Please fix scaling, fights are dying so fast now

[Mawlzy]

A game expects you to get progressively better at its mechanics as you go through. It’s why the end is harder than the beginning

For some reason 14 is exempt from this. 14’s endgame is easier than ARR

If you aren’t allowed to make mistakes and wipe you will never get better

A well-designed game expects you to use a growing kit and handle more mechanics. The failure of 14 is partly that it expects players to get faster, despite the fact that APM and reaction time are not things that one can appreciably improve. In fact they tend to decline with age.

[Jeeqbit]

The failure of 14 is partly that it expects players to get faster, despite the fact that APM and reaction time are not things that one can appreciably improve. In fact they tend to decline with age.

It's worth pointing out that Yoshi-P playtests at least up through savage (and has streamed savage) and he is 50. The creator of the FF series is over 60 and cleared ultimates.

They are aware of humans limits and have even discussed them. They know there is a certain limit on how many things humans can realistically remember, for example and they use that information when designing things.

[Mawlzy]

It's worth pointing out that Yoshi-P playtests at least up through savage (and has streamed savage) and he is 50. The creator of the FF series is over 60 and cleared ultimates.

They are aware of humans limits and have even discussed them. They know there is a certain limit on how many things humans can realistically remember, for example and they use that information when designing things.

I don't think either are representative of the bulk of players attracted to a story-driven MMO.

I think it's a shame those players who are genuinely skilled at games seem to underappreciate that they have a somewhat unusual ability. Most people who are not gifted in that way literally struggle to maintain a 2-minute rotation on a striking dummy. Ask them to maintain that in battle, it's just not happening.

And yet there is the widespread assumption that "if someone has made it to level 100, they should be able to do X, Y and Z by now," followed by the assertion that when they fail to do X, Y and Z it is because they are lazy. I guess there are some people who choose not to learn, but for most they have simply hit the cap of what they can process and button-press.

MY FC is dominated by older players, all of whom agree DT battles are faster paced. I hope that trend doesn't continue.

[Reimmi]

I don't think either are representative of the bulk of players attracted to a story-driven MMO.

I think it's a shame those players who are genuinely skilled at games seem to underappreciate that they have a somewhat unusual ability. Most people who are not gifted in that way literally struggle to maintain a 2-minute rotation on a striking dummy. Ask them to maintain that in battle, it's just not happening.

And yet there is the widespread assumption that "if someone has made it to level 100, they should be able to do X, Y and Z by now," followed by the assertion that when they fail to do X, Y and Z it is because they are lazy. I guess there are some people who choose not to learn, but for most they have simply hit the cap of what they can process and button-press.

MY FC is dominated by older players, all of whom agree DT battles are faster paced. I hope that trend doesn't continue.

It's not like the DT mechanics oneshot you, the healer can make up for mistakes.
I hope the trend continues because endwalker mechanics were on like 30% speed it was boring as hell

Also it's squares fault that there's even a difficulty spike like that in DT because they never challenged players in the leveling process

[ovIm]

Also it's squares fault that there's even a difficulty spike like that in DT because they never challenged players in the leveling process

This one here is a big one. Whenever Square introduced some sort of gate in the game, people complained about it (see - Steps of Faith). Relenting to that of course meant that any incentive to get better through the MSQ just poofed away.

That being said, the discussion about difficulty of content kinda breaks apart from what OP initially brought to light - namely that with how ilevel scales, fights lose part of their appeal. No sense of danger, and bosses die before they can do the cool thing. (I recently skipped over the DPS race in M4N and that was... off putting to say the least.)
Of course, becoming stronger is a core central theme of any MMORPG. However, the level sync system works against that notion (which is not a bad thing, mind you). Level synching could benefit from a rework at this point in time though.

[Mawlzy]

This one here is a big one. Whenever Square introduced some sort of gate in the game, people complained about it (see - Steps of Faith). Relenting to that of course meant that any incentive to get better through the MSQ just poofed away.

That being said, the discussion about difficulty of content kinda breaks apart from what OP initially brought to light - namely that with how ilevel scales, fights lose part of their appeal. No sense of danger, and bosses die before they can do the cool thing. (I recently skipped over the DPS race in M4N and that was... off putting to say the least.)
Of course, becoming stronger is a core central theme of any MMORPG. However, the level sync system works against that notion (which is not a bad thing, mind you). Level synching could benefit from a rework at this point in time though.

Is a solution to ensuring all mechanics are seen simply to increase the bosses total health?

[ovIm]

Is a solution to ensuring all mechanics are seen simply to increase the bosses total health?

