Devs, PLEASE STOP with the level sync already.

There are appropriate uses of the level sync function, those uses include things such as ARR content being synced to level 50, HW to 60 and SB to 70. Also level sync for quests is acceptable.

Inappropriate uses are essentially everything else that is done in game, let me explain. Our entire goal in this game is progress and find better gear, which means we should be becoming stronger, as we become stronger older content should become easier. But that is not how the game plays out. We do get stronger over the course of a patch, but then we are forced to become weaker for older content while at the same time older contents rewards are being diminished.

Example! The Expert Dungeons. When the expert dungeons are removed from the expert pool the amount of current tomestone they give us is reduced, and we are greeted with a forced drop in item level. Which means, the dungeons never become easier, but the reward we get from it continues to be reduce with each patch. I see this as counterproductive, why get stronger, just to be forced to become weaker? The devs could easily just reduce the rewards the dungeons give but allow us to retain our current item levels.

The newest example, and the main reason for this post is Eureka. You have added a way for people to "solo" the content in the future by allowing us to purchase Pazuzu feathers. But at the same time, we are reduced to level 20. In essence this allows people to form small parties and kill the lower level NM's for farming, ignoring all the higher-level NM's because they will be too difficult for the low number of players who will ever find themselves in Eureka Anemos at a time.

What would seem more sense in my mind, is to not level sync us while entering Anemos, allowing us to enter at 35. I'm sure a group of level 35 WoL could reasonably fight the high-level NM's in Anemos. Doing this would allow players to actually form small parties to farm various gear instead of relying solely on farming lower tier NM's.

Essentially, continuing to lock content being level syncs makes us feel like we're not actually getting any stronger as players, especially when we go back to farm some of the older content. It also makes things like Eureka and Diadem impossible to go back to even with small parties. Content that is patches old should be easily handled with parties much smaller than originally required.

I am aware that part of the level sync idea is to help out newer players. I've been that low level, crappy geared tank that struggles throughout the entire dungeon to hold hate from the DPS. I've also been the healer who rips hate off the tank with a single critical Cure II, because they are just scraping by the minimum requirements. And to that I say sorry, get over it, move on. That situation is fleeting, we've all been under geared at one point, and then we weren't. Though the above situations are not without flaws, there are still positives that come from them, specifically teaching players how to manage their enmity. Tanks, Healers and DPS alike are forced to watch aggro tables and utilize cool downs when a tank is under geared.

Of course, there are ways that things like this could be avoided. One way I have always wanted to see is the enemies of a dungeon being adjusted to meet the groups average item level. Another way to not alienate new players is to adjust the item levels when someone in the instance is new. This would allow them to experience the dungeon as it should be experienced the first time they run it, but then allow them to farm from old content with relative ease after.

Regardless, in the end I think the removal of level sync from a lot of the content would do well in reviving some of the old instances as well as allow people to consistently and efficiently farm older content.

I disagree. In fact I think it's not done enough. If content is in a duty roulette then it should be as difficult to run as when it was relevant. Facerolling content isn't a reward, and if you want to do that then run it unsynced.

Running LotA in its current state isn't fun, because the disparity between LotA and WoD is very noticeable. WoD is tuned correctly (ilvl 145 I think), but LotA is tuned to the same ilvl rather than the i90 that it should be, making it trivial to run, and flat out boring when you spend 30mins doing nothing but skip mechanics and pretend to contribute DPS

I'm with Lambdafish.
And don't forget Cape Westwind, literally to easy for rewards even during ARR.

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Originally Posted by Legion88

I'm with Lambdafish.
And don't forget Cape Westwind, literally to easy for rewards even during ARR.

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I know we love to meme cape westwind, but it does seriously need fixing

The crux of the issue op presented is either the rewards should be increased to remain relevant, or iLv sync should be removed/toned down. If the idea is keeping the dungeons as """""""""""""""challenging"""""""""""""""""" as they were at release then the rewards they give should be proportionate to what they were at release. Instead we end up with dungeons that give practically no reward for all the effort they take (Neverreap).

Basically the effort needs to be equal to the reward and if they're not going to increase relative reward they need to at least remove iLv syncing.

