something new ive been seeingFollow

Well, let's take a look: Their previous Final Fantasy MMO has a few systems:

Nyzul Isle/Mazes/Assaults
Dynamis
Delve
Excursion
Limbus
Einherjar
Sky/Sea gods
Abyssea
Legion
Voidwatch/VWNM
General systems like ENM/BCNM/Newer NM sytems like the Allied thing
And some other minor systems.

Now, what do we know about these systems? Aside having their own loot system and lockouts of varying nature, you are not preventing someone from getting gear if you choose to help them. The better alternative?

Allow people to help who they want without taking away loot. SE has done it before and just because the "standard MMO" does it this way doesn't mean they need to. That is my problem with Yoshi doing things "just because." I mean hell, think of if you went into Dynamis but you already cleared it and had Access to Xarcabard and for every person that cleared it that's joining in on Dynamis Bastok you lower the drop rate by %10 to inevitably removing drops altogether.

That is the exact situation here. The better alternative is to not get rid of chests and allow us to help people if we so choose to. There shouldn't even be a lockout on this kind of content, but due to the lack of progression content and making prior content obsolete, I guess it makes sense.



Yeah, so instead of letting us help normally, they let us help at the cost of THEM getting full loot.

How that sounds perfectly ok is beyond me..but after all, I "hate" this game so I'm probably being "negative". All in all, Gated Content was done better in FFXI, just a simple lockout/cooldown or tiered based progression.

Some of activities you point out in XI had their participation limits relaxed over time. And that same thing happens to Coil too (i.e. you can endlessly spam first and second coil now, and that will presumably happen to final coil after Heavensward). Abyssea was a big philosophical change with the game. But most activities before that were heavily restricted, similar to final coil before this change.

Dynamis: you could only enter it once every 72 hours (I think). The number of people who could enter was capped at 64. Mobs didn't respawn, thus ensuring a limit to the rate at which relic and currency would enter the game. If you had already entered Dynamis, you couldn't go back in before those 72 hours were up simply to help someone else. At best, once a group had completed farmed out a zone and all loot had dropped, they would be willing to let people enter the zone and get their clear flag.
Limbus: you could only enter it once every 72 hours. The number of people who could enter was capped at 18. Mobs didn't respawn. Loot was tied to chests that spawned at fixed rates upon clearing. If you had already entered Limbus, you couldn't go back in before those 72 hours were up simply to help someone else.
Nyzul Isle and Assault: you could only enter it once for every assault tag you had, and assault tags accrued one per day. If you were out of assault tags, you couldn't go back in before you got more tags simply to help someone else.

See a pattern? End game systems at the time of their highest relevance had some form of lock out in place. Sky and Sea farming didn't limit player participation. Instead, it simply had low drops rate on not only loot, but also on pop items. I'm not going to try to make a case whether Sky/Sea was better than Final Coil because they are distinctly different systems altogether.

Nyzul/Assault is a really good point of comparison though. Nyzul Isle, like Coil, allowed only a small group and the primary farming focus was on boss floors where gear could drop. A secondary focus with Nyzul was weapon farming and progress (to gain access to a new WS). Assault meanwhile had two goals, with points you could farm and zone clears being tied to progression.

Back when Nyzul and Assault were relevant content, I had plenty of people in my LS who wouldn't have minded trying to help me get clears in Assault or progress up Nyzul Isle. However, many of them were either involved in a Nyzul/Assault static, which required them to save their assault tags for their static, or in a Salvage group, which meant that they needed to save their assault tags to farm one specific assault for assault points (which would then allow them to enter Salvage).

I'm glad that SE chose not to style anything after the assault tag system. It sounds like a flexible system at first glance. But it just leads to requiring statics to maximize opportunity and discourages participation for players that aren't in a static ("I don't want to waste an entry token on a group that might fail.")

That has nothing to do with Coil lock out. People make that requirement for things you can spam indefinitely (e.g. pony farming groups).

And adding an assault tags style restriction on Coil would fix that how? If people make that same exact requirement for EX Primal farming which has no lock out, why would you expect it ever be any different for Coil?

This!

If you don't want to help people get clears, then don't use this feature. If you do want to help people get clears -- either your in-game friends or FC mates -- then use this feature. If your goal is to help, then gear is irrelevant.

That said, there's a lot of truth to what Duo is saying regarding his attitude. Many people help others with the hope that favors will be returned. However, for many (or most) people, that's not the main reason to help others. Most people only help others who they know somehow in the game, and often that help is given with the goal of helping those people advance. Can't say I've ever helped someone clear Turn 5 while thinking, "Just think, in a few months from now, maybe this person will get me through Turn 9!" That's just not logical.

I think the "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" mentality was a lot more prevalent/important for success in FFXI, because getting stuff done in that game meant having a solid reputation. In FFXIV, you can be the world's biggest A-hole and just beat your face against the DF until you get a clear.

