Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[TomTom1968]

[...]Yet coil and it's difficulty doesn't need to change, in fact it can get harder.

Thing about optimizing for more players having fun is having separate forms of entertainment all which progress at a steady and enjoyable pace evenly for every category of player.[...]

Not sure if Coil should be harder. I am not even sure why the Endgame in Coil is as tough to beat as it is.

I have beaten T5 last week (finally) and saw a nice Feature on the PS4 telling you the rating for each trophy you receive. The "Twintania defeated and Coil 5 cleared"-trophy is rated as "ultra rare" with a whoppin' 4,5% success rate for the PS3 and PS4 players.

Something feels terribly wrong about this since this is content that was already available in 2.0 and it got nerfed with Echo and changes/removal of certain boss skills have been applied as well.

But still, not even 5% of the console players have beaten it. And SE has decided to leave Echo as it is because their research showed that many people have cleared the content. But about what kind of people are they talking about? Good groups who clear it numerous time? Joe Average surely does not profit that much from Echo.

Doing Trials and receiving Titan HM clearly shows me that for Joe Average, the main problems are about mechanics, concentration, memorization and reaction time and those problems start way before considering jumping into Coil.

Not sure how it is looking on the PC but thinking that not even 5% of the player base has beaten this content makes me wonder for whom this content is designed for.

I know, lots of people on this Forum are Hardcore players who would like to have it even harder. Nothing wrong with that. But seeing the rating of this trophy clearly shows me that they belong to an absolute minority. So is Endgame in Coil something for a minority? Normally, designers want that their developed content can be enjoyed from as many people as possible. But when it is a bout Coil, a small percentage of the user base seems to be enough already.

I also know it is tough to please everybody. But the system as it is, is favoring a minority and that just seems odd to me. And before those comments come in, no I do not want everything to be handed over instantly without efforts at all. I just wished that the Coil and Ex mechanics would not demand such a level of perfection of playing a job as they do because the majority doesn’t meet these requirements.

[Pibz]

Not sure if Coil should be harder. I am not even sure why the Endgame in Coil is as tough to beat as it is.

snip

I also know it is tough to please everybody. But the system as it is, is favoring a minority and that just seems odd to me. And before those comments come in, no I do not want everything to be handed over instantly without efforts at all. I just wished that the Coil and Ex mechanics would not demand such a level of perfection of playing a job as they do because the majority doesn’t meet these requirements.

See now this is the thing that worries about this kind of threads.

Take a look from the perspective of people that want to do do raid progression, they have 1 , 1 piece of content released every SIX months(although it appears they're introducing a super hard fight this patch 2.3), "casuals"(or people who can't/want for whatever reason progress through raids) get every other type of content this makes up for more than 90% of the content in the game(EXs, dungeons for tomes, crystal towers, pretty much every pve piece of content that isn't coil).

So you are saying that the 5% that want a challenge aren't allowed to have 5% of the content dedicated to them? Seems pretty unfair to me.

Now let me clarify, i have absolutely nothing against "casuals" and i realize they are maybe the majority playing the game and i understand coil has story and some are interested in it.

Taking all this in consideration my hopes for the future would be that for coils AND ct(please yes) we get 2 versions of the fight: 1 version for DF that is fairly easy to complete ala current ct1, and 1 version of the fight that provides a bigger challenge and reward for those that want that. This way, everyone can experience the story and see all big bosses and what not, and everyone can try their hand at a more challenging version, please make it happen SE.

Anyway what you said(reducing difficulty in content) isn't what the JP OP wants, I truly believe he only wants same/more difficulty but a difficulty that is closer to the true sense of the word, even though i don't agree with how he/she says that would be achieved.

[TomTom1968]

[...]Take a look from the perspective of people that want to do do raid progression, they have 1 , 1 piece of content released every SIX months(although it appears they're introducing a super hard fight this patch 2.3), "casuals"(or people who can't/want for whatever reason progress through raids) get every other type of content this makes up for more than 90% of the content in the game(EXs, dungeons for tomes, crystal towers, pretty much every pve piece of content that isn't coil).

So you are saying that the 5% that want a challenge aren't allowed to have 5% of the content dedicated to them? Seems pretty unfair to me.[...]

I know the problem exists for both sides and I can partially agree to what you said. But imo, Coil and Ex Primals are far more than 5% of the Game. I am somehwere inbetween a Casual player (I like my DOH and DOL very much and make regular use of them) and a progressive player because I also enjoy the Endgame contents. I need longer than people focussung solely on this kind of content but so far there was no fight I could not clear. And I am not complaining because of my situation. I can handle the content even with my slow speed of learning things. But all in all, speaking of non hardcore elements, there is not that much for me to do so I need the mixture of casual and endgame contents to keep my busy.

There are three dungeons of which one is played regularly (Brayflox). I can spend half an hour with tribe quests and 15 minutes with gathering a map and defeating the enemies. Once per week, I can spend 2-3 hours on the Agenda. But that's pretty much it speaking of things I am interested in. When I reflect the last months, 80% of the time I have spent was with Ex primals and Coil. Patch 2.3 will hit us in Summer and I by this time, I will prolly have just started to dive into Leviathan Ex.

I know players who are in my FC or on my friend list who have not even started with Ex Primals and/or Coil. But the new content demands that the old one was cleared so these people will fall more and more behind. There should be more than the Echo buff to help them. Don't get me wrong, there should be hard content to make the progress orientated players happy. But the content in this Game is partially so hard that it divides the playership too much in my opinion. The suggestion of the OP to have two version of Endgame content might be a solution to this. I think it is not that people want the best and ultimate Gear for free. It is more that they know that there are many fights and dungeons in this Game they will probably never see. It can be frustrating knowing that the situation will get worse with each new patch they release. Reduce loot quality and keep the best gear for the hardest content but give them a true chance to enjoy the Endgame content in an easier version.

[Souljacker]

So you are saying that the 5% that want a challenge aren't allowed to have 5% of the content dedicated to them? Seems pretty unfair to me.

Now let me clarify, i have absolutely nothing against "casuals" and i realize they are maybe the majority playing the game and i understand coil has story and some are interested in it.

This is precisely what other games have done to GREAT success. LFR over in WoW is one of the most popular things they ever did. People could see content and get a modest amount of gear that was good enough for a casual that couldn't commit to progression raiding, and the elite % still have their hard mode content that they can barely clear by the next xpac.

Would be great to see that here, and I *thought* that SE was on the right track with "Story mode" and then the other fights, but maybe it needs to be more widely implemented.