Level 50 Dungeon Level Syncs

[Ashkendor]

In my opinion, we're looking at a straight conflict between the vested self interest of a group of high level players at end-game who want to grind everything out as quickly as possible, and the more altruistic interests of players who want to play the content as it was intended to be played, and help other players learn and enjoy the game.

I love how you portray the people that disagree with you as having nothing but a vested self interest, and the people that agree with you as being altruistic. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't automatically mean that they should be demonized. Personally, I'm against a stricter level sync on these dungeons, but it's not purely out of self interest. What I worry about most is people abandoning the runs when they see there's a new person. I worry about people simply queueing in premades, leaving the queues for the dungeons all but abandoned for the newer players. Because I worry about these things, I presented to you the fact that the veterans that are running the old content for Animus and Zodiac are being shoved back into that content multiple times now.

Look at it this way. We are now doing (as an example) Amdapor Keep for the third time for our Zodiac weapons, and this time we have to farm the hell out of it unless we get lucky in the first couple of runs. If your idea were to be implemented, not only would we have a stricter level sync, we'd potentially be in there with someone that we would also have to teach the mechanics to. While some people may be willing to give a detailed run-down of the mechanics of every single boss fight in any given dungeon, many would either just bail and eat the half hour penalty (which is shorter than some of those dungeons when you're at a lower item level than we are now) or avoid the problem entirely by putting up party finders exclusively for Zodiac drop farming rather than queueing in duty finder.

Neither of these is good for new players because it makes them wait even longer in the queue for the dungeons. Even if they don't get to run the content as it was intended, at least they get to get through the content for progression. A soldiery bonus only does so much. There's far faster ways to get soldiery than to slog through a level synced dungeon with someone that doesn't know anything about the content.

So yeah. Please don't try to make the argument that we're only looking out for our own self interest.

[Kosmos992k]

I love how you portray the people that disagree with you as having nothing but a vested self interest, and the people that agree with you as being altruistic.

What did you not understand in the phrase "In my opinion"? In my opinion, there is a vested self interest among players who want to grind out things as quickly as possible in keeping level 50 dungeons as easy and mechanic free as possible to facilitate speed runs and quick farming. How is that an unreasonable conclusion? In my opinion, people who wish for a stronger level sync to maintain the mechanics of the dungeons, at the possible expense of some speed, are doing so to maintain the relevance of the content and game balance which primarily benefits new and low level players which I think passes the test of altruism. So, yeah, I think I'm good with what I wrote, thanks.

[Launched]

The ilvl sync is awful. I've done all these dungeons a bunch of times when they were relevant. Now that they're 6+ months old, I just want to get through them quickly. What's the point in gear progression if it's just going to get reduced to what it was half a year ago?

[Elim]

People speedran WP and AK back in the day when we walked five miles in the snow, up hill in roller skates to get to school. Er... People speed ran WP back when ilv90 was the max. I speed ran them when I wasn't even full dark light. Forcing further item level syncs wont do much besides make some new people have a worse day trying to speed run with a lower ilv.

I enjoy speedruns because it makes dungeons a lot more engaging. I don't find pulling one, two or three mobs fun. Standing there healing once in a blue moon because the tank is taking hardly any damage is NOT engaging. I DPS as heals, but that too is boring as balls unless I'm trying to squeeze out DPS during an heal-intensive pull. If mobs hit 30x harder, that would be less boring and speed running may not be possible, unless you can sack pull.

[Raist]

Here's an idea... bring in the party level synch like they did in FFXI. The party leader selects a party member and it synchs everyone down to that character's level. This way, if a group wants to blow through content with their higher level gear/stats they can, or if they want to synch down they can. The framework is already there with the FATE's synch feature, they just need to expand on it. It could also be used in the real world as well, just like we used it to grind out exp. in FFXI.

It should also be pointed out that eventually they lifted caps from a lot of areas in XI. This ultimately resulted in newer/inexperienced players advancing through content they either could not or would not otherwise get through. IDK how many times I ran people through level cap fights, Sea and Sky mission runs, (and various other expansion story lines), helped them beat their weaponskill fights for alts and such. It breathed a lot more life into older content for a LOT of people by simply reducing the need to wait all day to gather enough people to suffer the tedium of running old level 20-75 capped content once they had reached the peaks of 99+ level gears and full merits....just had to find one or two high-end peeps to help you out.

So, there is much merit in removing caps for content... just as there is merit in enforcing them also. The problem is, at this early stage of the game (when put up against the decade that passed before uncapping things in XI), there cant be a one-size-fits-all approach to the dilemma. Clamping down too much runs people off. Letting loose the reigns will run others off. What we have now is more of the happy medium approach... it clamps down just a little to try to keep it from being absurd, but not so much to completely turn off a large chunk of the playerbase.

It's pretty safe to say that if they were to suddenly tighten the caps on this content further, it would hurt the DF more than it would help...we've already seen queue times on our server increase dramatically since they were brought back. The content that queues quickly (I mean like, <5 minutes consistently for hours on end, even as DPS) is the uncapped content that we can run repeatedly for tomes, lights, etc...

