★Suggestion!★ Second Coil of Binding change with entry process into turn.

[Altaeciana]

Just throwing out this proposal to consider a hefty change to how The Second Coil of Binding works upon entering any actual turn.

Purpose/Mission: To change the process, whether partially or entirely, of entering any turn of The Second Coil of Binding.

Proposed Method: Allow turn selection at entrance. Each turn repeatable with "one time loot opportunity" akin to how Syrcus' Tower works, but unique events to each turn.

Discussion: (tl;dr? I've taken the liberty to underline the main sections. The summary is way at the bottom!)

As many of you know, entering a party leader's Second Coil of Binding saved progress will result in one of two things. Finding out someone in the group that possibly has a further saved progress. Or finding out that the leader has a further saved progress. In most cases, the leader may just have the same level of progress in which the later discovery occurs regardless. This has been fundamental with Bahamut's Binding Coil whenever the main series was running.

However, as many of you may know, it can be pretty disheartening when someone is unexpectedly dragged into the party leader's saved progress unknowingly. They say "accidents happen," and to the contrary the same can be said that "accidents can be prevented." While as the similar case of "trolling" or intentional harassment can also happen. Except, it can be harder to prevent versus accidents. Figuring out the intent of a cause, or justification to its occurrence by whatever means, can be difficult for officials to determine.

So then this brings me to my main point of why the proposed change should be implemented. Why put up with the headache and torment of dealing with possible "accidents" and "harassments" as seen on the user's side? And why allow report submissions to flow in complaint of said occurrences as seen on the Support Desk side? To put it simply, just allow each Second Coil turn to be repeatable but under certain conditions.

Take for example this: If the party leader has only actually seen/witnessed turn 3, then the group can only choose from entering Turn 1, 2, or 3 at any time. Likewise, the group can do all turns, but up to Turn 3 unless a new party leader is appointed who may have further progress.

However, in the case of a having a party leader who has accomplished further progress in the Binding Coil, if the group possess party members who have not yet beaten a subsequent Turn, the group will be unable to enter until all members meet the required conditions. This mechanic can be applied in many ways apart from this proposed suggestion of change. One may argue why it has not been implemented, but then one would have to consider how the first Binding Coil functioned and why the same system was essentially cookie-cuttered with the second one. To put simply: done purely out of convenience. It's easier for a developer to copy hundreds of lines of code and just change all the names/labels.

The aforementioned is just a means to understand how I envisioned the Turn selection to function at the actual Entry Point.

For the actual means of how this change would effectively work, it's really simple: each turn would be repeatable. Want to do Turn 1 X number of times? (Where X = variable between 1 to ∞) No problem. Turn 2 in the same manner? 3? 4? Shazaam!

However, as earlier stated, each Turn should have its own "loot lockout" conditions unique to each Turn.

Some obvious concerns that I took into consideration which I expect many of you to retort the illegitimacy of this proposal:

1. "If Turns were repeatable, would that not mean a level of farmability that the developers were probably intentionally trying to avoid?"

A- Yes, it would mean a group could dedicate a session's efforts to hammering a single Turn over and over. However, there is a reason for this. I ask you this: "Have you ever done Turn 1 (A.K.A. Turn 6), since The Second Coil of Bahamut had been released as accessible content, and only have seen treasure appear unusable by your main job of choice each and every single week of successful victories?"

If your answer is "No" then lucky you. Maybe you had a spotted experience where you had a series of good weeks interrupted by a bad week. But I on the other hand had never seen Caster based equipment appear in coffers for 5 months. Finally I am seeing respective equipment appear and finally I am getting things I wanted for my Black Mage/Summoner. But why did I have to witness every other job/class' treasure before I started seeing Caster equipment? The most obvious answer is that's the nature of randomized coffer treasure pool chances.

My proposed change to allowing Turns being repeatable is to eliminate this. So that no one ever has to go through what I had to experience be it unfortunate luck or whatever. Never again! I pay to play and enjoy this game like so many others. Yet why do I feel as if I am the only one being made to suffer? The same angst can perhaps be shared by those who have to complete content with repeat DPS jobs in the group. Imagine how those competing with a fellow MNK or BRD must feel versus those who are the only MNK or the only BRD.

2. Wouldn't the allowance of repeatable turns hinder Party Finder reliant individuals who seek progress over redundancy?

A- Perhaps it would. But likewise, if progress was desired then it is a no brainer to make your own Party Finder group in order to welcome those who also wish for progress. I understand that some groups may be looking for replacement members for the week and may not mind an unaccomplished member who yet has experience with the encounter. But those opportunities are rare. Majority of the time, most groups are gung-ho on competency and experience for guaranteed efforts.

