Thread: 2.0 content progression vs 2.1+

i agree, i also wrote a post a few weeks ago about that matter.
Everything seems way too fast, too easy and brand new dungeons are beaten on day one , and on TRY ONE.

Even ST is not that much more then alt-job or vanity gearing.

Of course a game has to progress but not that fast and not that easy.

It's the same with the relic weapon. It started with chimera, hydra (quite a challenge for many ppl at that time), then all 3 primals and AK dungeon in between, then a bit of open world grinding.
All in all i must say, enjoyable questline and meaningful content.

After this? fate grind, grind grind grind, no boss fights, nothing, just extreme grind and money sink (i understand this part, it spiced up the economy so its not that bad). There is no epicness, no good feeling.

The content quality took a bad turn to trash F2P level. And new content that could be a nice addition /distraction like housing is uber exclusive and only a handful of ppl can enjoy it. Bad bad design. It almost feels like they want the game to lose many customers instead of creating amazing new challenging conent. But they are good with excuses. (i just doubt ppl will accept them much longer)

2.0 progression felt great. There were things to do. 2.2 and 2.4(I assume) will have just been straight into the new coil with some Primals on the side. No mountains to climb, no far off goals. I don't understand this pattern of implementing new dungeons with gear that is immediately invalidated. If you don't mind me making another assumption here, I would guess that the new dungeon gear will be ilevel90. For what, though? We'll have had more than a YEAR to get ilevel90 gear with an outrageous amount of options. Hunts alone make anything ilevel90 and below not worth doing. ilevel100 would be a step in the right direction, but it's still used a little more than gearing up alts and catching up for new people.

One thing you have to consider, however, is that the 2.0 progression isn't TOO far off from progression we face today IF you were a 1.0 player who cleared the hardest content and had the best gear. These people walked into 2.0 with full or mostly full Darklight already. This doesn't change the fact, however, that they still had a long journey ahead of them in terms of doing the story and then relic quest along with primals. There was no real lead up to second coil from first coil for those who had cleared everything in 2.0/1. It was simply get a quest from a NPC and waltz in.

It really is a shame to see these dungeons go to waste for anything other than something to pad out a dungeon roulette and vanity. How nice would it be to make incredibly challenging four man dungeons and a requirement to finish the main story up through 2.4 to even be able to enter third coil? I know the majority of my FC hasn't even bothered finishing the 2.3 main story due to the lack of incentive. Players have enough ways to catch up to ilevel90 and even ilevel100 once 2.4 comes out, why not shift some of that new content towards the crowd that actually needs things to do?

Originally Posted by Craiger

When FFXIV 2.0 first came out, and everyone was still either leveling up or just started gearing up their 50 job, the dungeons was pretty enjoyable IMO. The gear that dropped there was actually usable at first, while you geared up with Darklight gear, and slowly with Myth gear (before myth cap increase). The dungeons was easy ofc, but you couldn't eat and listen to music at the same time (I couldn't at least)... I quite enjoyed to do that easy, but not too easy task to get my gear.

I liked how in 2.0, you actually had to get some decent gear before you could do dungeons like AK, and even when you could do it, you would still not go through it using 1 hand... You also had to do those dungeons to gear up before you gradually defeated the primals, and then could go on to do Coil (well the majority of players had to gear up quite a bit).

Why did SE change this after that? Ever since those first dungeons in 2.0, all the new ones have either been for the same ilvl, or just recently a little higher... Take the upcoming 2.4 for example, while we don't know the ilvl requirement of them yet, I'll bet it's way lower than most players current ilvl.

SE didn't really change it after that. Fact is still, if you want to progress through the current newest dungeons, you're not going to be able to do that without first gearing up in one way or another.

The "problem" is that players tend to choose the quickest and easiest way to gear up. So rather than sticking to dungeons, if that's ultimately what they've got the most interest in, they'd do ST anyway. And subsequently say that the content turned easy.

Asides from that obvious point, do not even think for a second that increasing required iLvL on something like shiva or final coil is going to make anything more fun or last longer for the casual player. As the only thing it'd do is make this level of content get even more out of reach. As it stands right now for many casuals T5 is too big of a hassle to get through. Even when heavily outgearing it, having the echo buff on, and having tactics readily available to them on just a few clicks away. Even if you end up carrying them through T5, they'd once again end up stuck on T6.

Having those people, once they finally get through T9, then be faced by a grind for higher iLvL before they can stand a chance in T10 again is most probably going to have the opposite effect of fun as you describe.



Whereas for hardcore players who like to raid, being forced to do dungeons in between for a meaningless gear grind is something which I personally would have no interest in. If they'd want to lengthen time to completion of a patch, I'd say rather stick the development effort into creating a boss or 2 extra for a raid. I'm missing 7 - 12 boss encounters in this game anyway. The current 4 boss raids are very short. The overall number of endgame raids in this game is also very minimal.

Rather than needlessly fluffing up raiding progression with timesinks outside of actual raiding, I'd much rather see raiding content progression come out of actual raiding content.

Originally Posted by Fornix

SE didn't really change it after that. Fact is still, if you want to progress through the current newest dungeons, you're not going to be able to do that without first gearing up in one way or another.

The "problem" is that players tend to choose the quickest and easiest way to gear up. So rather than sticking to dungeons, if that's ultimately what they've got the most interest in, they'd do ST anyway. And subsequently say that the content turned easy.

