So Second Coil has been destroyed

[Amenian]

Life is not supposed to be fair. Some people are better at some things that others. When we as a society start handing out participation ribbons for mediocrity, everyone loses.

You know, if we were discussing stuff that actually matters, i.e. real life stuff, you'd have a point. But we're discussing a game. Society will not be affected in any manner by a nerf to a video game.

[Jacost]

Life is not supposed to be fair. Some people are better at some things that others. When we as a society start handing out participation ribbons for mediocrity, everyone loses.

Life, no. GAMES, however, are supposed to be fair.

[Purrfectstorm]

It was like the flood gates opened and all the baddies now thought they were amazing because they could clear watered down content.

Right, baddies need to know their place

[Cadmar]

Ok, I get the point about games. Are you telling me that skill and time allotted should not come into play at all. You're saying just hand things to people? Look at any online FPS out there. There is a huge amount of skill involved in order to succeed. I am awful at most FPS but at least I have the ability to admit that. I still play them but I know that I will never reach the status that other people who play it do.

So yeah, should they be fair? Yes. They should offer the same challenge to everyone equally. Everyone should have to clear things equally. So who is here is really being unfair?

[Amenian]

snip

You would have a point if we were talking about an FPS or other game that doesn't continue to progress after release, but we're not. We're speaking of an MMO which builds upon its content. By allowing people who were unable to clear content when it was current to clear it when it is older, you give them a chance to take part in current content should whatever situation prevented them from doing the previous content change, be it skill, time, whatever. In an FPS, you can always catch up because the endgame never changes. In an MMO you can't. You're comparing apples and oranges.

Besides, let's be honest here, most of the more vocal complainers about nerfs are really upset because people won't pay them ridiculous sums for clears anymore.

[Snugglebutt]

By making it open to DF they made it more challenging, I bet a lot of the people whining about how these changes make it less challenging are people in statics yet it is a hundred times more challenging to complete it with a random DF cross server team than some static that play with each other on daily basis and as such the sense of achievement is vastly more when complete content in DF instead of PF which is something they could try. If want a challenge then try completing it in one single session with people will probably never play it with again due to being in DF instead of people will practice with over and over across multiple sessions on the same server.

I also find it ironic how so many here whine about how the challenge is reduced when they tended to farm while being extremely over geared for it anyways plus having it on farm with extremely experienced statics.

The challenge is still there if they dared to wear minimum ilvl requirement or was not running as part of a static. Not to mention they still have savage and final coils still which are the real challenging content created for current hardcore players. Fact is any content in this game is as challenging as you chose to make it whether dropping your uber gears for lower ones, randomizing your group composition or many other methods of making content harder for yourselves. People have the option of making it more challenging, it is not the fault of SE that they lack imagination.

[Dement]

As someone who cleared 6-8 months ago, in my mind it's not so much that nerfs happened but the severity of them in T6 and T7. The fights should still be challenging and mechanics should be learned without a guaranteed wipe if Random #6 can't figure them out.

This appears to be the end result in T8, which I think was tuned appropriately to remove the need for voice comms in proccing towers. However, T6 and T7 went overboard, removing the instant wipes while also castrating the fights into apparent tank and spanks. Sharp Sting nerf, hornets no longer spawning after phase change, and acid spray nerfs were all unnecessary in my opinion and make the mechanics associated with those attacks a moot point. Bouquet is questionable due to how easy it is to play red light/green light. In T7, lowering the timing of petrification to just 10 seconds was unnecessary. I agree with not having an instant death upon being hit while petrified but the original 30 second duration should have been maintained. I can understand increasing the times of petrifying the Renauds due to the addition of the echo which could make for some awkward phase transitions. Not sure why the ground attack needed to be nerfed though, there's ample time to dodge it.

[Zerona]

I actually have a legitimate concern that making mechanical changes of this nature could be hurting the longevity of the game much more than helping it.

Up until now the mechanical difficulty of a fight has always been an upward process and as a result has led to the creation of a new difficulty mode/instance. Why then, should the reverse not be true? Imagine if Titan EX was the only difficulty mode and it was then re-tuned and replaced with Titan Hard. The changes being made to SCoB are essentially removing a higher difficulty mode and replacing it with a lower mode.

Generally instances will all naturally become easier over time due to ilvl progression as well as the echo, which was intended to speed up this process. However, the fights in SCoB all had high damage or 1-shot mechanics which could lead to an almost inevitable wipe despite ones ilvl/stats. This being the case I can completely understand the development team's reasoning for changing the mechanics which served as a roadblock to many players. However, the way in which these changes were implemented seems to be taking away from the game much more than adding to it.

A reasonable solution would have been to create an entirely new set of instances with the reduced mechanics. Doing this would allow players of all skill levels to enjoy SCoB and progress to FCoB. Having a variety of difficulty modes available also helps players improve for harder fights by acting as stepping stones. For example; Savage SCoB is now leagues ahead of normal SCoB which will no doubt create many frustrations for both current and new players who wish to clear Savage mode. Having the previous SCoB as a stepping stone would prepare players for savage as it used many of the same mechanics, only to a lesser degree.

In regards to loot; I see no reason why all modes should not drop the same gear--with new content the older gear is always made more available to the masses.

I hope the devs pick up on this imbalance and are able to find a more reasonable solution which will not take away but rather add to the game.

[Snugglebutt]

-snip-

It does not take away from the game more than it adds to it, your example of replacing Titan EX with Titan HM is not accurate, it is more akin to you still have Titan EX and still have Titan HM in that you still have second coil normal and second coil savage.

[Zerona]

It does not take away from the game more than it adds to it, your example of replacing Titan EX with Titan HM is not accurate, it is more akin to you still have Titan EX and still have Titan HM in that you still have second coil normal and second coil savage.

However, you now have a huge gap in difficulty between savage and normal. A new player whose skill level falls in that middle area will do SCoB normal and think it's much too easy. Then they might try Savage SCoB and find it much too difficult. This would lead to the conclusion that the game is unbalanced and is what I mean by hurting the game.