Why does S-E make it so hard for new players to clear old content the intended way?

I see so many people who want to beat Coil and the ARR EX Primals, but can't ever find a group that isn't an unsynced faceroll. This really bugs me - if I was a new player I'd be turned off the game entirely by being unable to do some of the best content properly.

I was hoping that the new dyeable gear from Coil would make finding groups viable again for those players, but then it turns out it can also be gotten via unsynced, and to top it off they are even adding MORE echo!

I think the unsync option was one of the worst features ever to be added to this game. Stuff like the new Relic that is intended to make older dungeons active again completely fail to do so because people just farm them unsynced via Party Finder, leaving the new players who want to run them for the first time sitting in the Duty Finder for half an hour.

It would have been fine if unsynced didn't give rewards, and especially stuff like ponies, but it does. And that really hurts the game.

Do you think there will ever be steps taken to make old hardcore content relevant again synced?

I agree, but I do kinda see why it exists (old content that is outdated has grown tiring for those that have been farming them for ages). SE wants you to do new content, not old content, so unsync is how they get old players back, though I think they have made some things far too accessible, especially with the sheet music coming in 3.2. (for the love of God SE that should only be obtainable via normal or min ilvl, I don't want to play cheese the game to get rewards)

The casual player base is where SE's money comes from so no, sadly. New players will never be able to experience pre-nerf coils especially, even clicking off the echo buff will not make it the same because the fights themselves have been modified mechanically to be easier than they used to be. What you say is true that some people may be ultra turned off by the game seeing there's so much content they won't actually get to experience and just have to rush to Heavensward to try to be included in the current patch, but not enough for SE to be hurting to do something about it.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

Do you think there will ever be steps taken to make old hardcore content relevant again synced?

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No. And frankly, I feel that's a good thing, because if people "enjoyed" doing the content synced...they would do it synced.

It's why I did the dungeons for my Anima synced. It was more fun than going PF and doing it unsynced to me. Nothing is stopping people, except the reluctance of others.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

No. And frankly, I feel that's a good thing, because if people "enjoyed" doing the content synced...they would do it synced.

It's why I did the dungeons for my Anima synced. It was more fun than going PF and doing it unsynced to me. Nothing is stopping people, except the reluctance of others.

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Some of this game's hardcore content has been destroyed by genuine mechanical nerfs, running synced and clicking off your echo doesn't change it back. So there are fights people can never experience again.

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Originally Posted by DeeColon

Some of this game's hardcore content has been destroyed by genuine mechanical nerfs, running synced and clicking off your echo doesn't change it back. So there are fights people can never experience again.

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Minimal ilvl setting changes that, try it on fights like Titan Extreme. Those stomps hit just as hard in the day as A3S splashes today.

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Originally Posted by DeeColon

Some of this game's hardcore content has been destroyed by genuine mechanical nerfs, running synced and clicking off your echo doesn't change it back. So there are fights people can never experience again.

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My favourite fight in the game T7, will never be the same since they made the entire main mechanic meaningless ;-;

I love the unsync option myself. It allowed me to do content with my friends that we never would have done at all otherwise.
Honestly I suspect that if there was no unsync option many new players would simply never get to see those old fights at all. I can't imagine a new player successfully recruiting a learning party for something like t9 one or two expansions from now.

Maybe SE could add incentives to running stuff synced or at min ilevel, such as boosted drop rates?

The 'bees' of the Demon Wall in Amdapor Keep will never be the same even with minimal ilvl.

It's not an SE issue, it's a player/human nature issue. Unsynced makes things easy to steamroll. Most people don't want challenge, they want instant gratification. Instead of learning mechanics and feeling a sense of achievement, they want loot drops. I can understand this mindset when you've cleared content and are just farming it. I try to clear things unsynced for the story before I go through and steamroll the place. Sadly, I didn't clear coil before I left for a year and now I can't find a group to do so that aren't all "zomg watch cs at inn, noob".

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

Maybe SE could add incentives to running stuff synced or at min ilevel, such as boosted drop rates?

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They've already done this with 3.2, the primal music drops will be 100% while synced iirc.

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Originally Posted by Pence

They've already done this with 3.2, the primal music drops will be 100% while synced iirc.

