Stat squish confirmed: How will unsynced old content be handled?

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Originally Posted by Bacent

One version of stat shrink I know they have in the game already is with Paladin's blocking. The highest block chance Paladin always gets is near the end of the expansion, with the next one getting shrunk back down otherwise Paladin would be able to block too much damage.

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That's what all substats and defense already do. They don't really "shink" but reset as the strength of X substat is dependent on level.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

if all stats get squished, the actual effect to buffs is a lot smaller than before.

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No, if your relative at-level power is still the same, then the effect of buffs doesn't change.

Does this also mean that when we sync down to old content like Rabanastre it won't be as much as a roflstomp? Would be nice to see some mechanics that you never see anymore.

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Originally Posted by Floortank

Does this also mean that when we sync down to old content like Rabanastre it won't be as much as a roflstomp? Would be nice to see some mechanics that you never see anymore.

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Syncked duties that also iLv synck you will probably feel the same, because your relative power level now will be about the same as your relative power level post-squish. Strictly speaking we will be slightly less overpowered across all the cap level content, but it probably won't be noticeable except at the lower end of each level cap.

For example, Labyrinth of the Ancients, Void Ark, and Rabanastre should be harder than they are now, to some degree; while World of Darkness, Dun Scaith, and Monastery, will be about the same as they are now.

But again, this all depends on exactly what the new curve will look like, so we won't know the real impact until Fall.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

That was my point, yes. How much do stats escalate over those item levels? We jump that every time we go to a new expansion, and we're going onto the fourth expansion soon. That means three big end-of-expac gear jumps, with corresponding stat jumps. That's a big chunk of what's being smoothed out.

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This is absolutely something they could control, and I think they should look into.

Some potential places to reduce the explosion of item level:
Leading up to the end of the expansion, we were given a job coffer with item level 430 gear
Immediately we had the option to replace this with item level 440 Ronkan gear
Then level 445 crafted gear
Level 450 Eden normal
Level 460 Tomestone (and later 460 YorHa gear)
Level 470 Eden savage (and later 470 augmented tomestone)

So within the first patch we went up 30 item levels.

An example of the squish they could use:
Coffer : 430
Ronkan gear : still 430, but lets you use the same items on multiple jobs to streamline armory space. Additionally this set would have the accessories. Alternately this set could just be deleted.
Eden normal gear : 435
Crafted gear : also 435
Tomestone gear : 440
YorHa : 445
Augmented tomestone & Eden savage : 450

This cuts out 20 item levels of advancement every tier leading to 60 fewer levels added each expansion.

The stat gains could be comprable as well, which would lead in addition to the stats not inflating so dramatically, more flexibility when creating BiS lists for jobs making 24-man raid gear more relevant than it currently is.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Syncked duties that also iLv synck you will probably feel the same, because your relative power level now will be about the same as your relative power level post-squish. Strictly speaking we will be slightly less overpowered across all the cap level content, but it probably won't be noticeable except at the lower end of each level cap.

For example, Labyrinth of the Ancients, Void Ark, and Rabanastre should be harder than they are now, to some degree; while World of Darkness, Dun Scaith, and Monastery, will be about the same as they are now.

But again, this all depends on exactly what the new curve will look like, so we won't know the real impact until Fall.

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Nice. I see that as a silver lining.

No titles or loot for unsynched runs, sounds like a good plan to me.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Some potential places to reduce the explosion of item level:
Leading up to the end of the expansion, we were given a job coffer with item level 430 gear
Immediately we had the option to replace this with item level 440 Ronkan gear
Then level 445 crafted gear
Level 450 Eden normal
Level 460 Tomestone (and later 460 YorHa gear)
Level 470 Eden savage (and later 470 augmented tomestone)

So within the first patch we went up 30 item levels.

An example of the squish they could use:
Coffer : 430
Ronkan gear : still 430, but lets you use the same items on multiple jobs to streamline armory space. Additionally this set would have the accessories. Alternately this set could just be deleted.
Eden normal gear : 435
Crafted gear : also 435
Tomestone gear : 440
YorHa : 445
Augmented tomestone & Eden savage : 450

This cuts out 20 item levels of advancement every tier leading to 60 fewer levels added each expansion.

