Two things FF14 can adopt from Guild Wars 2.

[MsQi]

...You clearly did not understand anything at all from what I wrote. Differences in performance in Sastasha don't matter much because there's just no difference in performance. You have two or three attack buttons there. What variety in performance you expect to have?!

If you will allow lvl70 to keep their skills, the difference in performance will be MASSIVE. More massive than it is between the two lvl70's. That's because in Sastasha it is very easy to have a flawless run as a DPS (aka dealing out ~100% of possible damage). In lvl70 content, as lvl70, it is almost impossible.


It is exactly MATH that makes that clear. That's because there are needles for high level classes performance but there are none for the low level classes performance. You cannot match "needles" with something that does not have "needles". The only solution that wouldn't make the lvl70 either strictly superior or strictly inferior is the game automatically changing the DPS output to "the average" regardless of what skill you use. But at that point, why even bother?!

you obviously don't play anything but this game. You give the common spells the same power that they would have at that level and the 70 has a slight advantage. And you haven't done any math, so hand waving on your part.

[Fayt1203]

Everyone else does it (Rift, SWTOR, DCUO) . I could be wrong, but I think it involves math? But seriously, Sashtasha is not a tightly tuned raid where differences in performance matter much.

Well its just my opinion but making swtor as a exemble is not helping the case. it´s feel so off balance and the player´s is so overpowered in sync planets and its maybe because i don't play swtor much anymore but when they did that they killed off most of the group content on planet´s that's why they change it to heroic +2 that u can ofc just do solo (plus it feels like they downgraded the whole game but maybe it's just me). it can work like it does in gw2 but i believe that to make it work in FFxiv they probably need rewrite the whole game but that's just my opinion i don't make games so i maybe not right about that just how i feel so take it with a grain of salt

[kikix12]

you obviously don't play anything but this game. You give the common spells the same power that they would have at that level and the 70 has a slight advantage. And you haven't done any math, so hand waving on your part.

What do you mean by the "common" spells. You mean the ones shared, for example Hard Shot?! Newsflash...they already have the same power.

The problem is with the other spells. You know, the ones that have higher potency value. The ones that can be used in-between the weaponskills for more offensive actions in a given time-frame. Stuff like that.

Or what, will you have the abilities deal zero damage unless they are already available at given level and have all the other skills have the same potency as what is the weakest skill already available?! Because that's the only way to prevent the increase in damage being significant. Making them irrelevant altogether. But what's the point of them then?! If they're nothing but some cool graphic alternatives to what you already use, it's just going to be a waste of developers time, at best.

And you don't even try to counter my argument about players skill. No idea on how to counter that but to say "Clearly you didn't play other games.", huh. There was someone that posted how it works in Guild Wars 2. You have majority of your toolkit before entering the first dungeon. You're comparing that to a game where you won't have majority of the toolking until after you've run several dozens of instances.


As for some other games, them doing it does not mean it's fine or that it'll work here.
First, I have come across many games that are just unfair. I can imagine a company that would allow the high-level players to deal 50%-100% more damage over time than the low level players and be happy with it. That game still would be played. That does not mean it's good or that it works.
Second, just like Guild Wars 2, there are myriads of factors that affect viability of skill syncing, starting with the damage formula used, through the focus of damage source (gear, skills, level-up stats etc) all the way to rate of making the skills available. If the skills between low and high level do not increase the damage output significantly by design there is no problem. In Final Fantasy XIV however, the raw damage increase just from skill availability is massive.

[Sylve]

What you're all forgetting is that Guild Wars 2 only has 10 buttons, and you get access to them all really early.

IIRC (Its been a while since last I played), One Handed weapons give 3 skills per, total 6, 2Handers just give 6. Then you have 4 cooldown type buttons.
The 4 cooldown buttons are sometimes passive effects etc.
Once you unlock the 4th slot, any new skills you get are swapped with an existing skill in those 4 slots. That's where the 'builds' come from.

For level syncing, since a level 20~ish character has 9 - 10 skills available compared to a level 80 with 10 skills available, it really is a simple case of scaling down the stats and item levels. You play no differently at 80 as you do at 20 anyway. All you get past those 4 slots is alternative skills for customization. The first expansion there changed thinghs up a bit with the Mastery thing, but the basic 10 total skills never changes. Even when you weapon swap to get access to 6 other skills, its mainly utility and not rotational.

How does this compare to XIV? Well, for a start XIV has weaponskill combos (Honestly we have chains more than combos but I digress..)
Look at it as a potency per 10 seconds deal. Lets use Dragoon as example of how much raw potency is output at 70 from just the 5 step basic combo.:
>160>250>450>300>400
Add in Jumps/oGCDs between each weaponskill:
260>210>210>320>230
And we have a grand total of 2790 Potency potential inside a 10 second window.

What does a level 20 Dragoon have?
160->250>160>250>160
Grand total of 980.

So either your level 70 Dragoon needs to have their potencies cut on every weaponskill in order to even out the damage potential, or the route that makes more sense, limit the 70 to the same available skills as the 20.

While I used 2 Dragoons as the example, if that low level player happens to be a Tank without even their third Enmity combo, They haven't got a hope in hell of holding Enmity off you. That's a great experience. Either limit yourself to barely more than auto attacks, or make trhe Tank feel worthless.
Healers would also feel entirely worthless if their Tank was a max level with all their self healing and mitigation. Why even be in the party at that point? Tank could literally just solo the entire place.
Not to mention the negative view that such a scenario in leveling dungeons would reinforce in new Healers. Any Tank that WASNT a max level with full kit would feel like a punishment.

