Question 18 of XVII Q&A Live Letter

[Volcano]

Elitist has a negative meaning among MMOS. regardless if you know it's "true" meaning it's almost always used as a negative term.

[Exstal]

Elitist has a negative meaning among MMOS. regardless if you know it's "true" meaning it's almost always used as a negative term.

It's funny because the amount of real elitists is fairly low. People just like to make excuses for everything. What people actual mean is "impatient" but.. *shrug* ignorance is bliss.

[PrimeEvilPanda]

Having it locked does keep it competitive because loot in progression content is meant to be for a group, not a player, and loot being a team's business has been bread and butter for progression raiding since forever.

Coil, unrestricted, without the buffs... do you believe it will suddenly become hell on earth where sells for carries/gears are going to flood and ruin market/gameplay?

I'm reading it wrong, but you sound like you're contradicting yourself - If restrictions are changed, you'll still need a competent group to clear/farm it - but this time the "competition" pool will be wider because groups will have better versatility in farming schedules. So per your note, this will benefit progression groups. Hopefully I'm understanding what you mean.

The restrictions we currently have are put in place because this is the only way SE feels they can extend the content.

[PrimeEvilPanda]

It's funny because the amount of real elitists is fairly low. People just like to make excuses for everything. What people actual mean is "impatient" but.. *shrug* ignorance is bliss.

At face value, elitists is actually a positive connotation - it implies the best of the best (best pool of skilled players). In this game, instances are nerfed and Joe Bloe will be walking around with the same gear you have but at least you have the personal bragging rights for yourself that you cleared it first and, as my friend used to say, "in its pure form" (without the buffs). But in reality, you're right - no one I know has rubbed this in anyone's face. Seems everyone keeps it civil and professional.

[blowfin]

Here is another translation from BG.

Why haven't you been able to relax the entry restrictions into the Bahamut's Dungeons with the Second Coil?

It's not that we haven't been considering it, but the current situation is the best we've come up with so far. If people could get the items and then help other people get their items, it would lead to fast inflation of item levels which we want to avoid. We are taking all of this into consideration, but for now we don't have a solution.

So the reasoning is basically that it would allow people to gear up too fast. Then on the other hand we have hunts, which help people gear up way faster than coil ever would. So none of this really makes much sense.

I.e. There is ZERO compelling reasons why coil should remain locked like it is, when hunts exist.

[SarcasmMisser]

Coil, unrestricted, without the buffs... do you believe it will suddenly become hell on earth where sells for carries/gears are going to flood and ruin market/gameplay?

I'm reading it wrong, but you sound like you're contradicting yourself - If restrictions are changed, you'll still need a competent group to clear/farm it - but this time the "competition" pool will be wider because groups will have better versatility in farming schedules. So per your note, this will benefit progression groups. Hopefully I'm understanding what you mean.

The restrictions we currently have are put in place because this is the only way SE feels they can extend the content.

Your latter point was half my exact point, it is in place because they consider loot as a team/server wide thing as opposed to a personal thing and by the law of large numbers the distribution will be even world wide, but your average group will be left wanting loot far longer than a plain loot lock out. It is not for our benefit but theirs.

In terms of promoting competition the intended design for a team based lock out is so clears are very firmly fixed within a static team, so the idea is that every new clear is with a completely fresh team and everyone gets the same progression experience, this is what I mean by competitive because at least early on each team develops unique strategies in competition with each other. This is diminished as time goes on by the amount of clears leading to information sharing and videos that standardize strats, so the problem solving part of progression is lost. I think when it reaches the point where things are "standard" a lock out per team stops serving a point aside from restricting loot, and we were past that point well before 2.3.

They also keep the integrity of things such as titles, but this game only does it for savage and there's no realm first titles so I actually don't think it would be too bad to have such a lock out as someone proposed before, where there is no entry restriction but if one person in the group has cleared before there is no loot. And in regards to savage the situation you described is absolutely the case, the fact that it shares a lock out with something on farm is actually encouraging less competition right now and its a shame, stuff that is in progression should not be treated the same as something people are farming.