Not to mention iLv sync nulls materia which nulls hundreds of stats...

That said, it'd be neat if we could set iLv going in, and increase the reward the lower we set it, with min iLv being the option for the greatest rewards.

Please keep in mind minimum iLv tanks need to be able to hold aggro somehow against max geared dps. That is why item lv sync is a thing to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Runestone

Tanks, Healers and DPS alike are forced to watch aggro tables and utilize cool downs when a tank is under geared.

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Though this is part of the game regardless of the content. Yes emnity is less of an issue in unsynced content, but it still plays a part in whatever you do. Even if the tank is not ungeared but overgeared, and wants to play full on offensive in DPS stance, you can expect everyone else should play around this as necessary using aggro reductions/preventions etc.

Older content generally isn't for players that are far in the game, it's more for the new players progressing through the story. I have no reason at all to run Sastasha or TamTara again but if it comes up in Roulette I appreciate there might be players doing it for the first time, and they won't have a lot of fun if I come in styling 370 ilvl gear steam rolling everything whilst they are left being pretty much useless. The level sync gives us a challenge even if it is a boring one sometimes, and although it does need tweaking for some content (such as Crystal Tower as another mentioned) I'd prefer to be rewarded for doing something close to its intended difficulty rather than miles away.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

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Except the primary method of accessing these outdated pieces of content (roulettes) already gives a reward that is proportionate. Actually, currently it doesn't, because the same reward is given whether you get LotA or WoD in alliance roulette, and on the more extreme end, if you get cape westwind or tsukyomi normal. By properly syncing these pieces of content, the game would be more balanced in the way you want it

There may be places where it could use a bit of tweaking in one direction or the other, but the main purpose of level (and iLvl) sync is so that new players and experienced players are able to play together with both contributing equally (or at least near enough to equally to make the content meaningful). That hasn't become any less important than when the game launched. If anything, it's more important than ever, since the farther the game advances the more distance there is between the capabilities of a new low-level character and an endgame max-geared character.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Except the primary method of accessing these outdated pieces of content (roulettes) already gives a reward that is proportionate. Actually, currently it doesn't, because the same reward is given whether you get LotA or WoD in alliance roulette, and on the more extreme end, if you get cape westwind or tsukyomi normal. By properly syncing these pieces of content, the game would be more balanced in the way you want it

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The roulette's reward is not proportionate to the dungeon you get with it. Lv50-60 Roulette doesn't give you more tomes as a bonus if you got Neverreap versus getting, say, Baelsar's Wall. You just straight get less tomes, for comparatively similar effort.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

The roulette's reward is not proportionate to the dungeon you get with it. Lv50-60 Roulette doesn't give you more tomes as a bonus if you got Neverreap versus getting, say, Baelsar's Wall. You just straight get less tomes, for comparatively similar effort.

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So I guess the solution is to properly sync these dungeons, and make sure that the reward being given is appropriately equal

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

So I guess the solution is to properly sync these dungeons, and make sure that the reward being given is appropriately equal

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The reward needs to be as equal to the effort as possible. Either sync and reward goes up to stay relevant, or no sync and the reward stays the same. As you pointed out, Alliance Roulette has the opposite problem of 50/60: the reward is the same, but there's no sync so we have two facerolls and one not-as-much of a faceroll.

I'd rather see the reward increased in compensation for item level reduced than see mobs die in even more pitifully quick measure. Cooldowns and the like just don't time out intuitively after a certain point in (overgeared) breakneck speed.

Ideally, if someone *had* to farm Mendacity through no-bonus dungeon spam alone, the latest dungeons should give the quickest rate once above the maximum item level permitted by the tier before.
But, they should also be faintly harder than each before it, such that from the minimum gear level for the new tier to the item level cap for the previous tier there's no real difference in efficiency assuming the same skill level among one's party in either case.

I'll agree that the rewards for the older dungeons if/when synced should be more proportionate to time spent, but such changes should always lean towards better gameplay, more cohesive in its difficulty progression and the like, first and foremost.

