Remove item level sync

I've count and around 80% of my expert roulette in the past 2 weeks have been Alexandria only, even more so when I que as a tank. There has not been a single new player in any of them.

So what is the point of this absolutely horrible sync? So we don't rush through the dungeon so u can enjoy "le story"? But there is not any relevant story during trash packs or bosses AND the dungeon already forces you to wait cuz of an arbitrary wall for the epic story their intern wrote while taking a dump.

This is horrible design, it takes power away from the player and makes this farm content take even longer. And what is it even doing in EXPERT roulette then if it is supposed to be expert? Imagine if WoW started to item level sync u in m0 or lower m+ keys cuz uhh duhh reasons.

Thanks for listening, fix this horrible mechanic thanks.

Story stuff like this is always synced. It always will be. This is the last dungeon of the baseline msq, people getting to it late should get to experience it the same way everyone else did. It's no fun to have this big cinematic experience (opinions may vary, but its still the lead up to the end of the story) and have to miss half the mechanics because the overgeared party kills everything in half the time.

Just deal with it until 7.1, then a new dungeon will be added that wont be item level synced, and Alexandria will be rotated out.

Honestly, I feel like item level sync needs to be stricter in all content, not more lax. This is a video game, the content should be fun to play, not just an obstacle you want to skip through to get what you want to achieve.

It is fast, at least for me? Just need to do rotation+damage and then it's fast.

Also, I wish the syncs would be tighter as well, especially on older content.

The solution here is to sync the other two, not remove the sync on Alexandria

No thanks.

If I play through the content it's to enjoy and have fun with the content, not to skip it as fast as possible. Put hard syncs on every endgame piece of content please. Especially the story trials before EW, they're an absolute joke right now and that's exactly what you're trying to do with those dungeons.

If you're not enjoying dungeons and roulettes, then don't queue for them. There is other venues to get tomes.

Alexandria is already one of the faster/easier one if not the fastest/easiest, personally I don't see why the item sync should be lifted.

If let say the dungeon would go faster if all party members weren't first timers, then when players matching with first timers, they might get unnecessary hates only because they haven't been to the dungeon before, which defeats the part of the purpose of Expert Roulette (also roulettes in general).

As others have mentioned, you do have the freedom to not queue for Expert Roulette in order to avoid Alexandria, and spam the dungeons you want to collect tomestones

But this isn't an item sync problem. This is the "problem" of one MSQ required dungeon vs two optional ones. Some people are leveling alts now, and serious gear chasers have moved onto savage. This is literally the Crystal Tower problem all over again.

It just stings more than usual because Alexandria is the *only* MSQ dungeon in Expert right now, and SE actually did a good job making the optional dungeons more difficult and interesting--certainly compared to the MSQ duties.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valence

No thanks.

If I play through the content it's to enjoy and have fun with the content, not to skip it as fast as possible. Put hard syncs on every endgame piece of content please. Especially the story trials before EW, they're an absolute joke right now and that's exactly what you're trying to do with those dungeons.

If you're not enjoying dungeons and roulettes, then don't queue for them. There is other venues to get tomes.

---

\

To be fair, there is fun to be had pulling legions of mobs doing big damage and bringing out big aoe bombs to take them out. The trouble is that DT's dungeons don't have any trash pulls like that--they've done great with bosses, but there's more mandatory slowpacing with trash pulls than ever. There's no Mt Gulg pulls here :(

I think the ilvl sync should be tighter if anything, not more lax. Hell, Alexandria is down within 15 minutes or so with a group where the DPS are pressing their buttons and at least half awake as it is.

I do agree that the wall between trash packs is stupid and needs to go, it just arbitrarily inflates how long the dungeon takes. Alexandria specifically is an offender here because some trash packs come in two waves. Let people pull everything to the boss arena if they dare and are able to manage it. Before I gave up healing, the giant pulls were my favourite thing because they actually forced me to flex my healer muscles a bit, focus and put some effort into keeping the tank alive.

The one MSQ thing I wish they would change is Castrum/Praetorium/Ultima Weapon. I feel like allowing a cutscene skip if everyone in the instance has seen it before would be nice. I barely even do MSQ roulette anymore and I swear I can basically recite Gaius's elevator speech by now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cinno

Story stuff like this is always synced. It always will be. This is the last dungeon of the baseline msq, people getting to it late should get to experience it the same way everyone else did. It's no fun to have this big cinematic experience (opinions may vary, but its still the lead up to the end of the story) and have to miss half the mechanics because the overgeared party kills everything in half the time.

