Level Syncing isn't the best solution

[Astrus]

GW2 is another, and it's quite nice.

[...]

GW2 works insofar as it doesn't let you just clear the whole map. A synced down level 80 is still outperforming a player at level 20 even when both get synced down to level 18 for the area they are in. The additional skills, traits and equipment upgrades make a world of difference.

[Fayt1203]

SWTOR does level sync without taking away all your abilities, works fine there. Just saying...

Really?? last time i played swtor and have been sync down for like let say Taris i'm still stupidly overpowered to the people that havent got over the planet level

[Macleod]

Really?? last time i played swtor and have been sync down for like let say Taris i'm still stupidly overpowered to the people that havent got over the planet level

Well I was really just referring to how they level you down and don't take away abilities...but since you mention it, using open world planetary things isn't really a good comparison because the open world level sync still puts you at a higher level than intended for the specific planets' content, so of course you're going to feel overpowered. It's better in dungeon (flashpoint) type content there, which I think for me is where it really is a drag here...nothing like queuing up for a leveling roulette in your 50s or 60s and getting stuck doing Sastasha or something...oh yay I have 2 abilities, this'll be fun!

[Skivvy]

GW2 works insofar as it doesn't let you just clear the whole map. A synced down level 80 is still outperforming a player at level 20 even when both get synced down to level 18 for the area they are in. The additional skills, traits and equipment upgrades make a world of difference.

I apologize, this is probably on my fuzzy brain this morning, but I'm not following the bolded part up above. But yeah, the gear/learned traits/advanced jobs do make a difference. I imagine that would be the case for XIV as well, but if* tuned correctly, I don't personally see that being a huge concern.

*I realize this is a big "if". I don't have much trust in SE to fine-tune things properly. :X

[Astrus]

I apologize, this is probably on my fuzzy brain this morning, but I'm not following the bolded part up above. But yeah, the gear/learned traits/advanced jobs do make a difference. I imagine that would be the case for XIV as well, but if* tuned correctly, I don't personally see that being a huge concern.

*I realize this is a big "if". I don't have much trust in SE to fine-tune things properly. :X

It's alluding to a concept I brought up earlier (either in this thread or in another discussing level syncing). There's basically two things you want to accomplish by implementing a scaling system: you either want to preserve a sense of balance between players that are at different stages of progression through the game or you just want to prevent players that have reached the elder game to come back to a low level zone and obliterate everything in sight by sneezing, thereby disrupting the questing experience of players who also need to kill those enemies.

GW2 tries to do the latter, they just don't want you to wipe out an entire event by casting an aoe. This works arguably well, depending on where you are things often still die after you whack them twice but everyone gets a chance to participate and that's Anet's chief concern. That a character with all their skill slots and traits is superior to a character that barely unlocked their first trait line and doesn't have all utility skill slots or an elite is of little concern to them.
That there's no strict holy trinity in place helps them in this regard.

SquEx tries to preserve a sense of balance between players at different stages of progression. They don't want the level 18 Lancer to feel completely useless when running Sastasha with a party of synced-down level 70s. They want the level 20 Gladiator in Halatali to be able to do their job even when the two DPS are synced level 70 Blackmages.
This is a considerably harder feat to pull off. What they chose, in addition to capping stats, is limiting the kit everyone has available in those duties to be roughly the same (± a skill due to differences in the minimum and maximum possible level for the duty).
It works debatably well to achieve their goal, due to what the stat caps are a synced down player is almost certainly going to have an edge in stats but essentially everyone in the duty is on a semblance of equal footing.

They certainly could* find a way to balance a system where you retain your kit and stay on a performance level with the people who are at-level for the duty but doing that in a way that works for everyone involved is insanely hard.

One suggestion was to simply have the abilities that the current system locks to have no function when activated. While this lets people pretend to do their rotation they are essentially wasting GCDs that would be better spend on abilities that work. It's the Impulse Drive spam situation all over only now you have to know which of your abilities are "legal" for the duty you're in.

Another suggestion was to carefully balance potencies in such a way that a whole rotation of a synced player does the same damage as the skeletal rotation of the person at level. That means veterans would have to activate a lot more abilities to be on par with the guy who only has a 1-2 combo and thus a much lower margin for error. Apart from looking pretty this solution essentially punishes players for leveling up and, personally speaking, having to push 5 buttons to achieve the effect of two would turn me off synced content even more than the current system. It would also require fine tuning of abilities for every possible level and duty, I don't even want to imagine what effect the required manpower would have on our already sparse content updates.

