The Binding Coil of Bahamut (T1 - T9) - Thoughts?

[Leira_Raine]

Thanks, once again, for the responses! I know it has been a bit... late, but E3 put it on delay. Apologies, but here is the link: http://gamerescape.com/2014/06/26/eo...coil-me-maybe/

[Brainberry]

I love the lockout, it forces people to stop being lazy and organize a group to tackle a challenge and it rewards you for doing so.

So what IF they removed the lockout and made it loot lockout instead? How does that help you besides wanting people who have already beat it carry you though it? You can run them all week even with the lockout, it just seems like you guys are sugarcoating your real reasoning behind wanting it removed.

The server will just be filled with people selling runs.

The current coil(scob) is amazingly designed, the mechanic based fights are getting more creative and hard. I hope they continue this route with the next coil type raid. Only gripe is the useless trash mobs that are just there for the sake of being there, make that challenging itself or just remove it completely.

[Ryel]

I love the lockout, it forces people to stop being lazy and organize a group to tackle a challenge and it rewards you for doing so.

So what IF they removed the lockout and made it loot lockout instead? How does that help you besides wanting people who have already beat it carry you though it? You can run them all week even with the lockout, it just seems like you guys are sugarcoating your real reasoning behind wanting it removed.

The server will just be filled with people selling runs.

The current coil(scob) is amazingly designed, the mechanic based fights are getting more creative and hard. I hope they continue this route with the next coil type raid. Only gripe is the useless trash mobs that are just there for the sake of being there, make that challenging itself or just remove it completely.

I really don't get why so many people seem fixated on the idea that people want to be carried, it has nothing to do with being carried and everything to do with wanting to play with more people unrestricted.

The majority of the people asking for the lockout to be fixed haven't said a single thing about it being because of difficulty, I know personally i wouldn't care if coil was 3x as hard as it currently is as long as i could have the freedom to go with whoever i wanted.

In fact the argument could be made that coil has worse RNG luck than some of the stuff designed circa Tanaka era because at least Tanaka's 1% drop rates didn't prevent you from doing the content at all for an entire week for another shot at the gear, in addition to forcing a static 8 person party to do it with.

And before it's brought up, yeah RNG works BOTH ways, there are just as many groups swimming in gear as there are those who STILL haven't seen certain drops since the content was introduced.

Ideally i would love for the brutal mode they've mentioned to be the standard with no weekly lockout and a drop system similar to Garuda's token system during 1.0 one where it had an RNG chance to drop gear and a GUARANTEED chance to drop tokens which could be redeemed for gear.

[Malric]

Simply put Lockouts mandate Static grouping.
This very concept discourages learning with more than one group of people.
It limits your exposure to different strategies and encourages a segregated elitist mentality.

In a game that goes so far to allow vast ranges of people to group with each other (I.E. level sync, Duty Roulette, etc.) this seems counterproductive to everything else in the game.

It prevents people from being able to use the duty finder to learn content and really get to practice with people.

It creates tension and gives players a reason not to search for other people to group with.

What if you're an FC leader that wants to train with more than 7 members your FC to run the content?
What if I have a life and can't schedule statics?
What if you like grouping with different people and learning other strategies?

Honestly I can't see why any MMO would want this!

Clicks are why people leave FCs & even games. Not why they join them.

[FelisC]

Simply put Lockouts mandate Static grouping.
This very concept discourages learning with more than one group of people.
It limits your exposure to different strategies and encourages a segregated elitist mentality.

In a game that goes so far to allow vast ranges of people to group with each other (I.E. level sync, Duty Roulette, etc.) this seems counterproductive to everything else in the game.

It prevents people from being able to use the duty finder to learn content and really get to practice with people.

It creates tension and gives players a reason not to search for other people to group with.

What if you're an FC leader that wants to train with more than 7 members your FC to run the content?
What if I have a life and can't schedule statics?
What if you like grouping with different people and learning other strategies?

Thank you for expressing what I've been thinking so clearly and elegantly.

[Odett]

snip

Lockouts play a factor in static grouping, but I think that the nature of the fights themselves play a bigger role. Back in 2.0 and 2.1, you could PF coil because fights were overall easier compared to the new ones. T1 is just a tank check, and T2 is a healer carry. T4 is a little harder and it required decent tanks, healers, and DPS, but it was not a mechanics fight.

With SCoB, one person holds the power to wipe a whole group. People are discouraged from PFing the new turns in order to learn because they can be doing that same learning with their static. (I don't know if it's different in other servers) You just can't win these fights in PF, much less DF if it was possible.

The majority of T5 PF groups in my server can't handle "fireball=soak team, conflag=under twintania, fireball while conflag is up=go inside conflag", so how do I expect them to not wipe the group with cursed shrieks and voices? Statics are required for SCoB progression simply because these fights have a tighter level of coordination.

"What if you're an FC leader that wants to train with more than 7 members your FC to run the content?
What if I have a life and can't schedule statics?
What if you like grouping with different people and learning other strategies?"

FC leaders can make more than one SCoB group.
If your schedule prevents you from scheduling statics, then that sucks, but you can't do SCoB progression.
Nothing is stopping you from setting up a PF and grouping with different people.

