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

[TaleraRistain]

I think you would just see people bail until they get something they can still do quick and fast. You see it now with Aurum Vale. People bail on that in seconds.

[YukikoKurosawa]

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

Power creep is not really a thing in this game though. Due to every instance having by-default level and itemlevel syncing (always syncing down your iLevel to a specific number which is generally the highest possible item level for that instances specific character level), it's impossible for it to get easier with subsequent expansions. A level 90 dragoon who ques for Tam Tara hard is just as powerful as a level 50 dragoon who ques for it. They're both synced to the same item level and have the skillset while in said instance. It's quite literally impossible for content to get easier with new level caps due to how this game is designed.

If you're noticing anything changed it's due to either the stat squish messing up the numbers somehow or the devs manually nerfing specific content (which they definitely have as I mentioned).

[Jettinson]

This is more of a case of old content where classes, stats etc behaved way different. Also stuff like TP not existing anymore
Even at ShB expansion old content still felt like piece of cake unless you had players who have their gear slighrly lower level, new people or get hit by stuff or such. Cutter's Cry final boss can still 2 shot you, Stone Vigil's final boss hurts and more stuff.


Like looking at old stuff it feels i am watching different games. You still see old debuffs applies by enemies in previous expansions: piercing, slash etc

Still as I mentioned in another thread, I only had A1N feeling the stat change to be weird as we cannot steamroll Oppressor without risking to not dps fast the self detonation as now we tend to do the mechanic "properly"

[CaptainLagbeard]

For solo duties in quests, you do get a buff that gives you a whole bunch of power-ups, you can manually remove the buff by clicking it making them a lot more appropriate in challenge.

For dungeons and trials, really the best you can get is doing it with min ilvl, but that requires a full team and with no guarantees that the others haven't done it a thousand times and will likely know all the mechanics making the bosses much less threatening...


I suppose the best way one could really experience the difficulty as close to what it originally was as possible would be to get 4 new players to play together as a group.. But that wouldn't account for the occasional Trial.

[Darthgummibear]

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.

It's not just mechanics knowledge, the bosses are dying too fast to the point where you are missing entire phases of boss fights. People new to the game are going to be missing out on learning a lot of game mechanics until the content smacks them in the face with a brick wall.

Someone going through pre-ew MSQ right now is basically going to faceroll through the entire game and won't have the experience most people would need to navigate EW fights. You think player sentiment towards people who struggle is bad now? Wait a couple months.

[PangTong]

Power creep is not really a thing in this game though. Due to every instance having by-default level and itemlevel syncing (always syncing down your iLevel to a specific number which is generally the highest possible item level for that instances specific character level), it's impossible for it to get easier with subsequent expansions. A level 90 dragoon who ques for Tam Tara hard is just as powerful as a level 50 dragoon who ques for it. They're both synced to the same item level and have the skillset while in said instance. It's quite literally impossible for content to get easier with new level caps due to how this game is designed.

If you're noticing anything changed it's due to either the stat squish messing up the numbers somehow or the devs manually nerfing specific content (which they definitely have as I mentioned).

With each new expansion they adjust damage scaling at lower levels. They do this because the game is only designed to be balanced at max level when everyone has their full toolkit. The further you go back in levels, the less and less of your rotation you have. A level 60 job in Endwalker is vastly different to a level 60 job in Heavensward. Since different jobs gain new actions at different levels, a job's damage output and relative balance can change drastically from one level to the next based on what they have unlocked. To compensate for this and make sure that no jobs are too weak in old content after expansion adjustments, they just crank up your damage and defense at low levels so that everyone is overpowered.

The issue is that they went massively overboard and it only gets worse and worse with each new expansion. ARR and Heavensward content is pure faceroll now, bosses die long before you see all their mechanics and what mechanics you do see can be largely ignored because the damage they deal is so non-threatening.

It's not simply a matter of changes to the way jobs work, or new expansions granting players more DPS potential with things like removal of TP, tank stance, cleric stance, etc. Those things contribute sure, but it cannot explain the (in some cases) tripling or more of damage output in the same content at the same item level, or how a mechanic which would one-shot you back then only deals a tiny fraction of your HP now. This is even comparing the same ilvl and no echo.

In Syrcus Tower, even if you go in at min ilvl no echo, Glasya Labolas will still die before he does his platform mechanic, even with an average group. The only way to see it is if you have less than a full alliance or people are doing bad damage on purpose. In Brayflox's Longstop, until around Shadowbringers you HAD to pull the final boss out of the poison pools to beat him even with a group of max ilvl synced players. Now you can simply outdamage the regen. In Sohm Al, you can kill the second boss long before he summons the green slime, and even if the slime explodes it will not wipe the party like it would originally. Most dungeon bosses pre-Stormblood have entire mechanic patterns that you now never see because they just die so fast.\

This is not even mentioning how they for some reason do not implement ilvl sync in alliance raids, normal raids, or endgame trials, even though they DO use ilvl sync for dungeons, capping you to the max ilvl for the patch the dungeon was released in. When you get old raids in roulettes, the first tier raids are ridiculously easy while the third tier raids still have a little bite to them. Even within the same expansion, by the end of the expac the challenge of the initial raids and trials is all but gone. By 5.5 players were skipping mechanics in Copied Factory. There's just no need for it.

With the game now having so much content in this trivialized category it has become honestly dreadful to run roulettes, barely any better than sitting in cutscenes in Praetorium in terms of engagement.

[Shialan]

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.

Sometimes I wonder if these threads are from people who truly don't know how to play their class or just do everything on autopilot.


Dungeons were always really easy content. Yes, even their hard mode or expert roulette. As long as you know how to actually play. That includes that you know how to recognize and do mechanics and how to execute your rotation.

[Jybril]

Sometimes I wonder if these threads are from people who truly don't know how to play their class or just do everything on autopilot.


Dungeons were always really easy content. Yes, even their hard mode or expert roulette. As long as you know how to actually play. That includes that you know how to recognize and do mechanics and how to execute your rotation.

They were yea, but now they're pathetically faceroll easy. You can pretty much wallpull in Sastasha, CopperB and, Tam from what I happened
to roulette in. You barely even seen phases anymore unless they force you in it.
This game is already piss easy, I think people are just tired of it being so easy it's boring af now.

[Darthgummibear]

In Syrcus Tower, even if you go in at min ilvl no echo, Glasya Labolas will still die before he does his platform mechanic,

I didn't even know that mechanic was supposed to be a thing until just now...case in point, I guess.

[Shialan]

They were yea, but now they're pathetically faceroll easy. You can pretty much wallpull in Sastasha, CopperB and, Tam from what I happened
to roulette in. You barely even seen phases anymore unless they force you in it.
This game is already piss easy, I think people are just tired of it being so easy it's boring af now.

But that's what I am saying: they always were faceroll easy. You always could wallpull in Sastasha, CopperBell and Tam-Tara. Nothing really changed in that regard.