A potential rework to the level-sync system.

[Deceptus]

Because they want to get their reward and get out as fast as possible from content they've already done dozens if not hundreds of times. Challenge has disappeared once you've done the content enough times.

Good job bringing up BLU because that's the best possible example of why skill sync is needed since BLU has no skill sync in any content.

BLU is a bad example because it's an apples to oranges comparison.

BLU's power comes in their ability to freeze enemies (trash) and then one shot them.

Otherwise, they're an under powered dps who has to cast 200 potency aoe (with dropoff). Go try to kill a group without ultravibration or any of the other one shot spells. It takes a bit to kill a pack.

If anything, it shows how keeping your skills CAN be done.

If one person is synced down from 80 an keeps their skills, the run will go faster. (if DPS)

If two people are synced down, the run will go really fast. (Especially if DPS), not so much if it's a tank and healer who are synced down.

If four people are synced down? Then no "newbie" is helped, you're doing old outdated content so again WHO CARES?

Just as an aside I want to mention this:

I routinely help people get their BLU spells Mind Blast and Glower. Those can be unsynced as the learn rate is 100%. I do this on my PLD.

Guess what?

I equip the ilvl 90 Curtana Nexus to kill the bosses and do you know why?

EVEN AT LVL 80 AN ILVL 90 ITEM CAN NOT ONE SHOT A LVL 15 BOSS WITH AUTO ATTACKS.

Now imagine what will happen when instead of the 53 damage Nexus weapon we have the 13 damage it would be synced down

I really think people are severely overthinking how powerful we are and how limiting weapon damage really is.

[Kemiko]

SNIP

BLU isn't even a real job. It's a Limited Job. It's not a good example of anything other than a job intended to be outside the norm.

And good job moving the goal post. Nothing here was brought up about weapon damage, just your job abilities in sync content. Higher level job abilities generally comes with higher potency, which translates to more damage. So, by default, if you kept these job abilities in content not intended for them to exist you'll be doing more than the intended damage. But wait, what if your potencies were reduced to compensate for this?

You will also have more job abilities than intended, allowing you more actions than intended. Using the worst offender, Sastasha with an at level player will be outshined by a lv80 player, even if said 80 was nerfed heavily to compensate. But, nerf them harder, I hear. In which case you're putting in a tremendous amount of effort to reach the average LV15 players state of play that not even on release max level Extreme trials demand. Very quickly people will question the purpose of being so heavily nerfed when the game is supposed to be a welcoming experience.

I really hate to say that I honestly agree with the "just don't do it then" sentiment as much as I think it's a poor answer to this discussion. As much as people would enjoy keeping their kit throughout the game, the fact of the matter is you do not in situations you agree to. You agree to a sync in a dungeon before you go in, you agree to a sync in a FATE before you participate in it, you agree to a sync for single-player duties if you happen to be overleveled when you attempt it. At no point are you forced to do any of this, even Main Scenario, if you really don't want to. And, at least outside of Main Scenario, you aren't missing anything for not doing it. You are granted incentive for sure, but let's not pretend we aren't privy to intention sync attempts to provide.

If you must do a low level dungeon, and you aren't agreeing to the rules of a roulette, you always do have the option to undersize it solo or with others looking to do the same. In the case of you going into a roulette and all involved are not new to the instance hardly means they aren't using it for the other incentives provided (such as boosted experience) and could still be at-level with the content. In the event all present are max level, you're just here for the tomes - we all know this and you knew what you signed up for. That's the nature of the deal.

[Deceptus]

I really hate to say that I honestly agree with the "just don't do it then" sentiment as much as I think it's a poor answer to this discussion. As much as people would enjoy keeping their kit throughout the game, the fact of the matter is you do not in situations you agree to. You agree to a sync in a dungeon before you go in, you agree to a sync in a FATE before you participate in it, you agree to a sync for single-player duties if you happen to be overleveled when you attempt it. At no point are you forced to do any of this, even Main Scenario, if you really don't want to. And, at least outside of Main Scenario, you aren't missing anything for not doing it. You are granted incentive for sure, but let's not pretend we aren't privy to intention sync attempts to provide.

Here's why the "Just don't do it" mindset doesn't work.

Fewer players in the roulettes results in higher queue times. Do you really want the return of 30 minute queues for dps players?

Veteran players need an incentive to queue for things that might not benefit them. IMHO being synced to content where you go from 24 buttons to 2 is more of a disincentive to queue for certain content.

[linayar]

Here's why the "Just don't do it" mindset doesn't work.

Fewer players in the roulettes results in higher queue times. Do you really want the return of 30 minute queues for dps players?

Veteran players need an incentive to queue for things that might not benefit them. IMHO being synced to content where you go from 24 buttons to 2 is more of a disincentive to queue for certain content.

I don't usually see 30-minute DPS queues with the system as is right now, so this particular argument doesn't make sense.

And as we've established, SE has other ways to incentivize running old contents.

[Deceptus]

I don't usually see 30-minute DPS queues with the system as is right now, so this particular argument doesn't make sense.