Edited, Feb 18th 2015 9:00am by Thayos

As previously stated, that list you made had a different form of lock out: Time. FFXI required you to do a lot of waiting, and even if people did help you with things, it usually costed them SOMETHING to do so, for example, tags for assault and whatnot. So what's better? Help someone for free, and the reward is reduced, or help out and use part of you payment of access to the content and keep full rewards? I honestly don't like either, but if I were to pick ONE, I'd pick the former.

FFXI and FFXIV are very different in terms of gear progression. You are able to gear much faster in FFXIV than you can in FFXI. You basically NEEDED the help in FFXI. In FFXIV, it's a bit of a luxury.. You're not supposed to seek for help for coil - it's a last resort kind of thing, where you just want to progress and can't find a better alternative replacement. Their lock-out system for coil calls for something like this, or it will create the issues as I previously stated. It wasn't designed with the loot in mind.

Edited, Feb 18th 2015 4:16pm by Stilivan

I never said an assault tag system would fix coil. I was simply pointing out that the reason you condone assault tag system was because "But it just leads to requiring statics to maximize opportunity and discourages participation for players that aren't in a static ("I don't want to waste an entry token on a group that might fail.")"

yet that very thing is ALREADY happening (without an assault tag system) through coil

I don't agree that what's happening with some PF groups in XIV is the same as what I described with assault. With assault, the issue I saw was with recruiting participants, not with the leader who was doing the recruiting. The problem you are describing has to do with the leader who doing the recruiting and their high standards. Do you see the difference?

If all the other PF groups require having multiple clears, I can start a learning group in PF. I don't have to have the same lofty requirements as other leaders. If everyone involved is ok with fewer chests, we even have the option to try and get some experienced help from people who have already cleared the turn. If we don't want to miss out on any chests, we at least have the option of entering just for the experience and throwing the fight if somehow we come close to succeeding.

Back in XI with assault, there was no way around assault tags. Either you had the tags to use or you didn't. And even if you had tags, choosing to help someone with their progression meant you were potentially blocked from taking advantage of an opportunity that comes up for your own progression.

The assault tag system sucked, bottom line. And the problems with doing Assault and Nyzul outside of a static were a direct result of it. The issue with someone not being able to find a PF group for coil if they don't already have multiple clears has absolutely, positively nothing to do with coils lock out mechanism. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

So having experienced people come is bad because you don't get the full loot, starting a learning group is bad because it takes time/effort....what do you actually want Duo? Sounds to me like you are looking for a static to be down a member consistently with a spot saved for you, so you get a guaranteed clear with full drops and no effort in creating the group? I don't mean to sound like I'm hating on you, I havn't down rated anything you said because in places it makes a certain kind of sense, but what would it take to make you happy? You seem to have a very niche set of expectations, learning parties are bad, have people who have their clears come and assist in a newbies run is bad, I'm struggling to see the sun behind all these clouds.

just cause theyre experienced doesnt mean they've done i that week so full loot is still possible in that circumstance, and no what I WANT is a game hat requires community support from the start that way when you finally to get to level 50 to do the much harder non DFable/no way youre gonna win in a PUG, you have a whole list of ppl that you shared blood, sweat and tears with on teh road to 50 that you can send tells to to try to get a competent party set up to do said stuff (thats how my CoP static formed, and we rocked without guides (as the content was still new (and no smn, nin, /nin, and one of our members was a thief) despite that "impossible" setup we proved SE clearly doesnt make content that restricts certain jobs and can only be won a certain way.

Hmm lets see you can get to 50 solely off doin quest that are 100% soloable (infact some can only BE soloed), you dont need to sit around with a seek flag up or look for ppl with eh right jobs and send them tells to start a grou and spend hours in one spot killing stuff to level up..., you dont have to shout in cities to find ppl to help you with a story mission/dungeon when simply putting up DF and waiting will toss you in with a random group of ppl across all servers (now if DF was specific to your server only THEN I could see that being useful for the whole "havin possible ides of ppl you could send tells to to do stuff at endgame with)

So tell me again how its not the games fault?

doesnt have to be hard core level grinding... they coulda kept the game exactly the way it is with the exception of not having duty finder.. that way wed HAVE to shout and meet ppl on our server to group up with for that content... and by the time we hit 50 we should know enough ppl to start some coil groups

You just described FFXI. Undeniably a great game for those of us who had the patience to stick with it, but also a game that is archaic in design and aimed at people who can dedicate an obscene amount of hours to it.

This isn't FFXI. It never will be. They are very deliberately taking steps to keep some aspects of the game familiar to FFXI vets, mainly cosmetic aspects, while making as many core Gameplay and mechanical aspects of the game as polar opposite to XI as they can. As every thread you every write degenerates into you having issues with pretty much any aspect of the game, usually because it isn't like XI, can I suggest you play another MMO that may appeal to you? How about FFXI? Or has that also become too casual friendly for you in recent times? Your threads would be more interesting and would actually have some legitimate points to make if they weren't drowned out by constant whining and comparisons to an MMO that is dying, and has been for years now.