Has it always been like this or...?

[Gyson]

So my question is... has the end game always been this way? Is there no one left who wants to play through the dungeon at a reasonable pace so I can appreciate the content I worked for? Is there nothing that can be done to prevent this sort of content and player abuse? Why does Square reward such toxic behavior? I was practically in tears when I left FFXIV last night and for the first time I actually wanted to cancel my subscription and uninstall. If this is the sort of treatment I have to look forward to, I shudder to think what people will say if I ever play with less that optimal gear or I don't perform perfectly as a tank >_>;

Threads like this make me quite sad, and also make it difficult to recommend this game (which I otherwise like very much) to any of my friends who currently aren't playing it.

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.

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).

While it's probably not feasible for everyone, I tackled this problem by scheduling a run for these two dungeons with my guild. Like you, I explained this was the big finale to the story I had waded through for 50 levels, and that I wanted to at least try to experience it properly - not only by watching the cutscenes, but by tackling the run with everyone at an average item level of ~50. My guild was cool enough to help me with this; everyone interested dusted off their artifact gear and through a group effort we got the 8-man party outfitted with crafted gear around ilevel 50 for the remaining slots. I got to experience the end of the story in a very authentic and enjoyable way, and I think it was definitely worth the effort of arranging. It is probably my fondest memory in the game right now.

[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".