Game difficulty, syncing, minimum ilvl and new players

[ItMe]

Maybe a separate temporary server like BDO where they are “season” character for 2 months in that server, have special perks and erc, then after 2 months, they will graduate and join the regular servers.

Is that... optional?
Cuz if my friends wanna join but we can't play together for awhile that's no fun for anyone.

[Hycinthus]

Is that... optional?
Cuz if my friends wanna join but we can't play together for awhile that's no fun for anyone.

In BDO yes, it's optional. If your character is in the "Season" server, that character can jump around between "Season", or "Regular" server.

However, tenured players cannot enter the "Season" servers with their high level characters, but they are free to create a new character there too if they want to accompany their friends.

In the "Season" server, the quests are streamlined, condensed, and rewards gears faster. There's a fair amount of handholding, teaching you the necessities of crafting and improving armor, albeit, using easier ingredients and simpler terms. There are mentors who live in the "Season" server all the time, to help out.

Basically it's like a "breeding pond" for new fish, only last for 2 months, before their graduation and be released into the ocean. Then after graduation, a new season will start for the next batch of guppies.

Now that we can jump around servers in a data center, they may be able to do this, just create a "Guppies" server for each data center that will feature condensed MSQ, etc, and to prevent the Guppies Duty Finder to be lacking players, then just ntroduce a Data center wide new Roulette Queue called "Guppies" Roulette where it rewards higher rewards, BUT, you must join with minimum ilvl gear so you cannot zerg-fest or steamroll stuff. Maybe only open it for mentors.

[Iscah]

Now that we can jump around servers in a data center, they may be able to do this, just create a "Guppies" server for each data center that will feature condensed MSQ, etc, ...

For all that some people complain about the MSQ, condensing it on the designated newbie server would be a horrible idea. You're basically forcing people to choose between experiencing the story properly and getting assisted as a new player.

If anything, that's exactly the time where people should be allowed to take it slow and expect to see cutscenes in their entirety without others wanting to rush.

[Gemina]

I couldn't agree more. I can't for the life of me figure out why the devs allow stats into content that is more than twice those that are required to complete it. However, I don't ever see this team actually making old content harder to complete.

[Addy]

Man the Thordan trial is pretty bad with the high ilvl too...the cutscenes were really nice then you do the trial and......oof you can literally stand in all of the "mechanics" (If you can literally call them that at this point.) and not die. At least the visuals in the fight are cool I guess.

[Gemina]

Man the Thordan trial is pretty bad with the high ilvl too...the cutscenes were really nice then you do the trial and......oof you can literally stand in all of the "mechanics" (If you can literally call them that at this point.) and not die. At least the visuals in the fight are cool I guess.

I came into the game at a time when you very much could die in that fight if you got hit by bad. FATEs like Svara, Odin and Behemoth were still heavily ran with tons of deaths as well. Those were fun times, but we have new special FATEs and NM raids to go along with trials where going in blind definitely increases the chances you'll get smoked.

I really enjoy the unreal trials and hope they extend it to the HW primals and onwards. Thordan EX and Nidhogg EX in particular when they were relevant were sick fights that I would love to see added at some point.

I wonder if they could do instanced FATEs with old badies like Svara and sync them up to recall some of those times. Could probably allow 48 players in there, and let the fun begin.

[ForteNightshade]

Man the Thordan trial is pretty bad with the high ilvl too...the cutscenes were really nice then you do the trial and......oof you can literally stand in all of the "mechanics" (If you can literally call them that at this point.) and not die. At least the visuals in the fight are cool I guess.

I'll never forget when I first started how underwhelming Thordan felt. While the build up towards him was fairly solid, his fight was so poorly tuned I could stand in AoEs and not worry. That didn't make for an epic, grand finale but an anti-climatic one. And this was only ten months into Heavenswards. Nowadays, so much older content is utterly laughable. I appreciate they don't want new players to be left too far behind, but it makes doing old content less fun. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I almost never touch it anymore.

[Wissp]

I'll never forget when I first started how underwhelming Thordan felt. While the build up towards him was fairly solid, his fight was so poorly tuned I could stand in AoEs and not worry. That didn't make for an epic, grand finale but an anti-climatic one. And this was only ten months into Heavenswards. Nowadays, so much older content is utterly laughable. I appreciate they don't want new players to be left too far behind, but it makes doing old content less fun. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I almost never touch it anymore.

I found this post amusing.

I am part of a discord group that does the old stuff at Min I-level and no Echo and we recently cleared Thordan EX. I got to see first hand the reputation this trial got as the hardest one in FF14. Believe me, you do it with all the mechanics in play and no 'help' like the echo and being overgeared, and it is Damn HARD! Right now we are doing Nidhogg Ex. Not as hard as Thordan, we should clear him tomorrow night.

I am currently doing the whole of Coils MINE too and T9 is the Bitch. Good Lord Nael is hard! We hope to finally beat her next weekend and move on to T10.

Yeah, it's a shame newer people can't normally experience the fights like they were and see the true mechanics of it. Luckily though, there ARE groups that offer the chance if you look for them.

[technole]

I found this post amusing.

I am part of a discord group that does the old stuff at Min I-level and no Echo and we recently cleared Thordan EX. I got to see first hand the reputation this trial got as the hardest one in FF14. Believe me, you do it with all the mechanics in play and no 'help' like the echo and being overgeared, and it is Damn HARD! Right now we are doing Nidhogg Ex. Not as hard as Thordan, we should clear him tomorrow night.

I am currently doing the whole of Coils MINE too and T9 is the Bitch. Good Lord Nael is hard! We hope to finally beat her next weekend and move on to T10.

Yeah, it's a shame newer people can't normally experience the fights like they were and see the true mechanics of it. Luckily though, there ARE groups that offer the chance if you look for them.

Thordan EX was designed to be a higher than usual difficulty as a way to bridge between Alexander Gordias Savage floor 2 and 3, so it was like a 2.5. Those i205 weapons were valuable to help the A3S Living Liquid DPS check.

Even I can admit it took my raid group getting the Thordan weapons to clear Gordias Savage when it was relevant. Not a ton of people cleared Gordias Savage, and it nearly dissipated the raiding scene in the game. YoshiP said they never wanted Thordan EX to be a regular thing. Hades EX almost had that similar feeling, a bit easier but it was just a long fight.

[Hycinthus]

For all that some people complain about the MSQ, condensing it on the designated newbie server would be a horrible idea. You're basically forcing people to choose between experiencing the story properly and getting assisted as a new player.

If anything, that's exactly the time where people should be allowed to take it slow and expect to see cutscenes in their entirety without others wanting to rush.

Yes agree with you on that. What I meant is, this can be used to fix ARR MSQ to make in 2021-newbie-friendly (because the ARR MSQ are the ones mainly getting the criticism by media in terms of slog right?), making it more up to standard to SB and ShB, things like that. Definitely I did not mean to suggest to start deleting quests or deleting storyline. But even if they did not, my idea was more regarding the Guppies server.