Please change Road to 70. Forcing new characters 90 days bonus exp is a punishment.

[Ammokkx]

I know I was a bit dismissive in my last post, but let me briefly mention this thing;

One of the OP's arguments is that the game's difficulty becomes compromised, too easy, and that sync doesn't fix it.

This is wrong.

Difficulty in this game is not a function of level, but of gear. Unless you hit the 50/60/70/80 milestones and immediately rush job gear, you won't be outstatting everything in your area. Vendor gear is absolute garbage compared to dungeon gear at pretty much any stage in this game, so even if you bought vendor gear the game still wouldn't be too easy.

Not to mention the amount of times I still see people eating it in low-level dungeons. Happens to the best of us, no doubt. Now I'm not going to sit here and claim low-level stuff is hard by any stretch of the imagination. It's more of a humorous example. That being said, there is a baseline of competence the game asks of you and you can't AFK mindlessly go through it past, like, the first 4 dungeons. The actually "hard" content is locked behind raids, and the even harder content behind clearing said raids. Game difficulty is not compromised by levels, sync has made sure of this, and even without sync, gear gates you much more than levels ever will.

[van_arn]

I know I was a bit dismissive in my last post, but let me briefly mention this thing;

One of the OP's arguments is that the game's difficulty becomes compromised, too easy, and that sync doesn't fix it.

This is wrong.

Difficulty in this game is not a function of level, but of gear. Unless you hit the 50/60/70/80 milestones and immediately rush job gear, you won't be outstatting everything in your area. Vendor gear is absolute garbage compared to dungeon gear at pretty much any stage in this game, so even if you bought vendor gear the game still wouldn't be too easy.

Not to mention the amount of times I still see people eating it in low-level dungeons. Happens to the best of us, no doubt. Now I'm not going to sit here and claim low-level stuff is hard by any stretch of the imagination. It's more of a humorous example. That being said, there is a baseline of competence the game asks of you and you can't AFK mindlessly go through it past, like, the first 4 dungeons. The actually "hard" content is locked behind raids, and the even harder content behind clearing said raids. Game difficulty is not compromised by levels, sync has made sure of this, and even without sync, gear gates you much more than levels ever will.

That said, sync is too generous with stats and could be toned down a bit. Not to the point of min ilvl, but somewhere between min ilvl and what nonsense we have now. We're skipping way too many mechanics with people 11111ing when the rotations should be 12345.

Excellent example of this is the joke we have of Praetorium now. A more recent example would be the drastic change in Stormblood dungeon difficulties after Shadowbringers.

OP is an excellent example of a new player that still doesn't understand that, as long as the MSQ isn't cleared, levels don't matter. That's not entirely their fault, they've been conditioned by a billion MMOs to rush for that level and work back from there.

[coolskill]

... what?
How do you mean things above level 70 aren't relevant?




(Emphasis mine)
Not necessarily.
Just because you're running something doesn't mean you're in it for the EXP.

This is as long you're not unintentionally outpacing content. Design of content goes according to specific level parameters. Therefore, levels above or below parameters is outside of the balancing of that content. This is the reason dishing out too much exp is a major problem. It would be just as major a problem if shorting exp to the point of making the game too grindy. Exp should most definitely be shorted, but not to major extent. Thereby, keeping the user just behind of content played. A bit of leveling is then required to get to the next enjoyable content. Absolutely not being too overpowered.

The level 70 thing was a direct response to an outright troll shaming/invalidating game play. To make his late gamer style the only thing valid. Despite being by far, the direct opposite. AAR being the trial as well as what everybody plays and makes decisions on whether to buy and/or continue to play/subscribe. This implies the only relevance is the experience/enjoyability each level from start. How enjoyable is the game from level 1 onward? How enjoyable are the missions from level 1 onward. If level wasn't important, then there's no reason to not just give users all exp to be level 80, and set them off on their first level 1 quest. The entire point being that double exp does indeed break the game. Which also can even be legitimately argued about default exp due to being too much. This goes epecially, when having to sift through late gamer trolls wanting to debate everything that doesn't pertain to late gamer relevance, in order to respond to users interested in actual discussion about the actual game itself. Which all has to do with the early game. Namely ARR. Ignoring everything else, the relevant discussion is ARR.

For new players on the other hand, I strongly recommend staying away from Road to 70. It causes more problems than it solves for them - because it doesn't really solve any problems at all for new players.

This is correct. "Causing problems" is a fairly mild way of putting ruining/breaking the game. I'd definitely wouldn't mind seeing what devs are doing to improve the balance of the game. As even default exp gain is a major issue. And the road to 70 when it comes to users who are buying or getting into this game to play with a friend or FC that is on a server that ended up suddenly getting changed to preferred. Including users outright choosing standard servers over preferred servers because to avoid the exp boost. Thereby, the actual effect of this "reward" contradicting its intended purpose of gaining more users on those servers.

[coolskill]

TBH, it's all baseless whining.

