Are you happy with the current raiding structure in this game?

[Yukariko]

Thing is any arguments about loot and how hard/casual it is to get/earn have gone out the window with the introduction of hunts which hand out gear through mindless grinding.

As far as actual raiding goes, what we really need is
1) keep old content relevant somehow (maybe with updated rewards)
2) more horizontal progression. IE more different raids.

imagine if each of the 4 combat related beast tribes had their own raid quest line with their own themed armours.

[Dhex]

Did you ignore what I said? SE Cares.

Hunts kinda contradict that - the only exclusive thing progression (iLv wise) oriented in Coil is the weapons from Turn 9.

[Exstal]

Who cares if a player is carried? Yes that would happen, but it wouldn't always be the case. Believe it or not, there are plenty of skilled players who are avoiding coil just because of the static nature of it all. Getting these players into coil could only be a good thing for the entire community at large. And even if a player decided to carry some of his peers, who is to say that is a bad thing - that would be his choice, not yours.

SE cares.

Quoted for emphasis.

[rwyan]

Did you ignore what I said? SE Cares.

Cares about what? Currently, all the item level serves is a way of gating content. Either the game does it by preventing entry or players do it by requiring other players to be a specific iLvl before grouping. Outside this, ilvl only serves as a means to provide progression while the level cap is stuck at 50... that and cater to the occasional player who finds it as a way to judge his/her epeen.

Yes, removing the lockout and instituting a gear roll lockout would result in more players attaining gear from Coil. However, it wouldn't actually dramatically impact any ecosystem. It won't impact the economy. It won't impact any special balance that needs to be in place. All it would result is getting more players who are ready for the challenge into Coil more regularly. This doesn't diminish anyone's achievements whatsoever. And lastly, it would keep players playing and paying... which is what SE Cares about. As I said, outside of epeen, what does Coil rewards really work towards?

And if SE Cared in the way you imply, the hunts system would have been reworked by now to purposefully prevent it from being meta-gamed the way it has been.

"SE Cares" - That is the excuse players use as a way to stroke his/her own ego. Yes, they obviously want this type of content to provide some level of accomplishment to players. Making it easy peasy wouldn't provide that. However, the current lockout structure doesn't make it more challenging. It just gates skilled players from getting in on the action <--- this is a bad thing.

Carrying will happen. It does happen. You won't get around it. However, due to the nature and difficulty of coil... how many players are really going to be carried through on each run for it to be successful.

[ispano]

Cares about what? Currently, all the item level serves is a way of gating content. Either the game does it by preventing entry or players do it by requiring other players to be a specific iLvl before grouping. Outside this, ilvl only serves as a means to provide progression while the level cap is stuck at 50... that and cater to the occasional player who finds it as a way to judge his/her epeen.

Yes, removing the lockout and instituting a gear roll lockout would result in more players attaining gear from Coil. However, it wouldn't actually dramatically impact any ecosystem. It won't impact the economy. It won't impact any special balance that needs to be in place. All it would result is getting more players who are ready for the challenge into Coil more regularly. This doesn't diminish anyone's achievements whatsoever. And lastly, it would keep players playing and paying... which is what SE Cares about. As I said, outside of epeen, what does Coil rewards really work towards?

And if SE Cared in the way you imply, the hunts system would have been reworked by now to purposefully prevent it from being meta-gamed the way it has been.

Dude: I would like to participate with my other jobs even after having cleared the content.

Yoshida: Do you mean as a helper?
In that instance, my worry is the breaking down of the hierachy when players who are unable to clear content overly rely on those who can and begin getting powerful items. Though I also understand that this concern is purely from a management and development point of view. This is a hard question to answer and is why we've decided to nerf contents incrementally.

And this.

Q18: Currently, once you complete the Coil of Bahamut, you are unable to challenge it until the reset. If we are in a FC or LS with more than 8 players, it’s hard to sync the progression of everyone in the FC/LS. Is there anyway you could change the once-a-week system so that we could help out our fellow FC/LS members?

A18: As for the once-a-week system that we currently have in place, we are indeed looking into the matter, but we haven’t been able to find an alternative system to take its place.

They understand that their view may not be the same as everyone's, but they still hold it.

There have been several threads in response to the question in the second quote, but they all ignore what will happen if implemented, or try to downplay the negatives with things like "who cares"

[Evangela]

I don't like anything in Second Coil.

[Exstal]

Yes, removing the lockout and instituting a gear roll lockout would result in more players attaining gear from Coil.

You seem to misunderstand how the gear drop would work with no lockout.　It suddenly goes from 100% chance of any usable gear dropping, to 10% of any usable gear dropping.　That's how you retain the relative exclusivity of the gear without preventing all from entering. There is no way around this.

Loot lockout is stupid. How often do people go back into CT after they've received their loot for "fun"? You'd be hard-pressed to find many people who do that.

[GalkaBikini]

In EQ and older MMOs, I could raid and run content as much as I wanted, and believe it or not, while gear was a motivation to run these, the true fun was in the socialization and camaraderie.

Wrong. Older MMOs such as EQ had lockouts just the same. Back then, raid content respawned on a 4 to 7 day timer. Which is basically the same thing as a lock out timer - except way worse, when you have to compete against 100s of other players to actually claim the boss and then to actually win the loot. Like I said, it's always been this way.

[rwyan]

I guess I just don't see the true entertainment value in lockouts. I'm not a reward driven player. I'm an experience driven player. Meaning, I get my entertainment from working together with other players in a fun, friendly and challenging environment. For me, that is the reward. Things like item drops and tomes and what not are just icing. I can't tell you how many times I participated in raids in older MMOs not for the reward but just for the sake of participating.

Yes, lockouts serve their purpose. But does it have to be that way? Is there a better, more organic way in artificially slowing down player progress while still providing a fun, friendly and challenging atmosphere? I think so, I would hope Yoshida and team are working towards that.

However, providing they continue to stick to the tired, tiered, vertical gear progression approach - we will continue to see tired mechanics such as lock outs.

[Fendred]

Thing is any arguments about loot and how hard/casual it is to get/earn have gone out the window with the introduction of hunts which hand out gear through mindless grinding.

As far as actual raiding goes, what we really need is
1) keep old content relevant somehow (maybe with updated rewards)
2) more horizontal progression. IE more different raids.

imagine if each of the 4 combat related beast tribes had their own raid quest line with their own themed armours.

What they should be doing is going full out horizontal progression until they reach the next expansion. Single player RPGs do this, and there isn't any good argument against this approach other than developers can't take the short sighted route of using a math equation to replace depth with unending upgrade oriented gear grind.