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Not 100% iirc, just "higher"

As this person said

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Originally Posted by LordLucavi

It's not an SE issue, it's a player/human nature issue.

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So SE has nothing to do with it, if you run DF by yourself it syncs group and in PF group has a option of whether they want to run synced or unsynced.

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Originally Posted by DeeColon

The casual player base is where SE's money comes from so no, sadly. New players will never be able to experience pre-nerf coils especially, even clicking off the echo buff will not make it the same because the fights themselves have been modified mechanically to be easier than they used to be. What you say is true that some people may be ultra turned off by the game seeing there's so much content they won't actually get to experience and just have to rush to Heavensward to try to be included in the current patch, but not enough for SE to be hurting to do something about it.

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It's not about needing the fights to be as hard as when they first came out, obviously that's unreasonable since the raiding scene has long since moved on.

It's just about making the basic mechanics still meaningful and not turning the whole fight into pure cheese that lasts for half a minute before the boss dies.

Echo is fine. Some overgearing is fine. Even mechanic nerfs are fine as long as the mechanic isn't removed altogether.

But going in with twice the ilvl you're supposed to have and 10 more levels including new abilities, then pressing 1 2 3 until all the bosses are dead, and then getting all the rewards? That's not okay. That's called butchering content.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

So SE has nothing to do with it, if you run DF by yourself it syncs group and in PF group has a option of whether they want to run synced or unsynced.

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SE has nothing to do with allowing that option in the first place, and thus making doing it by DF completely impossible because no one else does it?

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Not 100% iirc, just "higher"

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Another new item is the orchestrion - can you tell us about the availability of the music scores? When you introduced it in the producer letter live, it sounded like content that could be challenged with minimum item-level sync. Will the drops change under those conditions?

Yoshida: No, you don't need to use the minimum IL sync to get drops. However, if you clear the extreme primals at the minimum IL sync, it will be a guaranteed drop.

Extreme primals at the minimum item level.... Will the drop rate go up in normal primals as well at the minimum item level?

Yoshida: Because that would be too easy, it won't change in the normal primals. The regular drop rate should feel similar to Triple Triad cards.

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Originally Posted by Pence

Another new item is the orchestrion - can you tell us about the availability of the music scores? When you introduced it in the producer letter live, it sounded like content that could be challenged with minimum item-level sync. Will the drops change under those conditions?

Yoshida: No, you don't need to use the minimum IL sync to get drops. However, if you clear the extreme primals at the minimum IL sync, it will be a guaranteed drop.

Extreme primals at the minimum item level.... Will the drop rate go up in normal primals as well at the minimum item level?

Yoshida: Because that would be too easy, it won't change in the normal primals. The regular drop rate should feel similar to Triple Triad cards.

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This is a step in the right direction, but again it sounds like more polarization between top level raiders and complete casuals. I doubt most new players want to do the fights at minimum ilvl, and farming parties at minimum ilvl won't accept them anyway. And of course, this doesn't at all solve the problem of empty Duty Finders. Why couldn't they just make the songs unobtainable in unsynced, making regular synced DF runs the main option?

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

This is a step in the right direction, but again it sounds like more polarization between top level raiders and complete casuals. I doubt most new players want to do the fights at minimum ilvl, and farming parties at minimum ilvl won't accept them anyway. And of course, this doesn't at all solve the problem of empty Duty Finders. Why couldn't they just make the songs unobtainable in unsynced, making regular synced DF runs the main option?

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......Ah perhaps because it's old outdated content that's near 2+ years old? If you want to do it the old way, knock yourself out - you even get a bonus for it now. But it shouldn't be forced on people. I feel like you're crying about spilt milk.

You have to understand that a certain level of proactive focus on new content - when it's new - is required of you if you want to experience the "original" versions of old content. This can't be held against players who perhaps start late, or have reasons/obligations that keep them away at length, of course, but it's not reason to simply leave it static either.

As content ages and new content (gear, weps, etc.) replaces it, the content will naturally be eased even without Echo or unsyncing. Still, anything difficult that was generally avoided by most would not age well when those who actively challenged it move on. Coil is an example of this. SE has effectively breathed new life into it with new incentives, and the genius idea of guaranteed drops for challenging at min. ilvl.

