Instant Win Button [Can we have it?]

[Kyri]

OK...

When SE adjusted the difficulty of the Binding Coil of Bahamut, we had the same sort of outcry from the players who had cleared it.. essentially complaining about all the "scrubs" who "don't put in any time or effort that just want to be lazy and have the game won for them" getting wins in difficult content... wins that they felt separated them, the elite, from the unwashed masses. Now we have the same sort of debacle at hand. When asked "why is this really such a big damn deal?", they reply that these casuals are "ruining fun fights" and "nerfing the endgame into oblivion", etc. etc. etc.

I feel the need to lay this matter to bed in the most direct manner that I know how. First off, your High Allagan trophies are going to mean absolutely nothing once what I shall refer to as "Higher Allagan" gear comes into play. You will approach some random person and go "Hey! Look at me! Hahaha.. I have High Allagan (X)", and they'll say "So what? I have Higher Allagan (X)". At which point your proverbial e-peen will shrivel up because they have something that trumps your thing. Likewise, "casual" players getting High Allagan will mean nothing, because the elite players are going to have Higher Allagan gear. "Oh, that High Allagan thing is sooooo last season..."

So, if the true issue at hand is that having more people capable of clearing content that you have already cleared diminishes your sense of superiority, well... I don't care about your superiority complexes. You'll always be able to say "Yeah, I beat that before it was nerfed, so I'm still better than you..", and I'll always be able to not care what you think. I'll also point out that people with absurd amounts of gil to burn are already buying clears... so people that don't put in any effort to clear the content can just buy the win anyway. So... yeah. And people are STILL buying T5 for that matter.

If the true issue at hand is that you are legitimately bereaved that the content will no longer be "fun and entertaining" for you and your friends... I'll let you in on a little secret. The Echo buff can be clicked off. Yep! Just one click and you're back to good ol' fashioned home grown Second Coil, just the way it was before any difficulty adjustments took place. No other modifications were made to the Binding Coil, either. Players still have to deal with all of the mechanics of each turn. It's only a little bit easier for tanks to survive big hits... little bit more breathing room there. Little bit easier to make the DPS checks. Little bit less stress on the healers since they have more potency. All of that amounts to absolutely nothing if the mechanic in question just insta-kills you. And.. again.. you can just turn it off if you want to experience what it was like before the "nerf" anyway.

So stop acting like the difficulty adjustment is going to amount to entering the fight and Nael Deus Darnus just spontaneously implodes and the fight is over. Or that Nael is just gonna stand there and do absolutely nothing while a bunch of casual players plink away at him/her with darklight gear. It's really getting old.


Edit: I'll also point out that the modifications to Second Coil aren't scheduled to take place until 2-3 weeks after the implementation of Patch 2.4 and the release of the Final Coil, so all you elites out there have a good 2-3 weeks to get all your Higher Allagan gear ready before the casual start walking around in your previously BiS gears.

[Gardes]

No other modifications were made to the Binding Coil, either.

Actually, high voltage paralysis was made weaker and lets you perform actions more often than not. Before the adjustment, it's a much higher chance of wipe because the healers wouldnt be able to do anything. It was also not dispel-able, which means the party had to just suffer through the paralysis and hope they could heal through the damages until the paralysis wears off, which was pretty rare. Turn 4 knights adds also reflects magic at a much higher damage. It's really dangerous for a black mage to try shooting down the knights in the middle of the chaos but it's probably even more dangerous when paladins try to flash the soldier and knights combo to grab and hold on to them because it dealt much much more than the current 200 or so damage per flash while taking slaps to the face still. It made tanking t4 post lockout removal really realy trivial in there, even before the 20% echo comes into effect (as a paladin anyway).

