Any idea what is in patch 2.57?

[Cutie_McSnuggles]

I pray that they will finally give us the option to set the default back to "commence" on controller. This is a daily blight on my gameplay experience.

[Omegakiyohime]

Yes. Genius. Put there foot down and drive away players. That's going to be good for the game. (Note: I'm being sarcastic)

I don't think this can be said enough. Steps of Faith acts as a gate to parts of the expansion (Ishgard, new Jobs, new job skills) and it's clear rates, given that SE is trying to sell a product with a primary focus on stuff that happens after the fight, should be 95-100%. They should have put in a story mode and a hard mode( with something as a reward) instead of tuning the fight up so much that they need to nerf it to get acceptable clear rates.

The players need to grow up and get better sooner or later, it makes perfect sense for the final instance before the expansion to be that time. SoF isn't hard, it's a mechanic driven battle that requires cooperation and a bit of coordination. If people can't make a conscious effort to TRY to do that, then they don't need to be playing a Massively MULTIPLAYER Online Role Playing Game.

I'm pretty sure SE cares more about subscription money and expansion money than player skill, and honestly, why should they? Player skill isn't going to fund the continued development of the game. And yes, I hate it when I get paired with people that can barely play their jobs, but I do like that SE makes money, puts out consistent updates, and is delivering an expansion to a game that failed the first time around. So they have to strike a balance between hard content and casual content, but pushing people out as was suggested earlier before the expansion is just a terrible business idea and just bad for the game in general. No one benefits from SE making less money.

[Garlyle]

The players need to grow up and get better sooner or later, it makes perfect sense for the final instance before the expansion to be that time. SoF isn't hard, it's a mechanic driven battle that requires cooperation and a bit of coordination. If people can't make a conscious effort to TRY to do that, then they don't need to be playing a Massively MULTIPLAYER Online Role Playing Game.

Yes. There's a point at which players absolutely do have to start getting better.

However.

Steps of Faith is, in about a month and change, going to become outdated content. It's a challenge that won't really get any easier from gear and levels. And the reality is that right now, when it's still 'relevant' content, people have little patience for the fight. And it's going to be mandatory in order to make it to Heavensward content.

Really, I do want to see more content that requires players to get better... but Steps of Faith is both an incomparable fight to other content mechanically (Getting good at Steps doesn't necessarily mean much for the rest of the game other than 'ability to follow instructions'), and left alone, it'll just become more and more of an irritation and roadblock.

[Nalien]

Yes. Genius. Put there foot down and drive away players. That's going to be good for the game. (Note: I'm being sarcastic)

I'd rather lose some subscribers who couldn't even grasp Steps of Faith, than continue having the developers cater to that lowest of bars, personally. Forming a group rather than relying on the Duty Finder is a sure fire way to clear this incredibly easy Trial. Talking people to form a group ensures that you'll actually all communicate roles and such.

I think a better idea would be to start introducing mechanic changes like we see in Steps of Faith more slowly. Steps of Faith is a rather large departure from what people are used to. I think they should have introduced environmental mechanics incrementally over a longer time before making a fight so environmental mechanic intensive.

How much slower could they possibly have been? Perhaps they should have made Stone Vigil (Hard) a requirement (or is it already?), because between that and Leviathan there really wasn't any new mechanics... Timing Dragon Killer was the only new thing and in my experience that is what people fail time and time again. That isn't even a difficult mechanic to grasp... Wait for the dragon to be in place... Wait for people to Snare him... None of it is hard or particularly difficult to figure out.

Communication is the killer in Steps of Faith. People who don't communicate fail to do the simplest of things, and not communicating is perhaps the defining feature of the Duty Finder groups for every piece of content. So many people simply get carried through the story Trials without even having to think. The Duty Finder is an enabler which shouldn't be the norm for every piece of content. Beef up that New Player bonus and Party Finder for Steps shouldn't be difficult at all, though perhaps if SE had "put their foot down" sooner, people wouldn't be at Lv50 without a single friend to help them out. Perhaps if content wasn't constantly catering to these precious subscribers, content could have been less forgiving and prepared players better. Instead they constantly downgraded content for these people, and here's the result. I'm not surprised, and I agree, Steps of Faith as a gate to Heavensward probably isn't the right place to make this change. They should have made it in 2.1, if not in some of the high level pre-50 dungeons.

[DragonSlayer45]

Dear Square Enix,

Please allow us to trade Soldiery gear for GC seals.

Sincerely, everyone.

[Limecat]

Dear Square Enix,

Please allow us to trade Soldiery gear for GC seals.

Sincerely, everyone.

And desynth them, and let us buy myth mats for sol while they're at it. There're only so many stacks of cashmere fleece, wootz ore, and dubbin I can collect on my retainers before I give up and leave sol capped for the next X weeks.

[aerolol]

They don't need to spend resources on nerfing Steps of Faith.

They just need to make it drop a Rowena token of poetics (worth 130 poetics) for the Magitek (lv120/130) weapons.

People would farm it all day for the 10 token required, and every noob and their grandmothers would get their clears even if they don't have any clue at all of what's going on.



And yeah, for the love of god, please let us desynth and trade-in lv100/110 soldiery and high allagan stuff.

[BobbinT]

why anyone hasn't even think about poetic weekly being abolished? lol

[Antanias]

Probably just a 15% Echo for final coil.

[Malusion]

why anyone hasn't even think about poetic weekly being abolished? lol

Because they explicitly said they weren't going to remove it, so we kind of gave up on it.

I'm guessing more echo for coil, not expecting much.