It's time to redesign Level Sync

[RichardButte]

A lot of the arguments levied at the OP, assume that abilities wouldnt be scaled down in enmity, potency, etc while sync'd.

I have actually seen this argument before a few times, and its always this same thing that gets brought up at the reason why it cant. But really it could, it would take a lot of balancing though on SE's part and I feel like THAT is more likely the reason we dont see it. They dont have time to rebalance things at every possible dungeon lvl to make sure it would be in accepted norm's. So while the actions could be tweaked for level sync, it would likely be far too time consuming to do it for every job.
(But man would I love to see it!)

As much as I'd like to be able to use more than two skills in lower level dungeons, the aforementioned here is very likely the reason why we don't see it.

Imagine a level 20 dungeon and how every single skill on every single class above the level sync range would need to be tuned for being level 20. Now multiply that by the number of levels you could wind up syncing to across different dungeons (ie level 20 dungeons, level 24, 26, 30, 32, 35, etc.).

At each "stop" on the sync train, the abilities of every class would need to be adjusted to make sure they don't scale out of whack for that level for whatever reason, as the scaling of abilities like this is rarely ever a straight linear line.

It's simpler just to keep it the way it is. Everyone is on relatively even footing, although higher level players do still have higher stats from their gear so there's that to consider as well.

Again, it'd be nice but it's just a logistics nightmare...

[Amelia_Pond_Behemoth]

Do you really expect a new tank with only a 2 hit combo is going to keep aggro off of a synched 70 with full rotation.

[Zumi]

FFXIV could do it like wow's level sync where you keep all your abilities you know so far but everything is scaled down. Makes the game feel better once you hit max level.

[Mysticdraggon]

level sync makes FFXIVs progression unlike any game i've seen. it makes it seem leveling in general feel just pointless. the only scenario where a player would see the difference between level 1-69 and level 70 is if he/she defeats a level 1-69 world mob. anything else that matters in the game is synced.

the worst part about it is that it's completely necessary for new players. while its true that seeing a level 70 all-skill player is a good source of motivation, there are new players that will see it as unfair advantage when a much higher leveled player steals an enemy kill. specifically the same feeling you get when your trying to farm enemy drops on low level mobs as a low level player, then suddenly a level 70 player comes needing 99+HQ of said item drop.

level sync is simply meant for a game like this.

[Vhailor]

Rather than create an imbalance, I'd rather jobs just got full combos earlier. There's absolutely no reason why a 3-ability combo with an oGCD can't be had for all melee classes by level 18.

Actually, in point of fact, I think there's enough of an imbalance already inherent in the fact that level-synced players keep all of their Role abilities. As a WHM in Sastasha at level 70, I get Esuna, Lucid Dreaming, Swiftcast, Protect, and Largesse (I'd swap one for Cleric's Stance, if I knew what dungeon I was jumping into). A level 18 WHM in that same dungeon, freshly leveled, would get either Cleric's Stance, Protect, or the ever-useless Break. That's already a healthy advantage, to say nothing of the fact that my higher-level gear essentially means I have capped base gear stats for the dungeon, which a real level 18 is less likely to have.

Could you imagine adding Aero III, Holy, and Regen on top of that? I could probably out-damage most natural level 18 DPS-role classes with those, simply based on my AoE capabilities alone - unless they nerfed them to the point where it wouldn't be worth using them.

All in all, I sympathize with the frustration, but I'd rather see job complexity increase more rapidly and be available earlier, rather than witness what would surely be an imbalanced mess (especially since it's SE we're talking about).

[KisaiTenshi]

If you are a level 70 synced down to level 20, your abilities remain but they are statistically reduced to match level 20 damage/healing output. This means your rotations stay the same but your damage and healing is significantly reduced to match the dungeons content.

This can't/won't work because of scale. The levels are designed to use those skills that are available at that level, some which have DoT's or other effects. What should be happening is that the ilevel-sync needs to be capped so that someone in i310 gear can't blow away someone in ilevel 20 gear. In i310 gear you can rip hate off the tank if you use cure before they hit 30% hp, where as when you play this as a new Conjurer cure will barely do more than 20%. If you play a tank in any of the pre-30 dungeons, the DPS and Healer will rip hate from you if you're not in equal gear (partially fixed in the current patch.) It's much harder to play a tank if your gear is below the parties gear, because the party will generate more hate than you can.

