To start, I like that we can go to older content to help newcomers, but going back to starter dungeons and even the stormblood with endgame gear just feels wrong, and it's establishing some bad habits among the playerbase.
My Cure 1 in sastasha heals similarly synced tanks for 40% of the their max health, and basically full-heals everyone else, and while that is just the first dungeon, I feel it demonstrates a major shortcoming that will make newcomers enter with false expectations for ongoing content where they practically run along behind the veterans who steamroll everything until they hit current expansion content, and even that gets steamrolled shortly after the next patch is released.
I've been helping a friend through the game as he's joined to play through one expansion at a time with breaks inbetween. Having us around has led to him basically ignoring mechanics thus far because he's had me and others to prevent him from dying to anything other than full 1-shot hits, and I feel like it's resulting in a case of veterans enabling newcomers to completely disengage from the gameplay in group content, similarly to how field content can be beaten with basic combos.
As a result of him basically sleeping through a lot of fights, I've noticed the lack of attention he pays also extends to the story and his surroundings in the field content inbetween dungeons and trials.
My best solution for this is just to limit the maximum sync power to minimum iLVL +30 or maybe 40 for "late game" dungeons and max level dungeons, as well as trials and raids so that players can feel notably more powerful than the first time they entered an encounter, but mechanics will still have impact. As it stands, that is only a rule for the final alliance raid of any expansion due to how the current scaling works based purely on character level.
For leveling dungeons and trials, I don't know a better solution than the ones we have presently, since it's built on having max iLVL of the crafted gear 1 level over the dungeon with maximized substats. I suppose part of the issue is that we may also need a gear squish with slower stat growth so that things also remain closer to a general leveling power curve with shallower stairstepping between expansions.
It's far from perfect as a solution, but it's just something that came to my mind after hearing constant complaints about difficulty. Yes, the game has easy dungeons and baseline trials by design, but there should be a limit to how easy it becomes.
Because I am aware of options to make instances more challenging: Yes I am aware that we can do runs with minimum iLVL, but that's a very intimidating thing to do as a newcomer, and putting together groups for that without a community backing you is difficult, or at least adds unnecessary friction to even entering the content in the first place.
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My Cure 1 in sastasha heals similarly synced tanks for 40% of the their max health, and basically full-heals everyone else, and while that is just the first dungeon, I feel it demonstrates a major shortcoming that will make newcomers enter with false expectations for ongoing content where they practically run along behind the veterans who steamroll everything until they hit current expansion content, and even that gets steamrolled shortly after the next patch is released.
I've been helping a friend through the game as he's joined to play through one expansion at a time with breaks inbetween. Having us around has led to him basically ignoring mechanics thus far because he's had me and others to prevent him from dying to anything other than full 1-shot hits, and I feel like it's resulting in a case of veterans enabling newcomers to completely disengage from the gameplay in group content, similarly to how field content can be beaten with basic combos.
As a result of him basically sleeping through a lot of fights, I've noticed the lack of attention he pays also extends to the story and his surroundings in the field content inbetween dungeons and trials.
My best solution for this is just to limit the maximum sync power to minimum iLVL +30 or maybe 40 for "late game" dungeons and max level dungeons, as well as trials and raids so that players can feel notably more powerful than the first time they entered an encounter, but mechanics will still have impact. As it stands, that is only a rule for the final alliance raid of any expansion due to how the current scaling works based purely on character level.
For leveling dungeons and trials, I don't know a better solution than the ones we have presently, since it's built on having max iLVL of the crafted gear 1 level over the dungeon with maximized substats. I suppose part of the issue is that we may also need a gear squish with slower stat growth so that things also remain closer to a general leveling power curve with shallower stairstepping between expansions.
It's far from perfect as a solution, but it's just something that came to my mind after hearing constant complaints about difficulty. Yes, the game has easy dungeons and baseline trials by design, but there should be a limit to how easy it becomes.
Because I am aware of options to make instances more challenging: Yes I am aware that we can do runs with minimum iLVL, but that's a very intimidating thing to do as a newcomer, and putting together groups for that without a community backing you is difficult, or at least adds unnecessary friction to even entering the content in the first place.
Continue reading...