Should high level players keep their unlocked abilities when they down-sync?

I've found it to be annoying every time I queue into a lower level dungeon and half my buttons don't work. It throws off the muscle memory and the combos.

Also one of the worst things about going through ARR is that you barely have any abilities so combat is usually just spamming the same 1 button for 15 minutes straight. Getting queued into a level 20 dungeon and having to go through that again is nasty.

I was wondering if it would be reasonable if the developers marked certain abilities for each class as always available once unlocked.
For example:
Dps classes would always have a 1-2 single target combo and atleast the first aoe.
Healers would have atleast 1 aoe, 1 mitigation, rescue, and resurrection.
Tanks keep their death denial and atleast 1 mitigation, and 1 aoe damage.

This would only apply for dungeons since they are casual content. Trials and raids are more of an experience and balancing is more important, plus there are no super low level raids and trials generally last less than half a dungeon so not too bad.

Yes it will allow people to do a little bit more damage and play a bit more agressively but who cares. Would be nice to get through those tedious early dungeons a bit faster and it is also nice to still be somewhat functional in these dungeons below lv50 instead of having 70% of your kit disabled.

Your Idea is better then the other with having all the abilities in lower dungeons, but even then i see some problems:

DPS: They worst DPS (for combos to use and as far as i remember) for Sastasha has a 1-2 single target combo (Dragoon) and it goes up to a 1-2-3 1-4-3 combo for monk. And for the first AOE, thats soemthing i wished for a long time.

Healer: For AOE, i agree, but the second effect (Stun from Holy) should be deactivated. But you seem to have not played Healer in a long time. You have Rescue and Resurrection even in Sastasha. The mitigation is in theory good, but outside of full pulls from the tank it is not needed in the ARR leveling dungeons.

Tank: They have at least 1 Mitigation even in Sastasha, probably even more depending from what level they sync down (remember, all role actions are avaible on sync down) and they get the aoe attack bevor they even can enter Sastasha for the first time. About the death denial, that is outside of full pull not needed.

But the idea to have at least something better is a good idea. The problem is they had in the past a better feeling in the ARR Dungeons, but they lost this with the Expansions when they removed abilities to give the jobs new abilities and i don't see them giving it them back.

Getting through old dungeons even faster wouldn't be good, they're already badly powercrept.

If they used some method of syncing to scale your damage down, then maybe? Might be strange for the sprout who still has party battle effects enabled to see 20 tactical nukes being dropped on some pirates in Sastasha though - would sort of kill the classic ARR adventuring vibe. I wouldn't be opposed to them reshuffling some of the action unlock levels to give you a few more buttons early on, as long as it's nothing too crazy. If only they hadn't removed so many old actions from the jobs, that's probably why we're having this problem now.

Used to be better back in HW. Max lvl was lvl60 and they hadn't yet started pruning abilities to make room for new ones much. By lvl30 you already had most of the core of jobs and by lvl40 you had two full hotbars. All healers literally had more attack options in sastasha than today at max level (2 dots, at least one oGCD).

Too annoying to balance. And gives new players a bad experience if they cannot contribute but instead the high-level ones bomb everything in 2 casts away.
Just like what happens with WoW - 10% DPS, 90% running after the tank which is killing everything on their own.

Sprouts need to learn the basics.

Yes it sucks that you only have two buttons to press, but you'll thank those players in a month when they're running Savage.

They could introduce some weaker versions of abilities at lower levels so that the number of abilities you gain between... say, 30 to 100 doesn't increase very much. I dunno if people will find that very interesting, though...but I'm of the opinion that we have far too many buttons as it is and gameplay can be made more engaging in other ways instead of just memorizing a string of buttons to press every 1 or 2 minutes.

Thing is about scaling down is that relative damage isn't the only thing that improves as you level up. A level 100 tank has far better survivability than a low level one due to having better and more defensive cooldowns and self-healing. People already complain about healing being pretty boring due to lack of DPS buttons to press and tanks having too much self-healing, now imagine running a low level dungeon with a warrior with Bloodwhetting, Nascent Flash, and Shake it Off. That's not going to be a fun experience for a new player if you never have to press a single heal because your tank can handle everything in a dungeon that wasn't designed that way.

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Originally Posted by Espon

They could introduce some weaker versions of abilities at lower levels so that the number of abilities you gain between... say, 30 to 100 doesn't increase very much.

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I like this idea a lot. Give them less flashy looking animations befitting early-ARR and simplify their functionality somewhat, and then have them upgrade into their current versions at the level they'd normally unlock those.

I kinda wish they could implement an option to use a sort of "legacy" kit for older content, so HW kits in ARR-HW content, SB kits in SB content, ShB kits in ShB content and so on, while still having simplified modern kits for those it may overwhelm. Probably without some of the weirder mechanics like elemental debuffs and cross-classing though.

They really need to rework dungeon scaling in addition to this to be honest... These dungeons are already far too quick in ARR.

