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

[Shougun]

I think it's important to make things accessible, but that means multiple things and there are many ways to do it....

Say for example in some situations you might slow the power creep but increase the reward, such that instead of having to spam something 20 times as a god you only have to do it like twice but it's still kind of challenging. I also don't mind the idea of aside tools, like maybe you can spend tomestones on echo charms that give you some big boost to echo power. Although another thought is power creep is more to do with survive-ability over damage, so you have more room to make more mistakes but it doesn't really do too much to your damage (meaning you'll still see a lot of mechanics, and certain 'must do' mechanics are still around that area). Perhaps more so in the HP than defense department, so healers still have something to heal lol, though then one may consider some change to DRK anti-buster (else non-whm healers would think even less of that skill lol). Lots of cause and effect to consider when messing with overall balance / pacing...

To me, ... to me.. I am aware some will disagree, I think it's important that over time a huge variety of players can access a majority of the game and in a reasonable format. I believe that is one of the reasons why FFXIV is doing so well, as the game often shows that it knows there is a crowd that needs to be pushed but also spends a lot of time to ensure those who are either time sensitive or not wanting to (or unable, for sometimes legit reasons) cannot perform to a certain level can also enjoy great extents of the game without it being 'work'. A thing that I believe FFXIV does better than WoW, with less FOMO / this game is your work time grinds (at least long term, short term FFXIV may have them but there is a certain group of players that do want ... 'that').

There are a lot of ways to do that though. Currently I do like we have the rolling mountain where it starts more focused to those who play a lot and stay on schedule for their gear, and then difficultly slides down over time, such that you can start to quad, duo, and then even solo old content - and maybe it takes a little while but in general you can envision doing something in FFXIV if you wanted, and given some variable of time, not having to make it your life's work to accomplish that task specifically (and blue mage helps with that too). I would not want to see that concept die, but maybe we can see tweaks here and there to help tighten the sheets on the bed when possible.

When or if the walls to data centers is made more thin it might be possible to have that sort of 'difficultly' system I guess akin to what WoW has, but IMO it shouldn't have different rewards... Just a modifications to the content that they have similar time to reward ratios (so the 'casual DF' would be easier / faster, but maybe you have to do it a few times to get the gear you wanted or to level; meanwhile, in the challenge df things would consistently be hard regardless of gear or group comp, content would definitely be slower due to added difficultly, but you'd not have to do it as many times). I personally don't really buy into the whole difficultly slider should = exclusive rewards thing, just rates that can offset the time investment.

For example many, if not most to my memory, games that are single player have difficulty sliders but you get nothing for making it harder except if that is more 'fun' for you-- I think the whole incorporation of exclusive rewards makes the lower parts of the 'slider' less fun and pushes players to do something they didn't want to do or just not appreciate what they did as much. Of course if you had them exactly the same reward rate but different challenge, since this is a multiplayer game and so time rate is important component, then the people who wanted the top would feel compelled to pick lower for better time value, and this is my point in not introducing systems that damage the choice of how you'd like to enjoy the game. So there shouldn't be exclusives to the 'mythic'+ versions of the same content someone else is running, just a different rate to adjust to approximately make it a similar reward rate for enjoying the game the way you want to enjoy it. I am aware that SE currently handles challenge slider by making new content all together, there are particularly important differences from a slider and new content all together though and is pertinent difference for this thread lol.

(I do appreciate getting to revisit an area, I think it's cool, and I also like the rolling mountain system they've got currently but I do like engaging in ideas to maybe improve while also not damaging other people's stuff at the same time (so making everything harder everywhere, non-optionally, depending by how much, could be a negative to a lot of players- obviously a 1% difference wouldn't really be meaningful disruption but I doubt people here are mentally picturing 1% harder and they're happy). Edit: to incorporate Melorie's post below, I am speaking harder from the stand point of it's currently easy. If you make it so stuff doesn't get so easy, then it is therefore harder. So I see what they're saying but I stand by in essence this will make the game harder if we just instantly hit the game with an anti-creep hammer.

[Melorie]

I'd much rather the game be too easy, but easy enough that people can do almost all of the content any time they want, rather freely, than have half the content be locked off behind walls of "well if I don't have a group of personal friends who want to run every every piece of content, I guess I'll just never be able to do anything but the most recent stuff." like what happens to so many other online games that lock people in to running things as they were.

The point is that FFXIV was always like you're describing. Even with content on-release. You never had to get a pre-made to do a dungeon or a normal mode trial or a 24-man, unless you wanted to. Much like you don't have to do this with Endwalker. Making things easier isn't a question of making things accessible because they already are, always have been. And there is a huge difference between something easy and something extremely boring, that barely makes you pay attention to your screen - which is what will happen with a huge chunk of the content of the game if they don't pay attention how syncing/power creep works.