[Kyri]

Actually, high voltage paralysis was made weaker and lets you perform actions more often than not. Before the adjustment, it's a much higher chance of wipe because the healers wouldnt be able to do anything. It was also not dispel-able, which means the party had to just suffer through the paralysis and hope they could heal through the damages until the paralysis wears off, which was pretty rare. Turn 4 knights adds also reflects magic at a much higher damage. It's really dangerous for a black mage to try shooting down the knights in the middle of the chaos but it's probably even more dangerous when paladins try to flash the soldier and knights combo to grab and hold on to them because it dealt much much more than the current 200 or so damage per flash while taking slaps to the face still. It made tanking t4 post lockout removal really realy trivial in there, even before the 20% echo comes into effect (as a paladin anyway).

I stand corrected. I forgot about the High Voltage paralyze being made curable.

Nevertheless, this is hardly an "instant win button" and I still feel that the people that are upset over this whole "difficulty adjustment" thing are taking it waaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion. These are minor things, and even the original Binding Coil will squash you if you can't handle the mechanics. Yeah, it's an easier fight than before but that isn't really a reason to get completely bent out of shape over it all.

I stated in another thread that I'm literally on the verge of clearing T9 myself, and I plan to have the win before 2.4 goes live. So I'm not trying to advocate for nerfing so that I can get a clear. I just don't get why it's such a big damn deal. I can only view it as two things: 1) People want to think they are better than other people because they have beaten content that others haven't, or 2) They don't want the fight being made easier so they can continue to charge 30,000,000 gil to carry rich players with nothing better to spend their money on through the fight. Neither of these are, in my opinion, valid reasons for maintaining the difficulty of the fight at it's current level.

New dungeon, new gear. We move on, and the rest of the people play catch up. I really just don't see the problem with this.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Nevertheless, this is hardly an "instant win button" and I still feel that the people that are upset over this whole "difficulty adjustment" thing are taking it waaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion.

I don't purport to speak for everyone who's against "difficulty adjustment," but I worry about the precedent it sets. I'm not going to complain about the dev's decisions, so long as it only affects older content, but I will criticize the sentiment of the players clamoring for it.

[Prototype909]

New dungeon, new gear. We move on, and the rest of the people play catch up. I really just don't see the problem with this.

They don't catch up though because they were never forced to learn anything or improve. They just get stuck again and we have to have this debate over and over again. People who cannot clear T5 now would not be able to go and compete in Second Coil even if you got rid of T5 as a pre-requisite. And content is already nerfed overtime because everything in this game is vertical, just by getting new/higher iLvl you are already nerfing content indirectly.

I guess I'll just keep editing this post because I'd rather not hit the daily post cap again

[Kyri]

They don't catch up though because they were never forced to learn anything or improve. They just get stuck again and we have to have this debate over and over again. People who cannot clear T5 now would not be able to go and compete in Second Coil even if you got rid of T5 as a pre-requisite. And content is already nerfed overtime because everything in this game is vertical, just by getting new/higher iLvl you are already nerfing content indirectly.

I guess I'll just keep editing this post because I'd rather not hit the daily post cap again

See, you're implying that as soon as they make their difficulty adjustments that all of the players everywhere are just going to log in and find all the Second Coil gear mysteriously in their inventory and have access to the Final Coil already open to them. This is simply not the case. Also yes, they play catch up. We're in Final Coil, they're messing around in Second Coil catching up to the rest of us. See how that works?

I'm trying to help some friends of mine that never cleared Twintania to take it down so they can move on because they want to get to Second Coil. They don't go into the fight and Twintania just drops dead for no reason. They still have to handle the initial pull with the Scourges. They have to get through Conflag/Fireball phase. They still have to dodge Divebombs or risk being thrown into a wall that will instantly kill them. They still have to deal with the snakes and try to take them down before Aetherial Profusion. Still gotta dodge Twisters or die. Still gotta burn down the Dreadknights. Still gotta handle Hatch and Liquid Hell (although that phase was pretty darn easy even before any adjustments).