In regards to carries my exact point is that carries won't flood the market much more now I think we agree. Carrying some content actually is decently difficult and to be honest I don't know if its a lack of interest or the fact that most people aren't up to the task of carrying. Titan EM was never locked and had incredible demand but for a short while there were incredibly few people carrying it because doing it with 3 DPS at i90 was too tricky for most people capable of clearing. The reason why a lock out makes carries insanely profitable isn't because there's a lack of competition, but because the fact you can only carry one person a week means the price is set by the highest bidder.

[Kikosho]

It's a shame that most of this thread is just people shouting about the "horrors" of rampant merc runs should the lockout be removed, ignoring how it screws the general population and FCs. Should just use that energy to think of a way to have the lockout removed, allow FCs to help their own members while simultaneously make run selling more difficult (it's never going away, ever.)

Time to make Matt fights for level or dungeon entrance. lol

While this may have been in jest, this is a decent start. If players have to perform a sort of solo trial to attune themselves to the highest tier content to at least display that they aren't braindead and are proficient at their job & are able to perform some mechanics, it'd limit the ability to sell runs to everyone with deep pockets. Will this hurt FCs as well? Of course, but at least the ball is in the player's court.

[Nestama]

Makes me wonder how BLM Maat would work in this game... especially if you can't use your cross class abilities (yet he can use Second Wind and Simian Thrash because lol he's also a MNK somehow).

[Jinrya-Geki]

Free companies might help with a solution. Make it so if you are part of a free company you can enter as many times as you want as long as all 8 are from the same FC.

Not everyone is gonna quit their FC for a carry especially since the items are not guaranteed and mixed with a loot lock out like crystal tower has.

[skaterger]

It's a shame that most of this thread is just people shouting about the "horrors" of rampant merc runs should the lockout be removed, ignoring how it screws the general population and FCs. Should just use that energy to think of a way to have the lockout removed, allow FCs to help their own members while simultaneously make run selling more difficult (it's never going away, ever.)

How exactly does the lockout screw over the general population and FCs? Let's get something clear. The only time a lockout is in effect is when someone has cleared the turn for that week. If both parties have not cleared the turn, they can still play together so long as they can find a common time. Whether a lockout is implemented or not would not change anything in that regard. So when you say that you want a lockout removed, what you are saying is that you want to put someone who has not cleared a turn with a person/people that have cleared it before. If you ever run titan ex, or coil with people that have experience, you would know that the difference between an experienced and inexperienced party is night and day. A clear party can make up for your mistakes, can cover you when you are not performing optimally or if you want to put it less audibly pleasing, carry you.

Now you might ask, what is wrong with an fc static helping other members of the fc. This is an mmorpg after all, people should help others right? Here is where I disagree. IMO, the spirit of raiding (and this also draws on my raiding in previous games) should be to go into an encounter "fresh", and watch your team grow and progress until you finally get the clear. And the spirit in which to maintain it, should the lockout be removed, is to have 1-2 experienced players to guide the other 5 or 6 other members. This would be perfectly fine. But chances of this happening are virtually non existant. The group that cleared it has probably spent hundreds of hours wiping to get to that point and don't wish to wipe again with a new team. So what will happen is that they will bring 1 new player in each time. At this point, if the new player can carry their weight in the group, it would probably still be all right but with the way coil is designed, with all the one shot mechanics and the ability to wipe your team members, they would probably not last long before they are told "Just go die there, we'll clear it for you". Add to that the 500 members fc where each member is clamouring for a carry and you can see how this can get out of hand fast. And I'm not speaking out of my behind because I've experienced this personally. We have been rotating people in our coil groups and current members have been stepping out to bring new players in to help them clear it, all this even with the lockout where we can only help one person a week. We have done it for T6 and T7 successfully with 7 man, and are trying T8 and T9 the coming weeks. And I'm sure I'm not the only person here to have experienced this.