Why can't sync just affect gear and stats...?

[Gallus]

I fail to see how it would be good design to have a Lv80 BLM with Triplecast, Umbral Hearts, Flare, Leylines, Sharpcast, Thunder IV in Haukke Manor when that Lv30 Black Mage barely learned how to use Thunder I. Would just create a situation where you'd want to run with as few newbies as possible, as in just running with your own crew of like Lv70+ to level with the roulette, which defeats the point of roulettes to begin with.

My point wasn't that all classes should have every spell and skill learnt from lvl 1, my point was that once you got to 80 (which gives you a big room for practicing), you got to keep your spells in synced content.

I'm not sure why everybody is making a big fuzz out of geared players and veterans facerolling low level content in the hypothetical scenario we had all our skills available...like...I see it happening already? I mean, in how many seconds does the last boss from Sastasha die? 25?

If you are so concerned about low level dungeon mobs and bosses melting even faster, it would be as easy as increasing their HP pools depending on how many max level party members there are?

I just find it very confusing that you prefer the idea of pressing 1-2 throughout 20 straight minutes rather than play with your actual rotations against properly scaled mobs and bosses.

As an aside, you're still listed as "Arcanist 80" on your forum character description here. Might want to change that. Took me a few years (around level 70) to discover I could change it from Archer to Bard.

I dunno. I guess I never cared enough to even investigate? :P. I'll take a look at it.

[Ammokkx]

I just find it very confusing that you prefer the idea of pressing 1-2 throughout 20 straight minutes rather than play with your actual rotations against properly scaled mobs and bosses.

Nobody prefers that idea. We accept it as a reality because newbies should have the same tools you do at the time they do the content.

If you want to only ever use your level 80 toolkit, please only make it so you only ever do level 80 content. You should not have a spell you unlocked at level 64 available when your character is temporarily put to level 18. Period.

[Gallus]

Nobody prefers that idea. We accept it as a reality because newbies should have the same tools you do at the time they do the content.

If you want to only ever use your level 80 toolkit, please only make it so you only ever do level 80 content. You should not have a spell you unlocked at level 64 available when your character is temporarily put to level 18. Period.

Fair enough? That's your opinion though. I strongly feel the idea of making synced content a lot more attractive for everybody (yeah, everybody imo) far outweighs the possibility of a few new players getting pissed at the fact you have more skills/spells unlocked than them?
Tbh, I think most new players won't care or even notice, if something, they might actually be impressed by certain high level spell/skill animations and be encouraged to play those jobs and have something to look forward to.
But again, I'm not trying to force my opinion down anyone's throat. It's all good. Just wanted to share my thoughts regarding this is all.

[linayar]

Fair enough? That's your opinion though. I strongly feel the idea of making synced content a lot more attractive for everybody (yeah, everybody imo) far outweighs the possibility of a few new players getting pissed at the fact you have more skills/spells unlocked than them?
Tbh, I think most new players won't care or even notice, if something, they might actually be impressed by certain high level spell/skill animations and be encouraged to play those jobs and have something to look forward to.
But again, I'm not trying to force my opinion down anyone's throat. It's all good. Just wanted to share my thoughts regarding this is all.

Even with our current reduced abilities, some enemies already die too fast in certain old contents, and I don't see the devs making old fights harder to justify the use of a full max level rotation, so I think this would not be a worthwhile endeavor for the devs.

[Packetdancer]

Even with our current reduced abilities, some enemies already die too fast in certain old contents, and I don't see the devs making old fights harder to justify the use of a full max level rotation, so I think this would not be a worthwhile endeavor for the devs.

As much as level sync annoys me by messing with my muscle memory—my FC has a running joke about "Square-Enix presents... Oh, I Can't Do That Here: A Leveling Roulette Story"—I think it's better than the other options. The fact that we can level sync means we can go back and do early content with our friends without completely destroying any challenge they might experience. (And if they do want to do the content without challenge, that's what doing stuff unsynched is for.)

HOWEVER.

I really, really kind of wish they would periodically go back and re-tune the early "high-end" content for changed job kits, if nothing else. I know a lot of people who get to the end of ARR and get to Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium and... they've had all this buildup for fights where people just steamroller the enemies. Same thing is true with the Crystal Tower alliance raids.

It doesn't have to be punishingly hard, obviously, but I know a lot of people who have been disappointed by the fact that things have all this buildup like it will be a significant fight... and then opponents just get vaporized by people because the fights were balanced for kits that haven't existed for some time (and also because gear ilevel sync in this game is, uh... we'll go with "kind of unbalanced" and leave it at that).

Imagine Crystal Tower if WHM had Assize, and BLM had Xenoglossy, and so on. You'd get into World of Darkness and mister angry eyeball Angra Mainyu himself would have a lifespan of like 20 seconds. (Okay, no, it wouldn't be actually that short, but... hyperbole for dramatic effect here.)

