2.0 content progression vs 2.1+

So I pretty much posted this in another thread, but I felt like it deserved it's own thread :D

Here it goes...

When FFXIV 2.0 first came out, and everyone was still either leveling up or just started gearing up their 50 job, the dungeons was pretty enjoyable IMO. The gear that dropped there was actually usable at first, while you geared up with Darklight gear, and slowly with Myth gear (before myth cap increase). The dungeons was easy ofc, but you couldn't eat and listen to music at the same time (I couldn't at least)... I quite enjoyed to do that easy, but not too easy task to get my gear.

I liked how in 2.0, you actually had to get some decent gear before you could do dungeons like AK, and even when you could do it, you would still not go through it using 1 hand... You also had to do those dungeons to gear up before you gradually defeated the primals, and then could go on to do Coil (well the majority of players had to gear up quite a bit).

Why did SE change this after that? Ever since those first dungeons in 2.0, all the new ones have either been for the same ilvl, or just recently a little higher... Take the upcoming 2.4 for example, while we don't know the ilvl requirement of them yet, I'll bet it's way lower than most players current ilvl.

I would want to see 2.4 bring dungeons that actually are somewhat of a challenge for even the most geared players in the current patch. Why not make them require near ilvl110 and let them drop gear that's actually usable (other than vanity), and that you also have to get some tomes from these dungeons before you can face Shiva and the Final Coil.

Right now, every new content is low level it feels like... You can move on from your current gear to all of the new content instantly pretty much.

By making everything require higher ilvl, you also make the old content more fun for the casual players, and make it last longer... Instead of people just doing the new dungeons for tomes right off the bat, and getting ilvl120 gear or whatever...

Making a bigger gap between 2nd Coil and Final Coil, would make the game last a little longer for the more hardcore(even people that are somewhere between) players too, since they wouldn't be able to just jump straight into the Final Coil without getting better gear first...

What do you guys think about this? I know 2.0 had problems, especially with keeping people busy, but this has nothing to do with that... In fact, this would keep people more interested and busy IMO.

I would like to see many other changes to the progression, but this would be an easy change for them. Just changing some numbers would be okay to start off, so it wouldn't take any longer to develop than what they are doing now...

i agree, i also wrote a post a few weeks ago about that matter.
Everything seems way too fast, too easy and brand new dungeons are beaten on day one , and on TRY ONE.

Even ST is not that much more then alt-job or vanity gearing.

Of course a game has to progress but not that fast and not that easy.

It's the same with the relic weapon. It started with chimera, hydra (quite a challenge for many ppl at that time), then all 3 primals and AK dungeon in between, then a bit of open world grinding.
All in all i must say, enjoyable questline and meaningful content.

After this? fate grind, grind grind grind, no boss fights, nothing, just extreme grind and money sink (i understand this part, it spiced up the economy so its not that bad). There is no epicness, no good feeling.

The content quality took a bad turn to trash F2P level. And new content that could be a nice addition /distraction like housing is uber exclusive and only a handful of ppl can enjoy it. Bad bad design. It almost feels like they want the game to lose many customers instead of creating amazing new challenging conent. But they are good with excuses. (i just doubt ppl will accept them much longer)

What I miss about 2.0 gear progression, was the fact that the vendor sold gear at the same ilvl of what dropped in coil. As my static progressed through coil, I was able to fill in the gaps with Myth gear. Now, you have to get Sands and Oils just to get the gear up to the same level as what drops in coil. While that's not much of an issue anymore, Sands and Oils used to be gated behind T7 and T8 kills. I suppose this gives players incentive to do coil, but we never had an issues with people choosing not to raid in 2.0 when the vendors offered same-level gear.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I hope vendors in 2.4 sell i130 gear, instead of i120 gear. While I'm almost certain that they'll make vendor gear 10 ilvls lower than coil gear again, it still doesn't make it any less disappointing.

2.0 progression felt great. There were things to do. 2.2 and 2.4(I assume) will have just been straight into the new coil with some Primals on the side. No mountains to climb, no far off goals. I don't understand this pattern of implementing new dungeons with gear that is immediately invalidated. If you don't mind me making another assumption here, I would guess that the new dungeon gear will be ilevel90. For what, though? We'll have had more than a YEAR to get ilevel90 gear with an outrageous amount of options. Hunts alone make anything ilevel90 and below not worth doing. ilevel100 would be a step in the right direction, but it's still used a little more than gearing up alts and catching up for new people.

