Should Level Sync better not remove skills?

In my opinion, the scaling on skills is enough. It would be much more fun if we can still keep all the skills while level syncing. What is your opinion?

It would go a long way in making classes actually fun to play in old content

Unfortunately, hard pass from me. It would cause people who are actually the intended level for a run to feel practically worthless. I'm thinking the lower-level dungeons in particular. Hey, my RDM being synced down has his full tool-kit with multiple AoE spells and a high-powered combo. You, our newer player just reaching that dungeon for the first time, don't even have a single AoE ability yet. Entire packs melt and all you got to do was a couple single-target attacks against one mob.

Syncing the skills as well gives everyone in the party the ability to feel relevant, while still giving higher-level players being synced down a bit of extra power (since it syncs to the max level for the area rather than where a leveling player would likely be gear-wise).

And those without those skills would be like huh? No it's not a good idea everyone in those duties should have the same active skill set. You can ask but the chances of it happening are pretty remote.

Option 1: You scale the Lv90 to perform on <example-dungeon> at for example Lv50 to perform as well as the Lv50 player fresh in the instance. You now have the same level of performance pressing way more buttons but no additional output, giving you essentially a disadvantage by having to work harder. Not terribly hard to deal with, but would still be meh.

Option 2: You don't scale as closely and the Lv90 player has a numerical advantage over the LvXX player. The LvXX player will feel probably bummed out for being so weak compared to his high level peers and feel the other player may have an unfair advantage if they feel even remotely competitive.

Additional note: Extremes and Savages of old are still content being done, even if sparse. Furthermore, the amount of tuning work needed to be done to scale kits of high levels to do roughly the same performance of that of low levels is a balancing act way more complicated and dynamic than having a static range of abilities for each dungeon / trial.

We are getting Unreal Trials for such reasons, what we could ask for is Unreal Dungeons perchance. Then again probably better to spend the resources on the upcoming Variant / Criterion Dungeons.

But that is just my two cents.

Think of it as syncing down to the previous expansion.

In a lot of mmos, once the rotation changes, it's changed forever and people yearn to be able to go back to a previous expansion and the rotations we had then.

Although our rotations have changed even for previous expansions, the essence of them remains for most classes.

For example, if I sync to level 50, I still spam a Rage of Halone combo on a Paladin. If I sync to 60, I still spam Royal Authority with Goring Blade after every 2 combos. If I sync to 70, I still replace those Royal Authority combos with Holy Spirits in Requiescat.

For people who want to go back and finish content they didn't do with their old rotation or experience content as it used to be as a new player, it's still available to them, so there is no reason for them to yearn to go back to it.

Imagine playing lvl 90 job rotation against a bat in Sastasha doing like 1 damage per button press :p

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Originally Posted by Nanne

Imagine playing lvl 90 job rotation against a bat in Sastasha doing like 1 damage per button press :p

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I'd rather have that and build muscle memory to get better and not press 1 2 3 90% of the time.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

And those without those skills would be like huh? No it's not a good idea everyone in those duties should have the same active skill set. You can ask but the chances of it happening are pretty remote.

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This already happens.

It’ll be a nightmare to apply.

There had been multiple threads requesting or at least hinting a desire to access their kits even in lowest dungeon. & countless times being told why it’s just straight up bad. But here’s one of the more recent & one from many: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ng-in-dungeons

Take your time. (Or not)

What would stop speedrun minded players from kicking a tank for not having an invuln or a DPS for not having AOE because they're too low level to have those skills?
People already do whatever they can to clear roulettes as fast as possible so that would definitely add another layer of friction between sprouts and players levelling alt jobs, and people on their main jobs.

Where's my tally board for the amount of times this has been discussed to death.

The mistake was and will always be the tacking on of stuff ever new addon...

If they would work more with the abilities to upgrade skills over the levels we could actually start on lower levels with a fuller kit, so the sync would not hit as hard... so we could at least keep roughly the same skills, just weaker and keep the updated look for high level players... Yes it a lot of work but would've been easy if they went that way right away... instead of adding gimmick #50... or job meters for the sake of it...

But entering a lower level duty and not even having aoe is just pain.... its not just about speed, it just feels wrong...

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

What would stop speedrun minded players from kicking a tank for not having an invuln or a DPS for not having AOE because they're too low level to have those skills?
People already do whatever they can to clear roulettes as fast as possible so that would definitely add another layer of friction between sprouts and players levelling alt jobs, and people on their main jobs.

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A trip to the jail and a ban.

also Dragoon/Lancer get first aoe at 40 and I never heard about lancer/dragoon being kicked before Stone Vigil.

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Originally Posted by Curemefi

In my opinion, the scaling on skills is enough. It would be much more fun if we can still keep all the skills while level syncing. What is your opinion?