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iLv adjustments are not necessary, and the iLv number itself is largely meaningless outside of its role in locking people out of content. The iLv growth scheme we have allows for a certain perception of the expected pacing of gear replacement, and is fine. They can easily adjust the gear stat formulas without changing the iLv scheme.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Syncked duties that also iLv synck you will probably feel the same, because your relative power level now will be about the same as your relative power level post-squish. Strictly speaking we will be slightly less overpowered across all the cap level content, but it probably won't be noticeable except at the lower end of each level cap.

For example, Labyrinth of the Ancients, Void Ark, and Rabanastre should be harder than they are now, to some degree; while World of Darkness, Dun Scaith, and Monastery, will be about the same as they are now.

But again, this all depends on exactly what the new curve will look like, so we won't know the real impact until Fall.

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It also heavily depends on the job changes. While ilvl does make the old content easier the biggest reason why alliance raids like LotA, Void Ark, etc are such an easy snoozefest now is because of the potency changes SE has made over the years to compensate for removed mechanics or because they were needed to balance jobs at max level. Overall our character's abilities simply deal more damage at level 50 now than they did in ARR.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

It also heavily depends on the job changes. While ilvl does make the old content easier the biggest reason why alliance raids like LotA, Void Ark, etc are such an easy snoozefest now is because of the potency changes SE has made over the years to compensate for removed mechanics or because they were needed to balance jobs at max level. Overall our character's abilities simply deal more damage at level 50 now than they did in ARR.

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I'm saying that actual iLv values are irrelevant to the problem you describe. They just need to set the equipment stat formulas so that the stats on the gear scale appropriately. This can be done without changing the iLv of any equipment we have, and without deviating from the current 130 iLv per Lv cap scheme.

One of the biggest things I was excited about for the new expansion was now being so overpowered in unsynced content, that I could go back and do solo runs of Stormblood dungeons.

Now I'm afraid that won't be the case. I understand why the development team has to do this. And it's understandable. But it's definitely disappointing. One of the only disappointing things from this Showcase.

YoshiP said we're not getting weaker. But as someone who oft equates my strength with how much I've grown and gotten stronger in comparison to older "content". Like older dungeons. It definitely feels like I'm getting weaker.:(

Honestly, I want the ability to retro-run the old savage content so that we can get access to the dyable gear without issue. It still annoys me there isn't a way to upgrade the current eden promise armor to 520 just like the crafted gear and have that be dyable, but I guess they are scared of removing that incentive... even though it seems most people who run savage are about the numbers and owning trophies over glam.

Echo is the most obvious solution to fix the issue. If they do not fix it this will screw the casual community pretty hard.

Is there going to be any impact whatsoever on using to the duty finder to queue up normal dungeon runs, or is this purely affecting unsynced? Like, if I queue a heavenward dungeon, or run crystal tower through the duty finder and wait for it to match me with an alliance will the old content be any more difficult or will it be exactly as it is now? Gear creep is already strong enough that we just skip entire phases on the crystal tower bosses because they die before they get to do them (Glasya Labolas platforming phase for example), and that's only one example in one dungeon. There are countless others. And this is with the imposed level cap. I'm assuming that things won't change unless you're entering unsynced. Is that correct?

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Originally Posted by Melphina_Dragonfyre

Is there going to be any impact whatsoever on using to the duty finder to queue up normal dungeon runs, or is this purely affecting unsynced? Like, if I queue a heavenward dungeon, or run crystal tower through the duty finder and wait for it to match me with an alliance will the old content be any more difficult or will it be exactly as it is now?

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Doing content at the intended iLv will feel the same. Doing content at higher (syncked) iLv will be harder the greater the difference between intended iLv and the gear sync. However, the increase in difficulty when syncking will not be as large as the increase in difficulty for outright unsyncked runs.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Doing content at the intended iLv will feel the same. Doing content at higher (syncked) iLv will be harder the greater the difference between intended iLv and the gear sync. However, the increase in difficulty when syncking will not be as large as the increase in difficulty for outright unsyncked runs.

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Pretty much this.

The gap between minimum ilvl (so your first time clears) and your maximum ilvl sync is going to be smaller, so fights synced via Duty Finder won't necessarily get as easy over the course of a patch as people gear up for it. But that's not really an issue as it only applies to pre-81 content. You're not actively seeing people gear up for it, but all of that content will feel a little closer to min ilvl then it currently is.

