How to keep old contents relevant

[Amiaze]

Are we sure we want to keep old content relevant in this context? Veteran players are bound to get paired up with new players who are just learning their roles and, from what I've experienced firsthand and heard tons of stories concerning, veterans are anything but nice towards new players. A lot of people ran those dungeons countless times during the Relic questline grind and aren't exactly keen on doing it again.

Heck, I went into Brayflox NM the first time last night on my alternate character, a low-level Paladin, and was scolded by an antsy 120+ dragoon for taking the time to kill mobs rather than skip them. And I wasn't the only person in there who needed the experience; there was an astrologian who was still wearing a cowl and was in his 30s.

And for material farming, why wouldn't players just run the dungeons solo? I know I've done it when I wanted gear drops for classes I was leveling, and I'm only a machinist. I was able to clear Aurum Vale alone with only one Alexander drop.

I think the only passable way to keep old content going would be to just add more experience bonuses to them. That would, hopefully, encourage veterans who are leveling lower classes to go in there and show some ounce of humility since they aren't in endgame gear or level 50-60 yet.

[Fendred]

For most veteran players, helping a new player once a blue moon isn't a problem. Back in FFXI, if someone needed to down shadow lord, there was always someone around to help out. The resentment in FFXIV:ARR isn't towards the new player, but the content itself. We are required to run the content so much in this game that most of it becomes a chore to do. It's not that they hate the new player. The vet has to do the content whether he likes to or not in order to advance.

[SendohJin]

And for material farming, why wouldn't players just run the dungeons solo? I know I've done it when I wanted gear drops for classes I was leveling, and I'm only a machinist. I was able to clear Aurum Vale alone with only one Alexander drop.

they could sure. more options is not bad. people are not going to Titan EX solo when 2 people get Gaol'd.

right now i have no incentive to run Aurum Vale solo.

i would duo and trio lots of the old content if there are reasons to that's not just glamour.

[Fendred]

Maybe the better question is "how do you make content that continues to be interesting to players long after its release?" I think going back to make finite changes to pieces of content under the current system is pointless because the act of renewing content in such a way is as unsustainable as simply adding another new dungeon corridor. The content needs some way to alter or change itself in respect to party composition or by shuffling "dungeon tiles" and "encounter cards" to create a somewhat randomized dungeon experience.

[Dererk]

This will only go 2 ways.

Veterans will just team up together for fast speed runs.
Veterans will go in threw duty finder and make things go faster.

You do also have the middle ground where people will team up with inexperienced players. But this is less likely.

People hate being forced back to old content. Wer in an expansion right now screw the old stuff in 2.0 just make 3.x relevant or more so.

For most veteran players, helping a new player once a blue moon isn't a problem. Back in FFXI, if someone needed to down shadow lord, there was always someone around to help out. The resentment in FFXIV:ARR isn't towards the new player, but the content itself. We are required to run the content so much in this game that most of it becomes a chore to do. It's not that they hate the new player. The vet has to do the content whether he likes to or not in order to advance.

this guy gets it.

[Kosmos992k]

How to keep old content relevant?

Easy;

1. make Level sync actually bite
2. add an extra (and hard to beat) Boss to the dungeon when all players are level 50 or higher
3. since level sync will be worth a damn, give XP
4. make drop(s) from said boss relevant to the level 50-60 players, rare mats or something similar such as the drops from the top tier treasure maps.

Other than that keep everything else more or less the same. This makes the older dungeons worth doing.

When I first came to FFXIV one of the things that held huge promise -as far as I could see - was the idea of level syncing players in dungeons. I thought that this would be a great way to prevent player fatigue because it would help older content remain challenging - to a point. Unfortunately, level sync seems not to be strong enough - or consistent enough - to achieve that intent, and players can still effectively overgear older content and speed run it right into player burnout territory when farming things.

I'd far rather see a much stricter level sync to prevent speed run farming and slow folks down a bit, but at the same time increased drop rates to compensate for the additional time taken. In my opinion, this would reduce the number of times people blow through content while farming, and long term might reduce the burnout rate among higher level players.

An alternate way would be leaving level sync as is, but add a new difficulty mode to the older dungeons where all the trash mobs and Bosses are upgraded one or more tiers (each tier being 5 levels maxing out the dungeon20 levels above it's original). Of course this would require the dungeon drops to re-scale as well, but you can't tell me that's hard to do when all the gear and item lists are listed in rough ilvl/player level order any way. This way you could run Sastasha as if it were level 36 if you wanted to, or Arum vale as if it were level 69. Yeah, you want a challenge? Try AV at lvl 69 and see what happens even if you're unsync'd. Allow the dungeon to grant XP based on the relative player level to the effective level of the dungeon and what sync options were chosen.

The key thing about both these ideas is to make the drops worth it, and to allow XP to be earned.

[Kosmos992k]

Maybe the better question is "how do you make content that continues to be interesting to players long after its release?" I think going back to make finite changes to pieces of content under the current system is pointless because the act of renewing content in such a way is as unsustainable as simply adding another new dungeon corridor. The content needs some way to alter or change itself in respect to party composition or by shuffling "dungeon tiles" and "encounter cards" to create a somewhat randomized dungeon experience.