No, you will never get to experience instant killer Blighted Bouquet (outside of T6S), but if you want a taste of the original challenge, there are options and new incentive to at least try.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. If SE removed unsynced, chances are we'd have groups of experienced players only farming them. I can't blame raiders for not wanting to do the same challenges over and over again when there's new content coming up.

Plus... synced only does so much. I went into T1 synced early on with a group of friends expecting to get wrecked, but we beat it on our first try and we weren't even very good. I just had this sense of "That's all?"

But I agree that it's disheartening to have to push all the way to the end to get to the active challenges. There's a point where unsynced EX primals are too easy but many other things are still out of your reach. At one point, Friday Night Wolves' Den was the only reason I didn't let my sub expire.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

It's not about needing the fights to be as hard as when they first came out, obviously that's unreasonable since the raiding scene has long since moved on.

It's just about making the basic mechanics still meaningful and not turning the whole fight into pure cheese that lasts for half a minute before the boss dies.

Echo is fine. Some overgearing is fine. Even mechanic nerfs are fine as long as the mechanic isn't removed altogether.

But going in with twice the ilvl you're supposed to have and 10 more levels including new abilities, then pressing 1 2 3 until all the bosses are dead, and then getting all the rewards? That's not okay. That's called butchering content.



SE has nothing to do with allowing that option in the first place, and thus making doing it by DF completely impossible because no one else does it?

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Yea cause it so bad SE gives people options.

Coil is part in Mentor Roulette.
So queue up for Coil and hope there are enough mentors using their roulette.

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Originally Posted by FunkYeahDragons

Plus... synced only does so much. I went into T1 synced early on with a group of friends expecting to get wrecked, but we beat it on our first try and we weren't even very good. I just had this sense of "That's all?"

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Don't forget to klick away the echo buff

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Originally Posted by FunkYeahDragons

I went into T1 synced early on. . . we beat it on our first try and we weren't even very good. I just had this sense of "That's all?"

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Honestly, all the T1 learning parties, all the clear parties, all the times I nearly forced gun-shy FC members into T1, properly explained the fight and each person's roles/focus, upon clearing, those were their EXACT words.

That being said, I'd heard too many people come up with external reasons NOT to attempt the content when it was new. I've almost made a point of defying such ideas all this time. This is why I so frequently say "Who dares, wins" (It's the British RAF motto, lol) You dared, and you won.

If you want it, do what it takes to go get it.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

Honestly, all the T1 learning parties, all the clear parties, all the times I nearly forced gun-shy FC members into T1, properly explained the fight and each person's roles/focus, upon clearing, those were their EXACT words.

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Properly executed mechanics will always make the content seem 'not hard' because by making sure you do things right you're essentially farming the content anyway.

T1 was always more making sure that people did ADS correctly (which then got nerfed because of DF). Do T1 in minium ilvl though you will have issues. Doing T1 at like... what ilvl 80? is not the same as ilvl90 or more.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

This is a step in the right direction, but again it sounds like more polarization between top level raiders and complete casuals. I doubt most new players want to do the fights at minimum ilvl, and farming parties at minimum ilvl won't accept them anyway. And of course, this doesn't at all solve the problem of empty Duty Finders. Why couldn't they just make the songs unobtainable in unsynced, making regular synced DF runs the main option?

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If the songs were unavailable in unsynced runs, new people wouldn't really have a chance at farming it anyway as DF still probably wouldn't be a thing. Most veteran players would just band up in PF's for farming and require previous clears to join, which actually leaves newer players even worse off. If we're going to be forced to execute every mechanic, I know I for one would want to make sure everyone in the party knows them. The fact of the matter is, this content is outdated and has been for awhile now. Many of the instances have had actual mechanical nerfs to make them more reasonable to clear in Duty Finder. There just is no real way to go back and experience it the way that it was "meant to be played."

SE isn't the problem here, they provided a minimum item level option for all old content. The problem is people who want to do things 'the intended way' are in the vast minority. Be glad there's the option at least, so you can make a party and go, good luck finding 7 other like-minded people though.

A lot of games don't have an 'unsynch' option, because they don't even do something like level synch. If you outlevel content with a new patch/expansion, the old content will always be totally beneath you.

