Scaling and Past Content

[Valvadrix]

I apologize in advance if this issue has been brought up before, but it's been a problem that's been bothering me for a long time now and after my most recent run of Deltascape V3.0, I figured it's a good time to speak up about it.

I think gear scaling doesn't do a good enough job of preserving old content. To give a few examples, Halicarnassus entirely skips the sand phase and even whenever I get Kefka from the roulette, the last phase (which I remember to be his longest when the fight came out) either doesn't happen at all or only lasts a few seconds. We're only one expansion above, so I'm not looking forward to it getting even worse as our item level keeps increasing. I'd like it if the game scaled us down close to how the content used to be when it was relevant. Relatively speaking, since having it be 1:1 accurate wouldn't be possible.

I think the way old content is right now introduces many downsides, such as:
-This is entirely subjective, but while they make for quicker roulettes, older fights feel incomplete and boring.
-Newcomers don't get to experience the fights properly (I know there's a common argument along the lines of "you should have played when it came out" and I completely disagree with it).
-Due to how easy old content is, newcomers aren't prepared for relevant content and develop bad habits because the game doesn't teach them to put in effort for basically the first 70 levels (there are exceptions, like some unskippable instant death mechanics still present in instances like the Syrcus Tower, though they're slowly becoming survivable too).
-There's also the relevant problem of people item level cheesing to get easier/faster content from roulettes, which creates a problem with new players having difficulties queuing up for content between 2.0 and 5.0 (especially on the alliance raid side) while others are bored with getting the same roulettes every single day (Crystal Tower is the most common example). Of course, we're still able to get 60/70 raids, but they're noticably more rare. I think if we were scaled down properly, this would discourage people from cheesing.

The only cons I thought of are:
-Slower roulettes (though again, this is subjective because while some would find it too slow, others would find harder content more fun).
-Possible difficulties in the Crystal Tower raids, which used to have mechanics for 2 tanks per alliance. I don't know how much scaling would affect it because I honestly don't remember how it used to be with 2 tanks.
-I am aware that we don't have the same abilities as we used to when the content was relevant, but I haven't noticed any problem with that, so this is another drawback that's only potential.

I started this thread to encourage discussion, so I ask that people remain civil and also don't jump me in fear that their roulettes could get slower. I don't expect anything to change as a result of this thread, but I'm curious if there are other players who feel the same as me.

[Elladie]

People who are doing out of date content will not want to find it too much of a struggle, because they will mostly being doing it as a roulette duty. If you change the item sync drastically, people will start leaving as soon as 'difficult' duties pop, making it harder for new players to clear them. The people who find 'harder' duties in a roulette more 'fun' - where more fun means slower - are few and far between. This is a much more significant 'con' than you are presuming.

If you want to experience an out of date fight at more like its original challenge level, organise it through your FC, discord channels, party finder etc and have everyone gear down to the appropriate minimum ilevel

[Mhaeric]

They already added this feature. Queue with minimum ilevel selected in the duty finder options and echo turned off and it will sync down to the minimum ilevel instead of the usual maximum ilevel cap and block any echo buffing.

[Valvadrix]

Well, roulettes also give you up to date content, some of it is difficult to some people, and leaving is still rare. Most instances of leaving apply to content that was considered notoriously difficult or tedious to do, such as Aurum Vale or Orbonne Monastery. And people still leave those even when we outgear them. Back when Heavensward and Stormblood content was relevant, I don't recall there being a leaving problem either, and people who used to play back then are more experienced now. More fun also doesn't just mean slower, but generally involving more effort than old content does now. My post wasn't aimed for a one time (or every once in a while) re-experience of older content as it used to be, but more to let daily roulettes be less boring and monotonous to do.

[Saefinn]

I mean that content wasn't difficult for new players when it was on content, speaking as one who learned to play the game at release. Conversely, I think the fact these dungeons are a cakewalk is detrimental to new players, because they face roll mechanics instead of learning them and these are mechanics that get used repeatedly throughout content. The way it was balanced back in 2.0 was that it provided you a gradual difficulty to give you space to learn mechanics and how to play your job. You don't get that benefit if you can faceroll everything until you reach current content.