Just deal with it until 7.1, then a new dungeon will be added that wont be item level synced, and Alexandria will be rotated out.

---

But like I said, Alexandria doesn't really have anything going on during the trash packs or the bosses. It already forces you to watch the "cinematic experience" during those arbitrary walls when there is 0 trash. And if its called expert roulette then why is Alexandria there?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ovIm

Honestly, I feel like item level sync needs to be stricter in all content, not more lax. This is a video game, the content should be fun to play, not just an obstacle you want to skip through to get what you want to achieve.

---

Absolutely not. A big point of a MMO is progression and power is part of that. This is endgame content, it is literally called expert roulette and it is the highest dungeon content there is. What you essentially want to do is strip that progression or feeling of it away and make gear useless and pointless.

And fun is subjective. Feeling like you are progressing and get more powerful may not be fun to you but it is fun to others.

So just queue the other 2 dungeons?



Expert roulette just means the latest level cap dungeons. They've never been difficult.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valence

No thanks.

If I play through the content it's to enjoy and have fun with the content, not to skip it as fast as possible. Put hard syncs on every endgame piece of content please. Especially the story trials before EW, they're an absolute joke right now and that's exactly what you're trying to do with those dungeons.

If you're not enjoying dungeons and roulettes, then don't queue for them. There is other venues to get tomes.

---

Correct me if I'm wrong at any point but...

They added follower dungeons for that. U can go do that and smell the roses. Or u can set up a PF and enjoy your forced ilvl content and slog through it.

But, last time I checked I can't unsync Alexandria and run it how I want and get the same rewards?

And I enjoy the 2 other dungeons in expert rolo btw even with FF14 trademark linear tube design.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Basteala

To be fair, there is fun to be had pulling legions of mobs doing big damage and bringing out big aoe bombs to take them out. The trouble is that DT's dungeons don't have any trash pulls like that--they've done great with bosses, but there's more mandatory slowpacing with trash pulls than ever. There's no Mt Gulg pulls here :(

---

What's the point of pulling big when everybody is so overgeared with no hardsync that you oneshot said gigantic pulls after barely 2 GCD into your burst? Most unsatisfying gameplay ever and no different from what msq overworld quest targets feel like. I love big pulls, but not when they die within 5s.

But if some people feel like progression should feel like unsync godmode and that gameplay shouldn't be a part of the game past the first weeks of introduction, then sure I guess.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Purrnauskis

Absolutely not. A big point of a MMO is progression and power is part of that. This is endgame content, it is literally called expert roulette and it is the highest dungeon content there is. What you essentially want to do is strip that progression or feeling of it away and make gear useless and pointless.

And fun is subjective. Feeling like you are progressing and get more powerful may not be fun to you but it is fun to others.

---

there has to be a sweet spot for that though, cause while feeling powerful is part of an MMO, being to powerful comes at a detriment to the experience of a combat encounter (best examples are Nald'Thal and Glasya Labolas)

Becoming powerful should mean you can push phases easier and earlier, as well as survive otherwise deadly mistakes, not turn every bit of content into an unsynched style cakewalk.

Core character progression is my favorite thing in any RPG, so I really don't like ilevel sync for things that aren't a specific challenge like (Ultimates). Getting synched down feels like the anti-fun balance police having a melty over my crits.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Purrnauskis

I've count and around 80% of my expert roulette in the past 2 weeks have been Alexandria only, even more so when I que as a tank. There has not been a single new player in any of them.

So what is the point of this absolutely horrible sync? So we don't rush through the dungeon so u can enjoy "le story"? But there is not any relevant story during trash packs or bosses AND the dungeon already forces you to wait cuz of an arbitrary wall for the epic story their intern wrote while taking a dump.

This is horrible design, it takes power away from the player and makes this farm content take even longer. And what is it even doing in EXPERT roulette then if it is supposed to be expert? Imagine if WoW started to item level sync u in m0 or lower m+ keys cuz uhh duhh reasons.

Thanks for listening, fix this horrible mechanic thanks.

---

What is your actual concern here, the item level sync or that you're getting Alexandria 80% of the time?