The fight is easier because the damage dealt to the tank between Death Sentence hits is largely inconsequential, as the tank's increased HP and the healers' increased cure potency trivialize most of it. DS/Plummet/Attack in quick succession can still be tricky, but for the most part there is less stress there. The DPS checks are much easier. When I cleared T5, we had to 4 stack Conflags. Any less and Fireball could kill people. Any more and the Conflag would blow up too quickly. Now, a 3 stack conflag is normal. Easy to take the hit and survive, easy to burn down the conflag before time runs out. In fact, sometimes the conflag dies too fast. We had a fireball target run in to the conflag like they were supposed to, but the conflag died before Twin used Fireball and wound up getting the two people who got broke out killed by it. After those first two phases, though... they still have to get around all the instant kill mechanics. It is still a learning process, just not quite as unforgiving of one. Plus, they can just "turn off" the Echo and wear nothing but i90 gear to get the true "T5 Experience" if they so desire.

At any rate, there is no "instant win button". If you're new to something like T5 and think you're just gonna waltz in and beat it without a fight because you have an Echo buff, Twintania will still destroy you without so much as a second thought. Similarly, I can't imagine that Second Coil is going to be instantly trivialized the moment they make their proposed adjustments.

[Jeykama]

Nerfing fights over time is normal in most MMOs. Echo is implied, no real problems there.
What he was asked (and was booed for) was confirming that mechanics would be nerfed as well. Remember when ADS's paralyze wasn't dispellable? Remember when the bees in AK would rip your healer a new hole if the tank wasn't on point? yeah, stuff like that. Neutering what used to be mostly binary wipe mechanics leaves a sour taste I guess. It kind of ruins the thrill of finally mastering a fight, even if it's obsolete.

[Sensu]

Adding an echo buff doesnt mean bad players can handle certain mechanics, hence why they want to get rid of those insta kill things like "Twisters!!" or Petrifaction, landmines... the things that are so simple but make for a good time in Coil.

Tldr: let them add echo, they'll surely still die on meteors in t9.

[Gardes]

It's only T5 though. The rest of the turns are so trivialized that it's probably not much harder than the current ex dungeons. T5 is also trivialized by the fact that people are helping people get past t5. Regardless of the role of these helpers take on in t5, they're still adding into difficulty decrease on top of echo and item over level. Then they're free to go into the currently relevant second coil that are supposed to be harder than the previous one without echo. The expectations of the people you just helped and the people already in the PF for 2nd coil will be widely different. That's just fostering a PF board where the recruit rules are harsher and harsher.

[Kyri]

It's only T5 though. The rest of the turns are so trivialized that it's probably not much harder than the current ex dungeons. T5 is also trivialized by the fact that people are helping people get past t5. Regardless of the role of these helpers take on in t5, they're still adding into difficulty decrease on top of echo and item over level. Then they're free to go into the currently relevant second coil that are supposed to be harder than the previous one without echo. The expectations of the people you just helped and the people already in the PF for 2nd coil will be widely different. That's just fostering a PF board where the recruit rules are harsher and harsher.

How can the PF board rules get much harsher than they already are? I mean, everywhere you look it's, "T(X) weekly clear. NOT A LEARNING PARTY!!! You must have multiple clears. 3 strike rule." Heck, I joined one before I beat T6 that pretty much said "Die to Blighted and I kick/blacklist you." And then you have... the others. "WTS T6/7/8/9! 100% Guaranteed! Hundreds of happy customers! PST for pricing and scheduling info!"

And it's funny you say, "It's only T5 though.", because when the Binding Coil was first "nerfed", people had their panties all in a knot over that too. And now it's "just T5". And when the elite players are beating T13, it will be "just T9". Old news.

Either way, people can already beat T9 without putting effort into learning it if they have enough money to throw at people. So.. maybe that's why people are upset? SE is undercutting their market by making T9 more accessible to slightly less skilled players? Well.. I'd say that if people weren't still buying T5..