I’ve met many players from all over the world and have been hearing requests ...

[Airget]

Maybe I did understood it wrong. But as far I remember, these requests were not for making the onliest raid tier harder.

It were more about the baby easy content beside this one single raid tier in the game. In early days (2.0) Amdapor Keep was my favorite dungeon. Also the first crystal tower was fun in my eyes. But every content after that got more and more easy. That is one point the people are complaining about. Its not about the raid. Its about the other content.

Content didn't get easier, our IL became to high. First time you entered AK in 2.0 you have maybe IL 45-50 gear, yet by doing AK you would slowly get i60 and i70 gear. Then on top of it weekly you would slowly obtain i90 gear.

Compare the difficulty of content when you do it at i45, or i50, or i60 or i70 or i80 etc etc and it's easy to see how an extra 10 in gear does indeed make content that much easier to manage.

[Tint]

Content didn't get easier, our IL became to high. First time you entered AK in 2.0 you have maybe IL 45-50 gear, yet by doing AK you would slowly get i60 and i70 gear. Then on top of it weekly you would slowly obtain i90 gear.

Compare the difficulty of content when you do it at i45, or i50, or i60 or i70 or i80 etc etc and it's easy to see how an extra 10 in gear does indeed make content that much easier to manage.

exactly this is the problem. and it is a core-problem of the game. all the content wich is not the top-tier raid or probably ex-primals is designed for an ilvl you can reach without any weekly lockouts. so for 3.0 the max ilvl you could reach without weekly lockouts was 180 (with 3.1 it is 190 now. or 210, but i don't think diadem counts xD) and they designed the 3.1 content for that ilvl 180. that means: you can do all the content with your second, third, forth.... class. but it also means you are waaaay overgeared with your mainclass before the content is even released.

i finished both "expert" dungeons from 3.1 in minimum ilvl. and with ilvl 170 they are just perfect. not too hard, not brain-afk-steamroll.

so we have a problem here. if they release this content for ilvl 200 we have the perfect-balanced dungeons we want. but we can't enter them with our 2nd classes. and it seems the people like to play all the classes at the same time...

[Belhi]

exactly this is the problem. and it is a core-problem of the game. all the content wich is not the top-tier raid or probably ex-primals is designed for an ilvl you can reach without any weekly lockouts. so for 3.0 the max ilvl you could reach without weekly lockouts was 180 (with 3.1 it is 190 now. or 210, but i don't think diadem counts xD) and they designed the 3.1 content for that ilvl 180. that means: you can do all the content with your second, third, forth.... class. but it also means you are waaaay overgeared with your mainclass before the content is even released.

i finished both "expert" dungeons from 3.1 in minimum ilvl. and with ilvl 170 they are just perfect. not too hard, not brain-afk-steamroll.

so we have a problem here. if they release this content for ilvl 200 we have the perfect-balanced dungeons we want. but we can't enter them with our 2nd classes. and it seems the people like to play all the classes at the same time...

One possible solution would be to expand the feature already in game that allows you to set your ilvl to the minimum for the dungeon. Perhaps have it so using that gives possibly bonuses to the rewards or perhaps the chance of a rare reward. Sort of like a gamble system for content.

That way people who want to breeze through on their roulettes can and people who want more of a challenge can form groups and set 'gambles' to make the dungeon harder but more rewarding.

[Tint]

One possible solution would be to expand the feature already in game that allows you to set your ilvl to the minimum for the dungeon. Perhaps have it so using that gives possibly bonuses to the rewards or perhaps the chance of a rare reward. Sort of like a gamble system for content.

That way people who want to breeze through on their roulettes can and people who want more of a challenge can form groups and set 'gambles' to make the dungeon harder but more rewarding.

i had the same idea. but: why should i downsync my character? i worked for my gear, i want to use it. if i have to downsync i have no use for ilvl 210 or even 190 gear. lol, i have of course no use for it now. and with 3.0 and the faster ilvl gain it even gets worse.

and FF14 is with it's 4 sub-stats not designed for a horizontal gear progression...

this game uses a gear-progression system wich is designed for a raid-based game. but don't offer those raids...

[Arashmin]

Yeah, going by what the players you're facing are saying is a whole different story than what the majority seeks. It's like political parties having private meetings among themselves and their most vested constituents, and then make decisions that obviously benefit the people they involved but then is often not good for everyone else. Instead of, like sane people, responding to the public's tone.

I think benefiting for down-syncing can be achieved in a way that would still be interesting for higher iLvl folk, perhaps a currency that you're awarded proportionally to the difficulty of the content and the percent of down-sync (with certain maximums in place, so for example despite being L210 it would treat you in L50 content as being at something like L150).