Please go over old Duties and give them all a fair level / itemlevel Sync

I don't know why this hasn't been done yet.

There's so many old cap-level duties that become too washed out by a loose itemlevel-sync. The worst offenders being the climatic finale fights of the main stories.

It makes the content boring, there's no stakes and no engagement when the enemies hit like wet noodles even when getting hit by avoidable aoes. And in the case of the trials, it makes them very anti-climatic. You fight the big bad of Shadowbringer, but he's not threatening at all. The sub-80 trials are more threatening than the final boss due to level-sync vs very loose itemlevel sync. Same with Endwalker. Probably plenty of other cases, dungeons too, that are just made unengaging by not having a fair itemlevel sync.

I really wish SE would go over all the old content and apply a proper sync to every duty. They don't have to be super hard, but I think being at max 20-30 itemlevels above the content compared to when it was released should be enough.

This also makes it unsurprising that people newly reaching the current levelcap get surprised by more difficult content, when a lot of old content just gets washed out by loose syncs.

i agree

they like to pretend old content doesnt matter but it does. through roulette most people do more old content than new. and also new players HAVE to go through so much old content... and yet in terms of balancing, power creep and engagement its terrible.

I agree they should do this.

After the success of doing it with Endsinger it makes even more sense.

I really believe they should just set all old-expansion content to minimum item level, since gear progression is no longer a thing at lower levels.

Sprouts either don't gear up and are minimum item level anyway, or they grabbed max item level from tomestone vendors. All the people syncing down are max item level. So pretending there is gear progression at all is ridiculous. There isn't. All it results in is the content isn't even fun anymore in many cases.

Fun is the most important thing and the best way to recreate the fun of the old content is simply to sync it to Minimum Item Level. There is a lot of content that people may not even be aware is fun at that item level. Just a very tiny increase - even 5 item levels - can drastically change how much the mechanics matter or are noticed. 5 item levels across 8 people, for example, is a grand total of 40 across the whole party.

A lot of old normal raids people think have always been a joke, for example, were great on release day and wiped people a lot. Then people got the gear drops, crafted some gear, and it was a joke every day following that and was never the same. A lot of the Dawntrail content people are praising now will probably suffer this fate as well going into the future.

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Originally Posted by Chyro

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I agree with what you're saying, but it's not enough.
I've done min ilv old duties, and your low level rotations are just broken- you're missing so many actions it's really frustrating to play as most jobs. Potency creep is also not solved simply with tighter ilv sync.
XIV needs some sort of sweeping rebalancing of its lower levels (and maybe with a level squish).
But I doubt SE will fix this chronic issue that becomes worse with each expansion...

There's a spectrum of issues with older content. Poor ilvl synch, potency adjustments over the years, fight mechanic changes that have occurred as a result of nerfs or the trust system, how quickly you outlevel the content itself, etc. just all culminate in trivializing the old content.

Sure, go back and adjust ilvl synch in older content but that isn't going to instantly solve the problem either and will just as likely create new problems too. As much as I would like to actually do mechanics again for older content, can you imagine how much of an uproar there would be if people were getting stonewalled by Syrcus Tower because I'm sure the larger part of the community doesn't even know them, much less how to resolve them? Instead of dealing with it, people would just leave if it pops up in roulette; look at Orbonne Monastery, people still leave that instance immediately because they don't want to deal with the hassle, even after years of powercreep have rendered most of it trivial (I'm sure Cid has a few more wipes in him).

I want to see it happen. I would love if the community would actually improve as they leveled up after having to deal with some of the more difficult stuff that was once present in the game instead of having level 100 Tanks that don't mitigate, DPS that freestyle their rotation and Curebot Healers but I know this community has become far to coddled by ease that they're more likely to complain about the changes rather than get good.

This would require more than an ilvl sync. Many of the low level stuff has to be remade from scratch to be engaging. Much of the older content was originally made with a different design ethos (Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak before the rework) and when the jobs were in a completely different state. For example, a lot of content was designed without so much healer uptime because we used to have Cleric Stance back in the day. This caused a lot of healers to hesitate swapping to DPS mode and even created a lot of arguments that "hEaLeRs ShOuLdN't DPS!". Plus we had elemental materia and other types of materia which used to impact damage. Ever wonder why there's different types of damage? That's a holdover from that system.

All that's not to say I'm not on-board. I'd love to have older content be fun/engaging. Especially Alexander or my favorite Raid Series (Ivalice). But an ilvl adjustment for them probably won't cut it.

