Level Sync needed ASAP!

[Mychael]

I want to make some points for both sides of the argument.

I think everyone who thinks XI's level sync was added in the interest of strengthening friendships is a little off-base. To the best of my knowledge, XI's level sync was added out of necessity, because in XI there was hardly such a thing as soloing. Once new players stopped existing, it was nearly impossible to level a job that wasn't already at least in the 30+s, and still difficult until 70. Level Sync was more of a remedy to that than it was a response to "I WANNA PLAY WITH MY FRIENDS." Since XIV is more solo friendly and there are still plenty of groups, I think the variety is good. I like having to meet new people. Playing with the same group of friends over and over, and then using level sync to prevent us from making new friends, just isn't what I want to see. I'm sorry if you don't like meeting new people, but I met some of my best friends in XI pickup parties, and I never would have if I could have level sync'd down to my IRL friends' levels. Not to sound too harsh, but if you want a game that you can comfortably play with the same few friends, you should look into multiplayer games, rather than massively multiplayer games. This game does not need level sync yet, as someone else pointed out above.

However, I hope SE learned from XI that level sync does provide a good activity to do with friends, and I'm almost positive they plan on adding a system of level sync to the game.

There's also another thread (actually, one of several) on this in which I said that it quickly stopped many zones from being used to level in. If there's a certain kind of crab that chains fast and well at level 30, then your party will sync to level 30 forever rather than move to less-efficient mobs. Obviously when "playing with friends" you will have to move up to higher mobs with your friends, but there is ALWAYS going to be an exploit in being able to stick to the most efficient camp so long as mobs continue to have different abilities and stats. Once everyone's friends are at level cap, these exploits will be the main use of level sync. If you were unfortunate enough to try to start a job in the later years of XI, you were probably stuck at ladybugs in East Ronfaure [S] for longer than you'd like, and never got to use some of your new skills until you hit 75.

The remedy to the exploit problem would be to provide some extra benefit to staying at your level (or some nerf to level syncing). Since people like you who want to play with their friends would willingly make a sacrifice (as of now, partying at level 50 doesn't even do anything besides SB...), this would work for you guys, and keep away the abusers. However, this would be counterproductive for the later years of the game when level sync will be necessary to party on a low-/mid-level job.

All things considered, I think your demand for level sync to be in ASAP is rather off-base. XIV won't "need" level sync for a while--especially after the server merges that are hopefully coming soon. I would much rather have new jobs, gear, mobs, and content than level sync. I do, however, want to see level sync in XIV. Just not yet.