Whenever "but new players" come up it seems the assumption is that everything has to be easy or dumbed down, but that's not how you learn. It should be a gradual increase in difficulty. Which it was when I started playing.

And we have expert and level 80 roulettes, which people do daily for roulettes too and I'm not seeing a push for them to be easier or quicker or for them to be a face roll.

And I don't like the idea it is considered "out of date" content, content doesn't have a use by date, content is not out of date if people are doing it. And roulettes are good for keeping stuff relevant. I'd be in favour of more old content having life, because it is still good content.

[Valvadrix]

I mean that content wasn't difficult for new players when it was on content, speaking as one who learned to play the game at release. Conversely, I think the fact these dungeons are a cakewalk is detrimental to new players, because they face roll mechanics instead of learning them and these are mechanics that get used repeatedly throughout content. The way it was balanced back in 2.0 was that it provided you a gradual difficulty to give you space to learn mechanics and how to play your job. You don't get that benefit if you can faceroll everything until you reach current content.

Whenever "but new players" come up it seems the assumption is that everything has to be easy or dumbed down, but that's not how you learn. It should be a gradual increase in difficulty. Which it was when I started playing.

And we have expert and level 80 roulettes, which people do daily for roulettes too and I'm not seeing a push for them to be easier or quicker or for them to be a face roll.

And I don't like the idea it is considered "out of date" content, content doesn't have a use by date, content is not out of date if people are doing it. And roulettes are good for keeping stuff relevant. I'd be in favour of more old content having life, because it is still good content.

Agreed. I think while this allows new players to catch up faster, that shouldn't be the point anyway. New players who are experienced with MMOs will be turned off by the lower difficulty while people who use this as their first MMO won't have a proper learning curve and then we have people failing mechanics in current content and I think a lot of the blame here is on the game's approach towards older content rather than on the players.

They could add unique special items which only drop under the min IL setting to incentivise that kind of play; it would make years worth of old content feel new again especially for people who weren't around when player IL was originally more restricted. Could also have a weekly rotation of a few specific duties which get greater min IL bonuses to narrow the focus of party finder. Make weekly targets very visible on the DF, just like how daily roulettes have their own tab/page. One of the optional paths to progress a 'relic' weapon could include min IL participation. If minimum level is too harsh, add a new DF setting which is slightly higher IL sync than the minimum but still provides an experience close to the original difficulty of those fights; this setting would be available on DF matchmaking solo queue, so PFing won't be necessary.

I'm in favor of multiple options, so I think incentiving minimum item level runs would be a nice idea. I think it would be nice if roulettes were split into two types: ones that work like they do now and ones that go harder on gear scaling, but unfortunately, that would just split people up and increase queue times across the board.

[Rufalus]

It opens a nice opportunity for minimum item level / relive the past runs. They could add unique special items which only drop under the min IL setting to incentivise that kind of play; it would make years worth of old content feel new again especially for people who weren't around when player IL was originally more restricted. Could also have a weekly rotation of a few specific duties which get greater min IL bonuses to narrow the focus of party finder. Make weekly targets very visible on the DF, just like how daily roulettes have their own tab/page. One of the optional paths to progress a 'relic' weapon could include min IL participation. If minimum level is too harsh, add a new DF setting which is slightly higher IL sync than the minimum but still provides an experience close to the original difficulty of those fights; this setting would be available on DF matchmaking solo queue, so PFing won't be necessary.

[Jirah]

I find it paradoxical, trials and “Raids” (also known as trials) aswell some dungeon bosses weren’t difficult on release and now that they are even easier just makes the content mind numbing. I haven’t wiped in years with casual content besides and people complain about poor tanks and healers and argue “more complex content outside of savage and extreme is too much for them”..well the early stuff never taught them much either

its a never-ending cycle that needs to be halted

[Vyrerus]

nip

It's not just we don't have old skills, but there are also relatively new substats and damage potencies on top of the sync. When everyone is swinging with potencies that are much higher, old fights scaled around lower potencies aren't going to last.

