Older trials die way too quickly, and a fix is long overdue.

Due to all the job potency buffs and power creep over the years, many older trials are now an absolute joke - ones from ARR-HW especially.

They die far too quickly and many of their iconic attacks and mechanics are skipped. This greatly diminishes the experience for new players going through the MSQ for the first time.

When running these trials with first-time players I try to deliberately reduce my damage output to preserve the experience for them, but not everyone is considerate and this isn't a real solution.

Shiva for example can die almost immediately after phase 2 begins, meaning new players will only hear the first ~15-20 seconds or so of 'Oblivion' - if they're lucky. Same goes for Ravana and even the final boss of Heavensward, King Thordan.

The developers acknowledged and addressed this issue with the 3rd trial of Endwalker, so why haven't they done similar balance updates for any other trials? Anyone who plays the game is well aware of this issue. Does the MSQ not deserve better than this?

if you ask me i think the main story just needs to be a solo experience the problem you are describing is because of roulettes an ilvl scaling but the roulettes exist so that new players can complete these duties in a reasonable amount of time an it rewards the existing players with more exp, tomes, etc.
but if its authenticity you want then i am sorry to say but your only option would be find a group of willing friends or try to PF it phrasing it as minimum ilvl an no echo.
but if the main story were just a solo experience then everyone would have the same experience no one would be powering their way thru it or cheesing it.
then they can save the harder or more challenging stuff for the endgame.
but i do understand wanting to feel the magic with your friends along for the ride too but i am afraid that there just isnt a healthy or balanced middle to please everyone damned if they do and damned if they dont
and if it would help maybe they should just release all of the tuned updated fights aka "unreal" in a separate duty tab for those who want a more challenging an memorable fight later on etc. that allows friends to tag along

Gear progression doesn't matter in previous expansions because new players are usually advised to get the maximum strength Poetic gear.

For that reason, old story fights should be synced to the minimum IL.

They are aware of this because they've answered interview questions about it and even added a sync to Endsinger by popular demand, yet ignored the same issue with most other old fights.

I think they should take all the 8 player final boss trials (Thordan, Shinryu, Hades, Endsinger, Queen Eternal), and make like an 'MSQ Trials Roulette' and ilevel sync them.

To be fair thordan isn’t a victim of potency creep, thordan has literally always been a joke

Like you could stand on top of his proximity marker as a healer and not die day 1

Some people have tried to retroactively justify it as “it’s to show he wasn’t as powerful as he believed he was” but I’ve always just believed the trial is undertuned

I just can't stand the Trials in this game. One boring room, a glorified damage sponge, and 37 overly annoying mechanics. The faster they're over, the better.

i agree, they die way too fast. something has to change.

story without trials would be a bad desicion though.
how would that be like? changing normal trials into single player fights? that would mean doing them once and never again.... which would mean even less casusl battle content

No thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Asari5

i agree, they die way too fast. something has to change.

story without trials would be a bad desicion though.
how would that be like? changing normal trials into single player fights? that would mean doing them once and never again.... which would mean even less casusl battle content

---

They should replace trials with cutscenes of NPCs fighting the boss. Actually, they should do that with MSQ dungeons too.

Part of the problem is potency creep.

this is because

1) lv 50/60 jobs are way simpler than when they were the max level. So all the potiency is baked into the basic rotation. Less complexity = more dps even from people who suck at the game.
2) Positional misses (see above) are rarer, and don't crash the entire combo on fail
3) The devs keep powercreeping classes across the board each expansion.
4) When stats are scaled down, its not clean. Gear scale downs cause 2 maxed substats. Food scale down ( for exp bonuses) also scale way higher than food during that time period.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Underscore

They die far too quickly and many of their iconic attacks and mechanics are skipped. This greatly diminishes the experience for new players going through the MSQ for the first time.

When running these trials with first-time players I try to deliberately reduce my damage output to preserve the experience for them, but not everyone is considerate and this isn't a real solution.

---

I would guess that 80%+ of new players are delighted they are over quickly so they can get back to the story, and while it's unlikely they can tell you're sandbagging they'd be irritated if they knew.

Skill sliders/options solve these and other (perceived) problems.