One thing you have to consider, however, is that the 2.0 progression isn't TOO far off from progression we face today IF you were a 1.0 player who cleared the hardest content and had the best gear. These people walked into 2.0 with full or mostly full Darklight already. This doesn't change the fact, however, that they still had a long journey ahead of them in terms of doing the story and then relic quest along with primals. There was no real lead up to second coil from first coil for those who had cleared everything in 2.0/1. It was simply get a quest from a NPC and waltz in.

It really is a shame to see these dungeons go to waste for anything other than something to pad out a dungeon roulette and vanity. How nice would it be to make incredibly challenging four man dungeons and a requirement to finish the main story up through 2.4 to even be able to enter third coil? I know the majority of my FC hasn't even bothered finishing the 2.3 main story due to the lack of incentive. Players have enough ways to catch up to ilevel90 and even ilevel100 once 2.4 comes out, why not shift some of that new content towards the crowd that actually needs things to do?

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Originally Posted by Raxion

What I miss about 2.0 gear progression, was the fact that the vendor sold gear at the same ilvl of what dropped in coil. As my static progressed through coil, I was able to fill in the gaps with Myth gear. Now, you have to get Sands and Oils just to get the gear up to the same level as what drops in coil. While that's not much of an issue anymore, Sands and Oils used to be gated behind T7 and T8 kills. I suppose this gives players incentive to do coil, but we never had an issues with people choosing not to raid in 2.0 when the vendors offered same-level gear.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I hope vendors in 2.4 sell i130 gear, instead of i120 gear. While I'm almost certain that they'll make vendor gear 10 ilvls lower than coil gear again, it still doesn't make it any less disappointing.

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Well, I kind of agree, but they would have to make it like in 2.0 (or better somehow) for me to want that... In 2.0 you progressed with a mixture of dungeon gear and Darklight, then slowly got tomes for Myth gear, but since it was only 300 myth per week, it still took you a little longer to get that gear... It took something like 5 more weeks to get full Myth gear (unless my math is failing me), and that's a big difference actually.

Right now the equivalent to Darklight is the weathered Sol gear... but unlike in 2.0, you either have to do Coil or get Sands/oil (now at least).

If they introduced another "Darklight" set to be the middle tier gear, then I would love for them to remove the Coil requirement for highest ilvl gear, just like you want... but they would have to decrease the cap again, or simply increase the cost for the new gear.

Everything SE have introduced since 2.0 (increased cap, more grinding etc), has everything to do with how people got bored in 2.0... but they fail to see that they could use both the old and the new content to make the best mixture of progression.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

When FFXIV 2.0 first came out, and everyone was still either leveling up or just started gearing up their 50 job, the dungeons was pretty enjoyable IMO. The gear that dropped there was actually usable at first, while you geared up with Darklight gear, and slowly with Myth gear (before myth cap increase). The dungeons was easy ofc, but you couldn't eat and listen to music at the same time (I couldn't at least)... I quite enjoyed to do that easy, but not too easy task to get my gear.

I liked how in 2.0, you actually had to get some decent gear before you could do dungeons like AK, and even when you could do it, you would still not go through it using 1 hand... You also had to do those dungeons to gear up before you gradually defeated the primals, and then could go on to do Coil (well the majority of players had to gear up quite a bit).

Why did SE change this after that? Ever since those first dungeons in 2.0, all the new ones have either been for the same ilvl, or just recently a little higher... Take the upcoming 2.4 for example, while we don't know the ilvl requirement of them yet, I'll bet it's way lower than most players current ilvl.

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SE didn't really change it after that. Fact is still, if you want to progress through the current newest dungeons, you're not going to be able to do that without first gearing up in one way or another.

The "problem" is that players tend to choose the quickest and easiest way to gear up. So rather than sticking to dungeons, if that's ultimately what they've got the most interest in, they'd do ST anyway. And subsequently say that the content turned easy.

Asides from that obvious point, do not even think for a second that increasing required iLvL on something like shiva or final coil is going to make anything more fun or last longer for the casual player. As the only thing it'd do is make this level of content get even more out of reach. As it stands right now for many casuals T5 is too big of a hassle to get through. Even when heavily outgearing it, having the echo buff on, and having tactics readily available to them on just a few clicks away. Even if you end up carrying them through T5, they'd once again end up stuck on T6.

