Hey, Sincerely Thank You SE for easing up on Coil

[NyarukoW]

.... If we missed a silence for any reason, we were paralyzed for the 30s....

Nyaruko... T7, fireballing (or getting hit) a frozen (stoned) target will not kill them after this nerf. No matter what gear you're in, you cannot replicate that.

You don't need those replicated exactly. People that don't know what to do will still wipe. Surviving those a bit and giving them a bit wiggle room to recover is not a bad thing. There is already plenty going on and there is going to final coil to really put them to the test. People that don't know rot method or don't know enrage method is not clearing T2. When the renauds run loose in T7, it is a wipe.

More importantly, people need to be able to get the new content in a reasonable amount of time. Keeping things exactly as they are is simply unreasonable and unnecessary.

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...
Example: Garuda(Story)>Garuda(Hard)>Garuda(Extreme)....

Those are not tier-ed difficulty. It is really more like garuda, revisit of garuda, and hopefully final termination of garuda. SE was not doing tier-ed difficulty. SE puts stuff out at max difficulty they deem people would aceept and attempt and then checks and see how are people doing and what is the clear rate. Then when they have new content to take its plave, they reduce difficulty of the existing/older content. This is their operational model and it is plain to see clear as day. There is nothing wrong with the operational model. This turns older content into a part of the ramp of the learning curve. This really smart reuse of existing assets.

And people that want to be hardcore, should put in the time and/or prioritize their time to get at the latest content. There needs to be an incentive for urgency and desire to go at stuff first. You don't get to lolly-gag, drag your feet, and still claim to do the hardcore stuff years later. People that did in the time it was meant to be earned it and now needs to move on. Old victories are hollow, there is no need to be stuck in the past, nor do they get to sit on their laurels and lord it over everyone else. The hardcore player deserve the right to have an opportunity to earn their bragging right first, but they do not have the right to deny other players access to old/older content forever. People that don't feel need to be at the bleeding edge will get difficuly reduced older content, and if that is what they are happy with SE fine with that too and they can stay 1 or 2 major patches behind. But if those people want to shift gears they can get to the starting line quicker for the newer content. SE operational model is both fair and struck the right balance.

[Marukoban]

snip

I'm sure there are people who doesn't want to join static due to various reason, but should they go around spewing excuses here and there?
People without fixed work schedule might find it hard to form static, but for everyone else ...
Hard to play with stranger? We all play with stranger in this game, save for a few real life friends.
None of your FC mates is SCoB ready? Find static elsewhere (that's what I did).
The go-getter thing ... I can't comment on that haha .. You will not get anywhere if you don't at least try to put yourself out there and this applies to everything (including RL). I'm sure everyone in static at some point put themselves out there, either by contacting people recruiting or putting advertisement to find static.
Don't want any drama? Start your own drama-less static.
In fact, I'm irked that people throw around the notion static = hardcore.
Static does not equal to hardcore. You can make whatever static you want, whether it's hardcore, elite, slow progression, casual, etc.
Like I said, it all comes down to whether you really want it or not.

It's fine if you don't really want it, as not every content is for everyone.
I mean people have different priorities and it's good, but just as you may have your own real life problem, it doesn't mean those in statics don't have it.
I have full-time job, school (taking weekday night/weekend classes), volunteering activity, friends, etc.
Sometimes I can only log in for my raid time (which is like 2-3 x 2 hours a week) and it took me almost a month to reach my first lvl 50.

I honestly also don't really like how you use the word desperate?
Is working towards what you think is fun = desperate? I don't think anyone is desperate when they try to form a static.

And the last point is, you seem to forget that SCoB is totally pug-able from t6-9 after about 3-4 months?
You don't even need static to clear coil (know some people who clear without static).
So yea, you can always do the content when it's relevant and don't need to commit to anyone.

[Prototype909]

See, the thing is, if you make them wait every cycle... they're always going to feel dejected or second-class.

3/4 of the content in this game is wasted on raiding players. We have one thing that we get to look forward to in every patch along with MAYBE some EX trials if they're geared properly (Not like Ramuh on release or Moggle Mog EX). You guys can afford to wait a few patch cycles to get your nerfed versions - hell I don't even think you should get that but I know that you'll get it if you whine enough. Raiding players will never be able to whine enough to get a new set of raids that give gear (A separate but equally difficult/gearing raid), so enjoy that privilege.

[Inosaska]

I expect that the next expansion will see the removal of cutscenes completely from raids as most of the time it just annoys those that have gone through the raid multiple times and don't like being dragged down because they have to wait for one person and most of the time they just ditch that person.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

I feel this needs to be addressed.
In this interview Naoki Yoshida attempts to explain the developers reasoning behind the lockout.

And it's a mess.
First of all, separating content by "this is fun content" and "this is serious content" creates an unnecessary segregation at the design stage. Why must difficult content be deliberately un-fun? Why is it that easy content that you clear by rolling your face over the keyboard and forgetting about it forever is actually the definition of "fun for everyone"? These are rhetorical questions of course. Here's the main meat of the philosophy in question:

The stance for that particular content is that the people with the highest skill take on that challenge [present in the Binding Coil]. Because this is such high end content, if we have people that are going into say the Crystal Tower, and they are not as high skilled a player, we don’t want them to get involved in the Binding Coil of Bahamut and kind of affect those higher skilled level players and have people kind of get disgruntled, like ‘why are those people even in there?’ So we kind of wanted to delineate and differentiate the skill level.

Unfortunately this response dodges the question entirely. First off, it's kinda chilling that he outright states that players with lower skill level or slower learning curve are not welcome in the end game content. I'm pretty sure that even high level players will find that this philosophy artificially segregates community, and that is always a problem. They state they don't want to brew elitism then do things like that. That doesn't make sense.

