Need to Fix Coil Group Progress Issues

[EveK]

I totally understand why coil has locks that save progress weekly and why these need to carry over to people that join others. However, the specifics are in dire need of improvement:

1. We have no choice but to take the leader's word of where his progress is. If he lies or remembers incorrectly, we end up missing out on everything before that with no warning. At the least, give users a prompt asking them to confirm they want to advance their own progress up to where the leader is (with a good description of where he is like the boss name).

2. Beyond that, it's a pain for the leader to figure out what people in their group are doing wrong. The cryptic errors are almost comic. SOMEONE doesn't have access to coil? Well, tell me who it is! SOMEONE is farther? Well, who is it? And how far are they?

Granted, one could argue that if you don't trust your party and can't properly communicate these things you shouldn't be there in the first place. But that's no excuse for bad UI. =)

[Thorauku]

There's this issue that the entrance for coil keeps on saying that one or more party members are over in certain turn let's say T1.

It happens mostly during peak hours after reset where Wineport is too crowded with coil runners.

[Cryvil]

#1 can be fixed easily by advancing someone's coil progress only when they've actually completed a turn. I missed out on 1-4 last week because I practiced T5 a bit. I reasoned that there would be no reason whatsoever to advance coil progress simply on entry and that they wouldn't make such a weird design decision that would open the game to griefing..was I ever wrong. And indeed, the sad part is that the way it stands now, it makes it very easy for people to be griefed. Someone on T5 looking for laughs can advertise as being on T1 and then screw countless people out of doing coil for the week. I wonder how much this would have to happen before the devs decided to actually fix it...

[ispano]

The lockouts actually work like Heroic Raid Lockouts in WoW(Or how they did in Patch 4.something) You got locked as soon as you entered a Heroic Raid. Though it DID warn you and give you the option to decline, which is what we need.

[FifthDarkrum]

... And indeed, the sad part is that the way it stands now, it makes it very easy for people to be griefed. Someone on T5 looking for laughs can advertise as being on T1 and then screw countless people out of doing coil for the week. I wonder how much this would have to happen before the devs decided to actually fix it...

This was happening on our server this past week.

[Guhndahb]

EveK's suggestions exactly as she made them would work perfectly and need to be implemented as soon as possible. Error messages need to specify what the problem is and with whom. And a simple Yes/No dialog needs to pop up if a person will be advancing their Coil past their current point when the duty is registered by the party leader.

Something more sophisticated would be better long term, so people don't have to all gather in Wineport just to find out something is wrong and then potentially have to start all over again. Ultimately, I think the Coil needs to be adjusted to make better use of the duty-finder. Requiring groups to pre-form is very sensible for the Coil. But I think allowing groups to form and then apply to the Duty Finder like most people do with Titan HM would be a big improvement. It just needs to handle the complexity of the Coil's presently unique progression system and have protections for the same issues we are having here.

[Sylvanna]

#1 can be fixed easily by advancing someone's coil progress only when they've actually completed a turn. I missed out on 1-4 last week because I practiced T5 a bit. I reasoned that there would be no reason whatsoever to advance coil progress simply on entry and that they wouldn't make such a weird design decision that would open the game to griefing..was I ever wrong. And indeed, the sad part is that the way it stands now, it makes it very easy for people to be griefed. Someone on T5 looking for laughs can advertise as being on T1 and then screw countless people out of doing coil for the week. I wonder how much this would have to happen before the devs decided to actually fix it...

omg never thought of doing that... thanks for the idea hehehe

[yoshi71089]

#1 can be fixed easily by advancing someone's coil progress only when they've actually completed a turn.

A million times this. I tried practicing Turn 4 last week, knowing we wouldn't beat it, and not having beaten Turn 1 that week. Then when I joined a T1 group later, found out I was preventing the group from going in.

Why would I be locked to a certain Turn I hadn't even beaten yet? This is a VERY odd design decision. It makes ZERO sense.

[Vodomir]

A million times this. I tried practicing Turn 4 last week, knowing we wouldn't beat it, and not having beaten Turn 1 that week. Then when I joined a T1 group later, found out I was preventing the group from going in.

Why would I be locked to a certain Turn I hadn't even beaten yet? This is a VERY odd design decision. It makes ZERO sense.

No, it's not and it DOES make perfect sense. This is actually the standard way to handle raid locks in most of the major MMORPGs out there. A raid does not exist as a series of independent instances. In most games it's usually one big instanced area where the players progressively make their way from lock to lock. So in order to reach boss number 4 you will have to clear all three bosses before (thus giving you the locks for those 4 bosses). The difference with the coil is that the coil is not one separate big space, but it's cut down into 5 wings (turns) that still build up on each other in a form of linear progression. You will still have to clear bosses 1-3 if you want to go against boss number 4. Just imagine a regular dungeon like AK and you join a party in progress that is stuck on the last boss. Now after beating the final boss, would you expect to be able to go back and find bosses 1 and 2 alive, just because you were not there when those bosses were killed? For sure not. And the same applies to a raid, just on a larger scale.

[yoshi71089]

Snip

Ah, you misunderstand me. I mean to say if I attempted Turn 4, but did not beat it, I shouldn't be locked out of Turns 1 through 3. I should, however, be locked out if I DID complete Turn 4.

Even in a lock to lock raid, if I join in a party on, say lock 4/6, but then we don't beat the raid and the group falls apart, I can go back at a later time and attempt the raid at lock 0/6 (assuming no locks were broken).

Progression shouldn't be counted unless you actually beat the turn.