I don’t quite understand. If you remove Level Sync, how are newer players supposed to progress thru the game? To do older content without Level Sync, use the Undersized Party feature. That’s what it’s for.

If older content is too difficult to complete, players won’t participate. The Steps of Faith is good example of older content that you still see players occasionally drop at the start.

Ilvl sync doesn't bother me, level sync does, we level up and get no opportunity to even play with our tool kits half the time

I go from playing blm at 70 to 50/60 ect.

Scale my ilvl down if you gotta, and if ilvl matters at all my stats should scale as well. Overwise it just shows ilvl to be the time sink, flimsy gate it looks like. Where ultimately it means nothing but is only there so I have to keep resubbing to get my gear to either run 1 dungeon over and over or have to level sync back to satasha. Leave me all my spells with scaled damage so I can at least spend time with my rotation since the 12 know nothing in the open world lIves long enough to make it fun.

My only issue with level sync is that I wish they would make a way to give you access to more of your abilities, while still not being too op for the content.

Any time I do a leveling roulette, I always make the joke "I'm sure glad I leveled ninja just so I could play rogue!". Making the content challenging is fine, but completely invalidating the work/effort you put into leveling up a job is frustrating. Don't give us fun spells and abilities to use, then make us spend so much of our time in content that removes our access to it. Realistically, how often, while going out and about, doing your challenge log, roulettes, etc, are you ever actually able to use all of your abilities up to level 70? Half the time, it's not often, especially for the roulettes, or fate syncing.

The only thing they should tweak in Eureka is allowing people at higher levels to help their friends. I hate that being grouped with an FC mate that just got in ruins any chance they have for getting that first crystal they need. Give us a way to balance that out. This is an MMO, let people play together without punishing them for it.

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Originally Posted by Runestone

There are appropriate uses of the level sync function, those uses include things such as ARR content being synced to level 50, HW to 60 and SB to 70. Also level sync for quests is acceptable.

Inappropriate uses are essentially everything else that is done in game, let me explain. Our entire goal in this game is progress and find better gear, which means we should be becoming stronger, as we become stronger older content should become easier. But that is not how the game plays out. We do get stronger over the course of a patch, but then we are forced to become weaker for older content while at the same time older contents rewards are being diminished.

Example! The Expert Dungeons. When the expert dungeons are removed from the expert pool the amount of current tomestone they give us is reduced, and we are greeted with a forced drop in item level. Which means, the dungeons never become easier, but the reward we get from it continues to be reduce with each patch. I see this as counterproductive, why get stronger, just to be forced to become weaker? The devs could easily just reduce the rewards the dungeons give but allow us to retain our current item levels.

The newest example, and the main reason for this post is Eureka. You have added a way for people to "solo" the content in the future by allowing us to purchase Pazuzu feathers. But at the same time, we are reduced to level 20. In essence this allows people to form small parties and kill the lower level NM's for farming, ignoring all the higher-level NM's because they will be too difficult for the low number of players who will ever find themselves in Eureka Anemos at a time.

What would seem more sense in my mind, is to not level sync us while entering Anemos, allowing us to enter at 35. I'm sure a group of level 35 WoL could reasonably fight the high-level NM's in Anemos. Doing this would allow players to actually form small parties to farm various gear instead of relying solely on farming lower tier NM's.

Essentially, continuing to lock content being level syncs makes us feel like we're not actually getting any stronger as players, especially when we go back to farm some of the older content. It also makes things like Eureka and Diadem impossible to go back to even with small parties. Content that is patches old should be easily handled with parties much smaller than originally required.

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Ugh I disagree so much that I think you're so backwards.

So first you say that it's appropriate for dungeons and quests, whereas most players would actually prefer to not have a level sync because of the actions disappearing and would rather see a more adaptable ILVL sync.

Then Eureka you say that their level sync is bad..even though all it does is make you weaker (it doesn't affect actions at all), so most players would actually say it's a good sync.

You also claim that having the sync means people don't want to do the higher level NM in fear of not being able to beat it when the instances die down - except that NM spawn and strength depends on the amount of players in the instance. So if there weren't that many people in the instance, those people would still be able to beat the higher level NM if they were at that level or higher.

