I might of figured something out today. Game too easy for leveling duties?

[TaleraRistain]

You could only do this if you removed dungeons from the MSQ. This game has a large casual playerbase. The optional dungeons can have challenge, but not the MSQ. And I think everyone in this thread is forgetting that one of the Expert dungeons is an MSQ dungeon (Baelsar's Wall). There is nothing that will kill your desire to play more than finding yourself at a brick wall because you can't get through a dungeon. Keeper of the Lake when it first came out nearly made my husband give up on the game entirely. I have slowly been luring him back. All making the MSQ dungeons harder is going to do is drive away a large portion of the playerbase. Then, it will either become a niche game like good old EverQuest, or die.

[Silica-chan]

The optional dungeons can have challenge, but not the MSQ.

I think Steps of Faith gave SE enough information that the MSQ duties should be "easy". Therefore I don't think we have to worry about MSQ getting to hard for newcomers anytime soon

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You could only do this if you removed dungeons from the MSQ. This game has a large casual playerbase. The optional dungeons can have challenge, but not the MSQ. And I think everyone in this thread is forgetting that one of the Expert dungeons is an MSQ dungeon (Baelsar's Wall). There is nothing that will kill your desire to play more than finding yourself at a brick wall because you can't get through a dungeon. Keeper of the Lake when it first came out nearly made my husband give up on the game entirely. I have slowly been luring him back. All making the MSQ dungeons harder is going to do is drive away a large portion of the playerbase. Then, it will either become a niche game like good old EverQuest, or die.

Problem is, this has led to dungeons being trivial. Many people neither gear nor learn a proper rotation because the game never incentivizes it. Xelphatol and Gubal were such a joke at release, you could speed run both in lore gear. The only pull that proved a little challenging below a certain threshold was the last one before the owl boss. No offense to your husband, but I feel Expert dungeons should be reasonably challenging at release and gradually become easier as our ilvl advances. These are things intended to last throughout a patch cycle yet I only get to feel like an actual tank/healer if I/the tank pulls the entire room. Baby pulls? I don't even keep to pull in tank stance/heal, period. Such is why dungeons, in my opinion, ought to have a tier system. Leveling should always be the most inviting while Expert demand more without going to any extremes. Once the next patch launches, those old dungeons are now decidedly easier and the cycle repeats. If this means removing them from the MSQ, go right ahead.

[TaleraRistain]

Or don't put MSQ dungeons in Expert. So then everyone can run Sohm Al HM to their heart's content and they won't have to worry about having trivial MSQ dungeons muddying their roulettes.

[Ama_Hamada]

Hmmm I can support having 2 outside dungeons being harder and not linked to MSQ, this will allow it to feel like "expert" then?

Also any comment on my last post on the idea of people may quit if things are too easy and get board?

[NolLacnala]

I think Steps of Faith gave SE enough information that the MSQ duties should be "easy". Therefore I don't think we have to worry about MSQ getting to hard for newcomers anytime soon

The issue is that this trickles down into each patch's story expert dungeon, resulting in Netflix mode. And because it's the story required dungeon, roulette is weighted towards it. Derpytower being the worst offender with Xelph a close second.

[Talraen]

Problem is, this has led to dungeons being trivial. Many people neither gear nor learn a proper rotation because the game never incentivizes it. Xelphatol and Gubal were such a joke at release, you could speed run both in lore gear. The only pull that proved a little challenging below a certain threshold was the last one before the owl boss. No offense to your husband, but I feel Expert dungeons should be reasonably challenging at release and gradually become easier as our ilvl advances. These are things intended to last throughout a patch cycle yet I only get to feel like an actual tank/healer if I/the tank pulls the entire room. Baby pulls? I don't even keep to pull in tank stance/heal, period. Such is why dungeons, in my opinion, ought to have a tier system. Leveling should always be the most inviting while Expert demand more without going to any extremes. Once the next patch launches, those old dungeons are now decidedly easier and the cycle repeats. If this means removing them from the MSQ, go right ahead.

The way the game is designed, the part I bolded is actually very hard to pull off. The dungeons are reasonably hard at the minimum item level, but people are generally well above that minimum by the time the dungeon debuts. They could raise the minimum, but it's already pretty time consuming getting to that minimum for a new player, especially since they can't run Expert roulettes. If they instead just make dungeons harder, they will be far too hard at minimum item level, particularly for the new players who are likely to be at it. The solution probably lies in lowering the relative power of tomestone gear and slowing the overall power progression, but do we really even want that?

As for leveling being the most inviting, how do you propose to achieve that? Those dungeons are no easier or harder than any other, at the minimum item level. The difference is, they are capped much closer to that minimum. Do you just want all leveling dungeons to be trivially easy? I'd actually argue most of them already are pretty easy, and the "difficulty" comes mostly from people forgetting that they're not at the level cap and have to actually play their job to succeed. Making them easier will just make that worse. My last few leveling dungeons have featured every single other person going AFK for minutes at a time without saying anything, let's not encourage that any more than it is already.

Or don't put MSQ dungeons in Expert. So then everyone can run Sohm Al HM to their heart's content and they won't have to worry about having trivial MSQ dungeons muddying their roulettes.

Hmmm I can support having 2 outside dungeons being harder and not linked to MSQ, this will allow it to feel like "expert" then?

It's pretty clear we're getting two dungeons per patch. If one of those is in the MSQ, then we'd end up with an Expert roulette of one dungeon. Plus, they want to make sure the MSQ dungeon has short queues, and Expert roulette is (presumably) the best place to put it to ensure that. Also, the situation was the same in 2.0 which didn't have any MSQ dungeons until late in the patch cycle. I don't think the dungeons being in the MSQ is why they are the difficulty they are, it's just a good reason not to change that.

Also any comment on my last post on the idea of people may quit if things are too easy and get board?

On balance, it makes more sense to let good players get bored and quit than to let mediocre players get frustrated and quit. There are two reasons for this: first, the good players already like the game and might come back at some point, while the mediocre players are liable to quit before they get into the game in the first place. Second, there are more mediocre players than good ones. While it's not fantastic for those of us who actually care about being competent players, the developers are clearly incentivized to appeal to the majority.

[Confidence_Trick]

Another pointless battle in a wholly futile war.

[Sebazy]

SE need to do a better job of A) Educating the player base and B) having pre/early endgame content that forces them to pay attention.

I would genuinely love to see a typical current day expert roulette pug try to get through Amdapor Keep in launch day gear. To say it would be a shock to them would be the understatement of the year.

[dragonseth07]

snip

I can't relate, and it's puzzling.

When I've come across games in the past that were too hard for me, I never said "Oh, I should quit." I practiced and got better. Why would you give up at the first sign of challenge?