The Difficulty Schism (And Why The Real Enemy is Scaling & Max iL Sync)

[Colt47]

Honestly get rid of gear progression at this point. Solves a lot of problems and future proofing.

They need to flatline end-game gear progression, not gear progression entirely. The point of gear and character level is to abstract out the gains from training in a way that isn't impacted by the true skill of the player, either because the level skill needed to play the game is rather low, or the game is not capable of enabling a growth in skill in some other way.

In FFXIV the representation of growth is split into the players class / job level and the gear they have equipped. Normally, the idea is that the gear improves or gets better as someone continues their journey, but in the case of FFXIV that only applies up to level 50. After that point it isn't possible to judge what the gears true strength would be since it just became a tool to show another aspect of character advancement. They basically needed a way to reward player effort if they went the extra mile to grab a full set of gear or went through some heavier trial. However, all the extremes and savage became non-canon so it never made sense that they rewarded better or more powerful gear.

[Eyrilona]

They need to flatline end-game gear progression, not gear progression entirely. The point of gear and character level is to abstract out the gains from training in a way that isn't impacted by the true skill of the player, either because the level skill needed to play the game is rather low, or the game is not capable of enabling a growth in skill in some other way.

In FFXIV the representation of growth is split into the players class / job level and the gear they have equipped. Normally, the idea is that the gear improves or gets better as someone continues their journey, but in the case of FFXIV that only applies up to level 50. After that point it isn't possible to judge what the gears true strength would be since it just became a tool to show another aspect of character advancement. They basically needed a way to reward player effort if they went the extra mile to grab a full set of gear or went through some heavier trial. However, all the extremes and savage became non-canon so it never made sense that they rewarded better or more powerful gear.

This sounds interesting so I am trying to understand what it is you are trying to say, and what point you are trying to make with it, but could you make it a little less abstract? I have a feeling that this has a lot of context in your mind that you didn't include in your post and that is making it hard to interpret.

[Colt47]

This sounds interesting so I am trying to understand what it is you are trying to say, and what point you are trying to make with it, but could you make it a little less abstract? I have a feeling that this has a lot of context in your mind that you didn't include in your post and that is making it hard to interpret.

Well, lets say that at level 50 the best armor someone can wear is a full suit of high tech armor built out of state of the art composite alloys, and then right at 51 the first armor someone can wear is a cloth tabard and chainmail. Since its a new expansion the cloth tabard and chainmail has higher stats than the high tech suit of armor built out of state of the art composite, even though the former should actually be the better armor. And earlier on in the game the character progressed from starting armor that was literally a cloth tabard and chainmail, that ultimately ended in this high tech armor. It just doesn't make any logical sense that the level 51 armor is actually superior to the level 50 armor.

Flash forward to end game progression and we have non-canon super hard fights that supposedly somehow give us shinier armor that is superior to the armor we get from just doing the canon fight. So there is no grounded reality to the armor being better at all at our current level. They even break this further when we literally jump into the past when aether is much denser, and somehow gear that is composed of insanely dense aether is inferior to gear literally made out of emotional fluffiness and/or angst at the end of the universe or armor made of much less dense aether that comes afterwards.

What the armor is actually acting as is sort of a merit increase from ownership that represents extra effort put in by the player to advance their own character. I sort of feel that they don't give casual players enough merit and completely block them from achieving the same things that people who engage in the more time intensive content get. Even if savage or extreme is the faster way to get to the end of the road, there shouldn't be a situation where the casual player can't get optimal stats on their gear (and honestly, given the game abstracts away the benefits outside of some blurb of text there isn't much point to having choice on stats). Doing savage should be because someone likes the extra challenge, not because they want to get merits. The latter is the reason why things turn toxic because then the goal is to be optimal and collect as fast as possible.

[Eyrilona]

What the armor is actually acting as is sort of a merit increase from ownership that represents extra effort put in by the player to advance their own character. I sort of feel that they don't give casual players enough merit and completely block them from achieving the same things that people who engage in the more time intensive content get. Even if savage or extreme is the faster way to get to the end of the road, there shouldn't be a situation where the casual player can't get optimal stats on their gear (and honestly, given the game abstracts away the benefits outside of some blurb of text there isn't much point to having choice on stats). Doing savage should be because someone likes the extra challenge, not because they want to get merits. The latter is the reason why things turn toxic because then the goal is to be optimal and collect as fast as possible.

I believe that at the root of your complaint is that you have a selective perception of what the goal of the game is. It is not meant to be to get all the all-round BiS optimal stats on your character as fast as possible. The goal, is to have fun. It is that you are able to clear and enjoy the content you care about playing. For some people, that even means giving themselves a handicap for the sake of challenging themselves, e.g. people who go into duties with the min-ilvl option on. This is not a pure stat block chasing game where the sum of your stats is your ranking or something. The game is designed in such a way that the difficulty level you consider your personal endgame will always be very doable with gear acquired from content a little easier than itself, so there should never be a step that is out of your reach for gearing reasons alone.

You called Savage and Extreme as the fastest way to the end of the road, but you only see them as that because you have defined 'End of the road' to mean getting highest stats, when really, the only thing for which clearing Savage is the end of the road, is on the road for clearing Savage. If you are not on that road, then there really is no reason to be bothered that it does hand out some extra gearing as merit badges that won't even be relevant to casual content because of ilvl sync.

If you feel that you are denied merit in the game by not having those on your character, then I think you might be externalizing your worth and could improve your own happiness by rethinking your sources of validation as a person and player?

[Colt47]

You called Savage and Extreme as the fastest way to the end of the road, but you only see them as that because you have defined 'End of the road' to mean getting highest stats, when really, the only thing for which clearing Savage is the end of the road, is on the road for clearing Savage. If you are not on that road, then there really is no reason to be bothered that it does hand out some extra gearing as merit badges that won't even be relevant to casual content because of ilvl sync.

Please work on your phrasing before trying to reply to something that you have apparently no degree of understanding about. iLvL sync doesn't exist past the end of the MSQ because the game is actively developed for people to get to feel the power difference when they have the better gear. This is why there is a cycle of people that state things feel too easy on the later patches, because the iLvL the players have far exceeds the min iLvL of the dungeons. The devs are trying to mitigate this with how they are designing dungeons to be more engaging than last expansion, but this same thing is going to happen again. Almost no one uses the iLvL sync feature willingly outside of some rare instances. (Also, yes I am aware of iLvL sync on dungeons that eventually cycle to the roulette that is basically "old expert dungeon roulette", but the iLvL is so far above the base iLvL it really doesn't make a difference)

[Erothaur]

Hello, I started at the very end of Shadowbringers, so I think I'm in a healthy place to jump in and say I absolutely love the Dawntrail encounter design so far. It does NOT feel too hard at all, and actually I think the Extremes felt a little on the easier side as a whole compared to Endwalker so far.

As for normal raid, which seems to be the hot topic right now, I have no concept of whether they're harder or not. They were totally acceptable DF level content to me. Just felt like more trials.