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

[Melorie]

lord give me patience

This has nothing to do with 6.0 existing or "doing something" to content, power creep is an old, on-going issue that's only going to get more apparent. I'm not sure why other people's experience are "living in another reality" while yours is the crystal clear truth. Perhaps you're the one living in a completely different reality and clearly have more difficulties than the majority of players - which mind you isn't a problem, but doesn't really excuse the issue from the thread from existing.

Calling anyone that doesn't feel engaged by at least a huge chunk of the game which is 80- content a person that plays with statics is such a stretch.

[YukikoKurosawa]

This has nothing to do with 6.0 existing or "doing something" to content, power creep is an old, on-going issue that's only going to get more apparent. I'm not sure why other people's experience are "living in another reality" while yours is the crystal clear truth. Perhaps you're the one living in a completely different reality and clearly have more difficulties than the majority of players - which mind you isn't a problem, but doesn't really excuse the issue from the thread from existing.

Calling anyone that doesn't feel engaged by at least a huge chunk of the game which is 80- content a person that plays with statics is such a stretch.

The thread is about older content having become significantly easier recently. I'm saying that I honest-to-god haven't noticed much fundamentality different since 6.0. In fact, in some cases things seem a bit harder. But I attritube this partially to being grouped with more sprouts than I was late ShB, which makes sense as the expansion has attracted a wave of new players. Which just begs further questions from me as to the experiences of the people in this thread. I have noticed certain things like one-shot mechanics in Ivalice raids no longer one-shotting (which I think is extremely stupid and should be reverted) At the same time, lvl 50 dungeons still have one-shot mechanics, so it's strange. But even in a group of non-sprouts nothing really seems to have changed, what is faceroll content now was faceroll content in ShB, what is challenging content now was challenging content in ShB.

If we're talking about content progressively getting less and less challenging since the game's release, than I would not be able to comment because I have no experiences with the game pre-ShB. All I am saying is whatever you're complaining about has not suddenly gotten worse with EW. Whatever I'm facerolling today I was facerolling throughout ShB. Or maybe I've just misinterpreted this thread.

[van_arn]

The thread is about older content having become significantly easier recently. I'm saying that I honest-to-god haven't noticed much fundamentality different since 6.0. In fact, in some cases things seem a bit harder. But I attritube this partially to being grouped with more sprouts than I was late ShB, which makes sense as the expansion has attracted a wave of new players. Which just begs further questions from me as to the experiences of the people in this thread. I have noticed certain things like one-shot mechanics in Ivalice raids no longer one-shotting (which I think is extremely stupid and should be reverted) At the same time, lvl 50 dungeons still have one-shot mechanics, so it's strange. But even in a group of non-sprouts nothing really seems to have changed, what is faceroll content now was faceroll content in ShB, what is challenging content now was challenging content in ShB.

If we're talking about content progressively getting less and less challenging since the game's release, than I would not be able to comment because I have no experiences with the game pre-ShB. All I am saying is whatever you're complaining about has not suddenly gotten worse with EW. Whatever I'm facerolling today I was facerolling throughout ShB. Or maybe I've just misinterpreted this thread.

It's been getting worse over time. Launch ARR content was easy to medium at release, and trivial now. Heavensward content was easy at release, trivial now. Stormblood content was easy at release, sliding to trivial now. Look at the first pull of Bardham's Mettle and the DOT bird. The Vault last boss and packs. Shinryu and Doma Castle. Have you ever failed the DPS check on demon wall in Amdapor Keep? I doubt it; it's been virtually impossible to fail for years. That boss ate parties at launch. Same with the stabby tonberries and the last boss in Wanderer's Palace. Speaking of the Wanderer's Palace, are you even aware the second boss has mechanics? Mechanics that would wipe parties?

Even some pulls in Endwalker are weakened compared to how they were under Shadowbringers-- off the top of my head some pulls of Holmninster Switch and the first pull of Dohn Mheg are noticeably easier than they were during Shadowbringers. They haven't fallen off the spectrum, but they're slipping. You certainly notice as a healer.