You can argue 'but they aren't important', which for you for the balancing of it might not be, but to the newer players that are trying to pick up the basics of the game, they are... Otherwise all you end up with is newer players that go into the trials and raids, not even knowing the barebones, because they've grown so accustomed to the game throwing nothing at them. Which is already enough of a problem, let alone when you want to exacerbate it.

Honestly, they should probably go and re-balance ARR in general and rework the ARR progression... And I've said it before in other thread, they probably could shrink ARR down from 1-50 to like 1-30 by getting rid of levels that don't unlock anything new.

My take: Seeing cool abilities in low lvl dungeons would make me hyped to get to that level. I remember my first Sastasha and how I really wanted to get to Shadowbringers to enjoy all the cool stuff. But people who don't know what is at the end, it is boring gameplay.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Espon

They could introduce some weaker versions of abilities at lower levels so that the number of abilities you gain between... say, 30 to 100 doesn't increase very much.

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It is something that is bought up in topic similar to this all the time and seems to be a good medium between making the lower levels more interesting whilst not bringing the massive potency from later buttons into the low levels.

Many jobs have also had actions removed, so, if it fits, they could even use those animations to keep production time low. Things like Phlebotomize on Dragoon could be a low level Gierskogul, Monk's old fists could be lesser versions of their current Riddles etc.

Yes, this topic comes up frequently.

Yes, we should be able to utilize our abilities in synced content.

Yes, their potencies need to be tapered and limited to not exceed the maximum potency you're able to accomplish at the level you're synced at. If I'm in an ARR dungeon, my Confiteor combo should not be ripping out at 1000 potency. Still infinitely more fun than 1.. 2... 1... 2.

The newbies will be fine. Please don't defend the new player experience as if it's amazing right now.


Also to give you an idea, here's another large thread about this that links other reddit threads. It is a hot topic.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...very-expansion

I think that a better solution would be to improve the leveling experience when it comes to learning abilities.

Jobs should have a baby form of their max level kit by 50 and almost the same kind of feeling at 60 with 70 being the very last point at which you learn all the stuff that matters.

MNK or RDM do this very well right now, having most of their kit by 60 and finalizing it by 70 with further levels simply expanding it but keeping the same core.

They simply need to iterate on this idea and bring it to lower levels. RPR learns Plentiful Harvest too late, VPR gets Reawaken too late, etc. and it's not a surprise that they're some of the worst jobs at levels 70 and 80.

All jobs should have at least one AoE by level 18 although it's still okay if some are stronger at certain levels than others (e. g. DNC being quite good due to the raw power of Standard Finish at earlier levels).

Overall, this would make job gameplay feel better for both high level players and newcomers.

They could drop the potency on all my higher level abilities by 95% when synced down and I would still take that option every time just to play with a complete kit.

What we have now is the worst option for everyone. The skill distribution across levels is uneven and makes leveling boring for new players while veterans are usually locked out of 3/4 of their job. I wouldn't be so sick of getting ARR content in the vast majority of my roulettes if I could at least press more buttons than 1-2-1-2-1-2.

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Originally Posted by Luca_

They could drop the potency on all my higher level abilities by 95% when synced down and I would still take that option every time just to play with a complete kit.

What we have now is the worst option for everyone. The skill distribution across levels is uneven and makes leveling boring for new players while veterans are usually locked out of 3/4 of their job. I wouldn't be so sick of getting ARR content in the vast majority of my roulettes if I could at least press more buttons than 1-2-1-2-1-2.

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But what to do with healers? Their potency scalling is completly different.

No they shouldn't.

I want to say yes, but only if they can actually find a way to balance it. I hate playing low level content because jobs are way more fun at max level.

"No, formula stays the same. 10/char"

we should get our full rotation on lvl 60 and only getting dmg ups after that.

that would mean we would get quite a few more skills in low lvl content. as closer it gets to lvl 60 as bigger the difference would be.
most content would be a lot more fun without having more skills than new players in the group. players would also have more time to learn the complete rotation. and when leveling new jobs we would see sooner if we like them or not.
i never really had a feeling of growth in this game anyway.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

we should get our full rotation on lvl 60 and only getting dmg ups after that.

that would mean we would get quite a few more skills in low lvl content. as closer it gets to lvl 60 as bigger the difference would be.
most content would be a lot more fun without having more skills than new players in the group. players would also have more time to learn the complete rotation. and when leveling new jobs we would see sooner if we like them or not.
i never really had a feeling of growth in this game anyway.

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Level 50 honestly as that's the base game but I agree.

Most 50+ skills should be burst, upgrades to defensives/heals for tanks and healers (example tanks having a weaker version of their short mits), some core skills to a jobs identity such as dance partner on dancer ect. I do think theirs also wider changes to healer and tanks dps options to be more fun and enjoyable at all levels that would be hopefully something that effects the lower experience also.

Learning a new rotation every 10 levels or having to adjust is annoying and most the time feels bad when your playing a job and all ur doing is spamming 1, 2, 3 with a kit that doesn't feel good to play.