Having those people, once they finally get through T9, then be faced by a grind for higher iLvL before they can stand a chance in T10 again is most probably going to have the opposite effect of fun as you describe.



Whereas for hardcore players who like to raid, being forced to do dungeons in between for a meaningless gear grind is something which I personally would have no interest in. If they'd want to lengthen time to completion of a patch, I'd say rather stick the development effort into creating a boss or 2 extra for a raid. I'm missing 7 - 12 boss encounters in this game anyway. The current 4 boss raids are very short. The overall number of endgame raids in this game is also very minimal.

Rather than needlessly fluffing up raiding progression with timesinks outside of actual raiding, I'd much rather see raiding content progression come out of actual raiding content.

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Originally Posted by Fornix

SE didn't really change it after that. Fact is still, if you want to progress through the current newest dungeons, you're not going to be able to do that without first gearing up in one way or another.

The "problem" is that players tend to choose the quickest and easiest way to gear up. So rather than sticking to dungeons, if that's ultimately what they've got the most interest in, they'd do ST anyway. And subsequently say that the content turned easy.

Asides from that obvious point, do not even think for a second that increasing required iLvL on something like shiva or final coil is going to make anything more fun or last longer for the casual player. As the only thing it'd do is make this level of content get even more out of reach. As it stands right now for many casuals T5 is too big of a hassle to get through. Even when heavily outgearing it, having the echo buff on, and having tactics readily available to them on just a few clicks away. Even if you end up carrying them through T5, they'd once again end up stuck on T6.

Having those people, once they finally get through T9, then be faced by a grind for higher iLvL before they can stand a chance in T10 again is most probably going to have the opposite effect of fun as you describe.



Whereas for hardcore players who like to raid, being forced to do dungeons in between for a meaningless gear grind is something which I personally would have no interest in. If they'd want to lengthen time to completion of a patch, I'd say rather stick the development effort into creating a boss or 2 extra for a raid. I'm missing 7 - 12 boss encounters in this game anyway. The current 4 boss raids are very short. The overall number of endgame raids in this game is also very minimal.

Rather than needlessly fluffing up raiding progression with timesinks outside of actual raiding, I'd much rather see raiding content progression come out of actual raiding content.

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You're wrong...

Even a new lvl 50 player could just do some hunts and get full ilvl 90 in no time at all, then all the dungeons in the game is easy... And anyway, I didn't mean for new level 50's. People who have played for a longer time, all already have pretty much every job at 50, or they have chosen to not level up more jobs... For the majority of players, dungeons is a joke. Even the most casual players can faceroll them.

That level of difficulty shouldn't just be for the first month or two of the game, it should carry on through every patch.

I don't understand what you mean by the casuals being farther away from the content? You can get full ilvl110 through just doing ST, and you can't honestly suggest that's too hard for casuals? Getting full ilvl110 armor is gonna be a walk in the park when 2.4 comes out, just like getting Myth gear have been when new armor was introduced. With full ilvl110, you of course could do the new dungeons, but they would be a formidable challenge for the casuals, average for in-between players and easy for hardcore players(not a faceroll though)

Casuals would be able to get to the new content quickly enough, and they would be able to enjoy that easier content a lot more, because it will be a fair bit of challenge for them at first, but it would be the right amount of challenge, so that they still enjoy it a lot. They could then beat 2nd Coil at their own pace, just like they have done 1st Coil

What's that BS about hardcore players? I never heard hardcore players complaining about going through that in 2.0... In fact, the most hardcore players I know, all agree with me on this... Hardcore players would be able to kill Shiva and start Coil much quicker than the average player anyhow, just like it was in 2.0...

i really wish dungeons could make a comeback. sadly, there are quicker ways to get tomes and the bottom line is they are just too easy.

im not a fan of the format we have now, 1 new 2 HM, but if they stick with this then i would rather have 1 new 1 HM 1 EM or something to that effect.

however, the DOA content has been and will always be when challenge does not equal reward. enough of these damn crafting mats.
idk, maybe have the new ones drop a token that is part of the upgrade process similar to seals>logs>sands.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

You're wrong...

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I'm wrong? I said: "The "problem" is that players tend to choose the quickest and easiest way to gear up."

And then you just come with a way players choose the quickest way to gear up:

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Originally Posted by Craiger

Even a new lvl 50 player could just do some hunts and get full ilvl 90 in no time at all, then all the dungeons in the game is easy...

