Level 50 Dungeon Level Syncs

[Estellios]

I've heard about this and it sounds pretty awesome.

It wasn't... well at least the speed run chest. Someone dc's and the run was entirely for nothing, which was even worse when getting Relic quest items as the time required for those was incredibly strict.

[Tiggy]

It wasn't. Someone dc's and the run was entirely for nothing.

Well obviously we'd tweak it to make it work better. It doesn't have to be exactly the same.

[Kosmos992k]

Doesn't really solve the problem for new players that don't want to go through such hoops just to experience the dungeon without being thrown into the back seat of the speedrun car.

The folks who oppose restoring balance through level sync do not see this as a problem, and never will. It doesn't matter that ignoring the mechanics in the dungeon and boss fights is not running the dungeon as intended. It doesn't matter what you, I or anyone else (especially new players) think. Seemingly all that matters to that group of people is speed grinding the content into the dirt because it's more convenient for them to do so. I don't for a moment believe the statements that amount to little more than wounded pride, complaining about their new shiny gear being made irrelevant by ilvl sync. That's not the issue, the issue is the time taken. It seems to come down to a matter of convenience and speed for those players vs game balance and playing as intended for everyone else, along with a major dose of helping newer, low level players learn and enjoy the game.

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. It reminds me of the differences between hunters who hunt in a large mob and melt S rank marks in seconds vs those who hunt in just a full party of 8, and take down S rank marks as intended. The hunt mob wants the seals as quickly as possible and doesn't give a damn about the actual hunt, as long as they get credit and receive their reward. It's all about speed and the rewards.

I feel like that is actually the greatest conflict in this and most other MMORPGs. The conflict between players who must have everything as fast as possible, and will grind things out as quickly as they can as if it is a race to the finish; and players who want to play the game, and literally take the longer term view of the game, and so do not rush to cap everything in days. This conflict of philosophy is something I just don't think will go away any time soon, and especially on this forum, the representation of the different philosophies seems heavily biased towards the speed run mentality.

In other discussions people have talked about end-game/progression oriented players vs social oriented players, sometimes it devolves to hardcore vs casual and other lebels and name calling, which misses the point IMHO.

Overgearing content in the absence of a balancing ilvl sync effectivelty breaks the game. That's a fundamental issue, and one group has no problem with that, but others do.

[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.

[KaedrianLiang]

These altruistic players can find more altruistic players and equip ilvl50-110 gear aside from their best gear without imposing their so-called altruistic beliefs on others. They have all the tools they need ingame already to enjoy old content with restricted ilvl.

They dont want to do but they want others to be forced into doing it. Zero logic.

[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.

[Tiggy]

Withdrawing from queues is another matter entirely, and has nothing to do with the issues being discussed here.

In your zest to respond you completely missed the point of my entire message. The point was simply this. Negative consequences for your actions isn't enough to sway everyone. You're kidding yourself if you think people wouldn't back out regardless of the penalty. What I said was completely relevant because like this situation there is a punishment to the player for performing an undesirable action. Just like quitting dungeons. Same exact idea implemented in two different places. Just as you listed reasons someone might back out of the queue here is a reason someone might leave a dungeon. Maybe I only have 20-25 minutes and was trying to squeeze the dungeon in real fast and now that I see the newbie level sync I can't possibly complete it in time. Who knows. People WILL quit and the reason will be because the dungeon run will now take far too long. Why that person doesn't have time may very but it is just as realistic as your list of reasons for backing out of a queue. See how easy it is to make valid reasons for backing out of a dungeon too? Excuses for leaving either the queue or the dungeon work both ways because both are similar punishments.

The bail penalty is meant to be a punishment, and if it's actually preferable to the alternative it's not serving its purpose.

Neither is making the dungeon run more punishing than the penalty. Which is how some people will see this.

I like how a few pages back there was some actually reasonable debate of a few ideas to meet in the middle. Now it's all my way or the high way again. Way to backslide.

[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.