I'll sound like a broken-record but again, OP didn't even ask to make things harder... They asked to not make content that is already easy and already made to be accessible even easier.

[Dewslam]

The point is that FFXIV was always like you're describing. Even with content on-release. You never had to get a pre-made to do a dungeon or a normal mode trial or a 24-man, unless you wanted to. Much like you don't have to do this with Endwalker. Making things easier isn't a question of making things accessible because they already are, always have been. And there is a huge difference between something easy and something extremely boring, that barely makes you pay attention to your screen - which is what will happen with a huge chunk of the content of the game if they don't pay attention how syncing/power creep works.

What's considered easy or not is entirely subjective, though. What you might consider too boring might be challenging to other people. At the launch of Endwalker only around 20% of the userbase had the eden mount from savage eden (it's 16% now, I'm guessing from the influx of new players) and about half that number had all the extreme mounts. Less than that had Demi-Ozma and even less have Bozja's cerberus. The vast majority of players aren't people who do the hard or end-game content in this game, and the developers have been pretty open that they cater to a more casual demographic. Meanwhile we have people in this very thread demanding square remove unsynched and other things to force people to play how they want them to play because the game isn't hard enough, in their opinion.

The smallest percentage of players in this game not only have some of the most hilariously bad opinions, but they're terribly vocal about them.

[Melorie]

What's considered easy or not is entirely subjective, though. What you might consider too boring might be challenging to other people. At the launch of Endwalker only around 20% of the userbase had the eden mount from savage eden (it's 16% now, I'm guessing from the influx of new players) and about half that number had all the extreme mounts. Less than that had Demi-Ozma and even less have Bozja's cerberus. The vast majority of players aren't people who do the hard or end-game content in this game, and the developers have been pretty open that they cater to a more casual demographic. Meanwhile we have people in this very thread demanding square remove unsynched and other things to force people to play how they want them to play because the game isn't hard enough, in their opinion.

The smallest percentage of players in this game not only have some of the most hilariously bad opinions, but they're terribly vocal about them.

I agree that easy is subjective. But my point stands that a lot of the content of the game is already released with being accessible in mind, they're released that way, the majority of the players don't need a pre-made for any of Endwalker's normal content. Why do you need to have bosses melting, not even being able to see mechanics or barely getting to hear the music theme for it to be accessible? How is this fun and engaging? Why would I log in to play and do roulettes that are basically snooze-fests?
I'm a casual too, but I'm playing a video-game, a RPG. I don't want to go and defeat a boss that the history has been hyping up just to see it melt in front of me. I want to feel that progression is something that makes me feel engaged, and yet, unless I'm going into some particular fights, anything that's not end walker barely makes me pay attention.

You don't have to agree with min ilvl sync for everything, but asking the company to pay more attention to how sync and power creep is affecting overall content - specially since casual progression is based on doing old content 99% of the time is quite far from "make everything hard to the point you need a pre-made". And has very little to do with wanting to stuff not being accessible because they. already. are.

People are turning a discussion about power creep and balancing sync into how we need easy things in the game, when that's not even the question.

[Erza_Scarlets]

They have options for min ilv etc in the duty finder. No reason to force everyone to do everything min ilv everytime they want to do a roulette or old dungeon/raid/trial/etc. Lot of the time for wondrous tails its easier to do all the lower ones solo and only do the higher ones with party. If you want to do content when its harder or at its hardest do it as it comes out instead of complaining its easy 10 yrs after its been out. Dunno about other people, but i would rather not be doing x or y dungeon/raid/trial for the 600th time at min ilv 5-7yrs later because someone thinks everyone should suffer.

[Vahlnir]

They have options for min ilv etc in the duty finder. No reason to force everyone to do everything min ilv everytime they want to do a roulette or old dungeon/raid/trial/etc. Lot of the time for wondrous tails its easier to do all the lower ones solo and only do the higher ones with party. If you want to do content when its harder or at its hardest do it as it comes out instead of complaining its easy 10 yrs after its been out. Dunno about other people, but i would rather not be doing x or y dungeon/raid/trial for the 600th time at min ilv 5-7yrs later because someone thinks everyone should suffer.

The only place I'd like to see them retune honestly is the CT raids. Yes, they've been out a while, but it's doing everyone a disservice by letting them continue to be braindead easy. I've just about had it with getting those through the roulette as they currently stand. I've actually been debating not running that roulette at all anymore.