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So are you just nitpicking here on the fact that I didn't give an extensive list on alternative sources for quick and easy gear farming?

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Originally Posted by Craiger

And anyway, I didn't mean for new level 50's. People who have played for a longer time, all already have pretty much every job at 50, or they have chosen to not level up more jobs... For the majority of players, dungeons is a joke. Even the most casual players can faceroll them.

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For the majority of players dungeons are a joke as they don't come with match making. If 3/4 players heavily outgear the dungeon, obviously it's going to be a breeze for the 4th as well. But that's a problem for which changing gear requirements isn't per sé the best solution. Match making based on iLvL and prior dungeon experience would make more sense. It'd be a method which'd also directly kill multiple birds with one stone.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

That level of difficulty shouldn't just be for the first month or two of the game, it should carry on through every patch.

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And it does, as already said though the problem is that players are taking easy routes to obtaining raiding gear and then facing dungeons with that equipped. Absolutely nothing is stopping you from putting on iLvL 70 gear as a premade and stepping into some of these very same dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

I don't understand what you mean by the casuals being farther away from the content? You can get full ilvl110 through just doing ST, and you can't honestly suggest that's too hard for casuals? Getting full ilvl110 armor is gonna be a walk in the park when 2.4 comes out, just like getting Myth gear have been when new armor was introduced.

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You mentioned new coil and shiva. We're talking about many casuals here which with iLvL 100+ are unable to beat Twintania. Content which could be beaten at iLvL 80. Which probably won't be able to beat T9 till they have iLvL 140. If T10-Txx would be aimed at at least iLvL 120 rather than roughly iLvL 100 ~ 105 then those casuals are going to end up having to wait till well in the expansion till they stand a chance at the third coil.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

What's that BS about hardcore players? I never heard hardcore players complaining about going through that in 2.0... In fact, the most hardcore players I know, all agree with me on this... Hardcore players would be able to kill Shiva and start Coil much quicker than the average player anyhow, just like it was in 2.0...

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It was nothing than a meaningless gear grind back in 2.0 as well. Heck, the frustration to many was so great that they'd bug people to leave if they thought the run wasn't going to be able to be done fast enough. Many players quite simply didn't want to be there. And many also stopped being there once they could step foot into coil.

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Originally Posted by Fornix

I'm wrong? I said: "The "problem" is that players tend to choose the quickest and easiest way to gear up."

And then you just come with a way players choose the quickest way to gear up:



So are you just nitpicking here on the fact that I didn't give an extensive list on alternative sources for quick and easy gear farming?



For the majority of players dungeons are a joke as they don't come with match making. If 3/4 players heavily outgear the dungeon, obviously it's going to be a breeze for the 4th as well. But that's a problem for which changing gear requirements isn't per sé the best solution. Match making based on iLvL and prior dungeon experience would make more sense. It'd be a method which'd also directly kill multiple birds with one stone.



And it does, as already said though the problem is that players are taking easy routes to obtaining raiding gear and then facing dungeons with that equipped. Absolutely nothing is stopping you from putting on iLvL 70 gear as a premade and stepping into some of these very same dungeons.



You mentioned new coil and shiva. We're talking about many casuals here which with iLvL 100+ are unable to beat Twintania. Content which could be beaten at iLvL 80. Which probably won't be able to beat T9 till they have iLvL 140. If T10-Txx would be aimed at at least iLvL 120 rather than roughly iLvL 100 ~ 105 then those casuals are going to end up having to wait till well in the expansion till they stand a chance at the third coil.



It was nothing than a meaningless gear grind back in 2.0 as well. Heck, the frustration to many was so great that they'd bug people to leave if they thought the run wasn't going to be able to be done fast enough. Many players quite simply didn't want to be there. And many also stopped being there once they could step foot into coil.

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You make some points, but you're still missing my point about the dungeon difficulty... You say the problem is that people get matched with too geared players, but what about players that are already too geared for it themselves :eek:

I haven't been playing 2.3 as much as I did before it (been busy), and I've been on a break for a month now, planning to come back some weeks before 2.4.

I'm not a player that enjoys being in a static, or rushing through content like Coil... But with all this considered, I'm still ilvl 105 on my DRG, and that's before you could get Sands in ST.

So for a player like me, who likes to take his time with these new patches, and don't like being in a static, there really isn't much for me to do anymore... (I'm gonna level a Ninja though, so that's something I guess)

My DRG is gonna steamroll all those new dungeons, and it has nothing to do with being matched with better geared players.