The item level sync is there in response to past player complaints that the lack of one trivialized the end game MSQ dungeons too quickly thanks to power creep. They're highly unlikely to remove it.

Why are you getting Alexandria 80% of the time? That's a more interesting question. The required ilvl for all 3 dungeons in the roulette is the same (670). You can't queue for the roulette unless you have all 3 unlocked. A guess would be that players find it easier to grind Alexandria for tomestones, despite the ilvl sync, than Tender Valley or Strayborough once they have their daily Expert bonus. The usual wipes in the latter two slow things down much more than the RP delays in Alexandria slow that dungeon down.

If you dislike Alexandria that much, then skip the Expert roulette and queue for the other two directly. The daily bonus (40H/60A) is already less than you earn for running any of the 3 dungeons normally (50H/80A) so you're really not missing out on much. Just run one of the dungeons an extra time to make up for the loss.

Hard disagree. If anything more things need ilevel sync.I legit feel bad for players finishing up Endwalker right now and having the coolest moments of the Myths of the Realm raids entirely skipped.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dwodmots

Core character progression is my favorite thing in any RPG, so I really don't like ilevel sync for things that aren't a specific challenge like (Ultimates). Getting synched down feels like the anti-fun balance police having a melty over my crits.

---

I personally feel the most enjoyable way to experience the power creep is by doing stuff unsynced and seeing how far you can push going solo.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Purrnauskis

But like I said, Alexandria doesn't really have anything going on during the trash packs or the bosses. It already forces you to watch the "cinematic experience" during those arbitrary walls when there is 0 trash. And if its called expert roulette then why is Alexandria there?



Absolutely not. A big point of a MMO is progression and power is part of that. This is endgame content, it is literally called expert roulette and it is the highest dungeon content there is. What you essentially want to do is strip that progression or feeling of it away and make gear useless and pointless.

And fun is subjective. Feeling like you are progressing and get more powerful may not be fun to you but it is fun to others.

---

Totally agree with ovIm they need to fix sync. We have 3 dungeons with some oomph and then countless others that are a snooze fest. What's worse is a lot of fun mechanics have been stripped out of the dungeons to make them even easier to fit the single player agenda (i.e freeze mobs in Snowcloak).

As for getting to endgame that's a laugh in itself you have 4 raids(Glorified trials) and 2 extremes. Once you have the mounts and clears that's a days content and even if you haven't cleared its a handful of fights to spam over and over it's tedious.

I'm also sick of saying to friends and new players "the game will get harder once you get to <insert recent expansion> just stick with it" For them to eventually quit because of how long it takes.

People conveniently forget that we already have a big sense of gear and power progression within the ilvl range of the dungeons themselves between the moment they get introduced and later when people reach the ilvl cap. If you're telling me that Alexandria feels identical to what it was when DT released and everybody was still in leveling gear, or if the current Valley and Clownfiesta dungeons feel as long and stretched today as they did when everybody was barely into job and vanilla tome gear, then I don't know what to tell you.

Maybe one of the true problems is that you're not the only one in parties, that some parties early on you'd get are full of tryhard people that will melt everything under 10min while later in the tier you may get a party of novices with low gear or just very casual players taking ages to kill things or being extra squishy. And maybe we also all on average gear up too fast and immediately reach the ceiling idk.

Item level sync on dungeons is good, but I would say that it shouldn't be synced until that dungeon is out of expert roulette.

They need to improve the sync, it isn't syncing down hard enough

Honestly the final dungeon of each expansion pre-patch should be moved to the main scenario roulette. There's no reason for that thing to only have 3 things in there. Or at least ARF with its lengthy scenes at the final room.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jojoya

What is your actual concern here, the item level sync or that you're getting Alexandria 80% of the time?

The item level sync is there in response to past player complaints that the lack of one trivialized the end game MSQ dungeons too quickly thanks to power creep. They're highly unlikely to remove it.

Why are you getting Alexandria 80% of the time? That's a more interesting question. The required ilvl for all 3 dungeons in the roulette is the same (670). You can't queue for the roulette unless you have all 3 unlocked. A guess would be that players find it easier to grind Alexandria for tomestones, despite the ilvl sync, than Tender Valley or Strayborough once they have their daily Expert bonus. The usual wipes in the latter two slow things down much more than the RP delays in Alexandria slow that dungeon down.

