How Do You Feel When Old Content Is Made Easier?

[KisaiTenshi]

This would probably kill a lot of content off as the roulettes would be rarely used if they went minimum ilevel.

Doubtful. The purpose of the roulette itself is to back-fill people who need to get through content. It's really anti-productive for the hardcore players to drag a player who hasn't cleared the content through it already, as though they were expected to have spoiled the content for themselves. Hence if the difficulty remains at the level it was intended to be played at, then the rewards for doing the roulette that way should apply, and who cares if it takes longer. Doing the mechanics properly = faster clear. Trying to skip mechanics, or ignore them just to clear it faster results in players learning nothing but "the mechanics don't matter."

Right now, people just remove gear items when queuing so they keep getting LotA instead of the Lighthouse, because the reward from the roulette is the same. Yet the difficulty is not the same. That needs to be fixed. For the Leveling queue, they should be capped at the maximum gear that was available when that gear was introduced. So for all the ARR content that would probably be ilevel 80, with the Relic weapon and the darklight gear.

Something has to give here, because if they do nothing at 5.0, the difficulty curve will be so far above, even for regular content, that those who didn't learn any mechanics what-so-ever, will cry for everything to be nerfed. Y'all remember Steps of Faith? And Shinryu? And now Tsukiyomi. This is because there's no difficulty to anything that isn't the new content.

I played 2.0 at release. Every dungeon had some level of difficulty to it. Let me list them off:

Sastasha Seagrot - Denn the Orcatoothed, you used to have to interact with the gates. Now you can just kill the boss and ignore the adds.

Tam-Tara Deepcroft - Galvanth the Dominator, you used to have to get the DPS to take out the adds. The adds are barely a tickle.

Copperbell Mines - Gyges the Great, you had to prevent the adds, or kill them. Or as we all learned, let the healer kite them and everyone else burn the boss.

Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak - Graffias, you had to kill the adds. Now you can pretty much just ignore them. Don't even need to deal with the tail.

Haukke Manor - Lady Amandine, actually used to offer something of a challenge, because the orbs would interrupt casters, this was the first dungeon where "running out of mp/tp" could wipe. It's also the first dungeon with actual roaming monsters that a tank had to actually interrupt.

Brayflox's Longstop - Inferno Drake (Second boss), you had to put the boss to sleep, and kill the mob that follows Brayflox. Now you can just skip that and Brayflox will survive as long as the tank has both of their attentions.

The Sunken Temple of Qarn - Teratotaur (first boss), instant death mechanic, pads mechanic. Temple Guardian (Second boss) was always a healer killer. Adjudicator the "box" mechanic is seen for the first time, and we will keep seeing it. This dungeon also introduced the "kill something on some spot" mechanic, but now you can just burn through all three bosses.

Cutter's Cry - Myrmidon Princess, adds would be summoned, and the trick we learned was to cast regen as the healer and just kite the adds. Now the adds just do so little damage it doesn't matter. The Chimera (third boss), also used to present some difficulty, but mostly now you can just eat the AOE's and ignore the mechanics.

The Stone Vigil - Oh yes, the first dungeon that having left hand and right hand gear actually mattered. This is the only dungeon, to date, where Tanks ever used their markers during 2.0. This was because this is the second dungeon with strong roaming monsters, so you can be overwhelmed quickly. Even if you play this with the squadron right now, you'll typically get overwhelmed if you don't drag them off to a corner. All three of the bosses used to offer some difficulty, but Isgebind was the one that would result in the gear check.

Dzemael Darkhold - All-seeing Eye, first version of "look away to avoid AOE", Taulurd, another boss where "regen and kite" worked. Batraal took a long time to kill because you couldn't just kill the crystals in three hits.

The Aurum Vale - We do not talk about Aurum Vale. Suffice it to say, it remains the only ARR dungeon with mechanics that can't be ignored.

Castrum Meridianum - Oh where do I begin... each boss used to take about 5 minutes to defeat. You would run out of MP if you played it like players play it now. Only Livia Part 1 remains the same. The correct mechanics was to use the canons to kill everything. At 2.0 players would actually drag the Colossus's out of the area and back to the cannons because that killed them faster. Now those things are dead before I even get the door open.

