Tighten the ilvl sync for early trials/alliance raids/raids

[Frizze]

I always get antsy when I see these sorts of threads because one of the major issues this game has is that there is an obscene amount of instanced content that gets outdated more and more as the years pass.

In theory tightening the ilvl could seem like a good idea but the truth is, the average player won’t know wtf they’re doing and the complaints will skyrocket because instead of “it’s a face roll!” It will become “I shouldn’t be spending (excess) amount of time doing my dailies, fix this SE!!!”

This. Makes. Me. Want. It. Even. More. SO. MUCH. MORE. The "average" player wont know what to do? Then the "average" player needs to improve. Full stop. None of these fights have intricate or difficult mechanics. I was originally thinking a sync at around 85-90 for lab. Its a little higher then the loot that drops there so you can get a bit of a boost from higher then intended gear, but not outrageously so. But especially after reading "amount of time doing my dailies" now i am thinking that like 60 would be for the best. I would greatly like to "motivate" the people who think that way to change. They are the ones cheating the system to force lab and syrcus runs, so we need to fix this sync so they no longer benefit from said cheating. The runs should take longer, and if im being honest about what i would want then i think they probly should reward less exp for higher level players too. Once you hit 60, you should want void ark/wiping city/dun scaith. If your character has hit 70 you should be excited for alliance to send you to ivalice, not purposefully unequipping your gear to make sure it doesnt happen. The higher level runs have better glamour, they offer you the chance to practice and get better at using more of your classes kit. Why not also give more exp to incentivize them even more?

And in case im not being clear, im not saying any of these things about you specifically ramsesh. I dont know you or how you are. But your post about how certain people would complain reminds me what i think about certain people.

[ForteNightshade]

Gotta disagree. I'm fine with how it is. Yep, Crystal Tower is a faceroll. It's also required for MSQ now and has a LOT more new folks going through it. They have issues with the mechanics even when they're explained. They're going to. They're new. They don't have the practice at them that veterans have.

What practice to you think those new players get when they see me on Warrior eat every single mechanic, collecting vuln stacks and still not coming close to dying? In the case of Crystal Tower specifically, what practice do they get when bosses die so fast literally nothing happens? You can't practice without actually experiencing the mechanic. And you have no incentive to actually learn it if said mechanic barely grazes you. This is why the constant nerfs we've seen is such a shortsighted "solution" by the dev team.

All of that aside, if I were a new player, my excitement would go down pretty quick seeing supposedly big raids be utterly steamrolled so easily. In fact, a massive letdown for me back when I started was Thordan. Seeing everyone ignore mechanics and how little they actually hurt me made the whole encounter far less epic. Meanwhile, Shinryu and Hades, despite being "easy", are far more memorable to me.

[ItMe]

All of that aside, if I were a new player, my excitement would go down pretty quick seeing supposedly big raids be utterly steamrolled so easily.

I distinctly remember running the Crystal Tower raids for the first time and thinking "it's a good thing these are easy because I have no idea what I'm doing."
The Praetorium is basically just a big cinematic setpiece, and since Final Fantasy is known for those I never thought anything was strange or disappointing about Crystal Tower.
It's not a big deal that the older ones are a bit faceroll, especially since ARR isn't endgame anymore. There are a LOT of trials and raids in this game, and if people had to either study up on every one before going into them or be carried I think a lot more people would quit going through MSQ than we realize.

[Payadopa]

I wish we would have some challenge back. I hardly do roulettes because of this.

[Yuella]

Even Sastasha should be tightened to force people to do the mechanic. We used to do it. It's a fun little mechanic for new players to do.

[Vyrerus]

Honestly, we don't really need a huge iLvl nerf. We just need them to return alliance raid bosses to their old HP levels. I can't remember what patch it was, but they did a massive HP% nerf lowering every alliance raid's boss HP by like 33% or something. I still don't really remember why, but if they ever brought it back up, I can't tell.

I do wish that they'd at least stop nerfing the important mechanics. The Iron Giant in the Behemoth fight in LoTA not being able to scrap the comets you use as meteor shelters is pretty lame. Of course, what was happening when people first started to outgear it was, was that one tank would decide to be the tank for the Giant, and then everyone would ignore the Giant and zerg the Behemoth, leaving the tank to eventually die. Feels pretty bad to be that tank when the other 23 people are just stomping on the boss with no thought.