Your comment on putting on ilvl 70 is pretty ridiculous too... Maybe that will be enough for some, but I meant that the dungeons should give usable gear that is better or at least as good as my current gear (different stats). I won't intentionally reduce my ilvl, just to make it harder, there gotta be some incentive for me to do it.

I agree that there should be a system that somehow matches low ilvl players with our equally low players though...

About the casual and hardcore part, there has to be something they can do to make it suit both of them...
This game is too much about the very casual players, and the hardcore players, what about us players in-between?

The problem is that SE insists on releasing dungeons that are so ridiculously far behind the current iLevel curve that the playerbase has overgeared them before they even release. Even ST (On release) was basically undermined because Hunts invalidated it in terms of gear acquisition, now it's a bit better that the loot has been expanded but I still don't feel the need to run it at this point. In this game most encounters are balanced around the strength of your gear rather than the strength of your abilities, and the ability to avoid certain death mechanics. As long as you are able to survive instances of instant death, you basically win the encounter so long as your DPS is either good/overgeared enough to survive the enrage (Provided one even exists).

Rather than actually continue the dungeon/trial difficulty to exist as a sort of upward trend, they insist on continuing at this baby step pace (Especially with dungeons, their initial misstep with the item level of Ramuh EX and Moggle Mog EX also speaks to this). The reason that things like even Wanderer's Palace and Amdapor, Chimera and Hydra were initially difficult was because at the time the original 2.0 players were doing that content it was literally -impossible- to be overgeared for it, much like it was originally impossible for anyone to overgear for T9 when Second Coil was released. With the availability of easy i90, or even easy i100 at this point releasing dungeons with i70 or i80 loot is just a waste of time. It's literally a waste. Nobody wants to do content like that when even casual players can understand that hunts are a better use of their time which lead to better gear in the short-term. It also doesn't help that SE insists on flooding those dungeons with a bunch of crafting mats instead of gear, so even if you wanted it for vanity you have to struggle for it.

Most everything in 2.0 up to the completion of the Relic + Coil 1 = Very good progresson/balancing
First three EX primals + Leviathan EX = Very good balancing for the time in which they were released, rewards people wanted and challenge that was at the time appropriate
Moggle Mog EX and Initial Ramuh EX= Rewards too low for difficulty of the encounter, I personally don't think Ramuh especially is that bad but at the very least it's a fight with lots of individual responsibility
Every dungeon since 2.0 Amdapor with the exception of Speedflox = Totally ignored except for expert roulette at this point unless it's needed to unlock something at level 50

There are a number of serious issues with this game's progression to the point where I honestly question how things have gotten this bad. Like most posters in this thread, I agree 2.0 progression was great. Once you reach the end of the story, you still have your relic quest(with actual dungeons and boss battles! Not grind fate/materia/etc crap), HM primals(who at the time were intimidating, especially Titan), Darklight, Myth, and Coil. Even entering Coil was a far off, distant goal, but yet attainable. Having a "middle ground" gear level like Darklight was a great way to advance your character and made myth gear feel like a treat every time you got a piece of it. You had some i70, some i90, and the effort you put in never felt disposable. Going from class/50 gear>darklight>myth/coil gear felt like logical and well paced progression. And don't forget CT! Crystal Tower was great in 2.1, because people DIDN'T just have full i90 for the most part going into 2.1. You can really see how the game's progression has spiraled downhill just by comparing the general usefullness of 2.1 ct gear to 2.3 st gear.

Everything kind of imploded on itself come 2.2. Instead of having two means of non coil progression (Darklight>Myth), we're just given a new tomestone and are basically told to go load up on i100 pieces. For long-time players who by this point probably already had full mythology or coil allagan, it's a bit less exciting to only have one "next step" so to speak, outside of Coil 2, of course. Everyone knows what a disaster the relic quest became by this point too, which is too bad because the first one was quite fun. They threw out challenging boss encounters and (a) dungeon for just fate grinding. This, along with the echo, made the whole relic quest a joke. Yes, content needs to be nerfed as time goes on. Getting your i90 relic should have been made easier. But the next step should have been a quest line that involved fighting ex primals or pharos sirius unnerfed(for an amdapor keep equivalent), not mindlessly grinding fates. Because then any idiot can get animus with zero effort, while most 2.0 players had to work their way up to Zenith after a long road. I'm basically just saying the relic upgrades should have continued to be tied to progression content while making the previous step easier each time, so the Relic actually means something besides "I grind a lot".

