Take it easy on the Nerfing :/

[NovaWulfe]

I will summarize my experiences with SOF pre nerf as follows,

Attempt 1: Tank immediately asks to be kicked, says "AFK 30 minutes" when we refuse, group falls apart.

Attempt 2: After the first wipe, a healer leaves, and because one person left everyone else starts to leave.

This was not fun, this was not a challenge, and this is why we can't have nice things.

[AdamFyi]

Oh, and did anyone notice they haven't actually "Nerfed" FCOB the way they nerfed SCOB and BCOB? They added Echo, sure, but again it doesn't take away from the actual challenge of the content. Since, again, if you want the challenge, just click it off.

Honestly, I think it's almost impossible to tweak the Final Coil mechanics without utterly destroying them because of how simple they work. It isn't like Second Coil where one mechanic has multiple branches of mechanics within that mechanic. FCoB's mechanics are quite linear. Hell, Echo alone alleviates most of the fights and makes them much easier since everything in there hits like a truck. I can see them reducing the damage by most of the attacks, but mechanics-wise, it's really tough to see them touch the mechanics at all. o_0

Edit:

Woah there, interesting how this snowballed into a debate I didn't meant for it to lol.

I think people just read the title, then see the words 'nerf' and 'Steps of Faith' together, and just jump to conclusions. I honestly wouldn't mind what you've suggested. We've already seen something sort of like this with Pharos Sirius's batch of dungeons - just that Pharos didn't have the reward to match the difficulty. Just bump up the rewards you get from the Pharos-esque difficulty dungeon and you're all set. O:

[Noshpan]

EDIT: Oh, and did anyone notice they haven't actually "Nerfed" FCOB the way they nerfed SCOB and BCOB? They added Echo, sure, but again it doesn't take away from the actual challenge of the content. Since, again, if you want the challenge, just click it off.

To the special snowflakes the addition of the Echo IS a nerf.

Did Steps with FC mates, to help another FC get through the story (they had been trying to complete Steps since its addition to the game, but with no success to due wipes & groups falling apart). It certainly went by quicker, though I was mildly disappointed that I didn't get to use the last dragon killer.

[Alberel]

Yes, because it's totally the bad players forcing SE's hand. SE has a plan in mind for what they want their game to be. If that includes tweaking a story-line fight that will block a lot of people from playing their soon to be released x-pac, so be it. If you want a hardcore game, you're in the wrong MMO. To me, it's a bit silly crying about what you wish the game would be.

There was nothing hardcore about the SoF trial. It was relatively simple in terms of mechanics, the problem was the bad players didn't even want to try. How hard is it to press three dragon-killer switches over 10 minutes?

The majority of parties that were unable to clear the trial were not struggling with the difficulty of the encounter, they were struggling with the idiocy of the players. Players that outright ignore other members of their party, refuse to engage with the mechanics of the fight and insult anyone that tries to show them how to defeat the boss do NOT deserve to pass that trial.

How do you not understand this? Nerfing the trial made no real difference to the difficulty as the same mechanics still need to be dealt with and the same bad players will still refuse to cooperate. Why should anyone at all cater to them?

[DenebPunkin]

2.1: EX primals (Yes, they count, they were actually difficult to beat at one point.)
2.2: SCOB
2.3: Savage SCOB
2.4: FCOB

So yeah they DID add challenging content in each and every patch, and nerfed it in time for the next wave because people are going to be doing the next wave and not the previous.
The only sort-of-exception is 2.5, which is what everyone is complaining about. With coil finished in 2.4, there wasn't really much left to add, and Odin had the issue of not having rewards other than glamour. Thus 2.5 was kind of a downer in terms of challenge, but they still added content that could be considered challenging.

Also Echo will always be added to difficult content. It's there to make it easier for new players to progress, and can be clicked off if you really want your challenge.

EX Primals still pose a decent challenge. I still see more fails in Titan EX and Ifrit EX (somehow) then I do in SCoB and T5 now a days. 0_0.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

The easiest way they'll ever be able to have future content be similar to SoF pre-nerf is to make sure they have some sort of reward(s) that will keep players coming back. That was the biggest problem here and hopefully will be something that they'll start thinking about with Heavensward content.

They should just leave roullette for older content. If it's the newest trial, don't put it in roullette. That way people that need the clear can clear it w/o all the veterans ruining their experience by bailing cuz they didn't get the easiest dungeon/trial possible.

Ultimately i don't even really care if the old content from 2-3 patches ago is easy. But the newest, highest level, latest content should be exciting. Honestly is there ANYTHING expert about the expert dungeons/roullette? Most people beat them first try the first day they came out, with little knowledge of the mechanics beforehand.