The Bone Dragon fight is also pretty annoying, since its main mechanic is ignored.

None of this was harder than later raids. It just required that people take a minute to communicate who's tanking what, and who needs to do what. People communicated back then, and the only reason the communication stopped is because it got so easy it was no longer required.

I'd also really like to see the full mechanic set on Glasyas Labiosa or whatever. I remember he had 3 adds that needed tanked, people actually had to stand in the little drones that pop up and feed his ultimate, and ya know, people had to leave the arena and go around on the hoppy pads. It was a fun fight.

Personally I'd love to see the HP values go back up, and I'd love it if they made the iLvl sync for the Crystal Towers series a mere 10 ilvls higher than the gear obtainable from the raid. That's more than reasonable, as everyone having that gear level let alliances that have good players actually skip with enough crits, while everybody else has little to no trouble getting by.

At the end of the day though, there is a ton of content to get through if you do try to do it all, as you go. I'm very much a proponent of everyone doing as much story and side story content as possible to fully see the world. Yet, if we do raise the stakes of all the old content, by the time they make it to the new content, they'll be wondering why so much was recycled. It serves SE in a way, to let us easily roflstomp old stuff, such that newer players don't experience repeat mechanics ad nauseum while they work their way through the game.

[Dzian]

Wait a little bit to see if they'll put out more detailed information about the upcoming stat squish. So far they have explicitly said that doing content at the intended level will still feel the same as it does now, but the new power curve will have the side effect of making unsyncked content harder because the relative power levels between cap levels will be smaller. Whether "level" means "character level" or "item level", one of the possible consequences we can extrapolate from this is that severely overgearing content should also be harder than it is now, since much of the power difference between character levels is attributable to the difference in available gear, and the power difference between item levels is most sharply seen within the iLv spread of a single cap level. So you might get what you're asking for as a side effect of the stat squish.

This is largely down to how the gap between ilevles grows exponentially the higher you go the bigger the difference just 10 ilevels can make.

Materia is the same. When 1 tier of materia is crit+20 and the next tier is critical +60. Thats a stonking difference.

But item level is going kinda crazy. If you trust the theory behind some of the calculators on the balance and stuff. Going from say 520 to 530 can be a pretty substantial gain of 2500-3000 dps. It's kinda crazy. Especially if you multiplied that across a full party.

[Rongway]

Materia is the same. When 1 tier of materia is crit+20 and the next tier is critical +60. Thats a stonking difference.

It's actually +40 and then +60. The +20 materias don't count, as they are specifically intended to be used for overmelding when the gear is maxed out on +40s.

[TaleraRistain]

They're not going to get practice with "mechanics matter" if things are so faceroll that six people can carry the other eighteen. They're also not going to learn mechanics without feedback. It's never new people's fault for being new, and if after the first wipe nobody ever takes the five seconds to type "face away from Mortal Gaze" or "stand in light circle to cleanse doom", repeated wipes are on the vets.

Hardly get the chance to. I had a WoD raid the other day with pretty much half new and while I and another person are trying a third time to go over things after wiping twice on the eye, Mr Ants in His Pants Dancer who had been early pulling everything just rushes in again. This isn't just old content either. I just ran the new Nier raid and it was speedrun city. The speedrun and rush mentality is why there is no communication in this game anymore. Even with things that *should* be communicated, no one is given the chance to.

[TaleraRistain]

What practice to you think those new players get when they see me on Warrior eat every single mechanic, collecting vuln stacks and still not coming close to dying? In the case of Crystal Tower specifically, what practice do they get when bosses die so fast literally nothing happens? You can't practice without actually experiencing the mechanic. And you have no incentive to actually learn it if said mechanic barely grazes you. This is why the constant nerfs we've seen is such a shortsighted "solution" by the dev team.

All of that aside, if I were a new player, my excitement would go down pretty quick seeing supposedly big raids be utterly steamrolled so easily. In fact, a massive letdown for me back when I started was Thordan. Seeing everyone ignore mechanics and how little they actually hurt me made the whole encounter far less epic. Meanwhile, Shinryu and Hades, despite being "easy", are far more memorable to me.

Their excitement goes down too when everyone bails after one wipe. I've been the person who stayed with new people many times to help rebuild and get them through things. It's demoralizing when all the veterans just leave because they can't be arsed to explain anything or help the new folks in any way. They just want their smooth run.