Idea for the duties.

[rxantos]

Truth be told. The game is too dependent on equipment and not on skill.
Go with bad equipment and no mater how good you are, you will wipe.
Go with good equipment and no mater how bad you are, the game will be forgiving.
I am sure all of you know this.

I suggest a compromise. Have difficulty system with auto level of equipment.
So if you want an easy experience you set the duty for easy, Which basically will put all your items to the maximum ilvl of the dungeon, even if you go naked. And get lower rewards.
And if you want a challenging experience you set it to hard and get better rewards.

Kind of what is now, except it will put everyone at the same item level no mater what they enter the dungeon with. You can go naked and still get the same item level than those with Uber armor of your class.

Since the dungeon equipment would be auto-leveled one way or the other there is no "I have overpowered armor and thus can do this with my eyes closed." And there is no "I cannot pass this after several wipes." Also no. "I can run the whole dungeon wall to wall without flinching."

The difficulty settings would allow for both challenging and easy experience depending on the player wants. The reward ratio is just to give people a reason to try hard (which would be everyone automatically sync at the lowest item level for entering the dungeon).

With the last boss of a random dungeon giving a special item if you pass the dungeon without a party wipe. Increasing the chance the less people have visited a dungeon. And the reward be given to each player based on their level. So you are level 20 you receive level 20 items, and for level 80 you receive level 80 items. No fighting also, as each would get it automatically Just by being lucky enough to be on that dungeon at the right time on hard and not wipe.

[Yuella]

There's the minimum ilvl option if you want a challenge

[TyrTry]

Truth be told. The game is too dependent on equipment and not on skill.
Go with bad equipment and no mater how good you are, you will wipe.
Go with good equipment and no mater how bad you are, the game will be forgiving.
I am sure all of you know this.

Tell that to the countless tanks and healers who don't know a proper rotation. Gear isn't saving a healer who can only spam Cure I.

As for the special item, all it would take is one wipe then "Oop. GG." Vote abandon.

People will avoid trying hard as much as possible and avoid it the plague.

Wouldn't take long for the "hard" option's ques to go above an hour or more...

Dungeons aren't challenging. That's why they're appealing....and at times completely boring. And changing that concept will only get people complaining they have to go left instead of right. Trials are typically hit or miss depending on when they are released.

I remember the complaints about Shinryu...gawd.

[ItMe]

I suggest a compromise. Have difficulty system with auto level of equipment.

Your entire idea falls apart if people are of greatly different iLVLs. Say if someone is using the duties to level a class.
Are you suggesting that you be able to turn on "iLVL synch" mode? Like how you can flip the undersize switch? Cuz if so, as has already been mentioned, there's already a minimum iLVL option, which would work way better than what you're suggesting because it's puts you at the lowest iLVL the duty was tuned for.

Additional problem: It's not just gear causing the older duties to be easier, but also power creep in our abilities. Considering how different many abilities are than even older counterparts you can't just scale numbers around and have everything still work.

[Frizze]

Truth be told. The game is too dependent on equipment and not on skill.
Go with bad equipment and no mater how good you are, you will wipe.
Go with good equipment and no mater how bad you are, the game will be forgiving.
I am sure all of you know this.

Equipment is important, but it isnt everything. A good healer(and ideally some solid DPS) can drag a tank in sub-260 gear(you know the type - refusing to upgrade because in one more level they can go straight to scaeven) past the finish line of an Abania run. A bad tank in i500 lvl 80 gear can cause wipe after wipe against the final boss of the burn(that level 70 dungeon) by not playing well. Yes, there is a floor level where if your groups gear is below you cant clear(its lower then you would think), but beyond that equipment is really just a buffer. In the best gear a healer might keep me going with 4 vulnerability stacks, whereas someone in lesser gear might lose me at 2. The player with skill wont get that many stacks anyway, and the bad one will just challenge the healer to try it with 5 stacks next. Then 6.

[Stepjam]

Thats like...99% wrong. Outside of early Alexander savage, the game has made a point of being clearable as long as you have minimum ilvl for it. After that, it's 100% up to player skill to clear.

Of course you gotta reach a certain threshold with gear, but if you didn't, what would even be the point of having gear?

I wouldn't complain if they added a tighter ilvl sync for older content. They do become utter faceroll once your gear is high enough. Don't even have to deal with like 80% of Lota's mechanics anymore.

I think the baseline is fine though. The game is not challenging outside of extreme and savage. And it certainly doesn't need to be easier

[Yuella]

I have an idea of fights where crowd control is required. Instead of burning down adds, maybe you are required to sleep them (with repose) or you will wipe.
I'd love to see more "healing check" adds like in Shinryu Ex with the 4 dragon heads that you have to heal to full.

[Stepjam]

I was thinking, it would be neat if one of the final Eden raids is Adel from FF8, or at least mechanically similar where either Ryne or Gaia are fused to the boss, so you have to DPS it down, but you also gotta heal whoever is fused to it at the same time, make sure they don't die.

[ItMe]

Thats like...99% wrong. Outside of early Alexander savage, the game has made a point of being clearable as long as you have minimum ilvl for it.

What was up with early Alexander (Savage)?

[Vyrerus]

What was up with early Alexander (Savage)?

Due to the substat allocations for gearsets, and due to how jobs were at the time, A3S and more importantly, A4S were unclearable for the first 3 weeks of Gordias Savage being out, even in full i190 optimized. I think some groups managed A3S by week 2 cause they got lucky with getting i210 drops for their DPS both weeks, but yeah... it was literally mathematically impossible to beat A4S until week 3 of the tier, because that was when you could buy i200 weapons.