Please go over old Duties and give them all a fair level / itemlevel Sync

[Payadopa]

Absolutely agree. We have a treasure trove of dungeons and trials and, let's face it, they're all so brain-dead, they might as well not exist. It's a shame.

Imagine trying to sell someone who not just only cares about story but gameplay as well, that you need to play a couple of hundred hours until they content requires paying attention.

We should get more tools like a manually adjustable ilvl to tweak the difficulty to our liking. Especially if it's a solo duty. Increase the drop rate my X for every X ilvl I go down and see people turn it into a challenge run like soloing PotD. Put a disclaimer in front saying that if you go to low you might not be able to finish said content. Who cares?

They content is just lying there collecting dust. Please do something with it other than DR.




(And give me a min ilvl roulette while you're at it. Please and thank you.)

[Chyro]

So concluding from the other comments, I think the best way to adress this would be in two steps.

1.) As short-term solution that is easy to implement, adjust the item-level syncs of duties where the too loose sync makes them unengaging and boring.

2.) For the long-term, they'd have to rebalance the skills and potencies the classes have across the lower level which would likely take a bigger effort. Potentially also taking a look at class engagement across the leveling progress, that each class has at least some small but satisfying gameplay loops even at lower level.

I think the later goes more in the realm of wishful thinking if SE were willing to put that sort of resources into remaking the leveling progress, but could make the overall experience a lot more enjoyable for everyone. The first part I'd say should be very easily to implement and no reason for SE not to do it. There would be a adjustment period where suddenly we'd have to do and re-learn mechanics that could previously be ignored, and it would likely lead to some backlash especially with stuff like the mentioned crystal tower raids. Though I think in the long term it would be more healthy for the game.

[LibitIncarne]

What's the point in increasing your IL in the first place if everything is going to scale you down to the item level of the dungeon's drops?

[Chyro]

What's the point in increasing your IL in the first place if everything is going to scale you down to the item level of the dungeon's drops?

First off, the suggestion is not to set them to minimum itemlevel but to set it to an acceptable range that doesn't make the content completely unengaging and mechanics ignorable. I mentioned 'maybe 10ilv above the requirements' so you still get stronger through raising your itemlevel, but not to the point that it completely negates any engagement with the duty (10 is just an example number, maybe a bit higher). When a new patch dungeon or trial or raid releases, their entry itemlevel is below the currently achieveable itemlevel. Don't know the exact number, but it's a bit of a range from their min-itemlevel to the 'current patch itemlevel'. It's a fair range that makes the content a bit easier when you gear up, without making the content unengaging.

Secondly itemlevel is still required to get into the next higher content, you need to meet minimum requirements.


Edit: Went to check the numbers with the current cap dungeons. The lv100 dungeons have an itemlevel requirement of 670, with only the story dungeon having a item-level sync of 700. So yeah, the 10 itemlevels was a bit of a low guess - a 30 itemlevel range would be fair (I'm changing it in the main post). The other two dungeons not having itemlevel-sync means that you're eventually 40, 50, 60+ itemlevels above the content. It's this disparity between the leveling and story duties compared to the cap-level duties I want them to fix.

As another example: In heavensward, you do the last dungeon of the main story with a itemlevel-sync of 180 (min 142) - a fair challenge. Right after that you enter the final trial of the story, the big finale - which does not have itemlevel sync (and also min requirement of 142). So people are in there in their potentially maxed out ilv270 gear, blasting away the fight while able to ignore all the tickle damage this supposedly epic final boss of the story is inflicting on them. From the last story dungeon to the last trial (which are only a cutscene apart) your party suddenly grows by 90 itemlevels. This ruins immersion in the story as well as any engagement with the fight, if it just melts away and does no damage.

[sylphlands]

I agree so hard with this, it's so immersion-breaking to be fighting a boss like Hades and he crumples like a leaf. It makes me feel bad for players just now going through past expacs, it's fundamentally a lesser experience for them.

[Maxilor]

I've been waiting forever for them to revamp Coils of Bahamut to something more easily digestible for newer players, especially since it has such an importance to the story (especially if you're SMN).

[Dogempire]

I can think of a few things they could do to the old dungeons/trials:
1. iLevel sync as OP suggested
2. Increase the HP of the bosses so that they're in line with current potency creep
3. Add damage down for failing mechs or increase the amount of additional damage getting a vuln stack makes you take
4. Increase the amount of damage the boss does by a fair margin

For dungeons and trials, I think 2 and 4 should be applied to both of them, trials should give damage down instead of vuln stacks but the damage from failing a mech should be high enough to where consistently failing mechs still kills you

That being said, I do think that any difficulty increases should be only moderate, as playing through 8+ years of content can be pretty intimidating if you have to look up a guide for every dungeon or trial instead of hopping in and winging it

[LibitIncarne]

Secondly itemlevel is still required to get into the next higher content, you need to meet minimum requirements.

As another example: In heavensward, you do the last dungeon of the main story with a itemlevel-sync of 180 (min 142) - a fair challenge. Right after that you enter the final trial of the story, the big finale - which does not have itemlevel sync (and also min requirement of 142). So people are in there in their potentially maxed out ilv270 gear, blasting away the fight while able to ignore all the tickle damage this supposedly epic final boss of the story is inflicting on them. From the last story dungeon to the last trial (which are only a cutscene apart) your party suddenly grows by 90 itemlevels. This ruins immersion in the story as well as any engagement with the fight, if it just melts away and does no damage.

If the game doesn't let you feel like you've outgeared an instance, there is no gameplay reason for gear to have stats.

You aren't missing out on much. His HP threshold to go into phase 2 is 10% compared to the 70% in the EX version. Oh no, you don't get to see him use literally nothing other than autoattacks while he has Damage Down.
Thordan is a joke even at Minimum Item Level, that happens there as well. He's been a joke since when TP got removed.

[Boblawblah]

Na, I like the game being easy thanks.

Also above poster is correct. Make the game very difficult and I won't 'git gud' (past a point), I'll simply stop playing. And I'm willing to bet there are more of me than more of you OP. I play other games for a challenge.

[SeriousPan]

Take down the ilvl by like 20-30 for the Crystal Tower.

Y'know. For the comedy.