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This is how Everquest 2 did level syncing. However, I would sync down to level 20 on my cleric, then go and solo a level 30 dungeon. It didn't work out well and just became a tool for powerleveling.

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

But entering a lower level duty and not even having aoe is just pain.... []it just feels wrong...

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I just got this evil vision of SE adding trash mobs to higher-level dungeons that have a high resistance to AoE attacks, and therefor have to be single-targeted to kill - or even build agro on! Large packs of such trash mobs.

W2W this, Leroy Jenkins! Heh heh heh.

Personally I am super cool with not needing my full level 90 rotation against level 17 trash mobs that die in 8 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Personally I am super cool with not needing my full level 90 rotation against level 17 trash mobs that die in 8 seconds.

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Neither do you in a level 90 dungeon to kill trash mobs.

Though i personally would think thats fun i would have to say i dont think it would work well because now you could have identical jobs but some hve abities others dont and where do you draw the line do scaled tanks have all their damage protection abilities? Healers have all their healing abilities? I can see the horror already if your a new healer and first couple dungeons being with a seasoned tank with a bunch of defence and self healing then get a dungeon with a tank that at that level. Might be something fun to play with with premades but not so much with the random roulettes.

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Originally Posted by Sesera

I'd rather have that and build muscle memory to get better and not press 1 2 3 90% of the time.

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It's actually 1 2, not 1 2 3, before you reach tam-tara, and you can't even use AoEs until you're almost done with ARR. Ugh, so freaking dull...

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

It’ll be a nightmare to apply.

There had been multiple threads requesting or at least hinting a desire to access their kits even in lowest dungeon. & countless times being told why it’s just straight up bad. But here’s one of the more recent & one from many: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ng-in-dungeons

Take your time. (Or not)

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I mean alternatively they could just design classes with the intent that they can be played at lv 50.

But then skills are made for expansion padding, not for making jobs feel complete so....yeah cant interfere with profit

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Unfortunately, hard pass from me. It would cause people who are actually the intended level for a run to feel practically worthless. I'm thinking the lower-level dungeons in particular. Hey, my RDM being synced down has his full tool-kit with multiple AoE spells and a high-powered combo. You, our newer player just reaching that dungeon for the first time, don't even have a single AoE ability yet. Entire packs melt and all you got to do was a couple single-target attacks against one mob.

Syncing the skills as well gives everyone in the party the ability to feel relevant, while still giving higher-level players being synced down a bit of extra power (since it syncs to the max level for the area rather than where a leveling player would likely be gear-wise).

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Not defending it but yeah this is a thing already on anything that's not ilvl synced. You really feel carried most of the times even when it's your first time and you're doing everything properly. Just adds to the reasons that say you shouldn't be queueing with other players on first time runs.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Unfortunately, hard pass from me. It would cause people who are actually the intended level for a run to feel practically worthless. I'm thinking the lower-level dungeons in particular. Hey, my RDM being synced down has his full tool-kit with multiple AoE spells and a high-powered combo. You, our newer player just reaching that dungeon for the first time, don't even have a single AoE ability yet. Entire packs melt and all you got to do was a couple single-target attacks against one mob.

Syncing the skills as well gives everyone in the party the ability to feel relevant, while still giving higher-level players being synced down a bit of extra power (since it syncs to the max level for the area rather than where a leveling player would likely be gear-wise).

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Yeah better take care of that newbie who probably is playing with a free trial or maybe he/she is going to do TamTara for first time ever and never touch it again(or until the sprout unlocks roulettes at levell 50) instead of catering to veterans who stays subbed and keep playing the game every month.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

And those without those skills would be like huh? No it's not a good idea everyone in those duties should have the same active skill set. You can ask but the chances of it happening are pretty remote.

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That's why the level system exists.
That's why that person is level 30-40 and my character level 90.
That's why It took weeks/months to level up my character to level 90 only to spend 80% of the time doing "synced" content because that's what are roulettes for, and no doing only 1-2 dungeons at level 90 ins't fun after the 23498th time this month.

I'm tired of seeing the excuse of " No!, newbies should experience those 10 years old dungeons in 40 minutes!, its super fun doing Sastasha/Tam with my character level 90 now pressing 1 skill"

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Originally Posted by Curemefi

In my opinion, the scaling on skills is enough. It would be much more fun if we can still keep all the skills while level syncing. What is your opinion?

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Didn't we hash this out not two weeks ago? Ok, maybe three.

No. SW:TOR does it this way and it's a disaster for every reason brought up in this thread. But they took it a step further. Lowbies would be scaled UP without the extra skills. Oops, this boss needs an interrupt and you don't have one? #sadge

But if you don't want to deal with it, read on...