I do agree that an ilevel cut wont immediatedly fix every issue but is without a doubt the easiest way to make old content immediatedly better. A clear example is the first 3 StB capstone dungeons (ala mhigo, doma castle, temple of the fist) they have a much lower ilevel sync that the rest of the StB capstone dungeons and theres a clear difference. you actually get to see the bosses mechanics and you gotta respect those pulls to some extent (that firsttemple of the fist full pull being one of my favorites even), unlike the rest of the capstone dungeons where stuff just dies too fast. ilevel wont fix every problem but is for sure much easier to implement than to rebalance every duty in the game just for them to be outdated again next balance patch

The Singularity Reactor

They already have just jobs do more dps now than they use to.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I would love if the community would actually improve as they leveled up after having to deal with some of the more difficult stuff that was once present in the game

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Except they won't improve. They will just not do the content or quit. That is the sad reality of MMO design.

Very few players ever "rise to the challenge". Most players just don't do the content when it poses too much of an obstacle.
The players that do rise, won't consider the difference in difficulty meaningful enough anyway, since those are the kind of players that gun for savage raids etc.

It's therefor in SE's best interest when basic story stuff does not pose too much of a problem. As someone who liked the somewhat meaner ARR dungeons: yeah it sucks for people like us.

And then you hav the other side of the coin: overly aggressive ilvl sync in the old Nier raids where boring bosses and trash minibosses just live WAAAAA.... zZzZzZ .... Hm? still not dead yet? ...AAYYY too long.

No wonder people insta quit the roulette and eat the penalty than slog through that.

Absolutely agree. We have a treasure trove of dungeons and trials and, let's face it, they're all so brain-dead, they might as well not exist. It's a shame.

Imagine trying to sell someone who not just only cares about story but gameplay as well, that you need to play a couple of hundred hours until they content requires paying attention.

We should get more tools like a manually adjustable ilvl to tweak the difficulty to our liking. Especially if it's a solo duty. Increase the drop rate my X for every X ilvl I go down and see people turn it into a challenge run like soloing PotD. Put a disclaimer in front saying that if you go to low you might not be able to finish said content. Who cares?

They content is just lying there collecting dust. Please do something with it other than DR.




(And give me a min ilvl roulette while you're at it. Please and thank you.)

So concluding from the other comments, I think the best way to adress this would be in two steps.

1.) As short-term solution that is easy to implement, adjust the item-level syncs of duties where the too loose sync makes them unengaging and boring.

2.) For the long-term, they'd have to rebalance the skills and potencies the classes have across the lower level which would likely take a bigger effort. Potentially also taking a look at class engagement across the leveling progress, that each class has at least some small but satisfying gameplay loops even at lower level.

I think the later goes more in the realm of wishful thinking if SE were willing to put that sort of resources into remaking the leveling progress, but could make the overall experience a lot more enjoyable for everyone. The first part I'd say should be very easily to implement and no reason for SE not to do it. There would be a adjustment period where suddenly we'd have to do and re-learn mechanics that could previously be ignored, and it would likely lead to some backlash especially with stuff like the mentioned crystal tower raids. Though I think in the long term it would be more healthy for the game.

What's the point in increasing your IL in the first place if everything is going to scale you down to the item level of the dungeon's drops?

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Originally Posted by LibitIncarne

What's the point in increasing your IL in the first place if everything is going to scale you down to the item level of the dungeon's drops?

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First off, the suggestion is not to set them to minimum itemlevel but to set it to an acceptable range that doesn't make the content completely unengaging and mechanics ignorable. I mentioned 'maybe 10ilv above the requirements' so you still get stronger through raising your itemlevel, but not to the point that it completely negates any engagement with the duty (10 is just an example number, maybe a bit higher). When a new patch dungeon or trial or raid releases, their entry itemlevel is below the currently achieveable itemlevel. Don't know the exact number, but it's a bit of a range from their min-itemlevel to the 'current patch itemlevel'. It's a fair range that makes the content a bit easier when you gear up, without making the content unengaging.

Secondly itemlevel is still required to get into the next higher content, you need to meet minimum requirements.


Edit: Went to check the numbers with the current cap dungeons. The lv100 dungeons have an itemlevel requirement of 670, with only the story dungeon having a item-level sync of 700. So yeah, the 10 itemlevels was a bit of a low guess - a 30 itemlevel range would be fair (I'm changing it in the main post). The other two dungeons not having itemlevel-sync means that you're eventually 40, 50, 60+ itemlevels above the content. It's this disparity between the leveling and story duties compared to the cap-level duties I want them to fix.