This problem compounds over time, so trivial encounters get more and more trivial until we're left with bosses that don't even get through half of their unique themes before they're dead. Praetorium is an extreme example of this, but the Sunken Temple of Qarn and Cutter's Cry might as well be deleted now. Brayflox Longstop used to eat unwary parties, but now it's just... mindless. Even if the dragon sits in the poison. You fail the mechanic of the fight and you still pass; do you see what I'm getting at? Have you ever had the luxury of enjoying a [hard] primal in ARR beyond the pretty sparkles?

I'm not wanting things to be made "hardcore." I'm simply wanting an enjoyable experience no matter what dungeon I end up in, and the current state of level sync either puts me in something easy (current expansion) or no longer worth my engagement.

[Jeeqbit]

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.

The stat squish has fixed a lot of it actually. I actually see mechanics in alex raids now and they actually matter, which for many years they didn't. I no longer have to feel awful at the skipped mechanics in A6 and A8 because they don't get skipped.

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.

Level 50/60/70 dungeon packs have always died this fast. Most leveling dungeon mobs still take ages to kill because of how they sync.

[Saidosha]

I'm inclined to look at this from my perspective of gaming experience with XI. During 75 cap, you were basically expected to do certain things a lot, and they weren't always faceroll easy on top of manpower management nightmares. As time went on, the drain was certainly real when/if you managed to get all you wanted out of a particular piece of content. Linkshells had a bad habit of trying to guilt trip people who also finished said content goals and possibly even kicked those who didn't keep coming for unreasonably long periods, nevermind personality clashes between members that could disincline helping progression. These weren't what I called good times, and if I found myself in a situation where I could solo something or do it with a smaller group of friends, it was vastly preferential than being enslaved by grind for the sake of it.

All of this reminds me of something I feel somewhat of a core RPG staple that gets lost when chasing a very specific difficulty, forcing level syncs, and other systems that strip players of power earned. What is the point of EXP and levels? What is the point of gear? When you take those things away "just because" it calls into question why they're even really needed to begin with. Overall, I find XIV's approach to perhaps be the most egalitarian acknowledgment of this reality by giving minimum ilvl and unsync options for those on the poles of the spectrum. The in-between of basic PUG DF encounters is otherwise remembering that, yeah, veteran players have better stuff. They earned a quicker run. The alternative is newbies never finding help because not many are going to want every encounter to basically be a savage learning party when it's 1-7 others who don't know what's up. And heaven forbid if you hadn't been in an area for a while and forgot things, too.

Are there deeper nuances like class rebalances, squishes, and such? Sure. Yet, I'm also inclined to say there's some exaggeration going on about how "easy" some things are. But similar to how SE eventually uncapped Chains of Promathia content in XI, allowing the ease of older content was essentially considered acceptable. The overall benefit of forcing new players to bang their head against the wall for dead-to-current-players content was not seen as a requirement for the delivery of related story content. Rather, catching up could be seen more as the priority. Not that I'd really say XI was good at that outside of the Abyssea era. Still, you couldn't expect everyone to have to run Dynamis for a year just for their shot at a coveted item as the community also began its decline due to the aforementioned attrition I inferred above paired with a shrinking population as more competition arose.


Do I think rolling Orbonne in your roulette instead of CT should reward a lot more? Absolutely. I'd even say the max ilvl should actually be raised a bit to chip at that temptation to bail (or ilvl cheese to avoid it entirely). Do I want the open world to be more rewarding as an alternative to EXP grinding? Most definitely. I'm also one of those people that believes MMO dungeons should actually take more of a Diablo-like approach with map randomization and mixing up enemy compositions and placement to encourage full clears while curbing the whole blind wall-to-wall mentality. DD/HoH is a pale imitation of what a truly robust system could be. Regardless, what I want and what is aren't in alignment, and how we got to where things are I can understand from the perspective of both a veteran MMOer and actually caring about the more casual player(s), not to be confused with skill-less players. We can even see part of that with Yoshi-P's "we're okay if you take a break from the game" philosophy. Being a hardcore, punishing MMO isn't on the table. Even being more midcore is iffy in the long-term. My own dislike of dungeon spamming certainly won't change if we just make them 25-to-whatever percent harder, but at this point, we're also beginning to dive deeper into why MMOs have grown stale as a genre.