Factor in that when we sync to content that does not have a direct iLvl sync, only a level sync, then it means that everyone with gear that's over the max ilvl of that level is synced down to 5 iLvls over what was actually possible at the time. This is done to match the best weapon at the time. Even at the time, if you went and did Halicarnassus normal with a group of i400s with i405 weps, she would disintegrate just like she does now.

So what you are asking for, is for the dev team to make separate iLvl tiers on a patch by patch basis, rather than an expansion wide one. That means adding actual iLvl restriction to each tier such that for Sigmascape people would only get synced to i375 Deltascape i345 etc I don't think that's too big of a thing to ask, but it's not really in demand.

For your pros
It would be nice if newbies could be shown the whole fight, but there's people skipping a lot of stuff outright with jump potions anyway.
Newbies won't be prepared for relevant content regardless of how "difficult" the old content is made. Especially if they skipped it with jump pot.
There is no incentive to increase skill, since you can be carried through the normal mode content by the teams you queue in with, so long as they win.

The problem of cheesing entry for roulettes has less to do with how we sync and more to do with minimum iLvl reqs. It would still happen.

As for cons

Slower won't be more fun, like even if the devs could find some way to sync every duty down so that we had to do all mechanics, there's just a lot of folk who would skip out on them entirely and use Fates only, as many already do.

The only crystal tower raid that required two tanks was Labyrinth of the Ancients, and that was due to them not having any data on how the players would do 24 man. All that would change if we unnerfed Bone Dragon skeleton damage is that the two OTs would pick up a skeleton each, and it'd be left to the DPS to get the remaining 4 and kill them far enough away from the other skeles as to not wipe. Nothing really needs two tank parties.

Last con I already touched on. You gotta consider the wild potency increase on top of the sync. They aren't ever going to implement a, "And now your 200 potency combo opener is back to 150, and your 500 potency combo finisher is now back to 340!" sort of sync. And they probably won't revert Direct Hit to Accuracy or Tenacity to Parry. No matter how much they restrict iLvl, for the given content, our damage floor is only higher.

I'm just giving you my two cents. I heard a stat squish is happening in 6.0, and this may make old stuff harder... maybe.

[Valvadrix]

It's not just we don't have old skills, but there are also relatively new substats and damage potencies on top of the sync. When everyone is swinging with potencies that are much higher, old fights scaled around lower potencies aren't going to last.

Factor in that when we sync to content that does not have a direct iLvl sync, only a level sync, then it means that everyone with gear that's over the max ilvl of that level is synced down to 5 iLvls over what was actually possible at the time. This is done to match the best weapon at the time. Even at the time, if you went and did Halicarnassus normal with a group of i400s with i405 weps, she would disintegrate just like she does now.

So what you are asking for, is for the dev team to make separate iLvl tiers on a patch by patch basis, rather than an expansion wide one. That means adding actual iLvl restriction to each tier such that for Sigmascape people would only get synced to i375 Deltascape i345 etc I don't think that's too big of a thing to ask, but it's not really in demand.

Thank you for explaining that. Considering modern potencies and stats completely went over my head.
As for your other points, I disagree with some of them because while making older content more difficult wouldn't fully mitigate the issue, I think it would push newer players in the right direction and give them the idea that they should actually try. Jump pots are an option that lets you knowingly skip past content, so it's a "do it at your own risk" kind of thing. I've seen people who skipped and then were completely clueless even when getting matched to an early ARR dungeon. At that point, it's fully on them for blindly going in and not really on the game for not having a more proper difficulty curve. Getting carried through the game is certainly possible, but refusing to learn also comes with the consequences of being a nuisance to parties and some parties won't accept it.
Here's hoping that stat squish addresses at least some of my problem.

They already added this feature. Queue with minimum ilevel selected in the duty finder options and echo turned off and it will sync down to the minimum ilevel instead of the usual maximum ilevel cap and block any echo buffing.

That's not related to the point I brought up. I'm talking about daily roulettes and content that matches you to people, not something you can do whenever you want with a premade party.