Again, statics are a requirement for SCoB progression because of the coordination required for the fights. The only way to remove this would be to make the fights easier, and that's just not going to happen right now.

[Yukiko]

The only way to remove this would be to make the fights easier, and that's just not going to happen right now.

Thats where i do not agree...
Dynamic programming and not scripted is the key, spcial if it is only Boss focused programming and not player focused.
Main Problem is player have to react on situations and not boss reacting on player status, positions or skills...

[ChriZirhC]

Just remove the lockout and let loot chance be on the first time you cleared a certain turn. Only 3 of us in our FC has done coil. One has a static and one can speak japanese so he's open to a lot of PUG parties while me on the other hand have to get everything out of the way on reset day when all the solid PUGs are available. However we still want to help each other and the rest of our FC. We want them to progress with us and the lockouts doesnt let us do this.

[Dels]

There is one reason and one reason only why the lockout works the way it does:

SE wants people to keep playing. They need each coil update to last 6 months. This is their way of doing that.

I don't think this is what Yoshi wants...he's even said in interviews he'd be happy with people completing the content and then coming back a few months later.

But I'm sure there are people telling him "We need to keep the customers giving us 15$ every month, we can't have them leave for even a month or they might not come back, please implement these roadblocks so that they have to keep playing every week"

I don't agree with this...I love the second coil fights and I think I'd play MORE if there was no lockout... because I'd be able to join multiple groups each week, meet more people, etc. But maybe that's just me.

[Tiggy]

Honestly OP you're going to have to really filter through a lot of this. You've given many people a soundboard to complain when the newest coil is only intended for the hardcore progression oritented players anyway. You're going to hear about a lot of people, who aren't the kind of player this content was designed for, complain. Many people aren't progression oriented types and they will only complain about the difficulty of the content and the type of community that revolves around such content. They've also had their memory soured by a few bad experiences. 10 great runs can be ruined by 1 bad run with 1 bad player. A week later all they remember is that bad run. So I really hope you can take some of the complaints with a grain of salt.

My group raided the first coil and in the second coil we are currently practicing T9 so I hope I can provide a bit of insight.

-- First Coil --
Coil turns 1-5 are now very accessible to the average player. With improved gear and echo turns 1 through 4 are now realistically accessible to everyone. I've been in numerous groups who did the turns for the first time and got wins on the first or second tries. I've even had great success with over a dozen players now who've never done rot passing in turn 2. It's definitely not tough and is completely accessible.

Turn 5 now has the echo, but this is when the coil starts to change. This fight and every one beyond it have specific mechanics that must be dealt with and handled appropriately. As such even with echo turn 5 can be tough without practice. At this point this is a great introduction to the seriousness of the second coil. That said it's still very accessible and far easier to beat the DPS, healing, and tanking checks with better gear and echo now available.

When it comes to loot Turns 1-5 are still great for off jobs and filling in BiS while you're still working on solidery gear.

I have a ton of fun running with friends on alt jobs these days in the first coil and I recommend it for all player types.

-- Second Coil --
This coil follows the theme of turn 5. There are mechanics in every single turn that the players must pay close attention to and manage them correctly or it's going to be a guaranteed wipe. It's this level of difficulty that contributes to the "toxic community" that you keep hearing about. These turns are tough. You have to look left and right at the same time and do it right every single time or you're going to drag you group down. Do you have a player that can't pay attention to voices in T7? You'll never win. Have a player in t6 who constantly gets eaten then you're very likely to never win. These turns are very tough and some players with no patience that give these turns a bad name since they lash out at other players. This isn't a fault of the turns. It's a fault of players with no patience.

In these turns it's not always "just do the mechanics and you win" either. In turn 8 the boss has 999,994 hit points. During the fight 4 (3 if you got great dps) dread spawn each with 30k exp. The fight has an instant hard enrage at 11 minutes.Doing the math with 4 dreads that comes to 1119994 HP that must be done in 660 seconds for a combined group DPS of 1607 DPS. This is VERY difficult to do and directly contributes to the end game push for higher and higher damage. Most groups actually forgo the second tank and take in 5 DPS in order to beat this turn. It's this turn that is the best example of why doing the mechanics is not enough in the second coil. That's how you find yourself at the hard enrage repeatedly. It's this turn that filters out DPS who aren't pushing high damage.

Turn 9 continues the extreme need for damage trend, but it pushes every single job to their limits instead of just the DPS. It's a very tough fight and so far I'd say very well tuned.

-- Conclusion --

The second coil is not for the feint of heart or those unwilling to do what it takes to min/max and optimize their gameplay since "just do the mechanics" only takes you so far. In the first coil only T5 was that way. Many players decry the lack of good second coil pugs, but this is largely due to the difficulty of the content. Even back before the second coil was released T5 didn't have very many pug groups either. The harder the content the hard it is to pug.

If you are a progression oriented individual the content is a great challenge, fun, and provides a lot of variety. There are a ton of mechanics that you won't see anywhere else in the game and when you finally overcome them the feeling of accomplishment is the greatest I've had in this entire game. I'm extremely excited to see what the third coil will bring, and I'm interested in how they are going to nerf the turns to make them beatable with the echo. The second coil is difficult enough with it's mechanics that adding echo won't necessarily make them easy to defeat.