The only one baseless is trolls like you who go onto the internet for the sole purpose of abuse/personal attacks. Therefore, reported. Get lost.

I still don't really understand this gripe. So I am going to start a new character and see how this plays out. Because I only have one alt and I made it back in Heavenward and it was the same horrible crawl to get past the lvl 50 content, into the Expac. Still got stuck behind dungeon level requirements. Still struggled through story instance battles (back before the game gave you obligatory healing during those). So I'm not seeing where being a higher level and still being hobbled to story areas with vendor gear suddenly becomes game-breaking.

You realize that no new players can play the game 'as it was originally intended' because it has been changed with every Expac? In the days of HW, only certain areas carried certain level gear and only for the classes/jobs that city would unlock--now the major cities carry all the available gear up to level 50 without you having to go to the area appropriate to that level. Back then, to advance your job you had to level a sometimes completely unrelated class to lvl 15 to get your job stone. And you could only use certain skills if you leveled the class that had that skill to the appropriate level. You want Swiftcast? You better level that THM, cause that's the only class that had it. Not to mention certain skills being locked behind job quests.

ARR is an almost completely different animal now. But it can still kill you. The fact that you can level faster just makes it so you can survive being smacked around a little better (and honestly only just). But to each their own. I'm going to start a new character and see how much the extra leveling negatively affects my experience.

On a side note, have you tried doing a new Game+? I'm curious as to how that plays out.

No. But I have no clue what you mean regarding your experience with your alt. So if you're going to start a new character as an alt, then what would that have to do with anything? Considering even the title isn't referring to that. As well as what I clearly stated about what the road to 70 buff is useful/highly effective for. Something that has absolute zero to do with main real playthroughs of the game with their main. So if you want to actually test out how badly broken it is, then test it out from the context of thinking only of reviewing ARR, and that game itself. As in how balanced it actually is when playing each level. By default, the user is already OP and outpacing content. Therefore, not very balanced. With double exp, it's beyond broken. Not a problem for boosting an alt with the purpose of catching up to late game. Major problem for users there to play that particular content.

As an unrepentant (read enthusiastic) altoholic the Road to 70 is a godsend.

OK? Which I stated from the start regarding alts. I don't see your point regarding the actual discussion including the title of the discussion not even referring to "alts".

[coolskill]

I know I was a bit dismissive in my last post, but let me briefly mention this thing;

One of the OP's arguments is that the game's difficulty becomes compromised, too easy, and that sync doesn't fix it.

This is wrong.

Difficulty in this game is not a function of level, but of gear. Unless you hit the 50/60/70/80 milestones and immediately rush job gear, you won't be outstatting everything in your area. Vendor gear is absolute garbage compared to dungeon gear at pretty much any stage in this game, so even if you bought vendor gear the game still wouldn't be too easy.

Not to mention the amount of times I still see people eating it in low-level dungeons. Happens to the best of us, no doubt. Now I'm not going to sit here and claim low-level stuff is hard by any stretch of the imagination. It's more of a humorous example. That being said, there is a baseline of competence the game asks of you and you can't AFK mindlessly go through it past, like, the first 4 dungeons. The actually "hard" content is locked behind raids, and the even harder content behind clearing said raids. Game difficulty is not compromised by levels, sync has made sure of this, and even without sync, gear gates you much more than levels ever will.

What is wrong = pretty much everything you're saying. Everything throughout the progression is a function of level. This includes gear which is based on level. Furthermore, sync is completely meaningless for a myriad of reasons. Not just limited to the fact that it doesn't even work well. And you're still imba when 'supposedly' synced. Syncing furthermore, only applies in specific content. Treating it as if everything gets synced is as off as can possibly be.

And none of even matters when level sync has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. Due to being meant for something completely different. Which is for higher level users to join lower level users. Not to compensate for a major flaw in the game of dishing out too much exp. Syncing being necessary to lower user level for content in itself implies there is a problem with progression. When the user isn't doing anything at all that should put him past said content. Otherwise, there would never be a need to sync anybody for that purpose. Due to users actually being the level for the content they're on.

Synced or not, user approaching lvl 30 with gear to go along, but doing content around level 20 = something is majorly wrong here.

If somebody is lvl 80 doing lvl 20 content with lower level users = functioning correctly.
If somebody is on lvl 20 main quest content, but at lvl 25 due to screwing around in Palace of the Dead = functioning correctly.
If somebody is on lvl 20 main quest content, but at lvl 25 due to doing nothing other than their MSQ/class quests = not functioning correctly.

And nothing I'm saying in this response even applies to the double exp. This is just how the game is by default. Double exp is on another level of absurdity. Which 100% yes it should be for its usefulness, such as boosting alts to blow past content. It's no doubt, a huge help. But in no way shape or form is it anything less than completely broken (such as "not a big deal nothing wrong here" like some seem to claim) when it comes to a genuine playthrough of ARR content. Because double exp outrights ruins the game completely when it comes to that.

