Level Sync feels worse every expansion

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Funny thing is that's how they've done it in the past cure > cure 2 > cure 3 or fire > fire 2 > fire 3. For some reason they started messing that up by making some of the tier spells aoe instead of adding cura, fira or curaga firaga, and given them their own triers. As with other skills they started changing certain skills changing into a different skill via traits they just need to expand it. Hopefully this happens when they do specializations next expansion.

---

It's especially nonsensical if you look at the JP names, which use the classic suffixes. Fire, Firaga, and Firaja are single target, Fira is AoE, and then Fira upgrades directly to High Firaja.

the craziest part to me is that some jobs already exist that have early versions of their kits by lv 50, so its not an impossible task. They even get traits to evolve their early abilities, so the framework is there, just needs to be expanded on.


WAR gets TWO single target combos, BOTH gauge spenders, a better version of its basic mit tool in Vengeance, AND early invuln, all before lv 50. its lv 60 kit absolutely styles on the other tanks with Raw Intuition, Equilibrium, and further damage upgrades.
why do the other tanks not receive this same amount of love when it comes to balancing their gameplay kits? give us Goring Blade combo, bring back Power Slash, and let GNB get Fated Circle early. a baby TBN/HoS would be nice too

DRG and RDM get their basic skeleton by lv 50, expanded combos, raid buffs, AND early finishers by 60, plus more jumps/party tools with each expac. aside from DRGs AoE combo, both jobs kits are good examples of leveling placement
why do other DPS have to wait for lv 80/90 to feel like they match DRG/RDMs HW kits? Don't even get me started on MCH and RPR, their kits are SO needlessly barebones before StB content.

SGE gets some of its damage stuff a little earlier than the others, but even then it still needs work. ALL Healers need to receive basic versions of their lv 92 damage skills as early as lv 30, with each one having unique utility unlocked later down the line.
WHM getting early Misery and returning Shadowflare for SCH would help make their kits more interesting as well as to match AST's Earthly Star, which is still one of the sickest abilities in the game.



I'm not too sure what these "8.0 job changes" entail, but I do hope they learn from their already existing examples and streamline the leveling experience for ALL roles. With how the devs design the game, the content is only as fun as the jobs are allowed to be.

The way wow does it is everyone goes into leveling content at their level and has a backend scaler for each level down from max adding a multiplier to damage in favor of lower levels since they have fewer actions. They also opened every non current xpac dungeon to all levels. When timewalking they also do it to all overworld mobs. Alternatively they do what they did to smn where like you said they give you your core abilities at 50 and just upgrade throughout leveling. This kinda needs to happen in general but they need to reintroduce more rng into rotations to keep them interesting. Like in wow my frost mage has like 8 core buttons and two burst window buffs and its significantly more interesting than any class in xiv at this point because the rotations never exactly the same and no two buttons serve the same purpose. They all interact with the toolkit in unique ways. Like when was the last xpac when rdm didn't just get one extra action tacked onto the end of its melee combo?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bundythenoob

the craziest part to me is that some jobs already exist that have early versions of their kits by lv 50, so its not an impossible task. They even get traits to evolve their early abilities, so the framework is there, just needs to be expanded on.


WAR gets TWO single target combos, BOTH gauge spenders, a better version of its basic mit tool in Vengeance, AND early invuln, all before lv 50. its lv 60 kit absolutely styles on the other tanks with Raw Intuition, Equilibrium, and further damage upgrades.
why do the other tanks not receive this same amount of love when it comes to balancing their gameplay kits? give us Goring Blade combo, bring back Power Slash, and let GNB get Fated Circle early. a baby TBN/HoS would be nice too

DRG and RDM get their basic skeleton by lv 50, expanded combos, raid buffs, AND early finishers by 60, plus more jumps/party tools with each expac. aside from DRGs AoE combo, both jobs kits are good examples of leveling placement
why do other DPS have to wait for lv 80/90 to feel like they match DRG/RDMs HW kits? Don't even get me started on MCH and RPR, their kits are SO needlessly barebones before StB content.

SGE gets some of its damage stuff a little earlier than the others, but even then it still needs work. ALL Healers need to receive basic versions of their lv 92 damage skills as early as lv 30, with each one having unique utility unlocked later down the line.
WHM getting early Misery and returning Shadowflare for SCH would help make their kits more interesting as well as to match AST's Earthly Star, which is still one of the sickest abilities in the game.



I'm not too sure what these "8.0 job changes" entail, but I do hope they learn from their already existing examples and streamline the leveling experience for ALL roles. With how the devs design the game, the content is only as fun as the jobs are allowed to be.

---

I agree with all but healers. What healers need is a fairly simple dps rotation of like 5-6 buttons that gives out passive healing in some way or form and cleave most of the heal toolkits while shortening the cooldowns of each. Id rather see more fun rotations at all levels and 30sec ogcds rather than a plethora of 3 min cd heals and nothing to press in between but 11111111111.
It would be sick to see sch play like a heal scourge in gw2 where using its damaging abilities pulses barrier onto the party, applies short duration buffs and mitigations, and has a couple strong "long" cds as burst heals. Healers in general need a rework so the answer to having fun on a healer isnt just, "RUN ULTIMATES."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

The way wow does it is everyone goes into leveling content at their level and has a backend scaler for each level down from max adding a multiplier to damage in favor of lower levels since they have fewer actions.

