Quote Originally Posted by Tridus View Post
snip
I'd say the gap is pretty big, though perhaps not as bad as it was back in HW (I glimpsed a little bit of it in 3.56). I do feel like the last two dungeons ramped up the difficulty a little bit. I think the highest that the bar should get for casual players should be Shinryu. Anything higher than that would be hitting Savage territory, and that would do more harm than good, I feel. Fractal and Hells Lid are a pretty good step-up I think, because while they are still not absolutely dangerous, they will still punish you if you mess up. Byakko felt like an appropriate difficulty from Lakshmi (the orbs and dealing with Leg Sweep can be nasty if one doesn't pay attention). I've said it before, but rather than having mobs consisting of 5-6 enemies, I'd like to see unique mobs with mechanics. Something that actually requires more than just the same old stuff.

Of course, it has to be balanced, and ideally if Fractal and Hells Lid were to be the dungeons that started the trend of scaling difficulty, then it should continue into 5.0. Maybe by the end of that expansion, optional dungeon content can start to be tuned towards Shinryu (with balance in mind...don't want the devs to overtune the enemies.)