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

I'm tired of seeing the excuse of " No!, newbies should experience those 10 years old dungeons in 40 minutes!, its super fun doing Sastasha/Tam with my character level 90 now pressing 1 skill"

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You'll be happy to hear (read?) that Square made a feature especially for you: Limited Leveling Roulette which puts a floor on the level of the duty you get based on the lowest job level in the party. To take advantage of it you'll need a full 4-man. Up to you to find three other participants that meet your criteria.

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

Yeah better take care of that newbie who probably is playing with a free trial or maybe he/she is going to do TamTara for first time ever and never touch it again(or until the sprout unlocks roulettes at levell 50) instead of catering to veterans who stays subbed and keep playing the game every month.

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Don't do roulettes then, no one is making you do them and they are entirely optional. They exist entirely to serve newbies by filling out their duties and letting them progress in the story. They aren't for you, you're adequately compensated with xp, gil, tomes, and materia for your time spend helping them, but that's it. If that's not enough of a reward for you then just don't run them.

Not sure how many times this needs to be said, but roulettes are a community service.. They are used to help new players progress, and to compensate the players who choose to help those players. The only roulette designed for max level is expert. If you don't like to be synced down, then avoid all other roulettes. You will easily reach your weekly cap of tomes off of running expert throughout the week.

Good grief man, these players who think the game and the entire world revolves around them. The ego makes the air stink, I swear.

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Originally Posted by Curemefi

In my opinion, the scaling on skills is enough. It would be much more fun if we can still keep all the skills while level syncing. What is your opinion?

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Is possible, swtor has that system, it was kinda broken but after the devs Heard player feedback they managed to quickly fixed it.
But we know defenders will come with a bunch of excuses like they work for SE.

Do you have even the slightest idea the amount of work that would go into scaling a level 90 player to be equivalent to an at-level player throughout the entire game? We're not talking just a flat percentage reduction by level or anything. At every level the at-level player would gain a new skill or trait, you would need to recalculate the scaling equation entirely.

And that's just for the skills that function on equations to begin with. How in the world are you going to scale an invulnerability skill to be equivalent to an at-level player that does not have access to any such defense? How do you expect a full-heal skill to be scaled down?

What about temporary buffs? Is your BLM damage output, already scaled down, completely trashed because you're not using Sharpcast or Ley Lines on cooldown? Do you adjust to have the entire party take more damage because BRD/DNC should be using their defensive buffs?

And then there's skills with charges. Where do you even begin to balance a MCH with an additional use of Reassemble?

Job gauge resources. You're going to scale back a GNB with three powder charges to be equal to a beginner with only two?



In summation, no. The system in place now does a far better job of maintaining parity while requiring minimal developer resources. It might not be perfect. But the alternative is a nightmare.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Do you have even the slightest idea the amount of work that would go into scaling a level 90 player to be equivalent to an at-level player throughout the entire game? We're not talking just a flat percentage reduction by level or anything. At every level the at-level player would gain a new skill or trait, you would need to recalculate the scaling equation entirely.

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This is a good point. You don't just have to scale the level and item level like happens now, but the potency of the higher level actions.

In Sastasha, a Paladin can do 200 then 300 with their combo attacks, so obviously it would not work for Requiescat to do 400 damage and allow Holy Spirit to do 540 followed by Confiteor which does 900. It could be designed to reduce the potency based on the level difference. The difference between Confiteor and Sastasha is 65 levels, so if we reduce the potency by 65%, we get 315 which would be better. But that assumes all of the potency information is easy for a sync system to access and not buried in the complex code of individual abilities.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Unfortunately, hard pass from me. It would cause people who are actually the intended level for a run to feel practically worthless. I'm thinking the lower-level dungeons in particular. Hey, my RDM being synced down has his full tool-kit with multiple AoE spells and a high-powered combo. You, our newer player just reaching that dungeon for the first time, don't even have a single AoE ability yet. Entire packs melt and all you got to do was a couple single-target attacks against one mob.

Syncing the skills as well gives everyone in the party the ability to feel relevant, while still giving higher-level players being synced down a bit of extra power (since it syncs to the max level for the area rather than where a leveling player would likely be gear-wise).

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There will be 3 reactions:
1) They will be hyped for what the future will bring to them.
2) They will not care. They are even not be able to see your skills because they turn the effects off for others.
3) Just like you said.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Do you have even the slightest idea the amount of work that would go into scaling a level 90 player to be equivalent to an at-level player throughout the entire game? We're not talking just a flat percentage reduction by level or anything. At every level the at-level player would gain a new skill or trait, you would need to recalculate the scaling equation entirely.

And that's just for the skills that function on equations to begin with. How in the world are you going to scale an invulnerability skill to be equivalent to an at-level player that does not have access to any such defense? How do you expect a full-heal skill to be scaled down?