I think of the synch as allowing you to always be able to get close to what things once were. And now with the minimum ilvl option, be even harder then it once was (excluding the FEW mechanics changes that have changed).

It's impossible to please everyone, they're striving to do what they can with it.

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

Maybe SE could add incentives to running stuff synced or at min ilevel, such as boosted drop rates?

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Or a token system instead of gear drops, where on completion of the coil you roll on a token that can be exchanged for any piece of gear that drops from that specific turn.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

I see so many people who want to beat Coil and the ARR EX Primals, but can't ever find a group that isn't an unsynced faceroll. This really bugs me - if I was a new player I'd be turned off the game entirely by being unable to do some of the best content properly.

I was hoping that the new dyeable gear from Coil would make finding groups viable again for those players, but then it turns out it can also be gotten via unsynced, and to top it off they are even adding MORE echo!

I think the unsync option was one of the worst features ever to be added to this game. Stuff like the new Relic that is intended to make older dungeons active again completely fail to do so because people just farm them unsynced via Party Finder, leaving the new players who want to run them for the first time sitting in the Duty Finder for half an hour.

It would have been fine if unsynced didn't give rewards, and especially stuff like ponies, but it does. And that really hurts the game.

Do you think there will ever be steps taken to make old hardcore content relevant again synced?

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It's not the Devs, it's the players! The reason you can't find an unsynced party is because people don't want to challenge themselves. That's not Square's fault.

You can't experience coil the way it was because it's been mechanically nerfed. Even item lvl sync won't change that.

If Coil & extreme trials were unable to be unysnced nobody would do them. The queue times would be as they are for the Crystal Tower raids.

For those of us whom have cleared Coil (some or all) & ex-Trials pre-unsynced, they use the unsynced feature to get through it quicker and hopefully get their primal mounts swifter (in the case of the latter).

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Originally Posted by Felis

Coil is part in Mentor Roulette.

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It's not. Check the prelim patch notes.

Coil is specifically excluded. EX Primals are in there though.

Considering the number of groups I've been in that called undersized T13 "faceroll" and even "boring" but wiped horribly before dives when doing it synced to 50...

The real problem is that most people aren't nearly as good as they think they are. They say they want things to be "hard," so they can have the satisfaction of being in the "pro" group that clears "hard" content, but then they aren't actually good enough to clear Yoshida's idea of "hard."

Just accept that content you can clear will always seem easier than you want it to be.

To be honest if they added unsynced rewards to Coils most veteran Players who had cleared coil would look for other veteran Players who had cleared to get the rewards with and for those players they would get the reward and be done with it pretty quick since many of those players would have the fights on farm by that stage. Just look at clear groups for EX primals currently in game. "No Tomestone bonus"

I don't think it would aid newer players wanting to do it that much. There would be a better chance if and when they make PF a cross server thing which would allow newer players who are interested to access a larger group of interested players.

You're right, making the rewards synced only would exclude new players even more... unless something else is done to prevent that, like only giving rewards for solo queuing in DF. But there are other ways to solve the issue.

One thing I can think of would be a sort of permanent recruitment board akin to the party finder where people trying to clear the same content could find eachother and team up. The party finder is way too rigid for this, since it doesn't allow you to do anything else while recruiting, and recruiting a "static" for synced Coil would likely take days.

S-E doesn't make clearing old content the old way difficult.

old players that are sick of it and never want to do it the normal way again do.
I imagine if you tried hard enough you could find a group of people that want to do it normally

and the sync doesn't matter at all, if old players want old content for some reason they'll want a group that can just steamroll it. Which is very possible with level synced gear

We live in the age where unjustified and unwarranted rewards are demanded. This is the norm now. People want it, and...... that's about the core of the issue. They want it, and like 2 year olds, they don't want to have to earn anything and put in any effort. Gimme gimme gimme. Should be the slogan of the decade.

Why do you think F2P, cash shops, and mobile are so successful? This very notion. As well as 'escorts' in the game itself which basically sell clears. "What? I can just pay and get what I want with no further effort? Here you go!" If SE offered instant clear tokens for their highest tier "raids" (and i use that term loosely), you can bet without a doubt that they would sell like hot cakes.