At the end of the day, if you dislike losing all your skills in low level content then simply don't do it. And if you claim t he rewards are necessary (Leveling roulette etc), then the loss of your skills is made up for with the massive burst of exp rewarded at the end. Congrats, you suffered through a low level dungeon, heres more exp than you could have gotten from a high level one. You are literally paid for your sacrifice.

TL;DR
GW2 has a massively limited available ability count, the full extent of which is gained VERY early in leveling, only gaining options to swap to after that. Syncing stats down after that is super easy. Go too low, and events that are impossible for actual newbies are easily solo'd thanks to high level kit availability.
XIV involves (somewhat) complex rotations of multiple skills used in sequence, gained at intervals throughout the entire leveling process. Having certain skills too early breaks the balance that early content is built upon. It is absolutely not worth retooling every dungeon in the game so you can use 70 skills in Sastasha.
(Edit: I think I misremembered the skill count. It might be 3 for main hand and 5 for 2handers, with weapons/shields having 2 skills when used in offhands. So an Axe in t he mainhand would give 3 skills, another axe in the offhand would give 2 different skills. Same for swords etc)

[Thatusernameistaken]

I'd love for #1 to happen. Or for SE to at least give you more attacks at lower levels. Or something to make doing lower level dungeons fun. Just spamming 2 attacks for an entire dungeon isn't fun. It wasn't fun when the game was new, it's not fun now. How anyone could possibly think that Fast Blade -> Savage Blade 100,000 times in a row constitutes engaging gameplay is beyond me.



...why would you think that would happen? Do people forget what level gear is distributed at and yell at lvl 20 players for not being decked out in lvl 70 gear?

A low level dungeon is not balanced around me being able to summon Bahamut and 1-shot an entire mob with Akh Morn. And if my Akh Morn is massively scaled down so it's balanced, then I have to execute my rotation perfectly to get the same result as someone spamming Fire II. There's almost no way to pair both groups of people together in any way that would feel fair. The only solution I see is to make an entirely new max-level roulette that allows you to take all of your skills with you to low level dungeons. This, of course, would completely undermine the leveling roulette. There's just no good way I could see this working.

[Seraphor]

Completely against level sync retaining abilities for the exact reasons Sylve explained, but they should try to redistribute more skills at lower levels.
At the very least give all DPS some kind of AoE by level 18, and all healers their AoE offensive spell before level 50.

The most painful experiences are single-targeting Sastasha, and running level 50 dungeons as AST without Gravity...

[GrizzlyTank]

TL;DR
GW2 has a massively limited available ability count, the full extent of which is gained VERY early in leveling, only gaining options to swap to after that. Syncing stats down after that is super easy. Go too low, and events that are impossible for actual newbies are easily solo'd thanks to high level kit availability.
XIV involves (somewhat) complex rotations of multiple skills used in sequence, gained at intervals throughout the entire leveling process. Having certain skills too early breaks the balance that early content is built upon. It is absolutely not worth retooling every dungeon in the game so you can use 70 skills in Sastasha.
(Edit: I think I misremembered the skill count. It might be 3 for main hand and 5 for 2handers, with weapons/shields having 2 skills when used in offhands. So an Axe in t he mainhand would give 3 skills, another axe in the offhand would give 2 different skills. Same for swords etc)

Check out snowcrows, GW2 rotation can get quite intense with a large amount of different skills.

And dungeon difficulty sub 50 is largely irrelevant, it isn't until Longstop dungeons start to have notable mechanics outside of the generic mob skills, so most that have played this game a while wouldn't be bothered about being able to do those dungeons faster than usual. Also jobs aren't using 70 skills, at max there are like 20 useful skills for a job with the rest being clutter.

At most they need to just add a 5% damage reduction for every 10 level over the current dungeon level.

[Drakkaelus]

A low level dungeon is not balanced around me being able to summon Bahamut and 1-shot an entire mob with Akh Morn. And if my Akh Morn is massively scaled down so it's balanced, then I have to execute my rotation perfectly to get the same result as someone spamming Fire II. There's almost no way to pair both groups of people together in any way that would feel fair. The only solution I see is to make an entirely new max-level roulette that allows you to take all of your skills with you to low level dungeons. This, of course, would completely undermine the leveling roulette. There's just no good way I could see this working.

There's a space in between, "1-shot the entire dungeon with a single spell" and, "no advantages whatsoever".

And like I said, another option is to redistribute your skills so that you don't have to be in your 50's or 60's before you get something that resembles an actual rotation. I don't care. Goddamn near anything would be an improvement.

[Arrius]

There's a space in between, "1-shot the entire dungeon with a single spell" and, "no advantages whatsoever".

And like I said, another option is to redistribute your skills so that you don't have to be in your 50's or 60's before you get something that resembles an actual rotation. I don't care. Goddamn near anything would be an improvement.

Or, you know, don't queue for leveling roulette. Seriously.

[Nora_of_Mira]

There's a space in between, "1-shot the entire dungeon with a single spell" and, "no advantages whatsoever".

And like I said, another option is to redistribute your skills so that you don't have to be in your 50's or 60's before you get something that resembles an actual rotation. I don't care. Goddamn near anything would be an improvement.

There has to be people like myself that values the limiting of skills in leveling content. Why? Because im using leveling roulette to learn a new class I've never touched, getting a feel for how the abilities flow before I even think of going online to read/watch videos. Some will argue I am learning nothing, but I cant for the life of me remember all of MNK's positionals unless i do a leveling dungeon with it and mess around because I never play MNK. I did the same thing with SAM and RDM; the reduction of skills allowed me to learn the basics of its toolset without overwhelming me. Its my opinion that not many people take synced content (sub 70) that seriously anyway.