Unsyncing things will get harder than they currently are, so doing a level 50 trial at level 80 will feel like you're doing it at level 60. But that's still easier than doing it synced.

I made a little graph to help illustrate the issue and what it might look like in EW:

https://i.imgur.com/PPjUxJr.jpg

Basically we have these sharp increases at level 50, 60 and 70. EW will bring them back in line with the level 1-50 curve.
There will still be a sharper incline at level 81-90, so being level 90 will still make unsyncing things pretty easy, but probably not to the extent that level 71-80 currently does.
It basically takes us back to the state of things at the start of HW, giving us a few extra expansions to power up before it comes an issue again.

It surprises me that we have to do these things with even such small numbers, it is not that we reach the million damage currently to do this and in the end it makes it clear that the game code is garbage.

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Originally Posted by Nayout

It surprises me that we have to do these things with even such small numbers, it is not that we reach the million damage currently to do this and in the end it makes it clear that the game code is garbage.

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You have multiple people dealing damage on a per second basis. So those 5000 dmg hits add up quickly to ridiculous numbers when you need a fight to last 10+ minutes.
This is why enemies have HP as high at 440 million.
It's simply not practical to code for values much higher than that when you need to relay them over an online connection, along with all the other data that get's sent back and forth as you're playing the game, in real time. It could cause issues that exacerbate people's lag with low ping, fail to apply damage within a certain window, etc.
It's something all MMO's deal with. WoW just had their own stat squish, and took everyone back down to level 50.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You have multiple people dealing damage on a per second basis. So those 5000 dmg hits add up quickly to ridiculous numbers when you need a fight to last 10+ minutes.
This is why enemies have HP as high at 440 million.
It's simply not practical to code for values much higher than that when you need to relay them over an online connection, along with all the other data that get's sent back and forth as you're playing the game, in real time. It could cause issues that exacerbate people's lag with low ping, fail to apply damage within a certain window, etc.
It's something all MMO's deal with. WoW just had their own stat squish, and took everyone back down to level 50.

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That is why it surprises me, Wow I did this when the numbers began to not be visible correctly on the screens because they were absurdly high amounts with much larger player content (25 man)

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Originally Posted by Nayout

That is why it surprises me, Wow I did this when the numbers began to not be visible correctly on the screens because they were absurdly high amounts with much larger player content (25 man)

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They're simply getting ahead of it before it gets that bad. They still have more expansions planned after Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

They're simply getting ahead of it before it gets that bad. They still have more expansions planned after Endwalker.

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The problem is that we can still see the numbers without problems, in Wow they made the changes after making a modification in the previous ones to the numbers to display on the screen in a more orderly way.

It is also that I see the belts and it gives me the feeling that either the servers we have are shit or the game code is.

The code isn't great, but I don't think that has anything to do with the belts other than the limited inventory slots.
They could have left the belts as they are. It's a long overdue decision to remove belts and free up those inventory slots for other things.
In fact they probably took the stat squish as the opportunity to remove belts, seeing as it would require recalculating stats.

They had said it will be harder to do unsynced content. Do you people not listen? But they will work to make it so that you can still do it, its just gonna be harder at first.

Yeah... when they said that "unsync'd content would be harder" is what got me actually concerned. I like doing old content unsync'd for the maximize damage I can do for fun and makes it easier to do certain WT tasks. I thought the reason they added the "Level Sync" and "Minimum iLevel" option in Duty Finder was so we can fight those old content anyway we want and if we wish to revert back to the lowest for the challenge, then fine.

The option is there.

Now it feels like they're taking away the option on how to play old content the way you want. I honestly love streamrolling everyone, I love feeling OP for old content, so I don't want that to be taken away. It makes doing the Primal EX fights easier as I can afford more mistakes without causing too much trouble for my party.

I'm not even sure if hitting level 90 will change much. I'm excited for Endwalkers, but don't like this "Stat Squishing" bit they mentioned.

I think, besides the programing aspect, that they might be stat squishing for healers.

What I tried to describe before having play from launch of ShB where they brought healer attack options down, which I felt was in response to some of the community asking for healers to focus on healing, was in the begining healers had to heal quite a bit and then a bit.. and then everyone was geared and basically healers only healed sometimes but had to attack a lot.