In short, no, unsynched isn't going anywhere. These 'rewards' are laughably meaningless and anyone who may even consider prouncing around with any of them are downright comical as well.

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Originally Posted by Nihility

S-E doesn't make clearing old content the old way difficult.

old players that are sick of it and never want to do it the normal way again do.
I imagine if you tried hard enough you could find a group of people that want to do it normally

and the sync doesn't matter at all, if old players want old content for some reason they'll want a group that can just steamroll it. Which is very possible with level synced gear

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That's not true at all, don't try to speak for everyone. I did my Coils and EX Primals back in ARR, and I'd love to be able to queue up and get a group for them still. In fact, whenever I queue up in the Duty Finder I check off some Coil turns along with what I intended to do just for the off chance of that popping instead. The few times it has, I've been greeted with a party of newcomers utterly delighted to get a group.

I'm sure a ton of people wouldn't mind doing it the old way if unsynced wasn't an option. Especially if they got some incentives. Here's another idea: An accumulative reward for being in a previously cleared Coil turn with newcomers in DF, even if the group doesn't clear. Every time you'd get an echo increase in an EX Primal fight, meaning a wipe after a certain amount of time has passed, you get a tomestone reward. This also goes for other challenging older duties that people are likely to just leave if they get a newcomer group, like what happened with Steps of Faith.

But no, instead of using one of many ways to preserve the fun for new as well as old players, Square Enix chooses to just constantly nerf old content. Such a shame.

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Originally Posted by Pence

They've already done this with 3.2, the primal music drops will be 100% while synced iirc.

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Originally Posted by Pence

Yoshida: No, you don't need to use the minimum IL sync to get drops. However, if you clear the extreme primals at the minimum IL sync, it will be a guaranteed drop.

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Synched is not the same as minimum IL synch. The former needs a full party, the latter is one option for Undersized groups (not that you need to be undersized, but it won't grab more people from DF for you). Please keep the difference between the two in mind ^^;

So, no raised drop rate for running them properly synched via random DF people (or with a full pre-formed), it seems. Just for when you run it Undersized Minimum IL.


Fun story... on one of our FC raid days, we ended up with not everyone able to make it, leaving us with a party of six. This was back in 2.5, I think. So our party leader decided to sign us up for a "mystery raid". He didn't want to go Unsynched, because that'd be cheaating, but we didn't want randoms either... But hey, there's this other option here!
And that's how we ended up getting eaten by Savage Rafflesia.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

That's not true at all, don't try to speak for everyone. I did my Coils and EX Primals back in ARR, and I'd love to be able to queue up and get a group for them still. In fact, whenever I queue up in the Duty Finder I check off some Coil turns along with what I intended to do just for the off chance of that popping instead. The few times it has, I've been greeted with a party of newcomers utterly delighted to get a group.

I'm sure a ton of people wouldn't mind doing it the old way if unsynced wasn't an option. Especially if they got some incentives. Here's another idea: An accumulative reward for being in a previously cleared Coil turn with newcomers in DF, even if the group doesn't clear. Every time you'd get an echo increase in an EX Primal fight, meaning a wipe after a certain amount of time has passed, you get a tomestone reward. This also goes for other challenging older duties that people are likely to just leave if they get a newcomer group, like what happened with Steps of Faith.

But no, instead of using one of many ways to preserve the fun for new as well as old players, Square Enix chooses to just constantly nerf old content. Such a shame.

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of course it's true
S-E has not done anything at all to normal queue and even added a minimum item level queue too.
and there is the party finder for people that want to do such things

They have done nothing at all to make doing old raids more difficult

If the vast majority of players don't want to do it, it will be more difficult to find groups, just a simple fact
your personal opinion doesn't negate the fact of why they are more difficult to group for.

The removed level sync actually improves people going back to old content because it makes more old players more willing to do so and more new players are able to at least see it because of it

and then they even adding more stuff to the old coils to make old players go back to them even more to make glamours which will allow more new players to see them more.
AND they put all kinds of stuff like old 24 man raids and EX primals into the mentor roulette to promote them even more with the level sync intact even.

just don't blame S-E for players not wanting to do things, they are doing way more to make old content viable than any other MMO i have ever played