Its one solution, but necessarily, an easy one - considering the HP values of every encounter would need to be recalculated with every patch that changes skill potency (time to kill is usually part of the design) - and even then, with every time the game culls low level skills, the gameplay factor of these earlier instances diminishes. Speaking strictly of "seeing mechanics", and not factoring in kill time, a solution would be to shun away from the timeline based boss encounter approach FFXIV does, and instead have things happen at specific HP thresholds. That of course could lead to skipping mechanics too, if the damage is high enough to skip to the next threshold when one mechanic happens. And it would not necessarily help with the main problem, which is that some encounters end too fast.

So really, that is a problem a game designer would have to mull over. Especially FFXIV has a lot of moving parts, where adjusting one thing can lead to undesired moments happening in another thing.

[Mawlzy]

It's not like the DT mechanics oneshot you, the healer can make up for mistakes.
I hope the trend continues because endwalker mechanics were on like 30% speed it was boring as hell

Also it's squares fault that there's even a difficulty spike like that in DT because they never challenged players in the leveling process

I don't see how making things faster stops them being boring. It's simply unimaginative game design. And if you're not fast enough to deal with them, it's very boring indeed.

Again we seem stuck on this idea that players struggle with content because the game hasn't challenged them. I don't think that's the issue. I appreciate that if you personally found EW fights were running in slow motion, it must be difficult to appreciate that most people don't experience the mechanics like that. As i mentioned before, be pleased you have an unusual skill. It is far from universal.

[Jeeqbit]

I think it's a shame those players who are genuinely skilled at games seem to underappreciate that they have a somewhat unusual ability.

For me, that's not the case. I struggled with just running out of red circles while attacking when I was new as well (but I blame SE setting Standard cam as default and a poor HUD layout). I struggled with numerous mechanics, but through practice and thinking of ways to handle it, I found a way to cope with it.

I could give some other good examples from Savage.

• Gavel is a lot of memorization for blue mages because it's pure RNG what they get, but through brute force I remembered it. Then I had to also remember to greed during it to skip the rest of the fight. It took time, but eventually, I remembered to do it.
• Snakes in P8S stopped holding your hand with role mechanics (which after so many years of them are kinda braindead ie. healers get stacks, tanks/healers paired with a DPS they choose at the start, etc) and forced you to actually look at the party list and your environment to see what you will be doing and with who. That was a hard adjustment for me, but with practice, made me better.

So it's not so much about being gifted as about practice and rising to the challenge to become "gifted".

Most people who are not gifted in that way literally struggle to maintain a 2-minute rotation on a striking dummy.

Again, I used to struggle with this as well because combos were a bit of unique concept compared to other games I'd played. Actually, there was a time I made macros for combos to help manage the sheer amount of buttons and bloat, but with time, I got used to just pressing the buttons and how the rotation worked, and didn't really need the macros anymore. Or I figured out a better hotbar layout that made it simpler to manage.

MY FC is dominated by older players, all of whom agree DT battles are faster paced. I hope that trend doesn't continue.

There are some fast fights in Endwalker and Shadowbringers as well. Keeper of the Lake used to have a fast fight as well. But in the worst case scenario, you just get a vuln or get rez'd.

Regardless, this topic is about scaling ie. syncing old content to minimum item level. It has no actual relation to how fast mechanics occur. And the game has been designed such that, in Dawntrail and Endwalker, everyone can clear the dungeon without a healer.

In fact, most of the Dawntrail bosses I've had the healer die and still beat the boss whether I've been playing a tank or a DPS, using abilities such as Bloodbath and Second Wind on DPS, or Shake and Nascent Flash on Warrior. So for as much as they may have made them faster-paced, they have made it easier than ever to carry eachother.

[Mawlzy]

snip.

It's admirable that you went to such lengths. And of course people improve in certain areas, simply through getting used to the oddities of 14 such as snapshotting. But you'll appreciate that the fact you were able to do this does not mean most people can.

Let me give a recent example. I did M1N. I died a lot. It was apparent I was "wasting the time" of those players who are more skilled than me. When I looked at a guide for M2N it was clearly much harder. I've chosen not to attempt it, and that is absolutely fine. It's not required content. But there isn't a magic wand I can wave that will allow me to participate in such duties without being a drain on the rest of the party. One cannot put a "challenge" earlier in the game that will alter my neurobiology.

Similarly, Duty Support/Trusts gets a lot of flak here because it allegedly simplifies dungeons, much to the annoyance of many players. But here people like me can actually practice and learn fights without inconveniencing players. And I can tell you what is learned is like ballroom dancing. My reaction speed and ability to read tells in general doesn't improve. They are capped. I can however learn how to negotiate that particular fight.

Ironically, I think a significant alteration in ilvl synch would provide a sort of solution to this more general problem, simply because it would gate 14 at a much earlier part of the MSQ and people would simply quit, thereby allowing the game to be harder for the survivors. But that is not an approach SE will ever take, hence my interest in solutions that are not fiscal suicide.

I bring all this up because these discussions have been going on for years, with independent camps demanding incompatible changes from the devs, then blaming each other when nothing improves. We need to find a different path.