And as we've established, SE has other ways to incentivize running old contents.

They used to exist. That's the point. And will come back if people stop queuing into the roulettes.

[Xtrasweettea]

Concern trolling about possible DPS queue times.

Not my responsibility as someone who mains tanks and healers to make sure DPS queue times are short. I am not 2nd class citizen to DPS.

Allowing me to use my full level 80 skill set in Satasha is not going to make me queue for DR as a tank or healer. The current awards don't even make want to go into DR leveling, DR Trials, and DR 50/60/70 as a capped player.

The alternatives out there are better for EXP/hour or rewards.

SE is going to need to give the better long-term incentives those other DRs as a capped tank and healer main. Give me a reason to go into DR Trials where I spend more time in one Titania fight than a whole Expert Dungeon. Give me a reason to go into DR leveling where I end up out damaging the two DPS as a healer in Shisui of the Violet Tides. Give me a reason to go into 50/60/70 DR where it’s Keeper of the Lake for the 100th time and it’s more MP efficient for me to not raise the same DPS who keep dying to mechanics and to just keep casting damage spells.

Until better long-term incentives are provided, I will keep on doing DR Expert and alternative activities for things I need. That includes me using squads for low level dungeons to add seals to Wonderous tales… which a group of Rank 5 offensive squad members (1 MRD, 2 DPS… preferred rouge, archer, or arcanist), is faster than with real people.

[Penthea]

Veteran players need an incentive to queue for things that might not benefit them. IMHO being synced to content where you go from 24 buttons to 2 is more of a disincentive to queue for certain content.

There are already incentives: tomes and xp.

Players are not going to run content solely because they get to keep all their skills. Players generally do content to get something or to help someone else get something. Even if someone were to abstain from doing lower lvl roulettes to get tomes, the fact remains that they are queuing for content because they want tomes.

Remove the tomes and xp gains, and replace them with giving players all their skills in any content, you would actually see a drop in the amount of people who do lower lvl roulettes. Why? Because they would simply go elsewhere to get some manner of useful loot. Having all your skills isn't enough of an incentive for most people to do content because it would be seen as a waste of time to do content for no reward for themselves or a buddy they're helping.

Having a Sastasha lvl of kit isn't exciting to say the least, but I can guarantee it wouldn't be much more fun if you had your full kit. The mobs aren't designed to be against players with massive kits and the lack of mechanics would mean many skills just wouldn't be used, especially with the increased dps from major cds and ogcds resulting in things dying much faster. Adjusting the damage output isn't enough if a player has more buttons to press in a gcd than a player who is actually the lvl the content is intended for.

I don't find it particularly fun to have most of my kit wiped out, but I understand that low lvl content isn't balanced for veteran players, it's balanced for novices. So when I do content that is intended for a novice I expect to be faced with a situation that only a novice would find interesting. On the days in which I want more or my full kit I simply avoid putting myself into a situation that could land me in super low lvl content.

First impressions matter. As I said in my previous post had the dungeon content I did when I started FFXIV been a faceroll due to being matched up with higher lvl players blasting things with their huge kits then I would have left the game. Sure some sprouts may not know any better, but not every sprout is new to mmos, and many would be turned off by being unable to entirely avoid being boosted while using DF. Never mind how you don't need to be an experienced player to find being unable to learn your class to be frustrating because you're unwillingly getting carried.

And frankly I don't think anyone's desire to have their full kit in all content is a good enough reason to ruin the first impressions the game has on new players. If you want your full kit then do content that allows you to use it. That's not difficult to do.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

TEM CAN NOT ONE SHOT A LVL 15 BOSS WITH AUTO ATTACKS.[/B]
Now imagine what will happen when instead of the 53 damage Nexus weapon we have the 13 damage it would be synced down

I really think people are severely overthinking how powerful we are and how limiting weapon damage really is.

Weapon damage is irrelevant. Potency is the only value you need to look at to see how much damage two characters would deal when comparing rotations.

Let's take a look at WAR. We have a level 30 WAR & a level 80 WAR. We'll both give them all level 1 gear & level 1 weapon so when inside, their stats are almost identical and weapon damage between them is the same, so the only thing that matters is potency and nothing else.

Billy the level 30 WAR rushes in, pops berserk, does 5x overpower, plus 4x normal Overpower outside of berserk for good measure. Just for simplification, we'll make crits do 1.5x damage for damage.
Billy does (130 * 1.5(crit) * 1.2(DH)) = 234 potency for each of his initial 5 overpowers in Berserk, for a total of 1170 potency. his extra 4 overpowers bump it up to 1690 potency. Not bad Billy.

Chad the level 80 WAR rolls in and has 100 beast Gauge, 2x Infuriates and IR ready. He rolls in and pops IR, followed by 5x Decimate. He does (250 * 1.5 * 1.2) = 450 potency per hit. With his 5 decimates, he does 2250 damage. Already nearly 1.5 times as much damage as Billy did. But we're not even done yet.

