Updating the Coils of Bahamut

[Iscah]

What I think might be neat is to keep the existing Coils fights—for historical purposes, and to leave it accessible for groups like the Retro Raiders—but to shift the story unlock over to an optional trial series—something akin to the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline in Shadowbringers, or the Four Lords in Stormblood. You don't have the weird dungeon-y fights, but you could take the truly memorable ones—Twintania, Nael, Phoenix, Bahamut, etc.—and make more focused, modern, up-to-date versions of those fights as trials. Once you'd cleared the trials version, you could unlock the original raids (e.g., the fights we have now) if you wanted to poke around in those, but the story would be entirely accessible through the trials series.

I'm not sure why you're thinking the story would need to be transferred over to a trial rather than raid format. I would expect that the overall structure would remain: three lots of four boss fights, just like all the other raids that have come since.

The main changes would have to be reconfiguring the cutscene placement so they play between rather than during the fights, and pulling out at least Turn 3 and possibly some of the other longer dungeony bits and turning them into Omega-style solo instances or even cutscenes. (Though it wouldn't be entirely terrible to leave at least some of them in, if only so Alexander doesn't look like such an outlier.)

[flowerfairy]

After how they butchered the two MSQ roulette dungeons, I'd rather they leave coil alone.

People having little to no faith in SE making difficult content isn't surprising to me, but I wasn't expecting criticism against the MSQ dungeon changes. I thought the changes to Praetorium was nice because before it was a convoluted mess for sprouts. "Why is everyone speeding past the imperials and not killing them? Crap, I forgot the identification key and now I can't get on Maggie. Why is everyone standing in the lightning and ignoring the floating hand? Why is Gaius doing nothing? Why is the Ultima Weapon doing nothing? Why is Lahabread doing nothing?" For Castrum, I do agree that some parts were unnecessarily cut out but it really wasn't anything more than click some buttons and kill mobs.

I wouldn't trust them to restrain themselves from nuking the difficulty while they were tinkering around in there so, nah.

Do we need yet another fight where the boss has Generic Raidwide That Comes Once A Minute, or Easily Mitigated Unthreatening Tankbuster? Boss That Teleports To Center And Casts For Ten Seconds? Yet More 8-Person Protean Waves? Okay Guys, For This One We Need Light Parties And Clock Positions?

What's considered difficult in FFXIV has changed tremendously over each expansions' release. With how jobs are designed in EW, I think that something comparable to how Coils used to play will never mesh well with how the game is headed. Even trying to run the content in MINE will never truly simulate what it was like to raid in ARR, because there was a much higher focus on managing resources with MP and TP, building your own playstyle with cross-class skills, and managing aggro.

Many of you will probably disagree with my statement: Coils is a raid for a game that no longer exists. High-end difficulty to the degree of Coils does not belong in level 50 anymore. Thus, I think that ARR should be reworked to act as a foundation for future expansions. I'm not trying to imply that Coils as it is now should be removed from ARR, though. Just as Extreme is a level higher than Hard, Present Coils should be a level higher than a reworked Coils.

Will SE ever look into making content similar to Coils in level 90? Probably not. I do sympathize with veterans; ShB brought a boss fight template that can't be described as inspiring. However, lets sniff some high-quality hopium for a minute—if something similar to Coils did ever come out for EW, would you be okay with an easier Coils coming out to better prepare level 50 players for mechanics that suddenly get added over the expansions?

[flowerfairy]

What I think might be neat is to keep the existing Coils fights ... but to shift the story unlock over to an optional trial series—something akin to the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline in Shadowbringers, or the Four Lords in Stormblood.

I think this put my ideas in OP into better words, so thank you. It sounded like I wanted to completely change Coils, but what I would really like is for a simpler version that’s easy enough to be completed in Raids Roulette with random players to be accessible. However, I think that the exploration of the Coils can't be completely reimagined in just three trials. Like Iscah said, formatting the raids into a 4/4/4 style sounds more intuitive with dungeony turns turning into Solo duties like in Omega.

nooo, fixing 50 level alliances goes first!!

Yes, I 100% agree. I think that everything sprouts must complete in MSQ should be revamped first to better fit today’s gameplay. Even Hall of the Novice and Guildhests need to see change because they are still teaching tanks to pull mobs one at a time and use single-target skills. Every trial should also get an item level change so we can at least see more mechanics in them.

[Semirhage]

Will SE ever look into making content similar to Coils in level 90? Probably not. I do sympathize with veterans; ShB brought a boss fight template that can't be described as inspiring. However, lets sniff some high-quality hopium for a minute—if something similar to Coils did ever come out for EW, would you be okay with an easier Coils coming out to better prepare level 50 players for mechanics that suddenly get added over the expansions?