Then there's "to hell with balance". Let's just have veterans with all their toys be superior to lower leveled players. This is almost certainly going to lead to discrimination against anyone who doesn't have their whole kit. With the ambiguous "difference in playstyle" reason for kicking people it's not going to make it any easier for people to get their MSQ duties done while leveling up.

And finally we have the solution of giving people their (core) kit much earlier on - Redmage is a great example of how this could look like, the way the abilities flow is remarkable. The issue then is how to preserve the sense of growth you get as you advance through your levels as well as class and job quests before level 30 (and let's not go into classes that don't feel complete until 70) as the additional abilities those give would already be available to you. They'd also have to rebalance the early dungeons with the additional abilities in mind but that's a minor concern if they'd be willing to go this far.

In an ideal world we'd have a system that lets players retain their abilities while keeping things balanced and fun but if I have to choose between the system we have now and one of the other solutions I can see SE actually implementing I'll begrudingly take my skeletal rotations.

*and my faith in their ability to actually get it right approaches 0

[SannaR]

Offically? Because last I checked the company doesn't count it as one.

[kikix12]

Offically? Because last I checked the company doesn't count it as one.

Final Fantasy TYPE-0 Online was developed by Perfect World, not Square Enix. Square Enix is the publisher. If we count that, then they publish Dragon Quest X as well, and very much consider it an MMO.

As for the TYPE-0 Online itself...Perfect World develops MMO's. Press, reviewers etc. also consider it an MMO. The reason being rather obvious. It's a multiplayer only, server-based game. It's not a peer-to-peer multiplayer. Multiplayer is not "an option" either. It's the entire game. It's no different than FFXIV duties, really.

Though Square Enix DID develop an MMO fantasy team vs team game some time ago...but it failed terribly and was canceled. I don't remember its name anymore though.

[SannaR]

Final Fantasy TYPE-0 Online was developed by Perfect World, not Square Enix. Square Enix is the publisher. If we count that, then they publish Dragon Quest X as well, and very much consider it an MMO.

As for the TYPE-0 Online itself...Perfect World develops MMO's. Press, reviewers etc. also consider it an MMO. The reason being rather obvious. It's a multiplayer only, server-based game. It's not a peer-to-peer multiplayer. Multiplayer is not "an option" either. It's the entire game. It's no different than FFXIV duties, really.

Though Square Enix DID develop an MMO fantasy team vs team game some time ago...but it failed terribly and was canceled. I don't remember its name anymore though.

Funny since the little I was able to look up about it nothing mentioned it being labeled as a mmo. With Dragon Quest X SE has stated that it's an mmo. Even Yoshida the few times he's talked about it has called it that. Anyway doesn't matter as it's not part of the main topic.

[Dualgunner]

Final Fantasy TYPE-0 Online was developed by Perfect World, not Square Enix. Square Enix is the publisher. If we count that, then they publish Dragon Quest X as well, and very much consider it an MMO.

As for the TYPE-0 Online itself...Perfect World develops MMO's. Press, reviewers etc. also consider it an MMO. The reason being rather obvious. It's a multiplayer only, server-based game. It's not a peer-to-peer multiplayer. Multiplayer is not "an option" either. It's the entire game. It's no different than FFXIV duties, really.

Though Square Enix DID develop an MMO fantasy team vs team game some time ago...but it failed terribly and was canceled. I don't remember its name anymore though.

Can you tell me what reviewers specifically are calling it an MMO? All I'm finding is "multiplayer action rpg" which is not an MMO.

[kikix12]

Can you tell me what reviewers specifically are calling it an MMO? All I'm finding is "multiplayer action rpg" which is not an MMO.

https://mmoculture.com/2016/07/final...d-at-chinajoy/
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Andro...ws.asp?c=70360


https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...lfantasy&hl=pl

Just check tags for these two:
https://www.gry-online.pl/gry/final-...-online/z028cc

https://mmorpg.org.pl/news/zobacz/na...iez-na-pc-tach


Frankly, it's hard to actually find ANYTHING about this game. Most searches seem to show the TYPE-0 or HD versions...It didn't help that somewhere on its way it was rebranded into "Awakening", either.