Dungeons are another issue people have already addressed. Yes, the items are useless outside of vanity. Yes, these dungeons only exist to grind tomes. ST gear is also useless in the face of hunts, and especially now it's particularly silly to actually spend your weekly roll on ST gear when sands and oils are available.

Coil is also only temporarily useful. i110 has been made a joke in 2.3. If you haven't cleared T9 before 2.4, you might as well have not bothered at all, because EVERYONE will have the same ilevel as you and jump straight to T9 as soon as it's unlocked. All you have to your name is your raid gear and BiS items. If coil is fun for you, then by all means run it, but it's time to accept that hard work means absolutely nothing in XIV because within 3-4 months everyone will have caught up to your ilevel. You have no advantage in new content(besides maybe the one new EX primal), because by the time the next "progression" patch hits, everyone will have the same ilevel as you anyway. There is zero reason to do anything in a game that now hands out free gear to everyone by the boatload, besides, of course, to have fun. And it's great if you do, really.

It's just a shame for those of us who have fun by being rewarded with advantages for our hard work. It's High Allagan Weapons or nothing, baby, because t6-8 will mean nothing to anybody(besides gearing alts/farming with echo) come 2.4.

In summary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=didzxUkrtS0#t=4m18s

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Originally Posted by Fornix

And it does, as already said though the problem is that players are taking easy routes to obtaining raiding gear and then facing dungeons with that equipped.

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That's not a problem, that's how games work. A player will always find the most efficient way in beating the game, that's what is fun about it. If a game allows the player to easily outgear the biggest part of the game thus making it easy that is the game's fault not the player's fault.

What would you want for players to do, making it difficult artificially? I tried with these new dungeons for some strange reason. Decided to run the new dungeons with my undergeared BLM and equip him eventually with the gear they drop. 2 weeks later I only had a belt and a crapload of crafting mats. Meanwhile I was drowning in myth and didn't know where to spend them. Eventually I realized that that was freaking stupid.

The way these new dungeons were implemented on the last patch was just ridiculous. They make no sense whatsoever. They're made for a playerbase that doesn't really exist.

4 man dungeons are definitely the biggest let down of this game in terms of content. SE really has no idea what to do with them and they have degenerated into company seal fodder, vanity sets and speed bumps on the way to your vendor machine handed out max ilvl gear.

I feel like the new hm primals should have been just 4man while the extremes should have just became the hard mode. Then once shiva is out THEN they make an extreme version for the 3 new primals.

Im actually just waiting for expansion for them to change their formula on progression. If there's still no changes, sad to say Im quitting this game no matter how much I love it.

one way to solve the trouble about the dungeon, and i did ask it while the beta, it's to put an ilevel sync... like this, no one can overgear a dungeon, you will always be in the right range for the dungeon, giving still some teeth to it.

other point CT and ST must be counted like a dungeon in the progression, i didn't understand why we did get a dungeon with reward i80 when we have CT!!! it was an huge error. CT is one of the content the less runned now, why? because it's long and you drop 4 part for 8 people.

if they had make it like this: 2.2 expert dungeon (i70) >CT (i80)> 2.3 expert dungeon (i90)> ST (i100)> 2.4 expert dungeon (i110)>...
the progression will have been smoother than what we have right now. the dungeon will have keep an interest longer and more important we will have avoid hunt giving i90 stuff and making the dungeon useless.
you still have the token for get more part of armor for be able to catch up faster, and since this content at the 2.4 is not locked people can farm at leisure for get what they need.

another point, i think the upgrade system from the 2.2 (oil and sand) must never come back, it was a huge error to put this like this.
finally, they need to add content that recquire the stuff max outside coil... or the people that do coil will simply be monster that will crush the challenge of the world.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

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So you want to hurt people for gearing up? BRIGHT IDEA.

No. Games like this are about progression. You eventually progress to the point where these dungeons are beneath your gear level and make it a breeze. It is no different than it was in 2.0, where Darklight was the norm and closer to the gear level of the dungeons at the time. Running the same thing still gets boring, whether it is challenging or not. (I.E. AK, WP, CM in 2.0. It gets boring regardless). CT gear, on the other hand, is made for people to get a piece of gear that is better than what they have, yet not better than upgraded token gear. Getting one piece of loot in a lockout week is boring. Now you can choose to get 2, or to upgrade one piece to 110. It offers a choice. MMO's are about "choice".

