The game is more dead than it was pre-3.1

[Airget]

There is an aspect of growing pains currently, they tried to do something different with the "raid" content Alexander but I feel it fell short of their expectations. While it was nice to open a wider audience to enjoy the story, I imagine it took away from producing content that could of replaced "story mode alexander".

Honestly, maybe the trick behind making harder content is just a "hard cap" on syncing. I mean honestly I'm certain people remember entering Amdapor Keep for the first time in 2.0 IL 45 dungeons, dropped IL 55 gear, other than that you could obtain tomes to get i70(Unlimited) and i90(weekly) then later on i80(Crystal Tower)

So we started off at i45, recall how tough it was to beat that dungeon, because you weren't as strong and yet once you fully geared yourself you were double the strength and now it was a cakewalk.

This is where I feel content is falling flat atm, there is no incentive to do something synced/challenging yourself because it's just there for fun, so it's not really done if you get nothing out of it, and yet it could be used as a way to liven up content without making new content that easily becomes obsolete.

When it comes to Story mode Alexander, I think they could produce content for another challenge rather than duplicating it on top of one another.

Like let's take Alexander Savage for a moment, it's 190 to enter any of them I think(honestly speaking haven't done them) so why not this for a grand idea.

You create alexander savage i190, and say it caps at i230 aka (easy mode)

Then rather than make a "hard" and "easy" mode for that content the difficulty could be based on the IL cap.

So say
IL 230=Easy (1 chest, 1 item)
IL210=Hard (2 chest, 2 item2)
IL190=Very Hard (3 chest, 4 items) * unique items drop (2 new items)
IL180=Insane (4 chest, 5 items) *additional unique items drop (3 new items total)

Why not try difficulty curve with that mentality for one patch and see how it turns out create rare loot, that's hard to get, and heck, be evil, have the IL180 drop something that gives IL240 accessory and then when the next patch roles around those competitive raiders who took the challenge would have an additional edge to being a world first.

There are ways to increase the depth of the game they just need to take the time to look back at old content and play around with how difficult content feels under certain IL.

[Gardes]

post about variable difficulty selection and scaled reward

Rather than perpetuating massive ilvl increases, I would like to see them actually be scaled back to ilvl increase per level cap raise. Instead of 210 > 240 > 270 for alex1>2>3 (if it goes that far), I want to see 210 gear with stat mods (crit+) > 210 gear with skill mods (cure+2) > 210 with set bonuses (alex2 pants+ alex3 feet = jump+1). Lockout removals stay as is (alex 2 released with weekly lockout, alex 1 weekly lockout removed) but the fights are untouched or maybe 10% echo max. Tomestone gear stays at 200/200/200 throughout but also provides similar stat/skill/set bonuses but with less variety and are mixed around.

This way every player is on the same level within 1 or 2 patches when it comes to sheer raw stats but non raiders can be enticed to either tackle raids at its prime or after it gets its weekly lockout removed to collect unique mods on raid gear and have it be relevant for a few more patches. Raiders can still tune their character gear for their bis needs (even more so, I'd wager). Glamour focused players wouldn't be affected because it'll essentially be the same routine, except the gear they got from farming yesterday's raid is still as viable as today's raid gear. Players that play multiple jobs can also gear up those multiple jobs through out the hw expansion/lvl 60 cap and have them be at near full strength without ever feeling like they're constantly a few steps behind and chasing after 6 month ilvl increases.

Note: I don't see this style of gearing and content structure being implemented and I won't try fight you for it so don't bother arguing with me how the current one note way is better for everyone. You win.