They'd have to reverse course on the nosedive into casualization they're hellbent on forcing down vets' throats in order to even consider something like that. Coils don't mesh with modern raid design because modern raids are designed to fit the modern dumbed down push the flashing button jobs. If SE would even consider making content like Coils again, it'd imply a lot about a shift in design direction that I think would change the landscape. Things would be different enough that something other than Intro To Shadowbringers Boring Raid Template would be on the table.

[Jeeqbit]

Even trying to run the content in MINE will never truly simulate what it was like to raid in ARR, because there was a much higher focus on managing resources with MP and TP, building your own playstyle with cross-class skills, and managing aggro.

I haven't healed them in EW, but when I last healed them (in Shadowbringers) I still had to manage MP. With so few abilities available I was healing constantly and just barely kept my MP up with Lucid Dreaming. Sometimes I had to use Energy Drain just to get some back.

I agree that the ARR rotations have been chipped away at, although a lot of it wasn't very polished in my opinion. What was removed included abilities you can only use when the boss is at 20% health, parry buffs and dots with useless durations and the game is a lot cleaner today.

We don't have to worry about things like TP and enmity management, that's true but the raids still present a good challenge at minimum item level.

Just as Extreme is a level higher than Hard, Present Coils should be a level higher than a reworked Coils.

Right, I think the easiest way to convey it is that they could make a story version by adding in some telegraphs, removing anything that requires coordination and reducing damage output.

Will SE ever look into making content similar to Coils in level 90?

We have seen a modern version of some of these fights already in a lot of content. We fight a memory of bahamut in the bozja story which shows how they would design that fight now and we fight Lunar Bahamut in Paglth'an. We actually fight another coil boss there as well. We fight the plant in some expansions and we even fight Nael in the Ruby trial. SE could just copy these modern versions of the fights into a story version of coils.

[Gemina]

The main changes would have to be reconfiguring the cutscene placement so they play between rather than during the fights, and pulling out at least Turn 3 and possibly some of the other longer dungeony bits and turning them into Omega-style solo instances or even cutscenes. (Though it wouldn't be entirely terrible to leave at least some of them in, if only so Alexander doesn't look like such an outlier.)

I could get on board with that. I can't recall anything of significance that would prevent removing T3, and cutscene placement shouldn't be too big of an issue either. I think the most work would involve taking out the less dungeon-y bits, and under-tuning the bosses for normal mode. This would even everything out though to the standard 12 encounters, and make Twintania, Nael, and Bahamut the final bosses of their respective floors. Savage can stay as authentic as possible to the original experience, and less punishing versions with telegraphs and cast bars can be placed in the NM versions for those just wanting to experience the story.

I normally don't support reworking old content, but there are exceptions if the rework can enhance the experience for players and give life back to the content. If Coils were reconfigured, and made to have a normal mode, this actually would be new content for a lot of players. They'd still be synced to 50, but they likely wouldn't even care.

[vetch]

I'm not sure why you're thinking the story would need to be transferred over to a trial rather than raid format. I would expect that the overall structure would remain: three lots of four boss fights, just like all the other raids that have come since.

The main changes would have to be reconfiguring the cutscene placement so they play between rather than during the fights, and pulling out at least Turn 3 and possibly some of the other longer dungeony bits and turning them into Omega-style solo instances or even cutscenes. (Though it wouldn't be entirely terrible to leave at least some of them in, if only so Alexander doesn't look like such an outlier.)

Longer dungeony bits are what make 'raids' feel like the game is actually asking you to raid a hostile facility instead of just copying the terminology from other MMOs so the devs can advertise that they have it.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Longer dungeony bits are what make 'raids' feel like the game is actually asking you to raid a hostile facility instead of just copying the terminology from other MMOs so the devs can advertise that they have it.

Other MMOs have had raids that were just one room with a boss, too. Just in WoW, there was Onyxia's Lair, Gruul's Lair (technically two rooms, but still), the Eye of Eternity, the Obsidian Sanctum, the Vault of Archavon, and a bunch more I can't remember. We have alliance raids for more dungeon-y runs.

[Vahlnir]

Other MMOs have had raids that were just one room with a boss, too. Just in WoW, there was Onyxia's Lair, Gruul's Lair (technically two rooms, but still), the Eye of Eternity, the Obsidian Sanctum, the Vault of Archavon, and a bunch more I can't remember. We have alliance raids for more dungeon-y runs.

Vault technically had 3-4 (pretty sure it was 3) bosses once they were all unlocked, but yeah. WoW made some pretty excellent single boss raids back in the day.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I think Vault ended up with four, but most groups would only ever bother to do the latest one anyway. Even though by the end of Wrath, the first boss could be knocked over in under two minutes for a shot at the grand black war mammoth rare drop.