How would you feel if the dungeons were not quite so farmable, you could not run them so quickly (because they retain some difficulty, not simply because of artificial speed-bumps that prevent mass pulls), but the drops were better/drop at a better rate? That way you would not run the content so many times or so often, and there would be more challenge to that content.

The way I see it if we could do something to reduce the frequency with which these dungeons are run, but increase the worth of doing them appropriately, we would refuce fatigue and burnout, and reduce the feeling of it being a chore.

[Daralii]

Maybe the better question is "how do you make content that continues to be interesting to players long after its release?" I think going back to make finite changes to pieces of content under the current system is pointless because the act of renewing content in such a way is as unsustainable as simply adding another new dungeon corridor. The content needs some way to alter or change itself in respect to party composition or by shuffling "dungeon tiles" and "encounter cards" to create a somewhat randomized dungeon experience.

While I'm definitely in favor of at least some randomized dungeon content, I could see there being pushback from people that just want to go in, get their tomestones, and get out as quickly as possible. It would probably end up being entirely optional, and if it is I don't know how many people would run it.

[Colorful]

the purpose is to make this one game, not 3 different ones. DoW and DoH and DoL are all part of the same game. don't ask your "crafter friend", ask your raid Healer to do it because your Healer also crafts.

I said crafter friend because he just happens to mostly do crafting while doing one DREX a day on his main. As it stands, it is "one game", crafters can make a lot of things players utilize. Gear, glamour and furniture are all very valuable and sell quite fast.

there could be less RNG this way.

Explain how it's less RNG when instead of hoping your token or gear piece drops, you now have to hope it drops and hope the material drops too? That's not even the end of it, you'll have to roll against several other players for the material.

the point is for people like you to stop talking about it as if Crafters can't do Raids and Raiders can't craft. both of those things are obviously not true and obviously not how this game is designed.

I'm entirely aware of that, but a lot of complaints about being unable to produce the best PvE gear have been made by those who mostly crafter, but this is from my own experience so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

and Raiders don't need to do FATEs, and Raiders don't do Treasure Maps, and Raiders don't do Hunts. the suggestion is to get more people to do more things, so that less people complain about no content.

There's plenty of content in this game, it's just people don't want to do it. I myself don't want to do Treasure Maps or FATEs, I don't want to log in and feel like "Time to work on this chore I have because SE decided it's better to force content on players!". The lack of content comes from how it's too spread out and not focused on 2-3 parts, not the overall game. Locking these drops behind those things will get them to participate in the content, sure. But is that fun for them? The most likely answer is no, FATEs are tedious and lack any semblance of a proper challenge, the same can be said for Treasure Maps. I did find them the most fun option for making gil back in early 3.0 though, but as of now you're almost guaranteed to lose money on them. But again, I know many people who don't enjoy that content. Forcing Hunts was bad enough (Treasure Maps > Hunts though).

that's what gil should be for.

I still can't see how this would be beneficial to anyone but crafters, and it would only further the RMT problem.

At the end all I can say is we clearly have two different opinions on how it should be done and they likely won't budge, so there's no point in talking about this further. But my opinion on it is the best gear should not rely on crafters whatsoever, penta melded gear? Sure. But drops from Alexander Normal, Savage, Esoterics or Extreme Primals? Nope.

How would you feel if the dungeons were not quite so farmable, you could not run them so quickly (because they retain some difficulty, not simply because of artificial speed-bumps that prevent mass pulls), but the drops were better/drop at a better rate? That way you would not run the content so many times or so often, and there would be more challenge to that content.

The way I see it if we could do something to reduce the frequency with which these dungeons are run, but increase the worth of doing them appropriately, we would refuce fatigue and burnout, and reduce the feeling of it being a chore.

What low level dungeons are actually difficult at minimum ilvl sync? I don't consider things taking forever to kill challenging, and if anything that would increase the feeling of it being a chore, especially since we have only a bit of our abilities. As for your other idea of adding a new difficulty, that's not keeping old content relevant. That's replacing old content further increasing queue times for the original, which is one of the only reasons SE keeps old content relevant. I'd also much prefer those development sources be allocated into bringing up the level 51-59 dungeons to level 60 and throwing them in the EX roulette. That would also give variety to the PvE endgame which is lacking in almost every department, and it would also be "new" content that came with the release of Heavensward so it would be fresh.

How much times have I don't the Vault, the Library, or the Aery? 5-15 times maybe. 2.0 dungeons? I've done some of them so many times that I never want to step foot in those ever again. They're incredibly boring (as mentioned earlier, lack of abilities), bosses have no interesting mechanics or require you to actively dodge on the level of something like the Vault, and are just all around sub-par in comparison to Heavensward dungeons. If we're talking 2.1+, then yeah they're better as the patches go on, but I've still run those on roulette so many times, as opposed to the Heavensward leveling dungeons.

[MistyMew]

For most veteran players, helping a new player once a blue moon isn't a problem. Back in FFXI, if someone needed to down shadow lord, there was always someone around to help out. The resentment in FFXIV:ARR isn't towards the new player, but the content itself. We are required to run the content so much in this game that most of it becomes a chore to do. It's not that they hate the new player. The vet has to do the content whether he likes to or not in order to advance.

Couldn't agree more.