I hate losing half my buttons when I do a roulette

[Espon]

They can't just sync stats as every new ability you learn is typically designed to increase your damage or power in some way, especially when it comes to passive buffs or oGCDs. They would have to adjust every ability's potency by varying amounts based on what level the dungeon is. An ability at 90 that has 300 potency would end up having a potency of like 60 in Sastasha to make up for all the other abilties you have that you normally wouldn't have at that level. Where a healer could get once get away with throwing the occasional Cure or Medica would now have to make full use of their kit to keep people alive due to how small their individual heals are.

This is why blue mage just streamrolls old content. They don't lose access to later level abilities and keep their potencies.

[HyoMinPark]

They can't just sync stats as every new ability you learn is typically designed to increase your damage or power in some way, especially when it comes to passive buffs or oGCDs. They would have to adjust every ability's potency by varying amounts based on what level the dungeon is. An ability at 90 that has 300 potency would end up having a potency of like 60 in Sastasha to make up for all the other abilties you have that you normally wouldn't have at that level. Where a healer could get once get away with throwing the occasional Cure or Medica would now have to make full use of their kit to keep people alive due to how small their individual heals are.

This is why blue mage just streamrolls old content. They don't lose access to later level abilities and keep their potencies.

In addition to this, they’d also likely have to buff GLA and MRD in terms of enmity generation. Can you imagine a sprout GLA in Sastasha for the first time trying to hold their own against a synced 90 player with their full kit? I know tank enmity is a joke now, but classes are inherently weaker. So they would have to be adjusted to compensate. They may be obsolete, but they’re still in the game.

That said, I’d find it more worthwhile to adjust the levels in which jobs learn skills so that being lower level doesn’t feel so bad. Not only with regards to being synced, but for those who are leveling in general. It’s a common complaint that early combat is boring, and jobs feel less than stellar the lower you get—partially because so many of the abilities that they used to have in the 1-50 range have been deleted. So some reshuffling might make them feel a bit better.

[Hasrat]

That said, I’d find it more worthwhile to adjust the levels in which jobs learn skills so that being lower level doesn’t feel so bad. Not only with regards to being synced, but for those who are leveling in general. It’s a common complaint that early combat is boring, and jobs feel less than stellar the lower you get—partially because so many of the abilities that they used to have in the 1-50 range have been deleted. So some reshuffling might make them feel a bit better.

Then the complaints would just shift to there being long stretches of leveling with no changes.

But yeah. Anyone that thinks "just sync stats low" is the answer is massively underestimating the wild imbalance due to skill availability. How the hells do you expect to balance low level healers against ones that have "heal to full" spells? How are you going to balance low level tanks with ones that have "immune to all damage" skills?

[HyoMinPark]

Then the complaints would just shift to there being long stretches of leveling with no changes.

But yeah. Anyone that thinks "just sync stats low" is the answer is massively underestimating the wild imbalance due to skill availability. How the hells do you expect to balance low level healers against ones that have "heal to full" spells? How are you going to balance low level tanks with ones that have "immune to all damage" skills?

It would depend on how spaced out abilities are, to be fair. Some jobs should already have skills moved down to the 1-50 range just so they feel like a complete job instead of half of one. BRD, for example. Since they changed Wanderer’s Minuet from what it originally was in HW, there’s very little reason for it to remain at level 52. Moving it down the 30-50 range would allow the job to actually have a full song rotation instead of having 2/3s of one. Melee DPS that don’t get AOEs until the 40s should have them move to lower levels as well (I personally think everyone should have an AOE between levels 15-20).

[marelooke]

Then the complaints would just shift to there being long stretches of leveling with no changes.

But yeah. Anyone that thinks "just sync stats low" is the answer is massively underestimating the wild imbalance due to skill availability. How the hells do you expect to balance low level healers against ones that have "heal to full" spells? How are you going to balance low level tanks with ones that have "immune to all damage" skills?

For what it's worth, EverQuest 2 did exactly that, and it had all the problems you point out (with the additional problem that certain stats were only available on gear past a certain level entirely, further increasing the imbalance. Imagine that no <lvl50 gear has crit, for example, but a lvl90 player scaled <50 gets its crit scaled down, not removed)

Given how many FF XIV systems clearly took inspiration from the EQ-franchise I wouldn't be surprised the devs were aware of the issues with the Chronomagic in EQ2, and tried to avoid them the way they did.

Whether it's more enjoyable, well, that's debatable, and probably depends more on the point of progression of the player. For the high level players it arguably kinda sucks, for the sprouts it's probably more enjoyable since, despite gear differences, they're on a level playing field with the higher level players.

Arguably the best solution is what they did with newer jobs, balance them so they get their core skills earlier, so they don't feel quite as gimped when synced down.