---

The way XIV does potencies and burst windows tells me we can't do a multiplier or reverse multiplier for scaling in level sync. I'm gonna just hard-advocate for traits to handle any appropriate potency culling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atreus

The way XIV does potencies and burst windows tells me we can't do a multiplier or reverse multiplier for scaling in level sync. I'm gonna just hard-advocate for traits to handle any appropriate potency culling.

---

The problem with relying on traits is that they frequently fuck those numbers up. I forget if this was changed, but when 7.0 came out, RDM had a fairly long stretch of levels(between Jolt III at 84 and Enchanted Blade Mastery at 94) where it was a DPS loss to use their procs over more Jolt casts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daralii

The problem with relying on traits is that they frequently fuck those numbers up. I forget if this was changed, but when 7.0 came out, RDM had a fairly long stretch of levels(between Jolt III at 84 and Enchanted Blade Mastery at 94) where it was a DPS loss to use their procs over more Jolt casts.

---

I'm talking about traits that are separate from the ones they lay out for "level progression". Yeah the traits you describe are probably awful and have been contributing the varying levels of pain that jobs experience syncing down right now.

Wouldn't that be unfair compared to a fresh lv.50? You'd have the full lv.100 abilities in an ARR dungeon, while a new player would only have access to their lv.50 abilities, making them weaker objectively.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atreus

The way XIV does potencies and burst windows tells me we can't do a multiplier or reverse multiplier for scaling in level sync. I'm gonna just hard-advocate for traits to handle any appropriate potency culling.

---

Occult Crescent skills literally do exactly that, they list weird potency values, like Occult Comet is 500, but the actual value is listed potency x (iLvl/100), so it's actually 3500, and should the iLvl change, like say it's 750 for North Horn whenever that comes out, then all skills will scale up accordingly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

Healers in general need a rework so the answer to having fun on a healer isnt just, "RUN ULTIMATES."

---

oh I feel you on that one, believe me. I want nothing more than to return to 4.X healer design, but the synced content problem is so multilayered now that we can't even get our old kits back
I was moreso referring to the fact that the devs have already made some good leveling kits, so they can (and should) change the other job kits across the board
It would be nice to see this level sync problem even acknowledged at this point, but I expect they will simply continue to balance things at the current capstone, and pay no attention to the multitude of jank kit interactions below that

This is still commonly brought up, so I'm going to continue to share different moments of discussion. This thread just appeared here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...der-Level-Sync

And this comment string received a lot of engagement as well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...o4k/?context=3

Older content feels awful because of both the fact that its been nerfed to hell and we've got new abilities we didn't have back then as well as potency increases. Pre Shadowbringers content is not scaled for your 700 potency drill, for example or the crazy potency Picto palette spells.

It's probably always going to be that way because most roulette runners just want a fast turn off your brain 10 minute mindless run so the devs have no reason to touch it. Just look at the Crystal Tower ilvl exploit as evidence of that before it was changed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

Older content feels awful because of both the fact that its been nerfed to hell and we've got new abilities we didn't have back then as well as potency increases. Pre Shadowbringers content is not scaled for your 700 potency drill, for example or the crazy potency Picto palette spells.

It's probably always going to be that way because most roulette runners just want a fast turn off your brain 10 minute mindless run so the devs have no reason to touch it. Just look at the Crystal Tower ilvl exploit as evidence of that before it was changed.

---

I mean... kinda?

A lot of the abilities we got across classes in Endwalker and Dawntrail are literally just things they had removed after Stormblood and given a new name. Shadowbringer on DRK? It's literally Dark Passenger.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BlisteringFrost

I mean... kinda?

A lot of the abilities we got across classes in Endwalker and Dawntrail are literally just things they had removed after Stormblood and given a new name. Shadowbringer on DRK? It's literally Dark Passenger.

---

That just proves their point

Dark passenger was 140 potency or 280 with dark arts, shadowbringer is 600

It’s just pointless potency inflation

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

That just proves their point

Dark passenger was 140 potency or 280 with dark arts, shadowbringer is 600

It’s just pointless potency inflation

---

Does it though...? Like yes, you could say Shadowbringer is just Dark Passenger with an inflated potency... Shadowbringer is also a level 90 skill that does not impact any content bellow that level, which is (presumably) is balanced around the use of such a high potency skill, so the fact that it is inflated compared to what came before doesn't really matter, does it?

I am not dismissing the point about Drill and other sub-62 skills that were added in 5.0 and onwards, other than the 700 potency part, it's 620 currently but that's pedantic, but Shadowbringer is a bad example because it isn't a high potency skill misplaced at a low level, it's a very high level skill designed to be the EW capstone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

Older content feels awful because of both the fact that its been nerfed to hell and we've got new abilities we didn't have back then as well as potency increases. Pre Shadowbringers content is not scaled for your 700 potency drill, for example or the crazy potency Picto palette spells.

---

Yeah pretty much. Also no level bracket now is authentic to that era on content release. It was a wildly different game every expansion and I don't remember level sync feeling nearly as abrasive as it did starting basically Shadowbringers. It's a dated system at this point.

Please rework level sync CBU3. Even simply by nerfing potencies to scale for the ability in that level bracket instead of outright removing them.
It is worrying that there hasn't been any adjustments or conversations for this considering we are entering the 6th expansion soon.