The problem is lack of dungeons when it comes to variety. There are only a handful of dungeons worth running anymore, taking away stats by cutting ilevels just makes the grind worse than it already is. Want a challenge? Run the dungeons nude. You can "choose" to do that. Don't cut into other people's game when you don't feel challenged enough.

it's not the gears that must allows you to beat the dungeon faster and more easily, but the skill... here i have often seen people overgear simply scrap the tactics for beat content and play with them feet, because the gear was too strong for the dungeon.

that a fact, bring variety will solve nothing, if the dungeon is boring, it's already because it's too easy!

My big complaint is that they release content, sort of backwards. Releasing the raid for lower gear, AFTER the small party high gear.
Almost relegates CT stuff for off class, or gap filling. (if you havnt already bought it with tomes...) I would still like some horizontal
progression as well. Other types of content with side grade gear, or with comparable other stats that do stuff other than just det,
skspd, crit rate .

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Originally Posted by Craiger

What do you guys think about this? I know 2.0 had problems, especially with keeping people busy, but this has nothing to do with that... In fact, this would keep people more interested and busy IMO.

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2.0's issue for me was it was ONLY AK and WP. They were fun and challenging dungeons back then. They really were. But it was only two. And that is why my friends and I left for a couple of months to play EQ and EQ2. Had 2.0 launched with all the hardmode dungeons we have now, as they are. We probably would have stayed. Now I sort of regret leaving because we missed seeing the hardmode dungeons as they were when they were released. With iLvl 90 gear, they're a breeze.

Now that we've been back for a bit, some of us are a bit disenchanted with the game due to it being too easy. So I hope with 2.4 they introduce some challenging dungeons for us. Stuff like WP and AK were with iLvl 50-55 gear. And maybe a bit harder. But entertaining not overly punishing (no one-hit kill mechanics).

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Originally Posted by Craiger

You make some points, but you're still missing my point about the dungeon difficulty... You say the problem is that people get matched with too geared players, but what about players that are already too geared for it themselves :eek:

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As already stated, those players outgeared that content themselves. Either to bypass the gear drops of dungeons through farming e.g. hunts, or by playing higher end content and obtaining gear through there. If players who enjoy just dungeons, stick to just dungeons without taking the easy route, this'd be a non-issue. An iLvL 105 for example is not something obtained through just dungeon gear. Even with tokens gathered throughout the weeks, iLvL 105 is not what will be obtained.

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Originally Posted by Edli

That's not a problem, that's how games work. A player will always find the most efficient way in beating the game, that's what is fun about it. If a game allows the player to easily outgear the biggest part of the game thus making it easy that is the game's fault not the player's fault.

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It's not the game's fault the players are taking on raiding gear to complain about the ease of dungeons. And even though they either keep on failing on raiding content or don't even try, to then still state the endgame content would be too easy. Even with the duration of SCoB having been available, the fraction of players who've cleared it is minimal. Ramuh Ex, same story. The number of players who've even managed to down T6 is relatively minimal. Many PUGs still wipe on T5. Endgame in this game is challenging enough as is.

Heck, even ST and CT are challenging to many players. It's only for the fact that a lot of endgame players still farm ST which makes it easy, the carry rate is high. Step into CT these days and be in for a wipe-fest session.

I think the other reason why they eventually lift caps and make good gear easier is because most people at that point need to get there alts up to snuff. Caps and lock-outs make it hard enough to gear 1 class fully, your class of choice. If you had to gear all your classes within those lockouts and caps, it would take an eternity (well , for players that don't have gobs of time) I know some people who still don't have all the top stuff for there main class and have been at for months with coil due to lock out and lame drop rates (running week after week and not getting the drops they need)

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Originally Posted by Fornix

It's not the game's fault the players are taking on raiding gear to complain about the ease of dungeons.

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What raiding gear are you talking about? Soldiery has been around for ages and you can get it just by doing random crap. Everyone and their mom is already decked out in soldiery gear. Even if we ignore soldiery for whatever reason you still have myth gear which is ridiculously easy to obtain and players already had plenty of it when the dungeons were released.

The dungeons are already over geared by the player base the moment they were released and the players didn't have to do anything.

No, I'm not missing 2.0 progression at all. Having to spam CM 50 times to get enough tomes for DL or spamming AK god knows how many times for AF gear is not exactly my idea of fun.