3. Well, forget you OP! What a ridiculous idea! You should have played a tank or healer job and you would have gotten everything by now since those drop more often, or likely, than Caster equipment!

A- Oh yeah? Are you saying you can do each turn with a party full of nothing but tanks and healers in all 8 party spots? I'd like to see that! Show me whilst in all your fancy garb!

Summary:

1. Make each Second Coil of Binding Turn repeatable.
2. Make each turn limited with "one loot lockout" per turn for the week as Syrcus' Tower works.
3. Limit Turn accessibility based on individual accomplishments. If Leader can enter Turn 4, but a party member has never completed Turn 1, then group cannot enter Turns 2, 3, and 4.
4. Goals of this proposed change: Eliminate accidents/harassment in unintentional Turn skipping. Eliminate frustration of failed treasure acquisition. Allow for improved opportunities to learn and practice each Turn for the week. (You cannot teach new Free Company members who have intense frustrations finding learning groups if you and your main group are disallowed from doing previous Turns for the week).

[Exstal]

Why didn't you just name the thread, "Remove Lockouts from Second Coil"?

[Shougun]

Why didn't you just name the thread, "Remove Lockouts from Second Coil"?

Technically there is still a lockout :P, just not a player one.

+1 OP, I appreciate looking into ways to get rid of social lock.

[Ashkendor]

Lockouts will be removed in a couple of updates just like first coil.

I don't know why these threads keep turning up. :/

[Purplenum]

Learn to be patient.

[Navarch]

That's a lot of words to fix a nonexistent problem. Don't want to accidentally skip a turn for the week? Don't click Yes when asked to enter a turn you don't want to enter. Amazing. Asking to remove lockouts for second coil is also just silly at this point anyway since that's going to happen once 2.4 hits relatively soon.

[Cynric]

Pretty much what everyone has already said. It Says Turn X of X Coil, and turns 6-9 will soon be placed in df, and have absolutely no lockout. While I don't personally like the lockout for coil. There isn't much point in bringing this up about SCOB specifically at this point in time. We've got probably a little over a month left of relevancy on it. x.x

[lyndwyrm]

There is one problem with the specifics of your proposal that I feel should be mentioned. If the lockouts are on a turn-by-turn basis, the total amount of loot received by a group in a week will be multiplied by 4. Each person from an 8-man group would be able get a piece of gear from a given turn instead of just 2, from how you have this worded. Then they could repeat each successive turn until again each person had gotten a piece of gear.

To combat this they would have to make the loot-lockout across the entire coil. Conveniently (more likely by design) there are 8 pieces of loot dropped in each coil, (excluding oils, sands, and the UAT) so over the course of several weeks, it should average out that each person gets one piece of gear per week (assuming you're beating all 4 turns each week). So, with a coil-wide lockout to one piece of loot, but allowing the repeating of each turn, the amount of gear* dropped would not change. This may allow people to pick and choose what piece of gear they want every week, if they can beat the turns enough times, and I'm not sure how the developers would feel about that.

*: Coil1 didn't have the oils, sands, and UAT and I'm not counting those among gear pieces. They complicate the situation somewhat, but because they are only used in items that require 375-1300 Soldiery tomes, maybe they shouldn't be counted in the lockout? I don't have a great solution for them though.

Lockouts will be removed in a couple of updates just like first coil.

I don't know why these threads keep turning up. :/

The lockouts on coil2 will be removed, but we expect the exact same lockout system in coil3 and raids beyond this, which is why this keeps getting brought up. There are other threads about this like here.

[Brine_Gildchaff]

While I agree that a loot lockout would probably be better, I think it'd be better to petition rather for Square to implement this structure in TCoB when it comes out in 2.4. At this point, as others have said, it's too late in the game to really matter.

[Altaeciana]

To Lyndwyrm,

That doesn't eliminate the fact that someone can get 8 pieces per week. It doesn't stop the chances lining up hugely in someone's favor. As I stated before, this is to eliminate the horrible ill-luck I faced of 5 months in not getting relative treasure pertinent to my job. Like seriously, what the heck S-E?

To everyone else talking of patience and eventualities,

Pretend new content released in the future will work on a similar progression basis as the first and second Binding Coils have so far. You know the developers are just going to cookie-cutter the same system while adding little bits of improvements here and there. But generally, the main base structuring of the specific duty system will remain intact and unaltered. Let my proposed changes serve as the basis for the future!

I want to write and draw a comic book series. The town will be called Obvious Town. And all its citizens do are obvious things. Eventually I hope it gets recognized for a TV pilot and that Michael Bay will produce the movie.