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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Fendred]

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.

There wouldn't be much pushback. The entire "get our tomes and get out" mentality is caused by the current way dungeons are designed.

[SendohJin]

There wouldn't be much pushback. The entire "get our tomes and get out" mentality is caused by the current way dungeons are designed.

it's cause they serve no purpose besides tomes, i don't see how you can redesign the dungeons to change that mentality.

How would you implement this so that it won't be a cluster of people burning stuff? (Like hunts during their relevant periods)

Hunt bill style, Beastmen Daily Quest style, either will work.

people don't burn B Ranks cause they are useless without the right bill or the right daily/weekly quest to turn in for a reward.