I can respect those opinions on choices, and to a large degree I agree with you. Being required to have exactly eight people makes for strenuous dealings, especially when needing to worry about progression lock-outs and the like.
The real challenge is, well, the challenge. After some of the top raiding groups cleared Coil2 and subsequently Savage Coil2, I know at least one of them revisited Coil1. There isn't a Savage version yet, so what they did to entertain themselves was clearing all of it at i55 with no Echo.
To reiterate that, because I think it's pretty ridiculous and worth repeating: A group of raiders cleared Coil1 up to Twintania (I don't recall if they ever beat her, but I stopped tracking them once they got through T4's DPS checks) wearing only dungeon greens from AK.
I know, I know. Cream of the crop, top of the line, best of the best. But there were people in full i90 who couldn't clear T4 when it was relevant. My point is that it becomes very difficult to gauge what is a proper challenge when the spectrum is so huge across the field.
I perhaps undervalued the significance of Coil's story, but I'll be vague because of spoilers: The topics discussed in it are the same topics discussed in the main story quests. The revelation is a bit more heavy-handed, but it doesn't tell us anything we don't specifically already know or suspect, and it is really, really cool, but ultimately it's still just the end of the 1.0 storyline. It's a good story, but it isn't a necessary one outside of the bits of lore it expounds upon.
I just know someone's going to beat me over the head on that particular point, and I half-agree with the validity of that.
Dungeons as an experience are also something I'd like to see more of. That's still a tricky dance, though. If dungeons become more complex, you're liable to alienate the folks who aren't up to the task. I recall fairly clearly back in 2.0 when the only dungeons worth doing at 50 were the only level 50 dungeons. You did WP or you did AK, and there was a huge number of people who couldn't do either. If you wanted i90 gear your options were Coil or grinding Mythology. Finding people to reliably meet the DPS check on Demon Wall wasn't a given. Finding people who wouldn't get ripped to shreds by the puddings in WP wasn't a given.
And then people complained. The gap was further complicated by the folks who started speedrunning WP and AK. People who couldn't do the dungeons cried out for nerfs on account of "exploits" and gates were put in to require more enemies killed. With those gates, there were still people who couldn't clear WP or AK reliably.
So, what's the plan? Make dungeons require minimal mechanic learning? I only JUST found out yesterday that you can pass Prey onto someone else during Sastasha HM's first boss. This was a revelation to me because you could ALSO do it with Inhale during the Zombiegoobue in Ampador City. That's a whole mechanic that got avoided and could have sped things up or made fights smoother. I still don't know how the first boss of Snowcloak works mechanically; You're plenty able to just throw DPS at it until he melts, though.
If you do that, you're only going to make things "worse" in the longrun when stepping into the new Coil or Coil-equivalent. You do your subscribers a disservice by suddenly ratcheting up the difficulty on them like that. Hell, going from Titan HM and getting your relic to fighting ADS1 in Coil1 Turn1 is a hell of a wake-up call. Mechanics! Adds! High Voltage! One slip-up and that's it. There was no feeling it out, no figuring it out as you go. Cad was the same way if you got to him. You executed a known-gameplan or everyone blew up. And there was NO ramp-up to this, it went from cyclical "easy" Titan mechanics to raid-wiping explosions in one trash hallway.
So do we make dungeons teach people how to dance with serious mechanics? Or do we leave that portion of PVE a mostly-cakewalk and then spring all of the instant death on folks in the endgame?
I think this is why there's such a large disparity between the raiding community and the non-raiding community. There's really no place to practice your skills for raiding outside of raiding and that basically means you don't raid unless you're already raiding with raiders who were raiding. All applicants must have experience in the field to join at an entry level. Self-defeating.
I'm rambling. Bleh.
The real challenge is, well, the challenge. After some of the top raiding groups cleared Coil2 and subsequently Savage Coil2, I know at least one of them revisited Coil1. There isn't a Savage version yet, so what they did to entertain themselves was clearing all of it at i55 with no Echo.
To reiterate that, because I think it's pretty ridiculous and worth repeating: A group of raiders cleared Coil1 up to Twintania (I don't recall if they ever beat her, but I stopped tracking them once they got through T4's DPS checks) wearing only dungeon greens from AK.
I know, I know. Cream of the crop, top of the line, best of the best. But there were people in full i90 who couldn't clear T4 when it was relevant. My point is that it becomes very difficult to gauge what is a proper challenge when the spectrum is so huge across the field.
I perhaps undervalued the significance of Coil's story, but I'll be vague because of spoilers: The topics discussed in it are the same topics discussed in the main story quests. The revelation is a bit more heavy-handed, but it doesn't tell us anything we don't specifically already know or suspect, and it is really, really cool, but ultimately it's still just the end of the 1.0 storyline. It's a good story, but it isn't a necessary one outside of the bits of lore it expounds upon.
I just know someone's going to beat me over the head on that particular point, and I half-agree with the validity of that.
Dungeons as an experience are also something I'd like to see more of. That's still a tricky dance, though. If dungeons become more complex, you're liable to alienate the folks who aren't up to the task. I recall fairly clearly back in 2.0 when the only dungeons worth doing at 50 were the only level 50 dungeons. You did WP or you did AK, and there was a huge number of people who couldn't do either. If you wanted i90 gear your options were Coil or grinding Mythology. Finding people to reliably meet the DPS check on Demon Wall wasn't a given. Finding people who wouldn't get ripped to shreds by the puddings in WP wasn't a given.
And then people complained. The gap was further complicated by the folks who started speedrunning WP and AK. People who couldn't do the dungeons cried out for nerfs on account of "exploits" and gates were put in to require more enemies killed. With those gates, there were still people who couldn't clear WP or AK reliably.
So, what's the plan? Make dungeons require minimal mechanic learning? I only JUST found out yesterday that you can pass Prey onto someone else during Sastasha HM's first boss. This was a revelation to me because you could ALSO do it with Inhale during the Zombiegoobue in Ampador City. That's a whole mechanic that got avoided and could have sped things up or made fights smoother. I still don't know how the first boss of Snowcloak works mechanically; You're plenty able to just throw DPS at it until he melts, though.
If you do that, you're only going to make things "worse" in the longrun when stepping into the new Coil or Coil-equivalent. You do your subscribers a disservice by suddenly ratcheting up the difficulty on them like that. Hell, going from Titan HM and getting your relic to fighting ADS1 in Coil1 Turn1 is a hell of a wake-up call. Mechanics! Adds! High Voltage! One slip-up and that's it. There was no feeling it out, no figuring it out as you go. Cad was the same way if you got to him. You executed a known-gameplan or everyone blew up. And there was NO ramp-up to this, it went from cyclical "easy" Titan mechanics to raid-wiping explosions in one trash hallway.
So do we make dungeons teach people how to dance with serious mechanics? Or do we leave that portion of PVE a mostly-cakewalk and then spring all of the instant death on folks in the endgame?
I think this is why there's such a large disparity between the raiding community and the non-raiding community. There's really no place to practice your skills for raiding outside of raiding and that basically means you don't raid unless you're already raiding with raiders who were raiding. All applicants must have experience in the field to join at an entry level. Self-defeating.
I'm rambling. Bleh.