Game difficulty, syncing, minimum ilvl and new players

[Kaurhz]

If you ask me, I think the final trial for each expansion should have an iLv sync equal to that of the dungeon at an equal level. It's pretty disgusting how well-hyped many of these trials are throughout the story, especially in Heavensward and Shadowbringers; just for them to fall over like a wet noodle when you come to encounter them.

[AnotherPerson]

I am trying to get a friend to play but the issue is they get all excited about a trial as a first time player, like they have it in their head it's going to be an epic boss battle and the boss is dead in 20 seconds. I'm talking about ARR story mode trials. I wish it was the case that if there was a first timer in the fight, item level would be sync'd to the minimum to encourage the new player to learn their role properly and enjoy the fight as it was intended. I understand this would be inconvenient for people doing daily roulettes, but it's hard to get new players to feel motivated to keep playing when they get excited for this epic Titan battle and it just melts. Obviously higher level trials aren't like this, but new players forced to slog through ARR, it can be confusing.

I feel this - especially when helping someone new in the final battle of SB 4.0 and ShB 5.0 - the boss is supposed to feel epic, but majority of our gear outscales them so much that sometimes they can't even show all their mechanics - I feel like maybe not a min ilvl sync should happen, but there should definitely lower the max ilvl sync to be much lower when you get better gear, so the content does get easier when you get better gear but not so easy that the best expansion to date feels like a joke when you outscale them significantly.

[Hycinthus]

I feel this - especially when helping someone new in the final battle of SB 4.0 and ShB 5.0 - the boss is supposed to feel epic, but majority of our gear outscales them so much that sometimes they can't even show all their mechanics - I feel like maybe not a min ilvl sync should happen, but there should definitely lower the max ilvl sync to be much lower when you get better gear, so the content does get easier when you get better gear but not so easy that the best expansion to date feels like a joke when you outscale them significantly.

There’s no easy solution here. Part of it is to reward those who worked so long for their gear. Doesn’t it feel good to feel more powerful after 5 years of playing? Otherwise, is it okay to feel exactly the same in every dungeon/trial even after 5 years of playing? Either alienate newbies or alienate tenured players.

[Iscah]

There’s no easy solution here. Part of it is to reward those who worked so long for their gear. Doesn’t it feel good to feel more powerful after 5 years of playing? Otherwise, is it okay to feel exactly the same in every dungeon/trial even after 5 years of playing? Either alienate newbies or alienate tenured players.

I don't see an issue with old fights retaining their difficulty - or at least enough of it to still feel like an epic battle and not a pushover. Don't enforce a min-ilevel sync but keep it at or not too far above the best gear you could own when the fight was current.

The "reward" of getting stronger from current high-level gear should be felt in current fights, not old ones.

[technole]

I don't see an issue with old fights retaining their difficulty - or at least enough of it to still feel like an epic battle and not a pushover. Don't enforce a min-ilevel sync but keep it at or not too far above the best gear you could own when the fight was current.

The "reward" of getting stronger from current high-level gear should be felt in current fights, not old ones.

Well they did do this for the ultimate fights where they cannot be unsync, and are ilevel sync/capped so they can't be outgeared. It was felt like that was a players request to retain the difficulty and value of the titles.

I do think they should extend this mindset to other end-game content, possibly savage and normal difficulty trials at level 80. The leveling up ones like Ravana, and Titania tend to stay as-is on difficulty over time since they are downsynced.

[Absurdity]

I do think they should extend this mindset to other end-game content, possibly savage and normal difficulty trials at level 80.

I don't see much of a reason to keep savage synced. It doesn't add any titles so the only "bragging rights" you get from it is the gear, which will be rather useless once the next raid tier is released, and mounts, which you rarely ever even notice. Forcing a sync for savage accomplishes very little besides keeping less skilled players from getting the glamour and mounts later on. Considering that savage is normally the only way to acquire the dyeable version of the normal raid gear this is bound to annoy people and do little else.

[technole]

I don't see much of a reason to keep savage synced. It doesn't add any titles so the only "bragging rights" you get from it is the gear, which will be rather useless once the next raid tier is released, and mounts, which you rarely ever even notice. Forcing a sync for savage accomplishes very little besides keeping less skilled players from getting the glamour and mounts later on. Considering that savage is normally the only way to acquire the dyeable version of the normal raid gear this is bound to annoy people and do little else.

They already add echo a patch or two later from the next savage anyway, and people already can't just go into Alphascape let alone Eden's Gate Savage and take a win without knowing the mechanics. E4S will probably be a gate for those who don't know the fight for awhile regardless.

[Dogempire]

The playerbase as a whole is (understandably) afraid of wiping and having to press that return to start button, so SE has to cater content with a participation trophy mentality where barring the most serious of mistakes it's very hard to actually wipe to things and simply showing up and pressing buttons gets you a clear.

Even with situations where there are 6 people dead except the tank and the healer, it's there isn't much danger of wiping, the only danger is having to collect dust on the floor while the healer raises people 1 by 1, and by that point you're probably tabbed out wondering if you'll be dead last on the rezzing queue, plus the aforementioned situation rarely happens since there's so few normal mode mechanics that actually carry any risk of killing a single person, let alone 6.

[Jonnycbad]

Yeah, it's just that going back and helping my friends to be motivated to keep playing through ARR and early HW basically amounts to me hedging it with "keep it up and it'll get better", meanwhile I'm biting my nails hoping it's not too discouraging/boring for them. They aren't really MMO players but are longtime FF fans, so I'm hopeful they'll stick with it. It's just theres 0 strategy for the first 100 hours of FFXIV because shit just melts and it can really suck the wind out of the sails of new players who get this huge buildup for fights like Thordan or Ultima Weapon and then it's just a snooze fest.

[Puremallace]

Then form a group and do min ilvl sync. It would be a nightmare to queue for a normal roulette just to feel like you are fighting a savage level fight. A lot of the classes, spells and methods did not even exist when a lot of these fights were originally made.

Expecting new content to be on par as difficult as the latest expansion would cause content cycles to literally take forever as they would have to rebalance the entire game everytime they modified a single ability.