Asides from that obvious point, do not even think for a second that increasing required iLvL on something like shiva or final coil is going to make anything more fun or last longer for the casual player. As the only thing it'd do is make this level of content get even more out of reach. As it stands right now for many casuals T5 is too big of a hassle to get through. Even when heavily outgearing it, having the echo buff on, and having tactics readily available to them on just a few clicks away. Even if you end up carrying them through T5, they'd once again end up stuck on T6.

Having those people, once they finally get through T9, then be faced by a grind for higher iLvL before they can stand a chance in T10 again is most probably going to have the opposite effect of fun as you describe.



Whereas for hardcore players who like to raid, being forced to do dungeons in between for a meaningless gear grind is something which I personally would have no interest in. If they'd want to lengthen time to completion of a patch, I'd say rather stick the development effort into creating a boss or 2 extra for a raid. I'm missing 7 - 12 boss encounters in this game anyway. The current 4 boss raids are very short. The overall number of endgame raids in this game is also very minimal.

Rather than needlessly fluffing up raiding progression with timesinks outside of actual raiding, I'd much rather see raiding content progression come out of actual raiding content.

You're wrong...

Even a new lvl 50 player could just do some hunts and get full ilvl 90 in no time at all, then all the dungeons in the game is easy... And anyway, I didn't mean for new level 50's. People who have played for a longer time, all already have pretty much every job at 50, or they have chosen to not level up more jobs... For the majority of players, dungeons is a joke. Even the most casual players can faceroll them.

That level of difficulty shouldn't just be for the first month or two of the game, it should carry on through every patch.

I don't understand what you mean by the casuals being farther away from the content? You can get full ilvl110 through just doing ST, and you can't honestly suggest that's too hard for casuals? Getting full ilvl110 armor is gonna be a walk in the park when 2.4 comes out, just like getting Myth gear have been when new armor was introduced. With full ilvl110, you of course could do the new dungeons, but they would be a formidable challenge for the casuals, average for in-between players and easy for hardcore players(not a faceroll though)

Casuals would be able to get to the new content quickly enough, and they would be able to enjoy that easier content a lot more, because it will be a fair bit of challenge for them at first, but it would be the right amount of challenge, so that they still enjoy it a lot. They could then beat 2nd Coil at their own pace, just like they have done 1st Coil

What's that BS about hardcore players? I never heard hardcore players complaining about going through that in 2.0... In fact, the most hardcore players I know, all agree with me on this... Hardcore players would be able to kill Shiva and start Coil much quicker than the average player anyhow, just like it was in 2.0...

Originally Posted by Craiger

You're wrong...

I'm wrong? I said: "The "problem" is that players tend to choose the quickest and easiest way to gear up."

And then you just come with a way players choose the quickest way to gear up:

Originally Posted by Craiger

Even a new lvl 50 player could just do some hunts and get full ilvl 90 in no time at all, then all the dungeons in the game is easy...

So are you just nitpicking here on the fact that I didn't give an extensive list on alternative sources for quick and easy gear farming?

Originally Posted by Craiger

And anyway, I didn't mean for new level 50's. People who have played for a longer time, all already have pretty much every job at 50, or they have chosen to not level up more jobs... For the majority of players, dungeons is a joke. Even the most casual players can faceroll them.

For the majority of players dungeons are a joke as they don't come with match making. If 3/4 players heavily outgear the dungeon, obviously it's going to be a breeze for the 4th as well. But that's a problem for which changing gear requirements isn't per sé the best solution. Match making based on iLvL and prior dungeon experience would make more sense. It'd be a method which'd also directly kill multiple birds with one stone.

Originally Posted by Craiger

That level of difficulty shouldn't just be for the first month or two of the game, it should carry on through every patch.

And it does, as already said though the problem is that players are taking easy routes to obtaining raiding gear and then facing dungeons with that equipped. Absolutely nothing is stopping you from putting on iLvL 70 gear as a premade and stepping into some of these very same dungeons.

Originally Posted by Craiger

I don't understand what you mean by the casuals being farther away from the content? You can get full ilvl110 through just doing ST, and you can't honestly suggest that's too hard for casuals? Getting full ilvl110 armor is gonna be a walk in the park when 2.4 comes out, just like getting Myth gear have been when new armor was introduced.

You mentioned new coil and shiva. We're talking about many casuals here which with iLvL 100+ are unable to beat Twintania. Content which could be beaten at iLvL 80. Which probably won't be able to beat T9 till they have iLvL 140. If T10-Txx would be aimed at at least iLvL 120 rather than roughly iLvL 100 ~ 105 then those casuals are going to end up having to wait till well in the expansion till they stand a chance at the third coil.

Originally Posted by Craiger

What's that BS about hardcore players? I never heard hardcore players complaining about going through that in 2.0... In fact, the most hardcore players I know, all agree with me on this... Hardcore players would be able to kill Shiva and start Coil much quicker than the average player anyhow, just like it was in 2.0...

It was nothing than a meaningless gear grind back in 2.0 as well. Heck, the frustration to many was so great that they'd bug people to leave if they thought the run wasn't going to be able to be done fast enough. Many players quite simply didn't want to be there. And many also stopped being there once they could step foot into coil.