I remember back then when both dps did not have darklight gear the party would wipe at AK .

The main reason for this was that progression was gated and gear was hard to get .

The solution would be either :
1) introduce ilvl caps
2) make expert dungeons harder than CT

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Originally Posted by Edli

What raiding gear are you talking about? Soldiery has been around for ages and you can get it just by doing random crap. Everyone and their mom is already decked out in soldiery gear. Even if we ignore soldiery for whatever reason you still have myth gear which is ridiculously easy to obtain and players already had plenty of it when the dungeons were released.

The dungeons are already over geared by the player base the moment they were released and the players didn't have to do anything.

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Both myth and soldiery are gear pieces which are aimed at providing entry level gear into raiding content. It is not gear which is balanced out for dungeon content. Merely handing out players a natural flow of progression through content and a little extra help for those who need it in raiding. Dungeon gear sets are the ones that drop within the actual dungeons.

Something which has been standard practise in many MMO's for most of the past decade.

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Originally Posted by Fornix

Both myth and soldiery are gear pieces which are aimed at providing entry level gear into raiding content. It is not gear which is balanced out for dungeon content. Merely handing out players a natural flow of progression through content and a little extra help for those who need it in raiding. Dungeon gear sets are the ones that drop within the actual dungeons.

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I don't get what you're trying to say. Doesn't matter where you get it, dungeon or tomes. Gear is gear and both soldiery and myth are better than the i80 that drops on these dungeons. Dungeon gear serves the same purpose as tome gear, to prepare you for harder content. It just doesn't do a good job at it that's all.

When it comes to progression these dungeons are pointless. They're there only for Sol daily bonus and alexandrite.

Myth Gear is ilvl 90, the expert dungeons introduced in 2.3 are for ilvl80. There's that problem with people being over geared for the dungeons as soon as it's released and for the most part it ends up being a steamroll. What's to expect out of the 2.4 dungeons, ilvl 90? If the end result is trying to gear up for raiding content (ilvl90), then the new dungeons don't really do a good job because of it because we're so saturated in myth tomes from hunts, and seem really pointless when that can get you ilvl90.

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Originally Posted by Fornix

As already stated, those players outgeared that content themselves. Either to bypass the gear drops of dungeons through farming e.g. hunts, or by playing higher end content and obtaining gear through there. If players who enjoy just dungeons, stick to just dungeons without taking the easy route, this'd be a non-issue. An iLvL 105 for example is not something obtained through just dungeon gear. Even with tokens gathered throughout the weeks, iLvL 105 is not what will be obtained.



It's not the game's fault the players are taking on raiding gear to complain about the ease of dungeons. And even though they either keep on failing on raiding content or don't even try, to then still state the endgame content would be too easy. Even with the duration of SCoB having been available, the fraction of players who've cleared it is minimal. Ramuh Ex, same story. The number of players who've even managed to down T6 is relatively minimal. Many PUGs still wipe on T5. Endgame in this game is challenging enough as is.

Heck, even ST and CT are challenging to many players. It's only for the fact that a lot of endgame players still farm ST which makes it easy, the carry rate is high. Step into CT these days and be in for a wipe-fest session.

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Wait what?!

Are you seriously saying that the game should be split in 2, 1 part for raiders and 1 part for "only dungeon players"? What game do you think this? Should I just do dungeons and only use dungeon gear, and then wait for the next patch to get dungeon gear there? I would have to ignore the tomes I get, cause I would still be steamrolling the dungeons if I get gear from that... and I wouldn't be able to do the primals, hunts or Relic quest, cause that would make me steamroll it. Effectively I would be playing a small percentage of the game.

Do you take me for some super casual, who can only play 1-2 hours a week or something?

If you only come in and do your weekly raid each week, why are you playing the game in the first place? It's only once per week... There are a ton of other content to do in the game too, and that content should be fun to do even if you have good enough gear to do raids. Since you have good enough gear for raids as soon as the patch releases, do you just leave the dungeons and all other content behind, and just do the weekly raid? That sounds like exactly the thing that made hardcore players leave in 2.0...

EDIT: Also, ST is hard? Are you looking down on players like me? It's not easy cause I have highly geared players carrying me, it's easy cause the mechanics of the fight is really really easy... Just because I don't like being in a static and being first to down the raids, doesn't mean I couldn't do it if I wanted...