But the most important part is that a system of entry lockouts does nothing to achieve that goal. Say a player with insufficient skill level got carried in T5, or paid for the clear, or plain got lucky and won in a good group. He now has access to the highest endgame at-the-time, SCOB. What's to stop this player from joining PUGs and waste their time? What's to stop this player from applying to a static and waste their time? In fact, both public groups and statics will be less tolerant to these kind of players exactly because there is a lockout and by giving lesser-skilled players a chance they're actually going to be in the loss. But there's more!

It is thought (by the developers, represented by N.Y.) that SCOB is the ultimate content in question here. But we also have things like extreme primals, from Ramuh that requires raid-level coordination and Titan that requires raid-level reaction times to Leviathan which isn't even that hard, but still punishing and heavy on mechanics. Hell, even Crystal Tower (the first one anyway) has mechanics that can lead to repeated alliance wipes - nearly every pull in Labyrinth of the Ancients has some mechanics that have to be executed, or it's a wipe. Syrcus Tower is comparatively much easier and lighter as a result of this philosophy no doubt. However, there's absolutely nothing to prevent the "why are these people even in there" from happening. When you make a Ramuh party and somebody can't damage Arbiters fast enough without tunnel visioning and overlapping thunderstorms, it happens. When people don't watch out for the orbs, it happens. Why must this "differentiation of the skill level" apply to Coil, but not to every other form of content with similar difficulty? There's no answer to that question.

It's either hypocrisy and a poor attempt at trying to artificially keep the subs from leaving, or plain cluelessness.
Even the most hardcore FC is going to throw their hands up in desperation when it turns out the amount of good players in their ranks is not divisible squarely by 8.

[Fyrebrand]

I'm only mid-way through endgame stuff and recently unlocked Coil, so take this with a grain of salt. But I just wanted to give my two cents on MMO raid difficulty in a general sense...

I think it's totally fine to expect that hardcore raiding FCs will be among the first to clear cutting-edge content, and that they'll be able to repeatedly clear it more frequently than most players. If there are higher difficulty settings for that same content, perhaps with better rewards, it makes sense that perhaps hardcore raiding FCs might be among the only ones who can clear it with any regularity.

But I don't think it's good game design for there to be game content that only hardcore raiding FCs can play. If you think of it in terms of a single-player game, there are usually various difficulty settings. The average player should be able to clear it on Normal, with practice. If they have to set it to "Easy," that's fine. Maybe they won't get the best reward, but they should at least be able to see the content and finish the game. Hard or Extreme difficulties should be geared to challenge the most skilled, practiced, patient, and informed players. It should not be expected that the average player can complete those modes. However, as much as is reasonable, it's not good if whole levels and chapters are gated behind Hard or Extreme difficulties. It just means fewer people can appreciate parts of the game, and that is just wasteful.

Please note, the regular terminology gets muddled when applied to FFXIV, as what they call "Hard Mode" is actually a completely new dungeon. The closest equivalent FFXIV has to actual difficulty settings would be the different Primal fights, I guess. But it's not like there is a "Normal" Coil of Bahamut and a "Hard" Coil of Bahamut. Until there is a version of these raids that is actually the same layout but with an optional higher difficulty setting, I think the default raid should be tuned to be possible for the average player. That's not to say it should be a cakewalk, or completed on their first try, or done without wipes, or that they don't need to learn the fights -- just that most people should be able to do it, if they pay attention and put in some effort. There should always be a greater reward for those who have honed their skills that much more, but I don't feel the reward should be "I can play this content, and you can't."

[polyhedral]

It's Final Fantasy. Offline, I've been able to 100% of the game. I do know and want challenging content, but I do not want players stuck in that content for years, or even 6 months. I know what this kind of content does to a community and it's inhabitants, as in FFXI. You need more people in your FC and LS to have access to new content. Trust me, as I know SE MMO.

The challenge will always be on the top of each patch.

I personally think that alliances can learn faster than party raids. Make more alliance roulettes. Even if it's 10 iLVLs off from top raid gear, it's good enough for all content. If they want to try on that content.

Despite all that, I've seen many i110 players die in ST, many times, while I, an i96 SMN stay alive during it. It's all what each player cares for.

We all need to be on the same page, or at least the same chapter of this lore book.

[Krr]

A few thoughts here:

-A nerfed SCOB, if done and incentivized properly, could be an excellent learning tool for players who feel stuck in the game right now. If all of these encounters remained relevant for unlock requirements but remain approachable without a static, it would probably be a godsend for every player who really genuinely wants to play instead of passing off 500k-1mil gil just to keep up with the joneses.

-Something like the nerfed SCOB should have been here in the first place and shouldn't be replacing the existing SCOB. The game needs a mid-tier of content and retrofitting "irrelevant" content isn't working.

-Hopefully, the lockout removal (with gear penalty) from 2.45 will remain a constant, and at-launch feature if successful. I cannot name the amount of FC drama and toxic pug behavior that happens because of restrictive lockouts are, how difficult it is to properly schedule statics for people with active shifting schedules, etc, etc. Of course, then we'll see if the run sales really are about gear and not carrying unskilled, wealthy people to clears...

[PandaOnAcid]

There's nothing in this game that only hardcore raiding FCs can play. I'll never get why people still equate "casual" to "low skill".

[RickXRolled]

There's nothing in this game that only hardcore raiding FCs can play. I'll never get why people still equate "casual" to "low skill".

I know good players that play casually. I think it's because of the term filthy casual or because most of the people whining about difficulty tend to be casual.