A little late to the party.

[Kosmos992k]

@OP - the content is old and has been recycled for Nexus light farming now. Nobody wants to sync back down to the item level where they'd actually need to do mechanics because it makes the fight 2-3 times as long for the same amount of light.

You mean....if there was some form of ilvl sync, people would...have to actually *play* the content? Shocking!

No, but seriously, why does everything have to be done so damned quickly? If you actually had to do the mechanics it might make the fight a bit longer, but you know, you might actually have to...um...think and...er...work together. That's a whole lot more enjoyable - and inline with the point of an MMORPG - than burning the boss, ignoring mechanics, and raising the dead afterwards.

Running content and ignoring mechanics relegates what is meant to be a game you play, to a chore you must do. If some want to treat the game as a chore or job, that's their choice, but I honestly think it's wrong for the developers to facilitate that by not balancing older content against newer gear with an ilvl sync.

[Eye_Gore]

I don't mean anything negative behind this, but you're about a year and a half too late for the hard mode primal to expect a challenge from them.

Hence the attempt at the subtle humor of the title.

Atma upgrade doesn't give you anything except for the new name until you upgrade stats via books

Well in that case no wasting time, have to get down on it.

That's what happens when you show up to content a year later.

See above. Though I am on a PS4 it wasn't released for almost 7 months after Realm Reborn, so I'm not that far behind. (though I know that some content is older) But its all good, getting there not hoping for any Ilvl 135 or whatever its up to now. Though if it keeps going the way it is, people will be able to solo the early HM's. Maybe they should make them 4 man content.

[DoctorPepper]

Just keep at it, you'll probably find extreme mode primals and coil a bit more challenging, even if they have echo there are generally some mechanics you still have to pay attention to.

As for zodiac weapons, consider yourself lucky for starting late on that. Atma RNG used to be terrible, before they upped the drop rate I spent 14 hours in one zone grinding fates without getting that single atma. Yoshi has confirmed that zodiac weapons will grow in 3.1 which is one patch after the expansion drops so I think you have plenty of time to get started. Odds are when expansion hits they'll make previous steps easier in order to expedite the process a little because of the level cap increase, either that or they'll just boost the ilvl for all the weapons.

[Lycelle]

Careful, some of the elitist might come in here and call you a filthy casual for not completing Coil on a hardcore level and before echo was introduced.

But overall, play the game the way you want to play it. You're not missing out on anything, it's why people can catch up so easily. The game is fun and it's meant for you to go at your own pace.

[Kosmos992k]

Careful, some of the elitist might come in here and call you a filthy casual for not completing Coil on a hardcore level and before echo was introduced.

Indeed. I must be a filthy casual, I've been playing since phase 3 of the Beta and haven't beaten turn 5 yet, nor bothered with the EX primals...and yes, I have run into a few elitists who very much look down their noses at me because of that. It's their loss though.

But overall, play the game the way you want to play it. You're not missing out on anything, it's why people can catch up so easily. The game is fun and it's meant for you to go at your own pace.

Agreed, although I do think that the ability to continue to play some of the content is pretty much destroyed by overgeared and impatient players who simply will not play the content as it's intended because their gear allows them to, and don't want to 'waste' their time playing the game.

[Lycelle]

I've been thinking about going to Behemoth, it seems like such a lively and fun server, a lot more fun than drab Lamia. :v But overall I kinda am giving up on progression at this point, to me it's not very fun any more. It's becoming more of a chore to just do the same tome grind every week for just one piece of gear. I hope when Gold Saucer comes out I'll be happy to play some more. But right now I kinda don't care since I see no benefit in Final Coil when the expansion is coming out soon. We were already told we don't need to complete FCoB in order to enjoy it. I am slowly losing my patience with the game due to the ill tempered people that play on it sadly.

[Kiara1]

thats a huge problem with this game. We get too good gear and too few places to use that gear. almost everything in the game is waay to easy during cathup patches because we keep playing the same contet exxept now we did hunts and got even more overgeared soo we can still do everthing. Just a little bit faster

[Battlewrench]

When we can finally solo the primal we really will be the chosen ones like the story keeps suggesting. On a serious note though with the way the gear scale works it has to be this way. People would get left behind and not be able to catch up to the current level of gear if the previous content wasn't easier. Its the problem with this form of progression in games like this but part of the system.

[Purrfectstorm]

No, but seriously, why does everything have to be done so damned quickly?

Since someone already referenced George Carlin I'll add that he also once asked: "Why is it that everyone that drives faster than me is a maniac and everyone that drives slower is an idiot?"

Point being, when you haven't done the content/only done it a few times, you might want to take your time and really understand it/experience it but once you've done Garuda HM literally hundreds of times, there's nothing more to see. You just want to get through it for whatever grind (light, demimateria, or whatever) so you can get on to more enjoyable content.

I really enjoyed the primal fights when I first did them. You couldn't ignore mechanics, they were challenging. But nowadays, I'm part of the "let's get this over with" crowd. And this is what happens when you have a system that puts veteran players in with newer players. The benefit is newer players get faster queue times but the downside is they don't get to experience content as it was originally designed.

I mean pick your poison but I personally think a player can't join an MMO after a year and expect old content to ever play as it was originally designed. Even with ilevel sync, you get 7 veterans in Titan HM and 1 newbie and they're dead and get carried through, only it takes longer to queue AND to win. They'll never know the frustration of actually having to be an asset in such an old fight, wiping for hours and then finally getting it down. They can still get that same feeling on new content though.

As another example, imagine a player getting into the game now with all that's changed: roulettes, challenge log, retainer ventures, desynthesis, gear moved to different locations, higher level tome items, etc. The game being the same experience for brand new players was never an option. On the plus side, most of the changes have been for the better, it's easy for new players to catch up to veteran players, and new content will be hard/challenging for everyone. If you add ilevel sync to primals, all that will happen is it will be harder/longer for new players to catch up, it will do nothing for the "purity" of the experience. I'm against dungeon ilevel sync for this reason also.

Anyway, the best solution for a new player who wants to see what the fight was like originally is to get a group of 8 players together in i60/i70 gear, turn off echo, and try it out. I really don't think that SE should force this on veteran players though, it'll be lose-lose for everyone in my opinion.

[Eye_Gore]

As for zodiac weapons, consider yourself lucky for starting late on that. Atma RNG used to be terrible, before they upped the drop rate I spent 14 hours in one zone grinding fates without getting that single atma.

Good point. Only been at it a few hours and already have half of them.