The stat squish, I'm guessing, is also to help with their balance in part to help make healers better. As a healer the stronger everyone gets the less important your job (as healer) is. Of course you can still do damage, but if they wanted a healer to focus on healing then they need to make sure people don't grow so fast. Even then healers will still have a slight problem at the maximal differences... so probably should ensure at least a healer or two have some engaging combat loops (one can remain simple for those who prefer that style).

But to reiterate I really hope they ensure, via some means, that unsync remains equally if not more powerful. That could be starting with echo unsync, new consumable item that buffs you unsync, or perhaps some continued support of blue mage when solo (like I suggested perhaps blue mage obtains primal instinct which gives them all three mimic forms at once, and add a few more abilities that only work in solo situations or at least have modified reactions- like Angel Whisper solo can be auto-raise like it's been in most of the series).

I'm okay if they improve the experience for the normal DF curve, but I hope they take mindful steps to ensure they just didn't kill the unsync experience. Like I hope they go out of their way to make sure, not "meh, maybe we did, maybe we didn't- you find out" lol.

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Originally Posted by SavishSalacious

They had said it will be harder to do unsynced content. Do you people not listen? But they will work to make it so that you can still do it, its just gonna be harder at first.

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Seriously. Why is this even debatable?

Moreso, what's the point of making OLD, OUTDATED CONTENT HARDER? That's literally what ilvl sync is for.

Wonder what the impact will be on the hunt community. If unsynced content may be thrown off a bit, surely that will also mean old S ranks and the like will be slightly more of a challenge as well....

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Originally Posted by Nayout

The problem is that we can still see the numbers without problems, in Wow they made the changes after making a modification in the previous ones to the numbers to display on the screen in a more orderly way.

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The bounds of a 32-bit integer, which is still the standard for a plain "int" in languages like C++ are ±2.1 billion. You can specify that you want to use 64-bit integers or even arbitrarily large integers if you import a custom data type that does so, but you would have to go through the entire code base and change every relevant instance of the word "int" to "long long". Worse, you would have to make sure you were only changing the ints that actually needed to be changed, and not the ints that are fine with the smaller value range, because just doing a replace-all to make everything a long long will make many numbers take up twice as much space as they need. Bad, unexpected things happen when you start changing data types in a code base. It would be safer just to change the stat formulas so that the numbers stay within the bounds of the data types already in use. There are other technical considerations, but these are big ones.

Given the upper bound of 2.1 billion and the next patch's biggest mob's maxHP of 440 million, we could already run into a problem against that boss. Unlikely though it be, I can think of one surefire way to cause unexpected behavior in that boss by forcing a calculation past the 2.1 billion limit. I won't discuss the exact situation here because, strictly speaking, explaining how to cause unexpected behavior in the game is against Terms, but the situation exists, and changing the stat scaling now to prevent this in the future is 100% a decision I support as a computer scientist.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Seriously. Why is this even debatable?

Moreso, what's the point of making OLD, OUTDATED CONTENT HARDER? That's literally what ilvl sync is for.

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Making old content harder is not the point, it's a side effect, but only if you're unsyncing, and probably only difficult if you're trying to do it solo or with less players than intended for the content.

People are already saying contents in FFXIV are easier just from item level increase, not even level increase. So unsyncing would still be easy when you have level increase, just not as easy as now, at least at 80. And at 90, we're getting the same stat increase as now, so that would make it easier as well.

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Originally Posted by linayar

People are already saying contents in FFXIV are easier just from item level increase, not even level increase.

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People are complaining that current content, on current itemlevel for said content, is too easy, not old content that you only run for glamour anyway. And of course ilvl increase is going to make content easier, that's the whole point of it, to acquire higher stat numbers which you couldn't before.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

People are complaining that current content, on current itemlevel for said content, is too easy, not old content that you only run for glamour anyway. And of course ilvl increase is going to make content easier, that's the whole point of it, to acquire higher stat numbers which you couldn't before.

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My point is that we will still be stronger doing content unsynced than we would've been doing it synced, and doing content synced is already easy enough in general according to the community. It might be an issue if you're trying to solo certain former high end duties, but not all people that are unsynching will be doing it solo.

hopefully kinda makes sync duty not so much of a steam roll

I was really hoping that we would get something like a dungeon level sync to your level this xpac instead of stat squish, where if you're level 70 for example and do a sunken temple of qarn you have access to all of your level 70 abilities but they're scaled to the appropriate dungeon power level. The higher the level cap goes the more low level content is going to suck to do.