Goodbye Garuda Hard?

[Canadane]

Imposing a ilvl sync would fix it easily. The problem then is you would see a huge drop in numbers of people running that content. Striking that balance is difficult.

If anything, the numbers would return to a normal, expected amount.
People farm Garuda HM over and over because she's the quickest primal to down, and people farm their lights, achievements, or whatever on her. A huge drop when there's currently a huge surge is not exactly a bad thing.

[LineageRazor]

For folks claiming that syncing Garuda HM will mean there will be a lot less people running it - this is probably true. However, currently there are WAY more people running Garuda than there, by all rights, should be, due to her being an easy source of lights/pulses. Add a sync to reinforce mechanics, and Garuda won't suddenly be something no one does; rather it will return to being on-par with Ifrit and Titan HM in the number of folks signing on. That's not so terrible.

Whether it's better for a newbie to be carried past once-difficult content with ease so they can get on to more current content, or whether it's better for the newbie to experience the fights "as they were meant to be experienced" really depends on the newbie, I think.

Personally, I think the sync is a good idea, because I found learning Garuda HM to be fun, and want others to be able to experience that fun without being forced to jump through hoops (acquire mid-level gear, party-finder a like-minded group ALSO with mid-level gear, etc). That's just me, though; others might have the opinion that obsolete content is obsolete, and it's better for newbies to push past that crap asap; it was fun once, but those days are past - on to new fun!

[Cynfael]

The irony that Garuda was hyped up to be mega powerful in the story. Then she winds up a punching bag and the easiest primal.

Garuda = The Worf of FFXIV

She gets hyped just to illustrate how much more badass everyone else is.

[Ayrie]

Stuff

Because titan and ifrit hm are so balanced in terms of people running it. You do realize ifrit and Shiva are just behind 'ruda in terms of light window excitement?

[Kiara]

Perhaps from a wistful, "this might be fun" *in principal* point-of-view, forcing a level sync on old content seems like a way to "keep it challenging" or "like the way they originally intended it," but in reality it causes more frustration than "fun."

* Level syncing old content undermines the player's feeling of *growth* and advancement over time. After clearing old content, you progress and "level up" / earn better and better gear, and one of the BEST feelings in RPGs is being able to *feel* that your character is now far more powerful than it used to be.

Level syncing stuff back to original restrictions means you'll *never* feel like you've really powered up or gotten stronger as a character. There've been RPGs over the years that had monster / level-syncing to keep up with your level, and it felt pretty awful. Because every single fight, every single dungeon is a hard / long battle. It's *good* to have content that becomes easier the more you gear up / power up.

Yes, it's very easy because we're so overgeared now, but it's also a great feeling that reflects your efforts from gearing up over time.


* And with the Dev Team funneling players to rehash OLD content (repeatedly) for stuff (Animus Books, Relic Light Grinding, etc.), level syncing old content would just slow down progress to a CRAWL. It would be flat out *awful*. There's no way in hell players would bother grinding Garuda or earlier battles for Light if it took 5 - 7 times as long as it does now. It would inflate the grind to astronomical levels.

No thanks.

[Gyson]

Imposing a ilvl sync would fix it easily. The problem then is you would see a huge drop in numbers of people running that content. Striking that balance is difficult.

A drop, but when people say that I feel like they're implying nobody would run it any longer. Meanwhile, more than enough people are running level-synced pre-50 dungeon content all the time. Garuda HM would be no different.

I think the developers made a mistake in choosing not to level sync level 50 content. It works well for the first ~45 levels and then suddenly you have new tanks who are vastly outgeared by their party members (and thus completely useless), as well as dungeons like Praetorium where the disparity between ilevel and content allows the party to abandon players watching cutscenes while the run is continued without them.

These issues would lessen considerably had the practice of level syncing been kept intact at 50.

[Gralna]

Don't see what the big issue is with implementing a lvl sync for post 50 content. I wouldn't call it so much making veteran players weaker in the duties/trials, but making the content relevant for people coming up to the content.

It's already bad enough for duties like CM/Prae when you get two fresh 50 tanks who can't hold aggro against 4 ilvl130 dps, or even worse two fresh lvl 50 healers that not only don't know mechanics of fight, but aren't geared enough to heal for speed run pulls or Burn strategies. What are you going to do then? Kick them for being new? Hardly sounds fair.

Maybe to compensate they could slightly increase rewards for content the duties/trials are run for? (more light/higher zodiac drop rates). Also make it so any cutscene in a duty runs automatically?

Don't really hear any complaints about lvl sync for pre-50 content, how would this be any different?

[QiLymePye]

I personally think level syncing all content is something that should be standard fare. Some duties now are simply silly and certainly don't provide the challenge they once did. And yes newbies shouldn't have to be faced with anything other than how the dungeons were intended to be run.

I think part of the problem is SE making endgamers farm low-lvl dungeons and the fact that the endgamers farming of these dungeons are typically more important than newbies playing dungeon for the first time. I suggest that SE cut down on either the number of Items needed from these dungeons and/or adjust the RNG of getting these items while asking players to play these dungeons with an ilvl sync. So instead of farming 500 whatever, you are only farming maybe 20 but the RNG is better and its ilvl sync.

[Takfloyd]

There's no problem with the "Hard Mode" primal trio being easy since they aren't really story content and the Extreme versions are there for the high end players.

The problem is actual story content that isn't ilvl synced and is ruined for new players who don't have a group of friends willing to gear down and join them. While 4 man dungeons are synced, the three instances at the climax of the 2.0 story aren't, nor are any of the later trials.

If I got to the Praetorium as a lone player, had to DF it and all the players just ran ahead and killed everything before I even could finish the cutscenes, I would have quit the game right there and unsubscribed. Square Enix MUST fix this.

[Skeith-Adeline]

Syncing any lower content will automatically reduce the amount of players running said content by 80% lol.