[Feedback] End-game progression

[GalkaBikini]

I'd like to provide feedback on what it's like to progress through FFXIV's end-game content, and I hope others will join in and offer their opinions and experiences as well. I am only one person, so I can't speak for everyone. Some of what I say here is just assumption. Some of it is my personal opinion, and some of it is what I've seen myself as an FC leader.

[2.0]
At the launch of the game, upon reaching level 50, players grinded the high level dungeons for equipment, as well as Castrum Meridianum for Tomestones of Philosophy for Darklight gear. We also worked on Hard Mode Primals for weapons and the fabled Relic Weapon. With these items, while also slowly collecting i90 Mythology gear, we began our ventures into the first Coil of Bahamut. At this time, FFXIV had typical modern MMO end-game progression.

[2.1]
With the addition of Extreme Primals, Ultima HM, Mog HM, and Crystal Tower, gearing for Coil became slightly easier. We had access to more content, although none of it was harder than Final Coil (okay, maybe Titan X).

[2.2]
Here we see the release of Second Coil, Leviathan X, Mog X, and the new Tomestone, Soldiery. First Coil also receives the Echo buff. This is where I will begin discussing what this thread is all about.

First of all, let me give my personal opinion. When I have played my main class for a while and have decided to try out another one, I want to go through progression the same way my main did. I want to gear my alt in pre-raid gear before I start raiding. I want to learn the mechanics and the playstyle required from the perspective of another class. I want to have to gear myself with First Coil gear and beat all 5 turns at least once before progressing to Second Coil. This, in my opinion, is much healthier for the game. I feel slower progression is better, and I'll prove this somewhat in the 2.3 section.

This is what I think. But what do other players think? I'm sure there are many players who think like I do (and I know many of them myself). I'm also sure there are plenty of players who enjoy the nerfs so that they can finally experience and complete the content. The thing that bothers me the most, is that the simple addition of Soldiery gear was effectively a nerf to First Coil. With Echo on top of that, it feels like two times the nerf. I also feel like the enrage strategy for Turn 2 should have never been allowed. I'll talk a bit more about nerfed content in the 2.4 section.

[2.3]
The addition of hunts, as many will agree, really messed around with the end-game scene. The player base was gearing near i110 at a rapid pace. This was by far the most accelerated end-game progression had been since launch. At this point, First Coil became practically non-existent except for T5 still being a requirement for Second Coil. Here's where I get opinionated again.

I don't want to see old content disappear and I hope there are a lot of others who feel the same way. As I said before, I enjoy having to progress through all of the content all over again when I play a different class. With such massive nerfs to older content, you are effectively deleting it from the game. I'm not going to act like I have a solution to all of this - I'm only giving feedback and the perspective of a player. I guess I have just seen this happen in other MMOs; I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I guess perhaps some serious item level syncs would be the best idea I can come up with. As an example, I don't think First Coil should allow item levels above 95.

During patch 2.3 the population of the game, at least my server, was NOTICEABLY much lower than any other patch. In 2.1 and 2.2, of course people got bored or moved on to other things/games, but the decrease in players was minimal and there were still plenty of newer folks coming in (not to mention PS4 release). I recall days when my FC had only 6 people log in within 24 hours, down from when we had AT LEAST 30+ logins daily. I feel that this is due to the massive increase in the rate of end-game progression. As I said, I think a slower progression is better. I'm not specifically saying "the slower the better", but when people can progress through content too quickly, they also get bored much faster. One of the main facets of playing an RPG is progressing your character. When we have nearly maxed out our character and there is little to no progression left to be done, our minds are going to wander until we find something better to do, even if it is progressing in a different game.

[2.4]
This patch saw an influx of both returning and new players, so I'm going to talk a lot about that. My FC saw people log in the MORNING of patch 2.4 that we hadn't seen in MONTHS, even before patch 2.2. We're back to our 30+ daily logins. New content is great for the game, especially new classes. People love new classes. You had best believe there are going to be even more returning and new players once Heavensward launches, if for no reason other than the new classes.

Despite that, though, in this patch I have noticed a huge problem. Maybe I am wrong in feeling this way, but I feel like each Turn of coil is really just preparing you for the next one. They basically get progressively harder with each turn, and you've got to figure out how to deal with the encounter before advancing to the next one. I'm sure that we can all agree, the difference between Turns 1-4 are like night and day when compared to Turns 6-8. Turn 7 requires more attention/concentration than anything in the game prior.