As a recent example, as the Off-tank in a Praetorium run, In Sword Oath I was #2 for the boss (in i255 gear,) but I was also within 95% of ripping the hate from the MT who was also Paladin in Shield Oath in i120 gear. I didn't want to rip hate completely from them, so I cut the combos in half when it got that close, (because spinning the boss is annoying.)

The more or less way to make it less boring is to make all skills you'd use in a combo normally but instead of "do nothing", fallback to a similar skill. That way you're not having to change your play style just for these dungeons. Your 'bar' would just show aliased skills as available, but if you look at the tool tip it will say "Alias of (skill) until level X"

eg Fast blade, Riot Blade and Shield Lob are the only skills you have normally in a level 16 dungeon for Gladiator/Paladin. If you hit Rage of Halone, do the animation for Rage of Halone, but do Riot Blade. On a Conjurer/White Mage, if you hit Cure II, do Cure I if Cure II is not available. It may be a little confusing, but if you normally leveled on these dungeons, those skills would not even be on your bar. Only PotD is making them available before you earned them.

If you make everything available, you would quite literately have to re-tool every dungeon so that the trash mobs hit harder and have much much more HP to take into account the AOE skills everyone has.

[Berethos]

WoW (yeah yeah, just hear me out) has done an excellent job with Timewalking (their version of level sync)

Well, except Timewalking in WoW has an entirely different reason to exist - it's meant as a sort of way for characters above the level of the dungeon to sort of revisit old nostalgia.

You aren't actually running the actual dungeon, but rather a version of it specifically balanced for those using the feature. Players at the correct level for the actual dungeon do not benefit from the feature (unlike level sync here), nor are they ever grouped with anyone who is doing timewalking, and the actual dungeon is balanced around them and their potential gear levels.

They've done a nice (excellent might be giving them too much credit) job with the feature, but it's not meant to achieve the same goal as XIV's level sync - instead being solely for those who are passed the point of running the dungeon normally - and thus isn't a good comparison.

FFXIV could do it like wow's level sync where you keep all your abilities you know so far but everything is scaled down. Makes the game feel better once you hit max level.

See above - WoW's goal and thus their design for their version are different. Theirs is meant to give veteran players a "new old" playground to run for rewards, ours is meant to encourage veteran players to play with new players. Theirs can easily support the design and balance of scaling based around putting everyone at a specific "timewalking only" level of stats and damage (since literally everyone is getting scaled down into it, there's no "just right" gear level). Ours is meant to bridge the gap and thus has to take the balance of what players can do at that level into account, including their suite of abilities, as well as their experience overall, which is meant to be that they get to run the dungeon roughly as it's intended to be run at that level, which means the party using the abilities available at that level.

[Limecat]

Other games do this and it works beautifully. As the current state of it becomes more and more sour over time, I say just pick up the damn vase and smash it on the ground to see what's inside. Adjustments can be made as needed while the players cavort in the pile of pieces.

[Berethos]

See at first glance it seems like you're taking pity on the poor rhetorical warrior in question, but in actuallity you're placing the blame on him for your refusal to use your aggro dumps and going full throttle when you know he wouldn't have the necessary tools to contain the enmity. "Square enix put level sync in place to protect tanks from dps like me!" Because it's never the damage dealer's fault, hey?

So your answer to them pulling aggro because they used all of their abilities available...

Is to not use all of their abilities available.

Which would really just put them back where we are now, but they'd have to do voluntarily.

What do you think that's going to solve, pray tell?

[ErryK]

There's absolutely no reason why a 3-ability combo with an oGCD can't be had for all melee classes by level 18.

There is, it's called game design. That's what balancing content is all about.

This isn't about knowing ur job well, it's about making low level dungeons less boring for max level players.

When I get Sastasha in roulette, I don't even wanna play.

Just unsub at this point, it seems like you don't want to play anything that isn't Lv70 content, and of which there is very little at the moment.