And while that would probably be satisfying in a somewhat vindictive manner to anyone who's ever wiped to that fight (tanks, please don't spin the eyeball like a centrifuge; when people say to "use your rotation", that's not the kind of rotation they mean), that would probably also make the fight even more of a disappointment to actual first-timers.

(Meanwhile... "Cape Westwind (Unreal)", anyone?)

[Ammokkx]

Fair enough? That's your opinion though. I strongly feel the idea of making synced content a lot more attractive for everybody (yeah, everybody imo) far outweighs the possibility of a few new players getting pissed at the fact you have more skills/spells unlocked than them?
Tbh, I think most new players won't care or even notice, if something, they might actually be impressed by certain high level spell/skill animations and be encouraged to play those jobs and have something to look forward to.
But again, I'm not trying to force my opinion down anyone's throat. It's all good. Just wanted to share my thoughts regarding this is all.

It's not just about being "impressed". It's about the fact the newer players are objectively more deadweight you have to carry around just because they're not as far into the game as you. Are you really going to sit here telling me people won't be getting prissy in, say, a synced alliance roulette when they get a full party of 50's instead of a party of 80's? Or even just a regular dungeon? Roulettes are not there for your convenience, yet players seem to think they are.

Roulettes are there to help people who haven't done certain content do their content by rewarding players who'd already done it to do it again. If you then introduce a system that objectively skews it in the favor of only veterans, there is no way I can't see this having ill effects on the purpose of the roulettes.

And you've mentioned the Sastasha boss melts, right? Yeah, well, I already went over that too. Dungeons are already faster than they were in baseline content even with less skills because the skills you do have are so much more potent. However, it'd be nice if the dungeons actually resembled somewhat of an adventure rather than the mobs melting as soon as they're aggro'd. Anything level 50 or below is already a joke and I'd really rather you not make it more of one, especially not at the cost of a new player's experience because I'm not as trusting of others as you are.

You have the option not to do your roulettes if you'd rather avoid synced content. The world isn't going to end for it. But to argue synced content should change because you don't like playing it, when the system isn't even designed for you? Please take that entitlement somewhere else, thanks.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

My point wasn't that all classes should have every spell and skill learnt from lvl 1, my point was that once you got to 80 (which gives you a big room for practicing), you got to keep your spells in synced content.

I'm not sure why everybody is making a big fuzz out of geared players and veterans facerolling low level content in the hypothetical scenario we had all our skills available...like...I see it happening already? I mean, in how many seconds does the last boss from Sastasha die? 25?

If you are so concerned about low level dungeon mobs and bosses melting even faster, it would be as easy as increasing their HP pools depending on how many max level party members there are?

I just find it very confusing that you prefer the idea of pressing 1-2 throughout 20 straight minutes rather than play with your actual rotations against properly scaled mobs and bosses.

it's not about what we prefer, it's about maintaining some balance for the devs, which is why you either have to accept the reality of what'll happen when you go into any synced content, or just never sign up for anything below max level again.

The thing is, you can say 'just balance <x> whenever there's multiple max level characters' so non chalantly, but from a dev perspective, why would they bother spending all the time, going level by level, figuring out all the math and dps calculations of level 80 characters at certain stat thresholds when they have a system that keeps everyone within a certain balance of each other already? They would literally be adding more dev work for no reason on their part. Not to mention with how power creep keeps making our rotations stronger every expansion along with skill merges/purges, means they would then have to go back to every instance and re-adjust the modifiers every single time, whereas with the current system they literally have to do nothing.

Beyond that, what sort of increase would you use, and how would you base it off? Not everyone at 80 is going to execute their 80 rotations perfectly - do you increase the boss's HP based on the level 80's executing perfectly? because congrats, you now make the boss take longer to kill than a bunch of level 15 sprouts do if the 80's aren't executing their rotations perfectly. So what about basing it off of doing 50% of a total 80's rotational damage? Because now you have the bosses still getting melted far faster with several 80's if a couple of those 80's are even somewhat competent. It's not a simple 'just add health lol', time and constant fine-tuning has to be done to make sure the balance of things is kept within the expected threshold; and then that fine-tuning has to be play-tested meticulously, which is all precious dev time away from more important things.

Not to mention, it's not just 80. What about contrasting a level 70 toolkit with a level 15's? The level 70 isn't doing as much damage as a level 80 is due to lacking multiple 71+ skills, meaning the boss's HP would have to be increased by a different amount than a level 80. So the devs would have to go up and down the entire spectrum of levels, figuring out math and dps at every single tier up and down the spectrum just to make the system work even somewhat balanced, only for all that work to then be undone the instant the levelcap changes. Infinitely more work than just their current system.

