Okay, so, I could sit here and numerically prove why this is not a simple problem to solve. (Because math!) However, I've done that in these threads before, and my experience is that people's eyes tend to glaze over when I do. (Because math!)

And then they tend to just say "But... other games have done it!"

Which, sure, you know what? That's a true statement. But let's look at this another way.

"A semi is a vehicle with wheels that requires a license to operate and can travel on freeways." True statement! "A Mazda Miata is a vehicle with wheels that requires a license to operate and can travel on freeways." Also a true statement! "A Yamaha motorbike is a vehicle with wheels that requires a license to operate and can travel on freeways." Still true!

But is "Well, you can make a semi haul a freight trailer, so a Mazda Miata or a Yamaha motorbike can do the same thing!" a true statement? Spoiler: I suspect this will not work out well for the Miata or the Yamaha. (I suspect it might also invalidate your insurance for a whole slew of reasons, but that's neither here nor there.)

MMO combat systems are similar in broad strokes, yes, much like a Mazda Miata and a Peterbilt semi are. But -- again, like the aforementioned two vehicles -- they are not interchangeable.

For good or ill, FFXIV has a system which is built around unlocking abilities as you progress and giving you access to all of them, rather than the approach some other MMOs take of giving you all your abilities early and then simply increasing how strong they are, or giving you a menu of options that expands as you level but only letting you equip, say, 10 of them at a given time.

One big benefit to FFXIV's system is that you can genuinely feel like you're progressing and growing more powerful. Yay, a dopamine hit! (Of course, this only applies so long as you continue forward; people aren't wrong that getting level synced down is painful.)

One big downside of the system is that the ratio of damage at later levels versus earlier ones isn't consistent from one level range to another within a job, much less across multiple jobs. So the math entailed in scaling this down becomes immensely complex, and there's some serious caveats to it.

But let's say you have a viable system to take "what is the optimal damage a level 90 WHM does" and "what is the optimal damage a level 16 CNJ does" and then apply that ratio to the WHM's abilities so they keep their whole kit but (for instance) their single-target ability does far less than the CNJ's to account for the fact that they have Assize and that they're able to heal with things like Tetra and Benediction without giving up GCDs, while the CNJ can only use Cure.

How the heck do you scale, say, RPR? Because FFXIV has jobs that unlock at higher levels. Level 90 WHM at least has those lower levels to compare with to calculate the scaling. RPR, however, doesn't. So, now you have that giant headache to deal with.

These are problems which, at least so far as I can see, you cannot readily deal with short of redesigning the FFXIV combat system and experience in fundamental ways. Which, first off, is a Not Small task; think of how they literally ended up rebooting Secret World entirely in order to redo the combat system differently.

But secondly, many people play FFXIV because they like the combat system as it stands now; tearing it down and building something new might allow you to handle scaling a kit down to lower levels more easily, but runs the risk of alienating the existing playerbase by putting a fundamentally different game in front of them.

Now, I'm willing to admit that I may be overlooking some viable mathematical solution here that they could easily apply without changing the combat system; I am not, y'know, omniscient. Or even close to infallible. But I do not see one, and more to the point, I've yet to see anyone propose one in one of these threads.

(And not just "well, scale the damage down" -- I mean some actual concrete algorithm you could apply, which is the thing I am not finding an easy answer to. And I have sat down and done the math homework here for previous threads on this topic.)

Because saying "Well, other games have done it, so FFXIV can" as the entirety of the argument is, I fear, akin to the aforementioned "Well, a Peterbilt semi can haul a freight trailer, so a Mazda Miata should be able to!"

And having now commited an egregiously large wall of words -- and, in so doing, expended all the words I seem to have on this particular topic at present -- I shall wish everyone a Happy New Year. Or at least, Twelve willing, a tolerable one. And then I shall crash into bed.