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

[DiaDeem]

Here's my two cents:

I've been playing since ARR launched in 2013, and I've never considered old content as the main source of "fun" in the usual sense of the word. Job/dungeon/fight mechanics that we take for granted can be harder than we realize for new players... or not, it really depends on each new player. I've always felt satisfied about running old content for the sake of the rewards and just help new players to clear it.

While I see what you mean, I'm a bit torn about it. Sastasha (Hard)'s final boss (The Kraken) used to be a SLOG because how much HP the boss had at the time. It wasn't harder, or more fun. It was just a boring slog. Wiping 3 times to the Coincounter in AV because the tank kept getting one-shot by the swipe wasn't fun or challenging, it was just tiering. The Steps of Faith was brutal when it first came out, and it legit was bottlenecking entrance to HW if you didn't have an FC or a group of friends willing to help you with the clear. That wasn't fun either. The Void Ark fights were never hard. They just took 90 years because everything had so much HP. Then you have things like Cape Westwind or Prae Lahabrea, which were never hard to begin with.

Let's say we buff Story Ifrit. We give it more HP and make the plumes/eruptions one shot people. Would that be more fun? Unless it's 4 new people, usually a single veteran (or two if you wanna stretch it) can carry old fights just by virtue of avoiding every single attack from experience. At that stage you only make Ifrit last longer, newbies die more, and you may just clear the fight regardless on a single pull anyway. Newbies would only get frustrated and I doubt most people would even care to explain why they died to mechanics and just do the duty and leave as soon as they're done. Not sure making the fight last longer helps too much. Chances are you're just doing Ifrit on your leveling roulette anyway, and we could make an argument about how a longer fight would help newbies, but the thread seemed to be about "old content being fun" for veterans, unless I got something wrong. As a quick statement: I don't think MSQ should be skill-gated. Everything should be clearable for the sake of progressing the story.

My issue is that I feel every single piece of content would have to be rebalanced individually if we really wanted to make things air-tight.

Would I like to see maybe Ultima in Prae be a little harder? Yeah, sure. Though Prae needs a lot more work than just that.
Do we need to make say.... Castrum Abania or Snowcloak "harder"? No.. not really, I don't see the point.

For this discussion I believe it is important to point out exactly what parts of the game you think would truly benefit from a rebalance to make them harder. Some stuff I feel is just fine being easy to clear for the sake of progress.

[van_arn]

Here's my two cents:

I've been playing since ARR launched in 2013, and I've never considered old content as the main source of "fun" in the usual sense of the word. Job/dungeon/fight mechanics that we take for granted can be harder than we realize for new players... or not, it really depends on each new player. I've always felt satisfied about running old content for the sake of the rewards and just help new players to clear it.

The problem is we're generally on the polar opposite end of the spectrum from the specifics you describe. No, I'm not saying content should be brought back to how it was "in the good old days." Final Steps of Faith and Titan Hard were roadblocks, sure, but they don't need to be like they were. They are exceptions that would need to be handled individually. The issue is everything (some rare exceptions apply, such as Curtain Call) is far too generous when synced now.

It's not about making things "hardcore." It's about making queued content require some semblance of gameplay beyond just rushing through to get a reward. Ignoring mechanics should always be reserved for unsynced clears, never synced clears.