As another example: In heavensward, you do the last dungeon of the main story with a itemlevel-sync of 180 (min 142) - a fair challenge. Right after that you enter the final trial of the story, the big finale - which does not have itemlevel sync (and also min requirement of 142). So people are in there in their potentially maxed out ilv270 gear, blasting away the fight while able to ignore all the tickle damage this supposedly epic final boss of the story is inflicting on them. From the last story dungeon to the last trial (which are only a cutscene apart) your party suddenly grows by 90 itemlevels. This ruins immersion in the story as well as any engagement with the fight, if it just melts away and does no damage.

I agree so hard with this, it's so immersion-breaking to be fighting a boss like Hades and he crumples like a leaf. It makes me feel bad for players just now going through past expacs, it's fundamentally a lesser experience for them.

I've been waiting forever for them to revamp Coils of Bahamut to something more easily digestible for newer players, especially since it has such an importance to the story (especially if you're SMN).

I can think of a few things they could do to the old dungeons/trials:
1. iLevel sync as OP suggested
2. Increase the HP of the bosses so that they're in line with current potency creep
3. Add damage down for failing mechs or increase the amount of additional damage getting a vuln stack makes you take
4. Increase the amount of damage the boss does by a fair margin

For dungeons and trials, I think 2 and 4 should be applied to both of them, trials should give damage down instead of vuln stacks but the damage from failing a mech should be high enough to where consistently failing mechs still kills you

That being said, I do think that any difficulty increases should be only moderate, as playing through 8+ years of content can be pretty intimidating if you have to look up a guide for every dungeon or trial instead of hopping in and winging it

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Originally Posted by Chyro

Secondly itemlevel is still required to get into the next higher content, you need to meet minimum requirements.

As another example: In heavensward, you do the last dungeon of the main story with a itemlevel-sync of 180 (min 142) - a fair challenge. Right after that you enter the final trial of the story, the big finale - which does not have itemlevel sync (and also min requirement of 142). So people are in there in their potentially maxed out ilv270 gear, blasting away the fight while able to ignore all the tickle damage this supposedly epic final boss of the story is inflicting on them. From the last story dungeon to the last trial (which are only a cutscene apart) your party suddenly grows by 90 itemlevels. This ruins immersion in the story as well as any engagement with the fight, if it just melts away and does no damage.

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If the game doesn't let you feel like you've outgeared an instance, there is no gameplay reason for gear to have stats.

You aren't missing out on much. His HP threshold to go into phase 2 is 10% compared to the 70% in the EX version. Oh no, you don't get to see him use literally nothing other than autoattacks while he has Damage Down.
Thordan is a joke even at Minimum Item Level, that happens there as well. He's been a joke since when TP got removed.

Na, I like the game being easy thanks.

Also above poster is correct. Make the game very difficult and I won't 'git gud' (past a point), I'll simply stop playing. And I'm willing to bet there are more of me than more of you OP. I play other games for a challenge.

Take down the ilvl by like 20-30 for the Crystal Tower.

Y'know. For the comedy.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Na, I like the game being easy thanks.

Also above poster is correct. Make the game very difficult and I won't 'git gud' (past a point), I'll simply stop playing. And I'm willing to bet there are more of me than more of you OP. I play other games for a challenge.

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It's not about making the game difficult. No more difficult than the content was on release while at max gear of each duty's release - which isn't difficult. It means being (at least somewhat) able to play the content as it was originally experienced, not a watered down version. And you already have duties at that difficulty level while going through the MSQ, any duty between cap levels (51-59 for example) and duties that have a decent item-level sync applied. Then you get to cap-level duties without sync and suddenly enemies melt and deal no damage. It's an inconsistency that has no reason to be there.

That inconsistency is very noticable when it comes to story trials. Isn't it weird that the primals you fight on lv53 and lv57 put up more of a fight than the lv60 final boss of the expansion?

The 'more of me than more of you' comes across as rather childish. Neither of us has numbers to prove that in either direction, there's no point to that argument. You're free to your opinion of course as I am to mine. Though I'd be more interested to hear what it is that makes those easy duties enjoyable to you. When entering a dungeon or trial, do you have no desire to actually fight the enemies and for the enemies to fight back?

funny things is this problem very noticeable on lv x0 duties, while the content between(x1-x9) are less problematic.

like, you can still see most of the fights in Titania, Zodiark etc. but Hades and Endsinger are basically halves the actual fight it used to be.

Not even just old content, you can't see Aglaia's final boss' gimmick anymore. I feel bad for the new people that go thru it and don't know there's a whole second phase with fun stuff

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Originally Posted by Volfe

Not even just old content, you can't see Aglaia's final boss' gimmick anymore. I feel bad for the new people that go thru it and don't know there's a whole second phase with fun stuff

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You're talking about the scales, yes? I've noticed in multiple runs that there is a split among players. If we get new ones people say 'let them see the scales!' but others go 'No, I don't wanna deal with that!' and proceed to burn down the HP as fast as possible. It just feels like people don't want to deal with mechanics after a certain point. Sadly I've witnessed this multiple times and don't think it'll stop no matter what the fight is.

