MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[Packetdancer]

I think the thing with content with a current content shelf date can't be laid entirely at the feel of the developers, though. Eureka and Bozja participation petered out because they put rewards in there, people got those rewards, and then noped out. Some of the same people who complain things aren't hard enough, but then won't participate in keeping the content they say they prefer alive unless SE is constantly shoving new and different carrots under their noses. SE does fail to future proof some things and it's ridiculous we have to turn to outside sources, but things like Baldesion Arsenal Discords are proof that those who really want the content will use it and keep it alive and keep engaging with it and those who just want to use the content will use it and abandon it then complain they have nothing challenging to do.

While I mostly agree, I'm still going to judge SQEX a bit on this one.

I know folks who only just got to level 80, who would really like their Resistance relics (because pretty weapons!), but who have found there isn't enough population in Bozja now for them to complete things like Castrum Lacus Litore or Delubrum Reginae. And I think having rewards tied to that content that people coming along later will want, but no other way to keep the content alive is at least mildly problematic once the initial waves are past; as you yourself note, people got the rewards and then noped out because there was some other newer reward they now wanted to grind towards -- or because they went "Okay, got my stuff, now I'm going to take my break and go play Other Game for a couple of months until the new raid tier drops." or whatever.

And while Discords like Primal Forays and Eurekan Explorers and whatnot exist—and I've directed the folks I've encountered to those sort of resources—someone trying to just do that content in the game is not necessarily going to know to go look for those.

So I do think SQEX could demonstrably do a little better at future-proofing some things here and incentivizing people to keep the older stuff alive for the newer players following along behind us: add weekly challenge log entries for critical engagements, put Delubrum Reginae into Wondrous Tails, make some of these sort of things give current capped tomestones if you run them with a level-capped character, etc.

I mean, they demonstrably know this does keep older content alive, because they incentivize specific instances of older content in that way already with Wondrous Tails, as well as incentivizing filling whatever older content needs people with daily roulettes.

It's just particularly unfortunate that the content which is poorly incentivized and so sort-of dies off happens to also generally be the best candidates we currently have for "the intermediate step(s) between the difficulty of the MSQ and that of higher-end stuff like savage".