Question 18 of XVII Q&A Live Letter

[Mariel_Crystallie]

just came and see the question on that live letter....

they should ask for this : http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ctice-Mode-%29

[Wolf_Gang]

I don't care about people selling runs anymore.

I used to, but I realize now it's a trivial concern. People who buy they way through content are only hurting themselves.

[SendohJin]

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

At face value, elitists is actually a positive connotation - it implies the best of the best (best pool of skilled players).

seriously? people really do not know what elitist means. it's not positive and it's not just in MMOs.

Elitist doesn't mean "the most Elite", Elitist is not to Elite as Tallest is to Tall. -ist is not -est, Elitest isn't a real word.

Elitist favors rule and domination of the Elite, everything should cater to them, everything should be designed for their use first and foremost and everyone who is not Elite can and should be content with whatever scraps are leftover.

you can be Elite without being Elitist, you can also be Elitist without being Elite.

[SendohJin]

How exactly does the lockout screw over the general population and FCs?

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.

my FC is average sized. we run 4 Coil groups, the top 2 run really consistently, the other 2 not so much, they are mostly comprised of people with more irregular job schedules and/or family obligations. at best it's only possible to run for 2-3 hours once a week and sometimes even that gets interrupted, usually because 1 person has something come up.

so the group ends up either not running for an entire week or PUGing the last spot (or 2) in which they don't really grow/progress together and end up spending more time trying to find someone that can help clear. and that doesn't at all help in progression because you end up with someone who can clear T6 but have to teach them T7 from scratch or you end up with someone who can do T6 & 7 but have no interest in sticking around for the group to learn T8. people with such tight schedules don't have time to put PF up over and over again.

without a strict lockout you can fill those vacant spots with people from the first 2 groups.

[Judge_Xero]

I really hope they are able to find some method to opening future raids without having lockouts.

I can understand that they don't want to have the Crystal Tower design, as people would obtain the endgame loot they want too fast through farming and only rolling on the piece they need when it comes up.

The only way I can think of that would make it fair in all aspects, would be to have another Token system.

Example

Second Coil Turn 1 - Members who don't get a drop will receive a Rafflasia Sprout Token
Second Coil Turn 2 - Members who don't get a drop will receive a Mellusine Eye Token
....etc

These tokens will prevent you from rolling on further loot, or getting further token drops, per week, per turn. But X number of tokens can be traded for gear that would drop in their respective turns.

While it may let players gear up slightly faster (nothing compared to Oils and Sands from Hunts anyways) it should meet a middle ground on being able party with members outside your Static Group. It can also be fine tuned by adjusting the number of tokens required from a piece of gear, but most importantly it should let you get those Glamors you really really want!!

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This design will let people sell carry runs, but they will eventually anyways. There's not really a reason to police people doing that anyways. If people have the gil to spend why not.
When skilled players are able to beat the hardest endgame content, then further being able to beat it with less people gives a bigger challenge and keeps those skilled players playing.

[skaterger]

my FC is average sized. we run 4 Coil groups, the top 2 run really consistently, the other 2 not so much, they are mostly comprised of people with more irregular job schedules and/or family obligations. at best it's only possible to run for 2-3 hours once a week and sometimes even that gets interrupted, usually because 1 person has something come up.

so the group ends up either not running for an entire week or PUGing the last spot (or 2) in which they don't really grow/progress together and end up spending more time trying to find someone that can help clear. and that doesn't at all help in progression because you end up with someone who can clear T6 but have to teach them T7 from scratch or you end up with someone who can do T6 & 7 but have no interest in sticking around for the group to learn T8. people with such tight schedules don't have time to put PF up over and over again.

without a strict lockout you can fill those vacant spots with people from the first 2 groups.

I'm sorry to be so direct, and I hope I don't come off as elitist (btw, totally agree with your definition of elitist up there), but people who only have 2-3 hours to raid per week should not really hope to clear coil as quickly as those that can put in more hours. O I mean if you think about it, 2-3 hours per week is really really little, its not even enough to do your daily roulette and beast tribe dailies every day in a week, and you still have ST, pvp on top of that. Raiding is as much about commitment as it is skill. If some people only have limited time, then there's lots of other stuff in the game to occupy them (which are catered for players who play less or at more irregular hours). I really don't think an entire system (which by definition is designed for more hardcore players) should suddenly be changed to cater to these players.

[SendohJin]

people who only have 2-3 hours to raid per week should not really hope to clear coil as quickly as those that can put in more hours.

no one has that expectation. super world first groups clear within the first month, better groups clear within two months. we would like the option to clear within 6 before echo because a lot of us are skilled enough to do it.

at the least if they are going to do 2 patches between implementing a new tier. they can open them up during the middle patch.
2.4 - release 3rd Coil, full lockout
2.5 - relax lockout, free entry, loot lockout only + savage with full lockout
2.6 - echo, new raid

Raiding is as much about commitment as it is skill.

this sounds wrong? The Novus quest is about commitment. Farming Allied Seals to Unweather an entire job is about commitment. so what in this game can be about skill?