If you dislike Alexandria that much, then skip the Expert roulette and queue for the other two directly. The daily bonus (40H/60A) is already less than you earn for running any of the 3 dungeons normally (50H/80A) so you're really not missing out on much. Just run one of the dungeons an extra time to make up for the loss.

---

Both but with nuance.

I hate Alexandria, it is an absolute snoozefest of a dungeon compared to the other 2 in expert roulette. I suppose the issue lies in the fact that they force an ilvl synced MSQ dungeon into expert roulette, that is what is causing the friction here.

"The item level sync is there in response to past player complaints that the lack of one trivialized the end game MSQ dungeons too quickly thanks to power creep."

This part is silly to me because they are trivial to begin with and, as I already pointed out in my other post, Alexandria does not have any storybits or such during any encounters. It forcefully makes you to enjoy their cinematic kino by not lifting the walls even if all mobs are dead. If we could do Alexandria now with the ilvl u can do other expert dungeons at u would not lose out on anything realistically. We are not one shotting mobs in other expert roulette dungeons. Sounds like a design issue and a band-aid solution from their part.

Oh also, follower dungeons exist so people can go do those if they care about the cinematic kino, thats what they are there for.

As for why I got Alexandria so often I assume it is because people don't have the other dungeons unlocked perhaps because if I am not mistaken when I que into expert roulette it can throw me in with someone doing Alexandria for their MSQ for the first time. But I could be wrong about that.


I have skipped expert roulette and played other games just like Yoshi P intended!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

I'm also sick of saying to friends and new players "the game will get harder once you get to <insert recent expansion> just stick with it" For them to eventually quit because of how long it takes.

---

This has been my experience trying to get people into FF14 aswell. It takes ages to get into any actual content unless you REALLY enjoy the story through all the expansions and same talk to X and fetch quests.

Even WoW gives you a boost when u buy an expansion and timewalking exists...

I can't even count how many people I've seen quit in post arr. It's a shame because when i went through it in 2018 i couldn't wait to finally get to ishgard and hw didn't disappoint but the arr and post arr slog is a big big big problem in this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BunnyQueen

They need to improve the sync, it isn't syncing down hard enough

---

What they need to do first is fix materia when you get synced. I'm all for keeping the content at it's intended difficulty but having your GCD and rotation messed with because you got the bad 1/3 RNG is rather annoying.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RinaB

I can't even count how many people I've seen quit in post arr. It's a shame because when i went through it in 2018 i couldn't wait to finally get to ishgard and hw didn't disappoint but the arr and post arr slog is a big big big problem in this game.

---

I almost quit during ARR slog years ago. Stuck through it and HW renewed my ability to do the fetch quests but I actually cared about the characters, music and general atmosphere. It did not overstay its welcome. I had that feeling with ARR and post ARR. I suggest they decouple MSQ progress with access to the other zones, but feel it's ok to restrict dungeon access because those are tied to stories. Let players see the world and participate in FATES at least.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BunnyQueen

They need to improve the sync, it isn't syncing down hard enough

---

Honestly this. In content that isn't strictly msq, like the raid roulette or the 24mans, people overgear it hilariously fast. I got M4 in normalraid roulette and she died so fast that we didn't even get to see her last wave of mechanics. Homegirl skipped that whole Witch Hunt phase and went straight to her final blast with like 8% hp on her and died shortly after. And don't even get me started on how Aglaia just fell off completely once people got some gear. Where MSQ is concerned, devs seem very concerned about this, as evidenced by their changes to The Final Day's ilvl sync. I think what OP wants is totally at odds with how the devs feel.

OP, if your primary goal is to just get your tomes capped ASAP, join a hunt train and be done with the weekly in an hour.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Avoidy

OP, if your primary goal is to just get your tomes capped ASAP, join a hunt train and be done with the weekly in an hour.

---

One hunt train unfortunately doesn't work, it's 36 A-ranks which amounts to 360 tomes. You need exactly 1 full hunt train and 1 expert roulette...or weekly savage reclears, lmao.

I like it when video games have a semblance of challenge and I jump for joy when I get an instance that requires me to be on my toes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheGrimace

I like it when video games have a semblance of challenge and I jump for joy when I get an instance that requires me to be on my toes.

---

If FF14 dungeons challenge you then I don't know what to tell you