Unfortunately the only thing that seems to make them add ilvl syncs to story trials is when it specifically prevents certain cutscenes to happen, which was the case in the Endsinger and the Interphos.
They do seem to add ilvl syncs to endgame dungeons, even a bit more than they used to, but it seems to be the only content that they bother doing this for. Raids, alliance raids and trials are only soft synced to the expansion's max ilvl.

I feel that they're trying to keep it a compromise for people that consider that they should have a sense of progression when gearing up during endgame, which I understand in a way, but considering how it harms the experience of content once people are geared enough, it's clearly behaving in a problematic way.

I do find it odd that they changed Endsinger to account for the fact that people were killing it too fast, but they never adjusted other trials. I doubt it would be that hard to ilevel synch every MSQ trial from previous expansions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliverQ

I do find it odd that they changed Endsinger to account for the fact that people were killing it too fast, but they never adjusted other trials. I doubt it would be that hard to ilevel synch every MSQ trial from previous expansions.

---

It does make sense in terms of the significance to the story.

I mean, if you miss the "Light the Way" scene in the Endsinger fight it's FAR less impactful in terms of the story/outcome and also impacts on the final fight Vs Zenos - the 'powerups' we get during that fight wouldn't make sense to anyone who hadn't seen the 'Light the Way' cutscene.

Upon running Sastasha today I was reminded that this also applies to dungeons. You never even see the mechanics of the 3rd boss of Sastasha - there's a message telling you about the bubbles in the water, but the boss dies before anything can actually happen. It barely feels different from a regular trash mob.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

I just can't stand the Trials in this game. One boring room, a glorified damage sponge, and 37 overly annoying mechanics. The faster they're over, the better.

---

It sounds like you just don't want to play the game.

I'll never understand why older stuff doesn't just sync down to min ilvl with no echo. Whenever I'm with newbies who're experiencing it for the first time, I always take pains to get a full party so we can go in and do it under the min ilvl no echo (MINE) setting. And it's not even harder or whatever, it just gives the boss time to breathe and do its mechs. This is how the fights should be synced by default.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Underscore

It sounds like you just don't want to play the game.

---

Seems to be a pretty common sentiment these days.

Since trials are made to gatekeep you from going too fast into the story (as this is one of the mmorpg sins), I am perfectly fine with keeping them fast. If you want longer ones, go extreme.

Edit: Also with the amount of afk mentors and those that don't want to help someone clear a dead trial, this is also perfectly fine. Nobody wants to wait for 1 hour to queue into last trial for expansion only to meet with failure after failure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Underscore

It sounds like you just don't want to play the game.

---

Yeah modern XIV pve tends to have that effect...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Underscore

Upon running Sastasha today I was reminded that this also applies to dungeons. You never even see the mechanics of the 3rd boss of Sastasha - there's a message telling you about the bubbles in the water, but the boss dies before anything can actually happen. It barely feels different from a regular trash mob.

---

To be fair, this was the same back in ARR. You would just ignore the bubbles then, too.

Adds come out, iirc, but you'd still just burn the boss.

Oddly enough, Copperbell, one of the other "tutorial" dungeons, seems tuned pretty well since the rework. Odd that Sastasha didn't get tightened up too.

Sometimes I think about these dungeon fights being tuned for players to be on the lowest ilvl entry rather than the highest. Same for the important end of scenario fights that, in the beginning, you go through the motions with just the gear you're able to scrape together so the fights fight evenly paced in the mix bag of people doing their top openers and folks attacking by whatever felt right in the moment. But not sure how that would really pan out in the face of people wanting their time valued by having these fights end faster.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nightcap

not sure how that would really pan out in the face of people wanting their time valued by having these fights end faster.

---

I understand the "want them to end faster" part, but it's also a video game. There are plenty of fights that sync alright, and are fun (or as much as they can be when you're used to the script). If they have a pressing need to farm these in the most boring way possible, 1 shotting them, they can unsync farm it.

Oh for sure if anyone wanted to unsync them as a granted option. I remember some folks I used to know who doomed and gloomed over their dungeon runs taking longer due to the damager values needing adjusted for the system. No doubt the dungeons feel much faster, could say over tuned even for the content, than before and haven't heard said person complain since then.