O I mean if you think about it, 2-3 hours per week is really really little, its not even enough to do your daily roulette and beast tribe dailies every day in a week

that's not how much time we have to play the game, that's just how often all 8 people can overlap a large block of time to practice together. most of them can get in an hour here and there to do their roulette, cap Soldiery and do ST, even do Hunts for 2-3 hours but when A, B, C and D can hunt for 2 hours is not when X, Y and Z can hunt for 3 hours.

[skaterger]

no one has that expectation. super world first groups clear within the first month, better groups clear within two months. we would like the option to clear within 6 before echo because a lot of us are skilled enough to do it.

at the least if they are going to do 2 patches between implementing a new tier. they can open them up during the middle patch.
2.4 - release 3rd Coil, full lockout
2.5 - relax lockout, free entry, loot lockout only + savage with full lockout
2.6 - echo, new raid

I would agree with you if more people, say 50% of the players have cleared coil at this time. But only 2000 players, or less than 1% has done so (which includes those that bought their runs), which if you ask me, is working as intended. There are still many players running coil at this time, mostly hoping to get a clear before the next patch hits. To allow a situation of mass selling of runs would not only kill their motivation to progress, but also be unfair to them to the work they put in over the past 3 months, and invalidate everything that they achieved, and screwing with the natural progression cycle. Incidentally, it is also during this time (the catch up patch), that most clear groups become geared enough to do a carry.

I would also like to add that the 6 month window is sufficient for skilled players to clear coil, even if the group has only 2-3 hours to raid per week. My fc has a group like that, they have been raiding 1 day per week since 2.2 hit, and are working on t9 last phase atm and will clear it before 2.4 hits.

this sounds wrong? The Novus quest is about commitment. Farming Allied Seals to Unweather an entire job is about commitment. so what in this game can be about skill?

We will have to agree to disagree about this then. One of the reasons why less than 0.1% of the players completed naxx in vanilla wow was that it was a 40 man raid, and back then there were major inconveniences such as the lack of a looking for group tool and the need to walk to the dungeon instead of the game teleporting you there instantly. This was the reason they eventually scrapped the idea of 40 mans and made it 10/25. Now I'm not advocating we go back to the days of 40 man raids, but if you buy into the premise that coil is the hardest group content in the game, then every member should give a minimum and equal investment into the success of a group in terms of time spent.

I would argue that novus, hunts are much more casual and require much less commitment than raiding. Why? Because even though it might take a long time, you can do it at your own leisure, and which is actually who this content was designed for in the first place, people who don't have time to commit to raiding. Ask yourself why the words "commited" and "dedicated" always come up in raid recruitment posts and you have your answer. Regarding your last question about skill, raiding requires both commitment and skill, which I mentioned in my earlier post. You can't have only one or the other, which gives it it's "hardcore" tag.

[Fendred]

I can't wait, I need some more gil for my high end furniture and minion collection.

This is a stupid concern the Dev team has. SCoB sales have been happening for at least a month or longer. There were two people who bought T9 kills back towards the end of June on Cactaur.

With raid ilvl gear available from hunts, lockouts on coil serve 0% atm.

Why stop at just the current patch stuff? Payed runs started all the way back in 2.0.

[Ooshima]

This sounds wrong? The Novus quest is about commitment. Farming Allied Seals to Unweather an entire job is about commitment. so what in this game can be about skill?

You have one big flaw here. Joanna is referring raiding takes commitment. Novus questline isn't raiding, so is The Hunt. Novus is pretty much a solo content while The Hunt is pretty much a "party based" content where you just form any random party either at the map where the mark spawned or with a dedicated hunting LS.

Raiding is more focused on a dedicated, static party where everyone is expected to be on the same level of commitment, focus and skill level.

It can be pretty much of a chore, I can understand that feeling because I have been with 3 different teams since 2.0 and all three have disbanded thus far, for different reasons.

If you want progression, you need to be in an effective team. If a team have their player's schedule clashing all the time, it is not effective. If it is one or two members, the leader might have to take the hard route to consider replacing them. There is no point for 8 persons if very different schedule and needs to band together just simply because you are from the same FC or something. Spend time in finding a suitable group instead of wasting time on weeks of ineffective raid schedule and ended up, learning and progressing on nothing.

I've been through schedule issues and reforming of teams myself to say the above. Effective and good groups know what they need to do - replace and reform if they need to. Sticking around just because it is a "FC thing" or "we are friends" but having schedule issues doesn't bring you anywhere.