Newb question about group game play.

[Raldo]

The more expansions that pile on, the worse balanced the older stuff seems to get. I agree that nearly everything prior to ShadowBringers now feels easier than it did before the expansion hit, even if you do it level-synced. The Lv1~50 stuff is now SUPER EASY, so I can only hope the lv51+ stuff can hold your interest a little better, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

The good news is that there is challenging content available starting at level 50 (The Binding Coil and/or Extreme Primals). The bad news is that content is 100% optional, nobody runs it in the Duty Finder, and you'll find it nearly impossible to convince people to actually do it level-synced at its original level-cap, thus removing most, or all, of the challenge. Very few people are interested in bashing their head against a wall for no benefit.

Barring convincing a small group of people to trudge through old content at its original level cap for zero benefit, you might start to see some challenge at or above level 60. I still run across groups in the Duty Finder that struggle with some of the Alexander raids (Lv60; note, however, that Alexander is optional side content). Beyond that, there's another difficulty bump at Lv70 with the Omega raids, the 24-man Ivalice alliance raids, and some people even struggle with the some of the MSQ trials they throw at you (lookin' at you, Tsukiyomi). I bet some of the Lv70 extreme primals are still challenging, even if you run them at lv80.


tl;dr: Yes, the early game was always boring, and with Shadowbringer's recent culling/condensing/simplifying of nearly every job's skills, the early game can feel even more boring than it used to. I certainly never enjoy getting synced under level 60 for most jobs. Most people will want to complete content in the easiest manner possible, so they'll often opt to absolutely steamroll stuff unsynced just to get the rewards faster. If I had to give a context-free answer to your question, I would say Level 70, which is... yeah... an unfortunately very long way away from where you currently are.