The Praetorium - Absolutely no challenge in it's current state. Everyone still skips the first group of mobs and drags the third group to the second teleporter. Colossus used to take about 3 minutes. Now it's dead before you get up the stairs from unlocking the door. Nero, used to take several minutes, and you used to have to kill the adds. Now the adds barely get a chance to spawn before Nero escapes. Look at his attack list, he has at least 7 attacks, and you barely see more than 3 of them. Gaius was always a push over. There used to be a question asked during the cutscene, but it has no relevance. Gaius has 6 attacks, you barely get to see past the Judgement AOE, so everyone just stands in it. In 2.0 Gaius would have to be chased around the room so you'd get 2-3 rounds of those AOE's, and one Medica II was enough to ignore it then, and even now. Ultima Weapon was the real DPS check (you had to wait for Hydaelyn to remove Ultima's buff, or you'd waste resources.) It used to take longer. Much longer. You'd run out of MP as a healer if the gear check wasn't met by all players. The second part is where that check was actually tripped since the self-destruct telegraph would start, and most 2.0 runs would clear it with a few seconds to spare. Now? Ultima Weapon's HP is completely drained and the self-destruct phase barely lasts 1 second before it's defeated. Lahabrea was also always a push over, and that actually hasn't changed.

If SE were to restore the 2.0 level of difficulty by capping all the 2.0 content to ilevel 80, and the 2.x content to ilevel 130, maybe we wouldn't get so many zerg players who don't know anything about any of the mechanics. PotD would look more attractive as leveling content, but as PotD actually integrates with the 2.0 storyline with Edda, for the first two dungeons and one 2.x dungeon, it would make sense to only unlock PotD after completing Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard).

[KaivaC]

Question, Kisai. For the old longstop, what would've happened if Brayflox died? If the dungeons were like this originally, I wonder if there are some old videos that showcase that original difficulty. I've been running squadrons and they still don't reach the level of difficulty that you've written, sadly. I kinda wish there was like a challenge roulette the brought the original mechanics with minimal ilvl if it was like this.

[HyoMinPark]

Question, Kisai. For the old longstop, what would've happened if Brayflox died? If the dungeons were like this originally, I wonder if there are some old videos that showcase that original difficulty. I've been running squadrons and they still don't reach the level of difficulty that you've written, sadly. I kinda wish there was like a challenge roulette the brought the original mechanics with minimal ilvl if it was like this.

They probably don’t reach that difficulty because Squadrons are over-powered, and the dungeon itself was nerfed when HW came out, like with all ARR dungeons (HW dungeons suffered a similar fate when SB dropped). For old videos, you could probably YouTube old ARR guides or playthroughs to see, but I’m assuming if Brayflox was killed, you would fail the boss fight somewhat similar to how you do if Estinien dies in The Aery (with the latter, no Draconian Light shield to protect from Nidhogg’s ultimate).

[KaivaC]

They probably don’t reach that difficulty because Squadrons are over-powered, and the dungeon itself was nerfed when HW came out, like with all ARR dungeons (HW dungeons suffered a similar fate when SB dropped). For old videos, you could probably YouTube old ARR guides or playthroughs to see, but I’m assuming if Brayflox was killed, you would fail the boss fight somewhat similar to how you do if Estinien dies in The Aery (with the latter, no Draconian Light shield to protect from Nidhogg’s ultimate).

Fair enough...I forget that squads are stronger than usual groups. I'll have to hunt down the videos over the weekend just to see. Or unsync and let the dragons go ham on Brayflox just to see what happens.

[RiyahArp]

Right now, people just remove gear items when queuing so they keep getting LotA instead of the Lighthouse, because the reward from the roulette is the same. Yet the difficulty is not the same. That needs to be fixed. For the Leveling queue, they should be capped at the maximum gear that was available when that gear was introduced. So for all the ARR content that would probably be ilevel 80, with the Relic weapon and the darklight gear.

If every raid in roulette is the same effective difficulty, and only rab and lighthouse currently are needed for upgrades, people would just queue directly for rab and lighthouse for the upgrades, or only lighthouse for the 360 gear. You would have to make all 24 mans give the token to upgrade and current ilvl armor to make roulette attractive.And to be honest once you have leveled all you need, raid roulette is useless; there's no real need for the sheer amount of creation they give you unless you mass produce the highest tier ingredients for crafts.