And so what happens when you've got these new or returning players who haven't really experienced First Coil (especially not experienced it the way it was originally intended to be experienced), who are leaping right into Second Coil? We have this huge gap in the difficulty of the game between hitting 50 and getting soldiery gear (which is not difficult) and Second Coil. Nothing really prepares you for this gap. This is why making old content moot is a bad thing.

All of the above I've been wanting to write for a while. But now I have to write about 2.41 as well. I'm sure you can guess that I hate all of the Second Coil nerfs. First Coil did not receive nerfs to this extreme, and that is what these nerfs are - extreme. Too much. I am thankful to see that T9 is untouched. But it's like I said before - the addition of Soldiery Tomestones was effectively a nerf to First Coil, and thus, the addition of Poetic Tomestones is effectively a nerf to Second Coil. On top of that, we have the Echo. But then to go and nerf pretty much every mechanic of the fight is kind of disgruntling. Many people in my FC who have returned to the game are saddened that they will never get to experience the content the way that it was originally intended to be experienced.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts and opinions. As an FC leader, these are also the things I have seen my members have to deal with. I hope my feedback provides useful to SE. Thanks so much for reading.

[Prototype909]

The problem is that the way the game is structured content has a timed lifespan (Especially non-Coil content)

New Content is

-Very relevant for 3 months or so
-Becomes less relevant as people over-gear it with Tome gear (Moggle Mog EX is and Shiva EX will be examples of this)
-Eventually it's a ghost town and SE has to force people back into it with things like the current Relic quest (Garuda Hard Mode Nexus farming)
-Or it's just virtually irrelevant in terms of drops from launch like most 4-Man dungeons, and is only there for tome capping

The only thing that changes as you go up in gear is the numbers get bigger, so nothing lasts. There's literally no reason to care about Coil 1 drops anymore because Tome drops eclipsed that two major patches ago, at the same time players who haven't cleared these instances yet want the gear for vanity or what not so SE nerfs the content or removes ore-requisites to allow them to move on and the content becomes defunct. You can't force the playerbase to help others out, but at the same time SE really fails at providing incentive for (Or even allowing) help to be given in these fights, so they just nerf them instead.

[Tsuga]

The "intended experience" of second coil is savage mode.

I don't disagree with your points about older content becoming obsolete, I am also bothered by the fact that nobody will ever play a lot of the old dungeons more than a couple of times, and only for a quest line or two. The mechanics become unlearned, and the experiences lost. I don't have a problem with dungeon mechanics being tweaked, though, as less and less people partake in the content. As the community progresses as a whole, stragglers and newcomers have a harder and harder time participating in content, and it only makes sense that content should scale downward to meet the decrease in player participation.

Difficulty can be as much of an issue as "nothing to do", and can actually lead to a feeling of there being "nothing to do". If I can't clear half of the content because it is too difficult to get a group together to do it then that means I have half as much content to participate in than someone who does have the time to form/privileged of having an active helpful group.

[Alukah]

You are wrong to assume content difficulty gets progressively harder, like I mentioned our fellow Prototype909 earlier, if that was true we eventually would hit a point where the skill needed to beat content would be so high only a very limited amount of players would be able to beat it. Furthermore, any person who cleared second coil without learning first cool mechanics proved you wrong, and those who will do the same with FCoB will keep proving you wrong.

As for the rest, I'll paste something I posted in the mega rant thread, you can follow the post to see the full context.

You are not alone with that sentiment, but MMO history disagrees with it, most people do want to try out the new content and not be gated behind old fights (even if it's new for them) specially if those old fights aren't very rewarding in a (sort of) extreme vertical progression game like this, where the best gear comes from the newest content and it greatly outclasses the older gear.

This is how streamlined MMOs heavily dependent on vertical progression work and this won't change even with the expansion, that's the direction this game will keep.

[Damane]

@GalkaBikin: your Idea and impression on how things shoudl scale or get nerfed, does only work ina horizontal gear progression game. FFXIV is vertical progression constantly, so it wont work here at all, or your playerbase would dwindle faster then you can think. What you are discribing is how FFXI was, horizontal gear progression, everythign stayed relevant for long periods of time, no nerfs happend almost ever to game content. This worked in FFXI because gear almost never got outdated and still had some relevance a niche piece, macro in piece etc. This wont work in FFXIV just because it is a vertical progression based game and 2. because gearswaps dont happen in this game, not to mention 3. gear has its generic stats, there is no unique stat applied to gear at all (why would it, there is no gearswaping involved in this game).