[Feedback/suggestion] All duties should have item level syncs

tl;dr: I strongly believe a lack of an item-level sync on endgame duties is hurting the game and would like to see them implemented in all content.


I'm going to start with a story. This past weekend, I queued up for Normal Raid Roulette and ended up with AAC Light-heavyweight M1, Black Cat, with one new person in the group. 4 and a half minutes later, Black Cat was defeated, the fight ending a small bit after the first Leaping One-Two Paw/Leaping Black Cat Crossing mechanic. It was, for all intents and purposes, half of a fight. The other DPS besides the new player were all geared well with the new item level 770 gear and all played competently, and so the boss was defeated before it had a chance to show off the interesting mechanics it has later in the fight. On top of that, none of the mechanics it did perform were all that threatening due to the massively higher HP pools compared to when the fight was current, the bleed from being hit by Predaceous Pounce barely tickled my 190,000 health. Black Cat is not exactly the most challenging encounter in the game, far from it, but if I were in the shoes of the new player, I would've felt completely underwhelmed by the fight. As a DPS, they probably spent a longer time in the queue than the fight lasted, and I think this is bad for the game.

I can think of countless more examples like this. I haven't had a satisfying run of Deltascape V4, Exdeath, since Stormblood was the current expansion, the flashy ultimate attack of Nald'thal in Aglaia has been getting skipped entirely since literally the patch after it released, and I always make a point to get a party together for a Minimum IL run for the finale of each expansion whenever I have a new friend go through the game, lest Thordan or Shinryu or Hades fall over in what feels like a matter of seconds. Even the various X.3 Trial bosses feel like they die way too quickly, taking the wind out of the sails of what should be the climax of the story that's being told. The worst thing that art can be is boring, and the frequency at which this issue occurs in what should be exciting encounters makes the game more boring in my opinion.


But fortunately, a fix for this already exists in the game. Every end-game Dungeon since the release of Shadowbringers syncs you down to the equivalent of the strongest gear available when that dungeon released, and I strongly believe this system should be applied to Trials and Raids as well. To use my example from earlier, Black Cat still isn't a terribly difficult fight in item level 730 gear, but at least she'd take 7 or 8 minutes to be defeated instead of 4 and a half. The game already implements this sync in specific duties outside of dungeons, whether that be the finales against Gaius and the Ultima Weapon, Endsinger, or Queen Eternal, or in the various Ultimate Raids with the express stated purpose of preserving their difficulty.

- Continued in the next post due to the 3000 character limit

I assume a part of the upcoming job reworks in the next expansion will be dedicated towards making them feel better to play at lower levels. I believe that implementing this sync alongside those reworks would go a very long way to making the game more fun, and by extension helping more players get through the titanic undertaking that is progressing through the various expansions and reaching the current content. I am also aware that there will be some push-back against this if implemented, particularly in the realm of Alliance Raids that will now take a fair bit longer, but I also strongly strongly believe that this will benefit the long-term health of the game. Rewards can be adjusted for the slightly longer average duty length, and the Unrestricted Party option still exists for people that want to go back and overpower old content.

Agree that we are getting to powerful even without savage gear. And I see how it is happening. We're virtually level 106 in 770 gear.

In ShB you'd finish the MSQ, get job gear, and quickly replace it with lv 80 gear. Patch 5.1 would give you gear that simulated being lv 82 with lv 80 skills. 5.3? Level 84. And then you end the expansion kind of around level 86 or 87. This would be the "augmented poetics gear" that everyone uses as catch up gear until the Endwalker job quest!

Repeat. We're level 90 in EW. Then 92, 94, 96, 97. And we all start Dawntrail with blue equipment that is so good (97) that we keep it until the MSQ gives us lv 99 DT job gear. Repeat.

The problem is that the numbers are getting bigger and the gaps are getting wider. Lv 82 vs lv 80 is nothing. It's not too bad for 86 vs 80. Then 94 or 96 against 90 is a bit overpowered, but we can deal with it. (Sorry Nald'thal.) 102 vs 100 is noticeable. But 106 vs 100 is a clobbering. Level 106 vs 100 feels like level 90 vs level 80. Like doing a ShB trial unsync while EW was current. (4.5 minutes sounds about right!) I don't know how they're going to fix this without another stat squish.