Roulettes are meant to compensate you for spending time with random people in a random instance with all that it entails; It's not for your convenience, hence why you're being compensated. You can max out your weekly tomes easily by spamming the latest dungeon. You can level up without touching an exp roulette a single time by spamming the latest on-level dungeon. Roulettes are a luxury; not mandatory.

Also, if I were any starting newbie, I would get excited for the endgame if I would see all this awesome skills that would later be available to me.
It would give hope for better combat in this early 2.5 gcd 1-2 combo part.

Not everyone would share your opinion. Making dungeons complete zergfests where everything is getting melted 3-5x faster than it currently is can easily give many new players a bad perception and might turn them off from the game if they have the perception that all the content in the game is as braindead ultra-fast easy.

[Deceptus]

I'm not sure why everybody is making a big fuzz out of geared players and veterans facerolling low level content in the hypothetical scenario we had all our skills available...like...I see it happening already? I mean, in how many seconds does the last boss from Sastasha die? 25?

This is 100% my take on it. Things melt anyway, we do wall to wall pulls already. I'd like to press more than 2 buttons please. Doing a dungeon and seeing 75% of my skills greyed out? No thanks.

I haven't done a leveling roulette in months because of it, and I normally tank / heal. So if you want faster queues, one of my conditions is keeping my skills while synced.

Side note: I keep seeing so many people talk about "Balance" in low level dungeons like that actually matters. Because finishing a dungeon in 10 minutes vs 15 apparently is terrible for some people /s. If anything, let the newbies see what real power looks like. It might motivate them to level certain jobs they might not have.

No one is going to be kicked because they didn't have the skills, and if they did, shame one the people who did that.
Hell, you might do it for only tanks and healers, it would definitely get more to play. But then I imagine the DPS would change their tune REAL quick if that were the case.

[Ammokkx]

No one is going to be kicked because they didn't have the skills, and if they did, shame one the people who did that.
Hell, you might do it for only tanks and healers, it would definitely get more to play. But then I imagine the DPS would change their tune REAL quick if that were the case.

You don't need to kick someone to make them have a bad time. People could bitch at new people for being new. People could say "lmao just let us carry you" and make the sprout feel like they're not contributing anything. Hell, people could be leaving higher-level dungeons because they didn't get Sastasha ala MSQ & alliance raid roulette.

Saying "nobody would do this" is a lot more trusting of people than my 64 days of total playtime has lead me to believe is truly the case. And if you consider ~1400 hours to be rookie numbers, just imagine what a person with far more time spent in the game has encountered.

[Seraphor]

This is 100% my take on it. Things melt anyway, we do wall to wall pulls already. I'd like to press more than 2 buttons please. Doing a dungeon and seeing 75% of my skills greyed out? No thanks.

I haven't done a leveling roulette in months because of it, and I normally tank / heal. So if you want faster queues, one of my conditions is keeping my skills while synced.

Side note: I keep seeing so many people talk about "Balance" in low level dungeons like that actually matters. Because finishing a dungeon in 10 minutes vs 15 apparently is terrible for some people /s. If anything, let the newbies see what real power looks like. It might motivate them to level certain jobs they might not have.

No one is going to be kicked because they didn't have the skills, and if they did, shame one the people who did that.
Hell, you might do it for only tanks and healers, it would definitely get more to play. But then I imagine the DPS would change their tune REAL quick if that were the case.

You're not talking 10 minutes vs 15 minutes when taking into account the 300% damage increase from 15 to 80.
You're talking 15 minutes vs 3 minutes.

You know how everyone hates Praetorium because of how all enemies go down in seconds and it's just all cutscenes? And how that's an awful experience for newbies, and basically turns the entire duty into a movie for them as they barely have a chance to hit anything before the next cutscene triggers?
Now imagine that format was applied to the entire rest of the game.
Not only is that boring, but it means players won't learn about mechanics until much later in the game, probably not until the 50-60 range, because they simply won't see any of them before then.

No one's going to be kicked? Well when you get used to clearing dungeons in 3 minutes and you end up with 3 newbies, you know its now going to take you 10 minutes instead of 3... Are you really going to stick around for that? It'd be quicker to disconnect and reload in for another attempt with a full party of level 80 players.

And if Sastasha takes 3 minutes while Dohn Mheg takes 20 minutes, why would you want to risk getting Dohn Mheg? Unequip all your gear for Levelling Roulette, and now everyone gets Sastasha! Yay!
It'll suck for anyone queuing up for level 50+ dungeons though, those queues will never fill.

Not to mention the fact that EXP rewards are tailored to the duration of the duty. If dungeons universally took only 25% of their current duration, you'd see EXP rewards, including the daily roulette bonuses, decreased by a similar margin. Now you definitely don't want to risk getting that 20 minute level 80-something dungeon if you're only getting 'paid' for 3 minutes of it.