[Mavrias]

Isn't road to 70 just a buff on your bar? Isn't it able to be right clicked off like any other buff?

[Ammokkx]

What is wrong = pretty much everything you're saying. Everything throughout the progression is a function of level. This includes gear which is based on level. Furthermore, sync is completely meaningless for a myriad of reasons. Not just limited to the fact that it doesn't even work well. And you're still imba when 'supposedly' synced. Syncing furthermore, only applies in specific content. Treating it as if everything gets synced is as off as can possibly be.

And none of even matters when level sync has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. Due to being meant for something completely different. Which is for higher level users to join lower level users. Not to compensate for a major flaw in the game of dishing out too much exp. Syncing being necessary to lower user level for content in itself implies there is a problem with progression. When the user isn't doing anything at all that should put him past said content. Otherwise, there would never be a need to sync anybody for that purpose. Due to users actually being the level for the content they're on.

And nothing I'm saying in this response even applies to the double exp. This is just how the game is by default. Double exp is on another level of absurdity. Which 100% yes it should be for its usefulness, such as boosting alts to blow past content. But in no way shape or form is it anything less than completely broken (such as "not a big deal nothing wrong here" like some seem to claim) when it comes to a genuine playthrough of ARR content. When double exp ruins the game completely when it comes to that.

What... is even your conclusion here?

Yes, gear is gated by levels. Now how are you going to get that gear? Vendor gear is bad and will often be lower statted than something 10 levels below it gotten from a dungeon. You need to have done the dungeon.

Class gear is locked behind a chain of quests you need gear for to clear in the first place, since they take place in progressively higher-levelled locations.

Syncing is designed for making it so you do not have access to high-level tools in low-level content. This game encourages you to play and level multiple classes, but in order to level those, you need to be able to access low-level content. This means that both high-level players can get synced down to lower levels to help out others, but also, if you ever want to do content on a class that's a higher level than the content itself (such as when I ran through all of shadowbringers with my already level 80 Dark Knight) you are synced down to the point you were meant to be at.

Does level sync make it easier? Only if you also had the best possible gear you could for that level. The level 15 starter set you get from hall of the novice is literally still better than the level 24 vendor gear from shops- which is meant for two duties later. Is level 15 now a broken milestone, too?

Not only that, but you are objectively not getting put past any content. MSQ still gates you, you still have to go through it and you will be synced down to an appropriate level for it.

Just... I know you've not got there, but do you know of our messiah Aurum Vale? A level 47, synced to 49 dungeon where people still often die in the first room? You are synced down 1 level below the cap, so you cannot get uberstats. The tank will always stand a reasonable threat of dying to the mobs. There are several mechanics in Aurum Vale that require you to pay attention, such as watching your poison stacks.

Aurum vale is still hard for the uninitiated, even if the person in question had hypothetically levelling something to 80 by only running Sastasha over and over in the levelling roulette.

And syncing isn't just "only for specific content" as you seem to put it- Sync affects literally everything that isn't happening in the overworld. Trials, dungeons, raids, solo instances- all of those sync you down.

The singular type content that gets its difficulty compromised by level sync is literally level cap content, and only because the 50/60/70 gear you can buy with an easy-to-get-currency is good enough to carry you halfway through the next expansion without upgrades. Gear that, may I point out, doesn't unlock until you've beaten the main story of that expansion first- so either way you are not outstatting the final dungeon and boss.

Level does not matter. Put on gear of a lower level and then fight a mob at yours- you will struggle if not die. The only thing you get access to at a higher level you don't at a lower is skills- and yes- sync gets rid of even that advantage.

[AleXwern]

That said, sync is too generous with stats and could be toned down a bit. Not to the point of min ilvl, but somewhere between min ilvl and what nonsense we have now. We're skipping way too many mechanics with people 11111ing when the rotations should be 12345.

Excellent example of this is the joke we have of Praetorium now. A more recent example would be the drastic change in Stormblood dungeon difficulties after Shadowbringers.

This is not the issue of level sync but how jobs are balanced. Level sync works fine, the issue is mainly that only 4-man content have it. With every expansion every single job is buffed and adjusted to some new standard. For example DRG's skill Full Thrust had 300 potency back in ARR and the ARR content was balanced around such values. Now the combo finisher is 530 aka almost double the value and it shows. Remember when WAR got 500 pot Fell Cleave back in HW and people were like "This skill is mad powerful!" and now a lot of jobs have similar skills even in ARR content.

TBH SE should use the nerfhammer more often because this game is suffering from something similar to powercreep.

[MistakeNot]

Isn't road to 70 just a buff on your bar? Isn't it able to be right clicked off like any other buff?

No, to the best of my knowledge there is no way to disable the Road to 70 buff. If you do find a way to disable it, please let us know.

[NealSnow]

Why do people fall constantly for troll bait? Like seriously... How is it possible NOT to see this is a troll post? People will never learn I guess.