Old content has become so easy that it is no longer fun

[PangTong]

See title. Lack of ilvl syncing and general power creep and tuning adjustments with expansions have rendered pretty much all content pre-Stormblood into a joke, and even Stormblood and Shadowbringers content has suffered a fair bit. I had hoped the stat squish might address this somewhat, but it's just as bad if not worse.

Dungeon packs die in 10 seconds and the bosses don't fare much better. Trial fights which are supposed to be epic story moments get deleted before you even get to see half their mechanics or hear half their music. There is no damage even if you fail mechanics, pretty much the only way to die is Doom or if you fall off the edge of the arena.

I dread signing up for any roulette besides Expert these days because probably 80% of the time I will be put into a piece of old content that was once fun but is now a dull chore because of poor scaling. At that point I have to wonder if I'm playing the game to enjoy myself or simply to farm currency.

It's not only a bad experience for veteran players, it's a poor representation of the game for new players. They have to play through hundreds of hours of content before seeing a fight that doesn't instantly fall over before it can do anything. If you don't already know what the mechanics do it's impossible to tell how they work because there's almost no penalty for failing them, and even if you somehow die the rest of the party will just clear without you. You can't learn anything about the game.

Min ilvl helps but is not perfect, and not an option for the vast majority of players. You cannot sign up for roulettes min ilvl and even if you could, few would do so without increased reward.

I don't think it's fair to say "just do Extreme/Savage then" either. The vast majority of content in the game is normal mode and there's no reason it shouldn't be fun. Everyone has reason to run that content, not just players who don't do Extreme/Savage. Trivial content isn't fun. If people want content to remain trivial so it's faster to farm, they may as well just implement a system where you wait some given amount of time and then have the rewards given to you automatically.

I humbly ask the devs to do something. Even just dialling up the enemy HP on old content by a bit would go a long way. Implementing ilvl scaling for old trials and normal raids would be nice too. If you're worried about people complaining about their duties taking longer, feel free to increase the rewards by an appropriate amount too.

[Jin-]

I'm replaying the game with my brother who is new to the game and honestly I'm embarrassed to show him the content around. Zero difficulties and most bosses die before the mechanics even get to play out. Power creep is real sadly. It was already really bad in ShB but now it's on another level.

We are midway of HW

[Raskbuck]

I agree with this. I guess I can understand why they do it, but I still wish old content wasn't laughable easy now. I ran the 5.3 trial not too long ago, and it was a bit disappointing how quick the boss died. I still remember how fun the fight was when it first released.

One of my fondest memories is struggling with Shinryu when it first came out. We wiped a lot, and it was a tough fight to do in the DF, but man I had a blast. It's part of the reason why running content when it's new and fresh out of the oven is so fun for me personally.

[FoxyAreku]

I agree.

I always laugh when people praise this game for 'keeping its content relevant'. No, it actually hasn't, over half the game is completely trivialized to the point most of the mechanics don't even play out, especially bad in content that was already easy to begin with when it was current.

I saw a youtube video of someone comparing how things used to be to now, using Ultima Weapon as an example. That fight used to last 4 minutes in praetorium, now it lasts on average 55 seconds and you don't even get to the best part of the song.

It's embarrassing.

[Alestorm]

The thing is it's partly because we know the older content like the back of our hand so the challenge is long gone and the stat squish likely did it no favors since it's usually the low level content that get effected the most by these sorts of changes.

[FoxyAreku]

The thing is it's partly because we know the older content like the back of our hand so the challenge is long gone and the stat squish likely did it no favors since it's usually the low level content that get effected the most by these sorts of changes.

Knowledge has absolutely nothing to do with it. Knowing the fight doesn't make AoEs that would kill me when the content came out only do 20% of my HP instead, nor does it make the bosses die 300% faster.
That's not an exaggeration btw, this is the actual numbers for some of these fights.

[van_arn]

Imagine a sprout's disappointment with all of ARR leading to Praetorium or all of Heavensward leading to Thordan. Yeah, the older stuff needs to be moved from "free" to "easy." What should be a climactic fight is just a free anticlimax.

[YukikoKurosawa]

They've definitely nerfed some mechanics in older content. Mustadio's ability where he drops giant squares onto the raid used to one shot you prior to Endwalker, now it only takes out half your hp.

For the most part, though, I haven't noticed anything different.

[Akiudo]

Knowledge has absolutely nothing to do with it. Knowing the fight doesn't make AoEs that would kill me when the content came out only do 20% of my HP instead, nor does it make the bosses die 300% faster.
That's not an exaggeration btw, this is the actual numbers for some of these fights.

yea, sadly power creep is very real, i remember back when i started in ARR even normal mode ifrit actually hurt if you messed up mechanics. like it wasn't hard, but standing in the bad hurt. nowadays the whole fight takes a minute even with item level sync and i could stand in every aoe the boss uses during the whole fight and i most likely still wouldn't need a single heal...

[Sylve]

I agree.

I always laugh when people praise this game for 'keeping its content relevant'. No, it actually hasn't, over half the game is completely trivialized to the point most of the mechanics don't even play out, especially bad in content that was already easy to begin with when it was current.

I saw a youtube video of someone comparing how things used to be to now, using Ultima Weapon as an example. That fight used to last 4 minutes in praetorium, now it lasts on average 55 seconds and you don't even get to the best part of the song.

It's embarrassing.

Back at ARR launch period, we didn't have Direct Hit nor was it as commonplace for Healers to just be full blown DPS (There were those that did throw some GCDs on DPS, but MP management was a a thing, so it was more a surprise to see one doing it rather than the norm for a long time, till we overgeared everything), additionally Tank damage was abysmal. Not only did their Tank stance actively reduce damage dealt, but their actions had bonus Enmity in place of potency.

So we have gone from 4 proper DPS and 2 nerfed damage tanks with 2 healers not spending every GCD on damage to 8 DPS with a whole extra damage stat.

And youre confused why content designed in one era is made easier when the jobs have evolved past that design?