Can we just have the Wrath of the Lich King Raiding Scheme?

[Zarzak]

For everyone saying that coil is easy, I do have one serious question. Firstly, no this isn't me being aggressive in this point, it is a geniune question.

If coil is as easy as many seem to say it is, why aren't more of the player base getting though it?

Because they are the same people who say Titan HM is hard. FFXIV has the worst case of "0 skill players" in any MMO I've ever seen. I would be truly amazed if the people who can't manage the "when you see a cast bar run slightly to the left" mechanics have ever actually beaten well... any game besides maybe the 1st level of pac man.

I think content such as coil, which is quite fulfilling and challenging needs to find it's way into the mainstream better.

WoW and it's predecessors (FFXIV included) ARE the literal embodiment of mainstreaming MMOs. FFXIV raids couldn't get any easier without literally giving you loot for zoning in. You can beat the hardest raid in the game without even being close to ilvl cap.

http://youtu.be/8FpigqfcvlM?t=2m4s Watch the next ~20 seconds of this video. Perfectly illustrates the problem with today's gamers. Except the maker is wrong. People are apparently THAT dumb and it is truly amazing that as he says they can "be"

[Sygmaelle]

Short answer : no. The current difficulty is fine, otherwise it'd be Extreme mode-ish difficulty and unless its Titan EX like, it would be very boring in a very short time frame.

Don't get me wrong, I love ST, but that wouldn't be a good thing for Coils.

[skaterger]

If coil is as easy as many seem to say it is, why aren't more of the player base getting though it? In this thread alone I've seen posts where it can be learned in 1~2 hours and that it's just dodging. But if that's the case, why is the majority of the player base not though second or even first coil? Even then, why is considering something challenging but not as hard as coil that other players can participate in such a bad idea?

Honestly, I could write a thesis about this, that is how passionately I feel about this topic. But I'll try to keep it short.

The biggest difference in my opinion why many people have not cleared coil is their stance on raiding. People need to realize that raids by definition are the hardest content in the game. As such, it requires commitment, learning and most importantly patience. Yet when I joined my first Garuda HM dungeon back in 2.1 when I first started playing, people would leave after 2-3 wipes. If people are going to use this same attitude to do coil, I'm not surprised that they won't go far. You mention that groups take 1-2 hours to learn and clear raids, yet the reality is that for even the best players, it takes much more, maybe even hundreds of hours to do it. So how far do you think Mr. Casualjoe is going to go if he is going to give up after 2 wipes?

Raiding has gotten significantly easier over the years with the implementation of addons. This is a fact and not disputable. My first experience with raiding was MC in Wow and it would take 2-3 hours just to find people for the raid. For people that has raided a long time, FF14 just feels easy. Why? Because the basic mechanics has not changed much (move out of fire, kill adds, tank swap, push button etc). It becomes easier because the mechanics in ff14 are scripted, so now we even know what to expect before it happens. It's not a matter of being elitist, it is just not difficult, it is how it is. If you have been making sushi for 10 years, you would find it easy too while someone who just started would find it incredibly hard. I would bet my last penny that most of the people you ask who have cleared coil have some sort of prior mmo experience while the ones who are struggling are usually first-timers.

Next, to the issue of commitment. When wrath in Wow, raids in pugs were unheard of. You either had to find a guild or a group of friends to run it with. I remember raiding 4-5 days a week for 3-4 hours each clearing ssc/tk/bt and sunwell. With the introduction of LFR in cata, blizzard gave off the mentality that raids can be easily done in pugs, which is not really the case since it only applied for story mode raids. The heroic raids were just as hard and I feel some people may have gotten the misconception that even the hardest of raids can be done with pugs. My guess is that's why people seem to want to pug in ff14 more than form a team, whereas it was imperative to form a team if you wanted to push the hardest content previously. It was that brutal.

If you would like a more in depth explanation, you can just type "Why did LFR kill Wow" in google.

That being said, I am in support of the OP's idea since it not only gives more people the chance to experience content, but it also makes raiders happy by giving them a slightly differentiated gear.

Just want to touch base on this line here, it wasn't me who said 1-2 hours, I was quoting that from another person in this thread. Other than that, I agree with you that more choices are better.



Edit: here we are.

I think what she meant was learning the mechanics, which should not take more than an hour. Hell, you can "learn" about the fight by watching a 10 min video on youtube. But since the success of the clear depends not only on knowing the fight, but the execution of yourself and 7 others in the party, not to mention fights being as scripted as they are, I would ask that poster to link me her world first achievement since she thinks its possible to down every new fight in a few hours.

[Nel_Celestine]

You mention that groups take 1-2 hours to learn and clear raids, yet the reality is that for even the best players, it takes much more, maybe even hundreds of hours to do it. So how far do you think Mr. Casualjoe is going to go if he is going to give up after 2 wipes?

Just want to touch base on this line here, it wasn't me who said 1-2 hours, I was quoting that from another person in this thread. Other than that, I agree with you that more choices are better.