During that IR, Chad got to use a free upheaval (450 potency) & Onslaught (100), meaning Chad has now done 2800 potency total, now closing in on nearly 2x as much as Billy. Chad does 2x more Decimate to drain his 100 beast gauge, adding another 500 potency, now up to 3300 potency. Chad now finally whips out his 2x Infuriates, doing 2x Chaotic cyclones. (400 * 1.5 * 1.2) = 720 potency, or 1440 potency total. Meaning Chad has now done 4740 potency, or nearly 3x as much damage as Billy.

But wait! Chad also has Storm's eye, giving him a 10% damage boost! meaning he actually has done more than 3x as much damage than Billy, at 5214 potency. He did over 3x as much damage as Billy in the same 9 GCDs as Billy, and this is only on AoE (Spoiler alert: Chad is doing over 5x as much damage as Billy between Fell Cleave & Inner Chaos on single target). We haven't even talked about the fact that while Billy is bleeding out from damage over there, Chad is popping his Nascent Flash to completely laugh at his enemy's attempts to hurt him by life-stealing himself to full HP from just a single decimate!

Even outside of burst, Chad can do nearly 4x overpower's worth of damage every 30s compared to Billy from Upheaval. Chad can also do 70 more potency every 2 GCDs, and every 4-6 can do 2x Overpower damage in the form of Decimate! Which not only deals more damage, but also reduces his Infuriate Cooldown closer to Wreck Billy's damage harder when he can use more Chaotic Cyclones! And what does Billy have to answer to Chad? nothing.

I think you don't understand that weapon damage will do nothing. Given equal gear to nullify weapon damage out of the equation, a level 80 will still be doing several times more damage than a level 30 could ever possibly do. This is also just for Warrior, a job that is largely GCD bound. I actually tried NIN first but that was getting so hilarious at how hard a level 80 NIN was curbstomping a level 30 one that I switched to Warrior as a more tame example.

I also enjoy how you brought up a slippery slope earlier when you're the one talking about how we should just completely blow out balance just because newer jobs weren't as properly tuned to low levels as they should have been. The solution is to fix those jobs at lower levels, not let every job do the same.

Level Sync will never change. It's been brought up countless times in the past, the devs have mentioned it in liveletters why they keep it as it is. it's to maintain parity between a level capped character of a job and a low level character of the same job. When the current system is future proofed for every expansion to come, requires zero tweaking of potency, %s, etc to work, and does a dang good job at keeping two characters of differing levels in a job to maintain parity, why would they ever spend even a nanosecond designing a new system? "Don't fix whats not broken."

As far as your worries, the roulettes already provide the highest exp-time ratio the game offers. and if by some unholy miracle people decide leveling roulette isn't giving enough and mass exodus? They'll just crank the rewards up ala MSQ roulette. Put on your favorite streaming service, kick back and relax with your 2 button rotation, or simply avoid roulettes altogether.

[Tlachtga]

And what does Billy have to answer to Chad? nothing.

Billy could play the game, level to 80 and have the same skills as Chad in about 2 weeks, playing very casually. that's his answer. if Billy wants instant gratification...well he can go buy a jump potion.

also, it literally wouldn't matter that a lvl80 tank is way better than a lvl30 one, because you can only have 1 tank in a dungeon unless its a fixed party. do y'all even play this game?

even if Naruto the lvl80 NIN is completely dumpstering Desmond the lvl24 Rogue....this is a co-operative game. who cares if one person is doing way more dps? firstly, lazy players exist, so this no doubt already happens in the current system, and anyway you can't even see the numbers without ACT, a 3rd party tool that's against ToS.

most casual players either don't care about their dps, or actively dislike the idea of people being able to see it with ACT. and even people who do use ACT don't run it in dungeons for the most part.

its honestly baffling there's even resistance to the idea of keeping skills, even compromises, such as giving complete skill sets at lvl50. its really the best of both worlds.

it'll preserve that special challenge of Sastasha that's apparently so important while at the same time, open up a lot of old lvl 50 content to more than "semi-afk for 15 mins while i get 60% of a level up" especially since SE loves to reuse it.

these weak balance excuses (stop comparing two of the same support lmao), or the idea that newbies would be sad that someone who has played the game longer than them has access to stronger skills...like that's how these types of games work bro.

or how it would lead to people being carried and not knowing how to play their job, as if lvl80 content is full of highly skilled players and not full already of people who don't have a clue how to play their job. i still constantly see freecure fishers in expert.

this is only going to get worse as the game gets more expansions, since they're committed to keeping the same or very similar amount of skills on jobs for the controller players. considering how badly they went about it with Shadowbringers...

[Vahlnir]

this is only going to get worse as the game gets more expansions, since they're committed to keeping the same or very similar amount of skills on jobs for the controller players. considering how badly they went about it with Shadowbringers...

Define "badly". I leveled every job to 80 and never had an issue with my bars. Did I understand what all the buttons did? Probably not. But I had no issue arranging/rearranging them all on 2 hotbars with a controller. At most I had to toggle a 3rd for things like Arm's Length or a tank stance, but that only took up another 3-4 slots. It's perfectly fine as is for controller players. People just need to know how to set things up correctly. I don't really see how they handled it badly.