Was disappointed with the end of ARR Dungeon Storyline

Just wanted to find out from vet players whether some aspects of the game becomes more challenging? While I played for an extremely brief time when the game relaunched, I recently decided to make this the main MMO.

After finishing the original storyline for ARR, I found that just about every dungeon was almost boringly easy including the final dungeons leading up to and including fighting Ultima. There was almost no mechanics to speak of. I was completely disappointed how easy it was to defeat the major bosses up to that point. Is there a more challenging mode that is available or that I am missing in the Duty finder?

I know there is plenty more to do and experience as I have Stormblood so I know the story isn't over, but I am hoping it's more of a challenge going forward. Thx.

All story content is fairly easy, in order to make sure that everyone can get through it - over the years it has become even more easy, mainly by us outgearing it.

There is, however, challenging content in the form of Extreme Versions of the Primals and Savage Raids. Those are optional content, designed with a challenge in mind - obviously the primals that used to be challenging when ARR was current content arent really anymore aswell (unless you run them with minimum ilvl to re-create that) and chances are you'll do them unsyched anyways (which removes even more mechanics - but otherwise you're required to get together a full party of 8 people which can be a challenge by itself...)

The real challenge starts with the endgame of Stormblood though - again, unless you do Coil, Alexander Savage or the EX-Primals of HW and ARR with minimum ilvl in syched parties.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

Just wanted to find out from vet players whether some aspects of the game becomes more challenging? While I played for an extremely brief time when the game relaunched, I recently decided to make this the main MMO.

After finishing the original storyline for ARR, I found that just about every dungeon was almost boringly easy including the final dungeons leading up to and including fighting Ultima. There was almost no mechanics to speak of. I was completely disappointed how easy it was to defeat the major bosses up to that point. Is there a more challenging mode that is available or that I am missing in the Duty finder?

I know there is plenty more to do and experience as I have Stormblood so I know the story isn't over, but I am hoping it's more of a challenge going forward. Thx.

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At the time of release, the bosses in Westwind, CM and Praetorium were actually rather challenging. Beating Ultima for the first time in 2.0 as a fresh 50 was an achievement as Ultima was difficult and you HAD to mind all the things like the falling ships and killing the Magitek bits. Ignoring them like we do today could easily wipe a party. Today you get the benefits of higher iLvl than we had at the time as well as different battle mechanics, so it's all become a bit faceroll, but that was part of the intention to allow new players to get through the content without getting stuck at a point in the game that the vast majority of the playerbase no longer engages with. If you want to understand how challenging Ultima was in the day, do a PF full-sync (lvl and min-ilvl sync) run and see how "easy" that is.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

After finishing the original storyline for ARR, I found that just about every dungeon was almost boringly easy including the final dungeons leading up to and including fighting Ultima.

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The final dungeons of past are no longer anything more than a mid-way dungeon. It stopped being "final boss" when...more bosses came out after it.
Everyone progressed since then with the best gear possible at that level being a joke to get by now (and it wasn't even available originally, not even near, when the bosses were balanced). If you want more of a challenge, you need to get to the end points in the story as it is NOW. That being said, you'll have to wait until new "final boss" is made or go to optional content, because the overgearing process on the current "big, bad boss" have long since begun.


There are however some mechanic-driven bosses on the way, and Nidhogg still can easily wipe a party at some points if his mechanics are not followed or people don't know his attack patterns (since he have attacks with huge area of effect leaving limited safe area). That's lvl60 Trial, so earlier than end game.

ARR was harder. Then they nerfed lot of the duties and dungeons cause part of our dear communities can't handle challanges.

Consider too the story actually carries into Binding Coils of Bahamut, which were the end game raids at the time. They have since made "story" versions of the raids available for the majority of players to be able to experience the story, but that's probably one of the main reasons it feels flat (outside of how insanely easy the instances are now). It'd definitely be worth it to go through with an undersized party and complete the Bahamut raids so you can finish the ARR story.

I don't see how one can be playing this game fully aware of how long it's been around and the numerous updates/difficulty adjustments that come with that, and wonder why the core game feels tame.

It's standard behavior for these types of games to water down 'old' content each time 'new' content is released, as it's an attempt to appease the assumption that new players always want to be at end game level immediately.

We ('m also a newbie) are playing a watered down product, it's just how it is for arriving late to the party.

If you really want to get as close as possible to what it was like at launch, I recommend trying to make a party to go in at the minimum item level.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

Just wanted to find out from vet players whether some aspects of the game becomes more challenging? While I played for an extremely brief time when the game relaunched, I recently decided to make this the main MMO.

After finishing the original storyline for ARR, I found that just about every dungeon was almost boringly easy including the final dungeons leading up to and including fighting Ultima. There was almost no mechanics to speak of. I was completely disappointed how easy it was to defeat the major bosses up to that point. Is there a more challenging mode that is available or that I am missing in the Duty finder?

I know there is plenty more to do and experience as I have Stormblood so I know the story isn't over, but I am hoping it's more of a challenge going forward. Thx.

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You didn't play this stuff when it was originally released, where those fights took longer than 30 seconds. If you want to play it like it was at release, form a party and select "Minimum Ilevel", and the Ultima fight actually has a harder version "The Minstrel's Ballad: Ultima's Bane", which again, you have to play at minimum ilevel to experience the release level difficulty.

All the "Extreme" content from ARR is a 30 second faceroll if done unsynced.

everyone is overgeared for the old content. Praetorium was current, people were anywhere from ilvl50-70. Now they are ilvl130 when synched at 50. It's a shame too.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

everyone is overgeared for the old content. Praetorium was current, people were anywhere from ilvl50-70. Now they are ilvl130 when synched at 50. It's a shame too.

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Praetorium is only level synced, not ilevel synced. The post-2.0, but before 3.0 dungeons level sync to 110 or 130.

I hope they improve!