What about temporary buffs? Is your BLM damage output, already scaled down, completely trashed because you're not using Sharpcast or Ley Lines on cooldown? Do you adjust to have the entire party take more damage because BRD/DNC should be using their defensive buffs?

And then there's skills with charges. Where do you even begin to balance a MCH with an additional use of Reassemble?

Job gauge resources. You're going to scale back a GNB with three powder charges to be equal to a beginner with only two?



In summation, no. The system in place now does a far better job of maintaining parity while requiring minimal developer resources. It might not be perfect. But the alternative is a nightmare.

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You are overthinking. WoW has done many "balancing" and it turned sour for the game. I don't want FFXIV to go that path. Balancing is good for current raids and high-end contents. But not the less important ones such as daily, old contents, FATEs, and stuffs.

I think it would be better if perhaps a few more core skills came into play earlier in the jobs life... and I am not just saying that because a one button AOE with classes like DRG is HELL for far too long... but also I am.

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

Yeah better take care of that newbie who probably is playing with a free trial or maybe he/she is going to do TamTara for first time ever and never touch it again(or until the sprout unlocks roulettes at levell 50) instead of catering to veterans who stays subbed and keep playing the game every month.

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Hate to break it to you, but sprouts (new players) are what give a game longevity. Things will always naturally happen that gradually filter out veterans. What matters is whether there's actually new people staying and becoming the new veterans to fill those spots. It sounds like roulettes just might not be the thing for you. That's okay. One of the awesome things about FFXIV is the sheer amount of different things there are to do, so find something that does interest you more and go for it! The entire purpose of the roulette system is to support newer players and help them integrate into the game community.

I heard an interesting quote about "progress" the other day.

When in doubt just do it. People will either get used to it or people will get over it.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Hate to break it to you, but sprouts (new players) are what give a game longevity. Things will always naturally happen that gradually filter out veterans. What matters is whether there's actually new people staying and becoming the new veterans to fill those spots. It sounds like roulettes just might not be the thing for you. That's okay. One of the awesome things about FFXIV is the sheer amount of different things there are to do, so find something that does interest you more and go for it! The entire purpose of the roulette system is to support newer players and help them integrate into the game community.

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“Sheer amount of stuff” yeah we got roulettes, 1 savage tier every 8 months, housing if you can get it, 7 types of fate farming (fates, field content relics) and crafting

Much diversity, if you knock roulettes out there really isn’t that much to do in this game

no, don't. with current skill/spell/kits/utility, old duties will be a joke for everyone.

if they wanna do that, they have to check EVERY SINGLE SKILL/SPELL and EVERY SINGLE LEVEL from 16-90 just to make it not overpowered in a old dungeons/trials/raid

Just play white mage.

Its no different from 15 to 90.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

“Sheer amount of stuff” yeah we got roulettes, 1 savage tier every 8 months, housing if you can get it, 7 types of fate farming (fates, field content relics) and crafting

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and gathering and blue mages and 2 extremes in that 8 months and MSQ and sidequests/lore and alliance raids and large-scale raids (BA, CLL, Dalriada, DR and DRS) and hunt finding/spawning and treasure hunting and collecting all the triple triad cards and chocobo breeding and getting all the gold saucer rewards and crystalline conflict and frontline series rewards and beast tribes and mount farming from all the mentioned content or content that doesn't get updates anymore like the firmament.

There isn't a lot of content if you are only interested in select pieces of that content.

I feel like the best approach would be to instead change the order of when skills are obtained, including making more weaker versions of higher level skills; so that the lower levels can at least not be quite as dull in regards to class kit. Or at the very least having the bare basics of combat available by the time you reach Sastasha. Why is it that we can't do our most basic 123 combo and let every job have a spammable AoE by level 18?

It would be very nice for a job to at least feel 'put together' by level 50 or so with the core mechanics intact, with flourishes, nuances, and flashiness left for later levels. Why can't I have a weaker magic phase on my level 50 Paladin? Why can't I have Fire IV also at level 50 on my Black Mage? A lot of jobs would feel better at lower levels if they had something resembling their core rotation earlier.

As for the idea of syncing not removing skills at all, there's too many issues with it. Firstly, some abilities just don't sync down well at all. A tank invuln for example is going to make you invulnerable regardless, you can't make something only 'slightly invulnerable', because it would still be invulnerable. Secondly, it doesn't account for player skill differences, someone synced down with a full kit that's still trying to piece together how to best use their buttons will end up doing less damage with more buttons compared to the person next to them only pressing their 123 combo because that's all they've got. It makes progression feel awful like that when you have to put in thrice the work for the same output.

I could very well sing a different tune if such a thing got implemented well, but I think the best approach is to introduce core combat and class skills earlier than what we have now rather than letting a level 90 tank invuln their way through early dungeons while a new tank gets left in the dust.