[YukikoKurosawa]

You need to look at it from a larger timescale than just 5.0-6.0.

Ilvl might not be the answer, but potency and job changes certainly have killed the normal modes as time has gone on.

The issue isn’t that the game is easy — mom and dad are easy in the new expansion and slaughter sprouts left and right — it’s that too much of the game isn’t on the spectrum of difficulty until hundreds of hours in. Trivial.

You need to understand something........nobody wants to do hard content in a pug. Not that mindnumbing, literally-impossible-to-fail content is the right answer, but there's a sweet spot in the middle, wherein it's not extremely hard for a group of strangers but you still need to stay awake and follow the mechanics alongside performing your job correctly. Even the absolute easiest content (ignoring things that have been giga-nerfed like Cape Westwind, Castrum, Prae, and Thordan) still requires you to be awake and do the mechanics at the very least. Which, when having to deal with coordinating with a group full of strangers, that I find is often high enough level of engagement for me. If I want to be really challenged I'll either seek out people doing extremes or savages via PF with min item level/no echo.....or play a single player game, better yet.

However, you are complaining about max-item level normal mode content being too easy. Not, content overall being too easy, but, the content literally designed to be easy. I dont know if you boosted, but there are extremes you can run, min ilevel no-echo starting from lvl 50. I enjoy doing them every now and then in party finder. So "there is no real challenge until hundreds of hours in" is just false. There are people in this thread saying they're quitting the game because the easiest-by-design content, at max item level, is too easy.

Like you're complaining because normal mode content at max item level isnt hard. Of course it isnt. Why would you think it would be. Not that I'm disagreeing even normal mode content could be more challenging, but you can only make it so hard before it becomes unpuggable, and I think they've already achieved about the best they can do for most of the content. Any easier and it'd be truly faceroll, any harder and it'd undoable with pugs. If you want an actual challenge it already exists from 50 and up, if you are willing to seek out likeminded players and use the tools available ingame to make it a challenge.

[Melorie]

You need to understand something........nobody wants to do hard content in a pug. Not that mindnumbing, literally-impossible-to-fail content is the right answer, but there's a sweet spot in the middle, wherein it's not extremely hard for a group of strangers but you still need to stay awake and follow the mechanics alongside performing your job correctly.

You need to understand that this is what most people are asking for here, though? Content is already mostly designed to be this way, but again, power creep and lack of attention to how sync works is destroying this sweet spot. The discussion is about that. You might not able to see it as a huge deal since you aren't aware of how pre-SHB era worked, so seeing these changes to content is not as noticeable given that there's little context for you to compare, but almost no one here asked for things to be harder or to need a group for making dungeons, they simply asked for them to not be trivial. Are you truly reading the thread? Because you're simply repeating arguments that were already explained.

If you're fine with how things are nowadays, great, play the game and enjoy it. But do not pretend that people are asking for things to be harder to the extent you're talking about because there's very little to do with it.

No matter how much more difficult you try to make it, you're not going to make Brayflox's Longstop HM any more enjoyable after you've run it 500 times.

So just because you're bound to have repetition, with time, every old dungeon can simply be stripped out of the things that characterize them? What happens when the biggest chunk of your options for roulettes is like that? No one is trying to bring some sort of fresh spark for old dungeons, simply asking for them to not be completely trivial which is gradually happening.

[IttyBitty]

No matter how much more difficult you try to make it, you're not going to make Brayflox's Longstop HM any more enjoyable after you've run it 500 times.

[EnigmaticDodo]

Try it min ilvl in PF

[Caurcas]

Normal mode content really doesn't matter, and the average 14er is incapable of anything mildly difficult. The stat squish has made Ivalice and Nier 24 mans nightmares and slogs that are way too long. Somehow Orbonne is worse and slower now than when it wad new. I also fear getting Alex raids, as most players are not great and have a poor grasp of mechanics. Old content is fine being nerfed for the average playerskill.