Has it always been like this or...?

[Zabuza]

Poor attitudes of players aside, in my opinion the practice of scaling down the ilevel of gear in lower level dungeons should be present in every dungeon. I'm not sure why the developers are only interested in maintaining the integrity of the intended challenge only in pre-50 dungeons. I think players would lose a lot of their willingness to charge ahead without everyone else if they didn't outlevel the content by so much.

People were speed running CM back when ilvl90 was the highest you could go. Syncing it down to i90 will change nothing. Unless you mean syncing it down even further to i70 or something. In which case, veteran players will stop doing the story roulette altogether and just farm ST all day for tomes.

I also think nobody in the party should be able to prematurely end a cutscene if there's a first-timer on the run. That removes both the stress and burden off the new person and allows the content to be experienced as intended by the designers. Unfortunately, few would probably agree to these things because everyone wants their shinies yesterday (so they can then come here and complain about a lack of things to do).

If you do that, people will just straight up leave when they see a first timer, or they will mock and ridicule him even worse than now since they have no option to go ahead with the run.

[Gyson]

Poor attitudes of players aside, in my opinion the practice of scaling down the ilevel of gear in lower level dungeons should be present in every dungeon. I'm not sure why the developers are only interested in maintaining the integrity of the intended challenge only in pre-50 dungeons. I think players would lose a lot of their willingness to charge ahead without everyone else if they didn't outlevel the content by so much.

People were speed running CM back when ilvl90 was the highest you could go. Syncing it down to i90 will change nothing. Unless you mean syncing it down even further to i70 or something. In which case, veteran players will stop doing the story roulette altogether and just farm ST all day for tomes.

Of course 90 is too high. What I meant (in the case of these two storyline dungeons) is syncing players back down to a maximum of i-level 50 or 55. For each and every dungeon I'm sure the developers have an idea of the intended level of challenge - it's probably very close to the minimum i-level required to run the dungeon (or the i-level of the gear that drops within). Those scores serve as a decent guideline for what each dungeon should be syncing players down to. Why this is the norm for nearly all pre-50 content yet thrown out the window once players reach level 50 I'll never understand.

I think your prediction is off. Just as players continue to hit up pre-50 dungeons through low-level roulettes for tomes and other needs (despite the level syncing), they'd continue visiting these other dungeons as well. You'll never convince me that the developers intended for something like Garuda-Hard to be the joke-of-a-farm encounter that it is.

I also think nobody in the party should be able to prematurely end a cutscene if there's a first-timer on the run. That removes both the stress and burden off the new person and allows the content to be experienced as intended by the designers. Unfortunately, few would probably agree to these things because everyone wants their shinies yesterday (so they can then come here and complain about a lack of things to do).

If you do that, people will just straight up leave when they see a first timer, or they will mock and ridicule him even worse than now since they have no option to go ahead with the run.

I disagree that leaving will be the problem you suggest. Watching some cutscenes versus leaving and sitting through a duty-penalty plus another round of queue times? Either option requires time - at least by sticking with the former they get the dungeon done. And who is going to "mock and ridicule" a player for being new to a dungeon, particularly if it's SE making the cutscenes mandatory? It's out of the player's hands at that point (which is the whole point).

[TruebladeNuke]

Unfortunately, few would probably agree to these things because everyone wants their shinies yesterday (so they can then come here and complain about a lack of things to do).

This made me laugh so much, and yet managed to be make me sad at the time. Especially considering that it's... sadly... true. The biggest example of that is that during the time of which the Ninja class JUST got released, everyone had to start back at level 1, meaning lots of grinding time was needed to get it up to 50. Within two... count... TWO days of the release of the Ninja class, there were already level 50 NINs running around, complete with average item level 100-110 gear already. Some already with the NIN relic weapon already.

It makes me wonder if these players even understand the concept of the words "sleep" and "eat".

[SpookyGhost]

But then the secret was revealed. These people had all done this dungeon over 50 times and was simply grinding out some obscure piece of currency with which to buy better gear.

I think your party was stuck in 2.0 and we need to get them out of Castrum Meridianum.

[Reokudo]

Ouch, you poor thing. But people are impatient.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

You can't blame the players, it's the developer's fault, they mixed the cutscene part of the game with the actual gameplay part of the game. When ppl q into dungeon they want to play, beat up bad guys. Not watch massive amounts of cutscenes. They dont need to flood anymore dungeons with cutscenes. Fortunately I think they learned from this mistake, Keeper of the Lake and the other trials aren't full of cutscenes.

[Drakkaelus]

Eh...I've never given anyone a hard time about watching cutscenes, but I'm not waiting around for you either.

I have no idea why SE went overboard with the cutscenes in CM and Praetorum in the first place though. Even on my first run through the place I found it obnoxious.

[Virtuso]

Yes it's always been like this and unfortunately the dev's insist on keeping it that way. This game supposedly tries to sell the "Final Fantasy Story" element in marketing yet it's the most anti-story design I've ever seen for any MMO. To the OP, your gonna have to rush to the endgame for Heavensward if you want to enjoy it.

[Mugiawara]

Can someone tell me what SE said about this? Did they say "Majority rules" or...
I can't find a link.

[Duuude007]

Can someone tell me what SE said about this? Did they say "Majority rules" or...
I can't find a link.

Here is the most detailed version I could find on a cursory search of the forums.

while this isn't limited to only the topic at hand, it's extremely difficult to prevent human error by creating perfect rules within the game system as it becomes something that forces players to go through a cumbersome process. (Such as going through multiple confirmation windows.)

Naturally we will continue to make changes to the system for improvements, but ultimately we feel that there are situations where we would like you to decide on the rules amongst yourselves. Before entering a duty, make sure that all party members are informed of the agreement and who is able to lot on which item. All party members should agree to those terms before entering to ensure an agreement is clearly understood.

Breaking these agreements, or behavior that imposes on other players' enjoyment of the game, will not be tolerated. If after an investigation it's confirmed that a player clearly understood the rules when joining a group and still acted in such a manner, proper action will be taken against the player, which may include confiscation of the item or account suspension, so please avoid doing anything like this.

As Camate inferred, the context in the topic is about loot agreements, but it is applicable to anything having to do with DF.