[Welsper59]

Like I said before, I understand the necessity of aiding players who struggle with completion, but is all endgame content going to become subject to this?

I want to point out that, given the context, this is a contradictory statement. People could be struggling with FCOB (and I guarantee there are), so aid is going to helpful with their struggle. What better time than near the end of this contents relevance? The same can be said about Steps or any other instance content. In particular, about Steps, people need to get over themselves on that one. If that instance is notorious for failing because of 1) folks not understanding the mechanics and 2) the more experienced players commonly leave it before it even begins because of an impression of failure already instilled, the devs need to do something about it. Would you rather they remove the ability to drop that instance or apply some long-term punishment for disconnecting to try to leave? LOL. You're living in a fairy tale world if you really believe the general playerbase will universally work together to suddenly become better. Especially the Western audiences, really lol. There's some good people out there, but an overwhelming number of bad ones... and I'm "forced" to include the neutral ones into the bad category, the folks who say nothing or refrain from doing a little more work than normal, but still stick around.

The same can be said about the Coils, but there's definitely a stronger argument to be had in wanting it to remain difficult. The thing is, they want a larger portion of the playerbase to experience it. It's exactly why WoW changed the approach to raids after vanilla. When a single digit percentage of your audience actually does content that has months of effort put into creating, you generally don't want to have it be wasted because only a select few will ever see it. With the way Coil was designed, it's the one and only. Savage being released was an afterthought, and one that people did not care for in the end, as the argument of wanting to do something for a challenge falls short there (for nearly everyone that uses this as their defense for being against content nerfs). Personally, I do see the value in wanting hard content to remain how it was, assuming it wasn't bugged. I just don't care for the reasons presented for the argument. There's too many contradictions and biases behind them, which means they ignore many variables (like Steps being mandatory for a soon-to-be released expansion... not the most difficult concept to grasp as to why it'd be nerfed).

In the case of Alexander, we'll just have to wait and see. Given that it's the same dungeon for both normal and savage, there's stronger reason for them to leave savage unnerfed... well, mostly unnerfed. Expect some changes, particularly if there are any similar to how twisters were in T5 originally.

[Velox]

To the special snowflakes the addition of the Echo IS a nerf.

No...the Echo is a "buff," a player buff to be exact. To constitute the term "nerf," the fundamental mechanics of a fight must be eased. Nerfs are usually permanent in nature. The Echo is 100% optional since you can turn it off by clicking the icon as I stated before.

[Skivvy]

There was nothing hardcore about the SoF trial. It was relatively simple in terms of mechanics, the problem was the bad players didn't even want to try. How hard is it to press three dragon-killer switches over 10 minutes?

The majority of parties that were unable to clear the trial were not struggling with the difficulty of the encounter, they were struggling with the idiocy of the players. Players that outright ignore other members of their party, refuse to engage with the mechanics of the fight and insult anyone that tries to show them how to defeat the boss do NOT deserve to pass that trial.

How do you not understand this? Nerfing the trial made no real difference to the difficulty as the same mechanics still need to be dealt with and the same bad players will still refuse to cooperate. Why should anyone at all cater to them?

They've made the fight quite a bit easier by removing mobs, lowering HP, and other tweaks. Of course mechanics will still need to be done, but the fight is more forgiving for random DF groups.


This game leans heavily towards the casual side. The earlier you accept this, the sooner you'll come to terms with the nerfs.

[Anapingofness]

OP, while I get what you're saying and to an extent I agree with you, but please remember that the nerf to SoF was our fault.
Sure, plenty of people come on these forums and say 'Oh, SoF was easy' and 'SoF didn't need to be nerfed' but how many of those people actually stayed in the group when they got put into SoF?
How many of those people cleared SoF once and never bothered to go near it?
How many of those people that would queue up for Trials roulette would leave SoF as soon as they saw that's where they landed?

I don't really care for the excuses some may offer. At this point in time those excuses are moot.

The bottom line is, our actions spoke way louder than our words. If players actually bothered doing SoF then it wouldn't have been nerfed. It would have created a different precedent- one that said 'Yes SE! We like this type of content so please give us more!' Instead, the overwhelming majority of players decided to not do SoF - despite it being "easy" (by their own words).

I don't know how many of you bothered clearing it multiple times but you should understand that SoF became a revolving door. Players would zone in and then zone out. It becomes disheartening to see such behavior even when you aren't the player who needs the clear. It probably is twice as disheartening if you are the person who needs the clear.

Either way, we made our bed and now we get to lay in it.

I'm just glad that I got to experience SoF pre-nerf.