It's become quite apparent that the more popular content is the quick and easy approach that lends itself well to farming. Those needing the story grade content are having to wait longer and longer at the lower levels because of it...which is a problem where SE needs to wake up and smell the coffee and address soon, or they may wind up with the same situation we saw in XI---a fresh crop of players needing to do the important pre-req stuff to gain access to higher level content but not enough people around willing to help them out. Level caps can be a big disincentive at the heart of such issues.

However, if they do one day decide to lift the caps like they eventually did in XI, I think they need to first research the option of giving us the manual party level synch feature like we got in XI. This way, those that want to have that old vanilla feel of a level appropriate party can easily make one without having to tote around multiple sets of gear, and those that want to just carry friends through (or just faceroll old content for sh!ts and giggles) can do so freely if they choose. Both sides win.

[Zfz]

How about this?

There is a new player bonus, right? Just double that bonus or triple it if you must, and make any run that has a new player bonus have a strict iLv sync. So you may spend 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes, but you get the rewards of 2 runs. And in runs where you are matched with no new players? You're synced to the old iLv110 letting you do the speed run anyway.

Don't forget the whole roulette bonus and new player bonus are there to help the new player, they are rewards for veterans conditional on helping new players.

[Tiggy]

How about this?

There is a new player bonus, right? Just double that bonus or triple it if you must, and make any run that has a new player bonus have a strict iLv sync. So you may spend 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes, but you get the rewards of 2 runs. And in runs where you are matched with no new players? You're synced to the old iLv110 letting you do the speed run anyway.

Don't forget the whole roulette bonus and new player bonus are there to help the new player, they are rewards for veterans conditional on helping new players.

That's a great way to make people quit dungeons once they see a new player. For everyone the soldiery bonus isn't an acceptable trade off. This scenario still forces this style of play on other players just due to the luck of the draw. You will have tanks and healers quitting because they can easily requeue, not get a newbie, and get the dungeon done in half the time. Assuming they still have quit allowances for the day of course.

A lot of people in this thread seem to forget how impatient people were for tough dungeons like Pheros. People would get in, see it was a tougher dungeon, and quit instantly. This scenario would be no different.

[LineageRazor]

A lot of people in this thread seem to forget how impatient people were for tough dungeons like Pheros. People would get in, see it was a tougher dungeon, and quit instantly. This scenario would be no different.

Well, people bailing on Pharos Sirius is one of the reasons that the 30-minute bail penalty was implemented. With the exception of a bare handful of dungeons, even with undergeared newbies along the dungeon can be completed in under 30 minutes. A speedrunning might groan, but they are unlikely to outright quit. They have the choice of sticking it out and guiding the newbie through, or leaving, waiting 30 minutes to try again, and possibly finding themselves in ANOTHER newbie group.

While it's been hard on speedrunners, the 30-minute penalty has done much to improve the lot of newbies - and I believe that it will continue to do so. With that as a stick, and first-time bonuses as a carrot, impatient players have a lot of incentive to stick things out. These bonuses and penalties can always be adjusted whenever the balance shifts.

[Tiggy]

Well, people bailing on Pharos Sirius is one of the reasons that the 30-minute bail penalty was implemented. With the exception of a bare handful of dungeons, even with undergeared newbies along the dungeon can be completed in under 30 minutes. A speedrunning might groan, but they are unlikely to outright quit. They have the choice of sticking it out and guiding the newbie through, or leaving, waiting 30 minutes to try again, and possibly finding themselves in ANOTHER newbie group.

While it's been hard on speedrunners, the 30-minute penalty has done much to improve the lot of newbies - and I believe that it will continue to do so. With that as a stick, and first-time bonuses as a carrot, impatient players have a lot of incentive to stick things out. These bonuses and penalties can always be adjusted whenever the balance shifts.

They added withdraw penalties to queues but I still watched my CT queue restart 5 times yesterday. You overestimate peoples patience and willingness to avoid the punishment.

[LineageRazor]

They added withdraw penalties to queues but I still watched my CT queue restart 5 times yesterday. You overestimate peoples patience and willingness to avoid the punishment.

Withdrawing from queues is another matter entirely, and has nothing to do with the issues being discussed here. After all, if you withdrew from your queue it's not because you saw that there wasn't going to be a speed run. When you withdraw from queue, you have no idea what your party composition is like. There are sensible reasons for withdrawing from a queue (in the middle of a lengthy and expensive synthesis, that FATE you've been waiting hours for just popped, queued up for different dungeon and forgot you still had this one selected) and shady reasons for withdrawing from a queue (fishing for a partial run), but none of that has anything to do with leaving because, omg, n00bs.

Additionally, in the case of CT, those are some of the few instances in the game that might possibly take longer than a half hour EVEN IF performed competently. It's why I think that the withdrawl penalty should be equal to the duration of the instance (60 min for trials, 90 min for dungeons, 120 min for CT, etc) rather than the 30 min we have now. A player could enter CT, see newbies, bail, and actually save time, as opposed to the case of dungeons where they're probably losing time by eating the penalty. The bail penalty is meant to be a punishment, and if it's actually preferable to the alternative it's not serving its purpose.