trouble people they wanna join together with strangers and expect to beat the end game in the first night. I'm yet to see a static complaining about it. What I see if people getting excited and really happy when they manage to beat what was meant to be a challange from the developers to the community.