Edit: here we are.

It takes about an hour or two to learn the entire fight, and once learned you should be able to farm the fight regularily. It does take longer to learn the job or jobs you go to this on.

[Airikay]

On the other hand though, you don't want to overstep to the point that there's no challenge at all (like WoW did in MoP expansion). But that's where things like Heroic (Savage) mode comes in...although from what I heard people are suspecting that it's not even possible to meet Savage difficulty's numerical requirements with current gear (could use a citation for this though).

Savage Coil has been cleared by a JP FC

[RiceisNice]

...

It's a double edge thing really. You want people to experience content on all playerbases, not just the top 10-15%. On the same hand, you don't want to give the misconception that players feel they'll be able to tackle on challenges.

LFR wasn't introduced until late Catacylsm for their end game dungeon. It had difficulty toned down and some mechanics were removed. In return, it gave signifcantly weaker loot, but people were able to experience part of the fight and the story. Normal/Heroic was still left intact, and I can attest that the mechanics are miles different and offers a much better experience for those that can get into it.

Although their next expansion (MoP), I feel they really overstepped in closing the difficulty gap, top that with huge stat inflation inbetween raiding tiers within the expansion. I'll say it right now, a good handful of the bosses had really meh mechanics for the final raid, with very few exceptions. It felt too easy even in Normal difficulty; there wasn't too much of a jump between the two. Now top that off with people be able to recruit cross realms, you could easily pug normal difficulty.

Now the problem with FFXIV like you mentioned is that there's no separation between the content. Titan EX is an incredible wake up call to unsuspecting players with the huge increase of phases, mechanics and the like, even in comparison to Garuda EX. Made all the worse that you can DF it. No amount of Echo or stat boosting will save you from the likes of Landslide or Divebombs.

I've thrown this out a few times for WoW;
LFR = You stand in the fire, you get a slap on the wrist
Normal = You stand in the fire, you die.
Heroic = You stand in the fire, you combust and kill everyone in the raid.

The way I see some raids and trials right now, it fits into the Heroic category. It gates players from experiencing content that people should all be able to get to, but at the same time like I mentioned above, no amount of stat boosting will make it easier because of those mechanics obliterating the raid. It does help with progressing the fight quickly to enter the next phase (no one likes spending 2-4 minutes to get to the conflag phase).

Keeping it the way it is probably isn't going to kill subs, but it's definiately gating the way to getting more if players are able to experience all the content the game has to offer, while at the same time being able to appeal to both casuals and the top 5-10%.

[Zarzak]

Just want to touch base on this line here, it wasn't me who said 1-2 hours, I was quoting that from another person in this thread. Other than that, I agree with you that more choices are better.



Edit: here we are.

From Devient1's quote my interpretation is that he/she is saying after 1-2 hours you will know the mechanics. As in know what they are and what your SUPPOSED to do not that in 1-2 hours you should be doing the event perfectly.

If that is correct. I'd be mostly in agreement. "Landslides you supposed to side step, fireballs you have to stack to split dmg, vines you have to run apart to break it, etc etc" That kind of knowledge on MOST fights in FFXIV doesn't take long to acquire (with some exceptions of course).

Far as actual learn time. Being one of the top 10 groups to beat T6 on 2.2 release. It took us about 12-15 hours to beat it.

snip

Short answer. Raids are not supposed to be for everyone. They are for RAIDERS. If you want to experience raids you put in the time and commitment.

[skaterger]

snip

I am barely in the loop for Wow nowadays after I quit at the start of Cataclysm after they nerfed heroics to the ground. I just could not play a game that continued in that direction. Although I heard good things about WOD going back to more of bc and wotlk, so I might give have a look if reviews are good.

I still think raids in ff14 are not up to Wow's heroic level. I do not think for a second that even T9 comes close to what Yogg Saron with 0 keepers was like in Ulduar. And that was with addons like dbm and powerauras. The problem with ff14 fights is that it has artificial difficulty like 1 shot mechanics and zero margin for error, whereas wow fights imo were more of a test of skill.

[Zarzak]

snip.

I can't speak for WoW's difficulty as I quit soon as the 1st expansion hit and it was clear they were going the direction of "handouts to everyone! (yay lvl 61 greens replacing Naxx raid gear!). But the statements about FFXIV are spot on. Only skill involved in FFXIV raids as they stand are "can you follow simple directions like a 3 year old"

Sad thing? The current generation of MMO players can't manage that. Because divebombs are hard yo!

[Orophin]

I played WoW, and I feel that regular modes of Coil in this game feel like normal WoW, (maybe a tad harder) whereas Savage feels like Heroic. Right now the main differences are the lockout is shared and there's no incremental loot bonus. I don't care about higher ilvl gear dropping from Savage personally as all that does is create more item bloat, but I'd feel more compelled to do Savage mode if the lockouts weren't shared, because my group still has not seen BiS drops from normal mode after 20 weeks of raiding.