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Originally Posted by Maxilor

I've been waiting forever for them to revamp Coils of Bahamut to something more easily digestible for newer players, especially since it has such an importance to the story (especially if you're SMN).

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Honestly just stick them in the roulette and watch chaos ensue, it'd be great

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Originally Posted by Remolia

The Singularity Reactor

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back in 3.0 HW release, I was a fresh 60 PLD. I didnt have Lv60 gear yet. I joked about doing the fight solo with a friend, and so I entered alone. Needless to say, I won. The fact they made a final boss that can be soloed under iLv is absurd. Some ppl claim its due to nerfs over the years, and that is not true. All other fights have gotten easier. 3.0 was always easy, even from the start.

It's the FF theme park design philosophy they tout.
Except youre forced to ride all the old decrepit run down rides before the new ones while older players wince at the state of the content they once loved and squex says oh hey you wamt to tru the new job? Yeahhhh we'll just start you right over here at the new stuff, dont look back...

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

I agree with what you're saying, but it's not enough.
I've done min ilv old duties, and your low level rotations are just broken- you're missing so many actions it's really frustrating to play as most jobs. Potency creep is also not solved simply with tighter ilv sync.
XIV needs some sort of sweeping rebalancing of its lower levels (and maybe with a level squish).

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Following this train of thought, I want to toss in some ideas. I try to mention them in every one of these threads that pops up, all suggestions being easy to implement and broad reaching from the perspective of consuming development time, as their whole stated purpose for "Unreal Trials" was to cycle them every major patch because it's "too much work" to balance old fights for every new patch. These adjustments also heavily affect players doing old content sync'd or Minimum Item-Level, No Echo (MINE) for fun, as bosses in that 'near developer intended difficulty' environment are often pushovers from a dps requirement perspective.

#1) Tighter ilvl sync range, sure. They started doing this themselves for the exact reason of giving a duty being rolled over too easily more gravitas back in HW Aetherochemical Research Facility (level 60 final MSQ dungeon of 3.0), and have continued doing it within a ~30ilvl differential for patch.x dungeons since. They did it again after heavy player feedback for 6.0 final MSQ trial.

#2) More of the potency increasing traits you see at level 84 and 94 for most jobs, at every expansion level range. I am glad these traits exist for EW and DT, and I hope they continue this trend and do not remove such traits in any future reworks. I'm not sure the intention of them extended to preserving older content, but they certainly have the added benefit of not destroying expected potency output of jobs below those level ranges. ShB was the worst offender of all the expansions for this; jobs such as level 50 PLD went from dealing 150->200->260 with its 1-2-3 to 200->300->350. When every player in a 24 man raid is doing 25% more damage with their filler combo, it adds up, FAST. Even erring on the side of doing a bit less than what that job could have output in the content's actual time of relevancy might be better, especially when you add in that people sync'd down already have bonus secondary stats, extra HP from accessories, more powerful consumables, and a much easier rotation that doesn't ramp up in damage like so many slashing debuffs and DoTs used to. Certain jobs below certain level would need examining, usually the new ones because they're not designed with balance in mind other than the cap of expansion they were introduced and beyond, but if we simply take an average of whatever its role's expected potency per minute was using the actions of those jobs when that level range was relevant, they could simply make its actions more or less have potencies that add up to that in that level range. But even if they weren't able to do that small amount of work, introducing these traits for lower level ranges and keeping them for future ranges would allow for the old fights to have more of a fighting chance.

#3) Remove direct hit from any content where you are sync'd below 61. It was not a stat before StB and as such, none of that content has HP pools balanced around it except for the occasional 'redesigned' boss like Porta Decumana (Ultima Weapon), which don't matter because these aren't fights where things won't work if players can't deal enough damage. If it's a concern that players with direct hit on their gear get sync'd down and have nothing, throw them some determination instead.

I'd also like to request (if they can?) to make all endwalker normal content cast bars 30% faster minimum

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Originally Posted by LilyPendragon

Honestly just stick them in the roulette and watch chaos ensue, it'd be great

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On normal sync t1-t4 is a joke where you skip everything. T5 has some teeth but it is kinda disjointed and confusing as the fight changes phases in a very disorganised manner and it’s a mess, but passable with at least one person knowing what to do.
So even there the issue of ilvl sync is quite real. They are fun on min ilvl/silenced echo tho