Whereas on the flip side, if they removed the level sync for 35, you can bet a bunch of NM would be killed by the higher level people so quickly that some of the lower level people might not make it in time. This already somewhat happens because the < 17 can't mount. So removing the sync would just expand this as now the 18-20 would be more likely to be late if they died during a previous NM as they wait for a rez while the 35 (level affects your attack and defense, it's not just magicite) would be so unlikely to ever die. Therefore the 35s in Anemos, without a sync, would be able to move from NM to NM even faster than the players who are actually meant for that map because of lack of death.

As far as feeling stronger, yes you want to feel stronger.
And you do. Even if you're sync'd , you're still stronger than when you first started Anemos.

Really disagree with OP. I wish they would sync our ilvls down in content so we are forced to do mechanics. It is kind of heart crushing visiting old content that was challenging and fun to it being basically ignore everything. I'd say don't let out ilvls exceed 20ish lvls over the requirement. Old content is old content, but man old content is boring due to it being so face rolling. I wouldn't mind doing a roulette and having to sweat a little.

Yeah, but on the flipside, like with Westwind, Level 70 players don't want to be wiping on Level 50 content because it's just too hard for newbies. I remember for the longest time, HATING it when I got Ravana as the Roulette. Back during HW, it always almost always 1, sometimes up to 3 wipes just to get through it.

Nowadays, it isn't as bad with the tweaks that have gone to classes and such, but back during HW I always groaned and sighed when I saw Ravana. I didn't want an 'edge of my seat' experience, I just wanted the XP and move on.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

I disagree. In fact I think it's not done enough. If content is in a duty roulette then it should be as difficult to run as when it was relevant. Facerolling content isn't a reward, and if you want to do that then run it unsynced.

Running LotA in its current state isn't fun, because the disparity between LotA and WoD is very noticeable. WoD is tuned correctly (ilvl 145 I think), but LotA is tuned to the same ilvl rather than the i90 that it should be, making it trivial to run, and flat out boring when you spend 30mins doing nothing but skip mechanics and pretend to contribute DPS

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There is a fine line though. If you make it to hard people will never run the content. As is it now, one wipe on a boss in LotA and 5+ people instantly leave.

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Originally Posted by Legion88

I'm with Lambdafish.
And don't forget Cape Westwind, literally to easy for rewards even during ARR.

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Cape Westwind doesn't have any rewards.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Yeah, but on the flipside, like with Westwind, Level 70 players don't want to be wiping on Level 50 content because it's just too hard for newbies. I remember for the longest time, HATING it when I got Ravana as the Roulette. Back during HW, it always almost always 1, sometimes up to 3 wipes just to get through it.

Nowadays, it isn't as bad with the tweaks that have gone to classes and such, but back during HW I always groaned and sighed when I saw Ravana. I didn't want an 'edge of my seat' experience, I just wanted the XP and move on.

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Are you joking? Ravana is the best thing to get in a roulette. Its a really fun fight, that is challenging but not too challenging. Wipes shouldn't be feared, and if the choices are faceroll or a couple of wipes for people to understand mechanics, then I say bring on the wipes.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

As is it now, one wipe on a boss in LotA and 5+ people instantly leave.

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To be instantly replaced by 5 more if my experience is anything to go by. Regardless, I'm not asking for hard content, I'm asking for the content to be its natural difficulty, so that mechanics are actually seen and people can enjoy the instance how it is actually supposed to be.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

Cape Westwind doesn't have any rewards.

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Trial roulette has rewards

Someone already mentioned this, but I think the ideal solution is to simply allow us to use all of our kit irrespective of item level, once we reach the appropriate level to use it.

I don't mind having my level lowered so that my base stats meet the criteria of a person who would be roughly at the correct level of the content, but the idea of having to suddenly lose everything I worked hard for sort of jibs me the wrong way.

Obviously item level would need to possibly synch'd down even harder to compensate from the extra damage a full kit provides, but hey -- I'll take that evil if it means not having that awkward transition when you're doing end-game content, but you're constantly having to reinforce bad gameplay/rotation habits because of level synch.