It's time to redesign Level Sync

[Jas710]

Was it boring when you first hit 20 as a newbie, when knowing your abilities and functioning in a group setting was uncertain?

The sync down is not meant to service established players by feeding us tomes, etc. Yeah it's a bunch of incentives for sure, but ultimately it all boils down to helping out the up and comers. All inconveniences are shared equally among the new and the experienced.

If we retained all of our skills like we do unsynced, then all it would do is overwhelm the new guys and create unnecessary confusion.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Was it boring when you first hit 20 as a newbie, when knowing your abilities and functioning in a group setting was uncertain?

I have two words for you: Impulse Drive.

[Altena]

I have two words for you: Impulse Drive.

The combined potency of True + Vorpal is now greater than Impulse + Impulse.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The combined potency of True + Vorpal is now greater than Impulse + Impulse.

Oh, I'm aware. The person I quoted asked if it was boring back at level 20. Any DRG pre-Stormblood knows the horrors of Impulse spam. Conjurer is equally dull pre-30.

[demonette]

Was it boring when you first hit 20 as a newbie, when knowing your abilities and functioning in a group setting was uncertain?

Yes, absolutely and without a shred of irony. It's hard to keep other mmo friends interested in this game because the low level experience is so mind-numbing.

[Ayer2015]

Yes, absolutely and without a shred of irony. It's hard to keep other mmo friends interested in this game because the low level experience is so mind-numbing.

PotD addressed that. New players can level very quickly now and experience higher level skill rotations.

[Bluejay]

Yes, absolutely and without a shred of irony. It's hard to keep other mmo friends interested in this game because the low level experience is so mind-numbing.

I agree. The problem isn't with level synced abilities. If you were to nerf a full set of abilities to match a lower level players output then your abilities would be much less effective than the exact same abilities used by the lower level player in some cases. This would be silly.

Better solutions:
1. AI companions that can help new players complete the 1-50 group required content (maybe coming soon?)
2. Redo the dungeons to improve their game play making them repeatable (never going to happen)
3. Make solo or group composition agnostic (like POTD) versions of those dungeons that can be done to complete the story line but that drop weaker loot.

As an aside: As demonette mentions, the lower level content is insanely boring. The fun in too much of FF14 content is the application of skill rotations. The content itself is pretty bad. Obviously if you take the skill rotations out that content becomes boring. Once you make it through the main story line that you can only do once there is almost nothing fun from 1 - 50. POTD is ok but not great, and when you do it for the 300th time it becomes boring too. If POTD were better it might not be so bad (wouldn't help the group required content but it would help leveling alts). Right now, pre-50 PVP is the only decent repeatable content in this game.

It's not like players are unwilling to repeat content. Look at something like Player Unknown or Team Fortress, Street Fighter, Racing games like Forza or Need For Speed, Sim games like Civ or Cities Skylines, Arcade games, Rogue like games and repeatable dungeon crawlers like Path of Exile or Hand of Fate... in some of those games you repeat exactly the same content 1000's or 10,000's of times but you don't hear players complaining about lack of content. I would also argue that some of the post 50 content is good enough that repeating it is not a problem.

[Kosmos992k]

Yes, absolutely and without a shred of irony. It's hard to keep other mmo friends interested in this game because the low level experience is so mind-numbing.

Really? I mean, how long does it take to level through 20+ now? 3 hours? Doing Story along the way might stretch that an extra hour. With a story jump potion and moderate effort to level you can be in Palace of the Dead in next to no time, and leveling swiftly.

What really get's on my nerves about the kind of sentiment you are posting is that the initial leveling process in FFXIV is so very quick, and it functions as a tutorial to the rest of the game. If MMORPG players haven't got the patience to work through 3-4 hours of tutorial then how do they ever stick around long enough for anything meaningful in any game? The biggest issue I see people running into is this, they start at a low level and none of their so called friends are prepared to take the time to work with them and play with them while they catch up. those so-called friends would rather be working on current content than helping their friends advance. That leaves new players out on a limb where they either use jump potions or slog through stuff on their own.

Friends don't let friends get bored.

Oh, and that doesn't even touch the fact that jobs like Dark Knight, Astrologian and Machinist start at 30, and Samurai and Red mage start at 50, so you are not really locked into the entire tutorial path any more.

[Naunet]

the initial leveling process in FFXIV is so very quick

Jobs don't really pick up as far as having a decent range of abilities until 40-50. What's more the overall leveling process is absurdly slow, given that you have to go through every single MSQ (unless you want to give SE money, which is stupid).

And why would a new player invest in a story skip potion just so they can spam PotD? That's absurd.

[Kosmos992k]

Jobs don't really pick up as far as having a decent range of abilities until 40-50. What's more the overall leveling process is absurdly slow, given that you have to go through every single MSQ (unless you want to give SE money, which is stupid).

And why would a new player invest in a story skip potion just so they can spam PotD? That's absurd.

Hey, I agree with you, it is absurd, but so is the idea that MMORPG players who are renowned for their endurance of long play are unwilling to invest the time needed to learn this game. Since I have seen new sprouts arriving at the gates for Royal Menagerie I can only conclude that leveling and progress in FFXIV is relatively quick.