[EaMett]

Adding to this thread because I know popular threads get at least some visibility with the devs. The old content is a slog and really not inspiring. I'd be ashamed to pull a friend through it in its current state. You just run and stuff dies. Incredibly boring and not a good representation of the game.
Not asking for it to be hard in any way. Just make it "easy" right now it's not even that.

[negiman4]

Stuff that. Adjustments definitely need to be made in regards to low level content. Things like WHM having literally no MP recovery tools aside from Lucid Dreaming, no Thin Air to take the edge off their absolutely abysmal mp economy, and a single off global heal with a 3 minute cooldown. Compare that to SCH casually restoring 20% of it's MP every minute with Aetherflow while also having 3 charges of Lustrate, 2 regens in the form of Eos and Whispering Dawn, and two mitigation abilities in Fey Illumination and Sacred Soil. Or SGE regenerating 700 MP for every Addersgall ability it uses (with a charge being restored every 20 seconds) while being able to regen whoever they apply Kardia to by attacking, while also sharing similar abilities to SCH. Or AST being able to regenerate a ridiculous amount of MP just for drawing cards and using Astrodyne in addition to having Lucid Dreaming, while also having lower MP costs on their healing spells (which are quite literally copy pastes of WHM's I should add) on top of an Essential Dignity every minute and Synastry which heals the target for 40% of someone else's heal or heals the target for a whopping 140% if directly healed.

Compare all that to WHM not even having access to Lilies until reaching level 52 in HW, tools to help cover it's crippling MP debt in Assize and Thin Air, or an off global heal that doesn't have a hilariously large cooldown in Tetragrammaton. WHM is definitely accessible, in the sense that it's the first damn healer the game lets you choose.

I hate to say it, but you might just be bad at pre-lily WHM. Linked below is a clear video of me playing WHM in t13 min il/no echo. T13 is the hardest hitting fight in ARR and very healer intensive. With 50 WHM, the name of the game is precast/freecure. Cure 1 is much more powerful at 50 than at later levels, so it's completely viable and even preferable at 50 to fish for freecure procs. If you're running out of mp, you're relying too heavily on cure 2 and medica 2. 50 WHM plays differently than 52 WHM. It's poorly designed for sure because new players have to unlearn everything once they hit 52. But low level WHM is easy.

Video: https://youtu.be/VRLmRkhuZAs

[Ath192]

I 100% agree with this statement. We all know, and just look at the recent queue drop off, that the majority of the player base plays the game on release, beats the content and unsubs…

The evidence is more than obvious. So clearly the content is easy enough for the majority of the player base to get through it quickly and then leave the game. So it begs the question why are they making it even easier every expansion? It’s not like casuals had a problem beating it originally. It has become incredibly boring.

Like brain dead boring.

[AnnRam]

I 100% agree with this statement. We all know, and just look at the recent queue drop off, that the majority of the player base plays the game on release, beats the content and unsubs…

The evidence is more than obvious. So clearly the content is easy enough for the majority of the player base to get through it quickly and then leave the game. So it begs the question why are they making it even easier every expansion? It’s not like casuals had a problem beating it originally. It has become incredibly boring.

Like brain dead boring.

The game its so easy that you don't even need farm or think about getting some gear.

-Zones are empty with nothing to see or discover besides quests that are already located on the map
-Enemies don't drop anything valuable and they are annoying to the point that you dont want to even kill anything just run away.
-Same dungeon design since 10 years go ; corridor - > mob -> corridor -> mob -> boss repeat.
-No more hard dungeons, there is nothing else to do in a dungeon after finishing for first time.
-Mounts are useless outside of Frontlines/Diadem etc. SE sells you tons of mounts via Moogle Shop but can't even use them on cities like Sharlayan/Crystarium etc.
-FC or guild system wasted completely, no clan wards, ladders etc, just a ghost chat because people gather on Discord channels.
-No legendary weapons/armors etc outside of Relic (which SE always makes sure to make them the most annoying/boring way so 80% of the player base just wait 2 months until nerfs) can't get anything fancy unless you are <The Legend>
-No skill build
-No stats build
-Not an unique or fancy enchant system.
-Limited Armoury chest besides including more and more items every patch.
-Character creator still the same than ARR, hair clipping even on premium items ( $$) , unfinished races can't wear hats (Viera etc)
-0 interactive open world, feels like a game from 2005, just walk/run to point A-B-C and return.
-Gathering system dull/boring/tedious, billions of rocks/plants etc but they still appearing as shiny objects after 3-4 expansions and tons of patches (1 decade )
-SE refuses to improve the base game and just add the same content (a bit of MSQ, 1 dungeon, 1 raid or 4 mini raid, raise and repeat)
-Economy- money (Thanks RMT) useless besides buying clothes for glam or items for the house you are never gonna get.

I could go all the night but meh.