Level Syncing isn't the best solution

[Sigma-Astra]

I didn't. The sarcasm ridiculed the idea in general, which is fine - there are a lot of problems with it - but overpowered level 70s isn't one of them, at least based on the OP. A sarcastic post that would have worked would have focused on, say, the perfect and effortless-to-maintain balance that would oh-so-surely result from such a system.

I felt it worked just fine. /shrugs

The idea of there not being a level sync means that you can theoretically get three level 70 players that want to steam roll through, for example; a lvl 50 dungeon for possibly glamour, and you get someone that's only at level 50. Since differences in play style is a valid reason for vote kicking a person, they could kick that level 50 player just based on their level and being detrimental towards what their goals are. And....there's not a damn thing SE would do about it.

So, with that hindsight in mind, you're going to get a lot of salty players getting kicked for not being at max level. Overpowered and possibly arrogant players at level 70 could potentially be a problem....not a balancing issue with skills per se, but definitely a social/community problem.

Which is what AppleJinx was hinting at. Although, I've seen people kicked for far less sometimes.

[Kurando]

FINAL FANTASY Type-0 Online

Smartphone online games are not really in the same basket as PC/console ones though. Otherwise we could just call FF Brave Exvius, Record Keeper etc or even Pokémon Go an MMO...

[stebo104]

@OP. I take it your brand new to the game and lvl boosted your char.

[kikix12]

I don't think balance is important at all in lower level content, aside from tanks still being able to hold aggro.

That's so wrong, I don't even know how to approach it.

1) Lack of low-level balance absolutely trashes new players, therefore, player retention. This is literally a game-killer! Low player retention is the #1 reason for games to be canceled!
2) It absolutely destroys any semblance of copy-driven progress. It's far harder to learn by experience, making more effort necessary. And most people already put in way too little effort. You would see even LESS players with any decent skills at high levels, simply because their understanding of the game would be skewered.
3) It promotes toxicity. Players would be excluded for being too weak/too new. The difference between the "new" player and an "old" player would widen the already wide gap of "crap player" and "good player". And "new good" player would think he's crap simply because he met a "decent old" player that outperforms him...even if he plays worse.
4) It invalidates most of the content. Even now the dungeons are too worthless. Their experience sucks. The items they offer are useless. They are too easy. They should be made more demanding, not less! A scholar in Sastasha literally NEVER needs to use a single heal if the tank and DPS are decent. The fairy is enough. That's how easy early content is due to the syncing not being harsh enough. I dare say that older content could actually be lot more fun, even with limited tool kit (if that limited tool kit still did include some AoE...) IF it would demand players attention.


Early-stages balance is absolutely crucial. As much, if not more so, than end-game balance. Literally everyone will go through it and it's what makes or breaks a game for someone. By the end players are more willing to forgive lack of balance since they are attached to the game, friends or whatever. Not to mention there's always the possibility that the next update will change it in their favor, since end-game is frequently changing in ALL MMO games. Early-levels don't have that luxury, be it in practice or in hopes.

[OurMom]

Why do you make this point? I was replying to what I quoted.
Also, there are 3 FINAL FANTASY MMOs.

Because you kept stressing it like it was some huge feat and one of your points were disputable as what's the "best" is pure opinion.

Also what's the 3rd mmo? Because SE only has 3 mmos and the 3rd one is I believe Dragon Quest, which isn't Final Fantasy.

[Darrcyphfeid]

You did not. That post has zero valid solutions.
Nastrond using Lancer in Sastasha is not acceptable, and everything you "offered" mandates that. So no.

:thinking:

They need to redesign virtually every job in the game, from the ground up, to be functionally complete by level 30. Having an AoE spell/skill, having at least one full rotation, and that rotation being something that feels like it naturally evolves into whatever the lv80 rotation is (and lv50, lv60 and lv70 along the way).

This is the only legitimate solution to this problem. It requires the least amount of work on Square's end as well, unless "do nothing" is the route they choose to take.

Varying attack potency based on level is... like, really dumb. The outcome of that should be obvious as well: If they were to retain any semblance of balance between a lv15 and a lv70 in Sastasha, the lv70 would have a lot of buttons they could press, but would still opt not to because using the unscaled attacks (the ones the lv15 player has) would likely always be better.

See also: Pre-SB DRG where until we got Full Thrust at lv26 we just spammed Impulse Drive (while maintaining Heavy Thrust, if available/worthwhile) instead of doing True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust.

That quote referencing "Titan's arc" makes me wonder if they actually meant story Titan or Titan Extreme.

I put "(30~34)" there to indicate that it's the arc of story surrounding Titan, the Company of Heroes, and like 4 hours of heinous back-and-forth fetch quests (+ Brayflox's Longstep, for good measure).

Those are the three most commonly cited areas new players report checking out of the game/story with, or otherwise raise their hands and ask how much longer until "it gets good." Good presumably being HW.

[GunksFoy]

Snip

1. Most players wouldn't even notice at that level. Especially new players who aren't parsing, and any vet of MMOs knows endgame is where it's at. But I already ceded that a compromise was necessary.
2. I honestly have no idea what "copy-driven progress" is. But you're wrong. Experience is the best way to learn, and having most of your skills at level 15 would do wonders for players leveling up, as they don't have to change their rotation every 5-10 levels.
3. No one is going to be excluding new players from leveling dungeons because they don't do enough DPS. My suggestion was to give EVERYONE all of their class skills immediately, not just players at max level. If you're going to excluded a new player from a leveling dungeon because they don't have the top level understanding of the job, then you would have excluded them anyways. No way to promote toxicity, though I feel this point was due to a misunderstanding of my suggestion.
4. All of the content is mostly invalidated anyways. I can do leveling dungeons in my sleep as is. I did Sunken Temple of Qarn on White Mage last week and the tank pulled all the way to the first boss and we survived. At level. I agree they could be more difficult, but that doesn't mean they can't be fun by letting us have more skills and some semblance of a functional rotation. This is a casual game unless you're in Savage, and the leveling dungeons reflect that. Giving us more skills doesn't change that. They would be scaled anyways.

The early game is already severely skewed by virtue of balance being for endgame. All the jobs feel handicapped at low levels due to their rotations being so vastly different at 70, and this is only going to get worse. The only real exception to this is White Mage and Scholar (maybe Astro, haven't played it) since they have the same DPS skills at level 20 as 70 (save a few), just less powerful. Healing skills is the only fundamental change. It needs to be roughly balanced, but being able to rip through Sastasha in 12-15 minutes instead of 30 doesn't deter new players. If anything, it attracts them, as the early story and leveling will be much faster. This is the sort of balance I mean. Obviously jobs need to be roughly balanced, though it's far less important at 30 than 70. For example, red mages are extremely powerful early on due to having many of their main abilities at low level, yet are one of the weakest DPS at 70. The jobs don't need to reflect themselves at 70 damage-wise. However, I personally know 4 or 5 people that have picked up the trial, and quit because the early game is too slow and boring. And they're right.

[Rhomagus]

I actually support this suggestion or something similar. Also, in my opinion, the whole level syncing option not only helps populate old content, but effectively intermingles veteran and rookie players.

There are multi ways that SE could go about this. With the massive rework to jobs to dial back the amount of available buttons for controller players this inadvertently changed synced and minimum ilevel content. This is a bit concerning for those who wish to go through the game again and experience the original balance that was in place for the games old end game content.

I've seen depictions of a "syncing up" option instead of minimum ilevel. While there are balance issues to take into consideration, this would incentivize replaying old content by breathing new life and options into older content.

I prefer the OP's idea of a full rotation sync'd down. It's nice to be able to use a full rotation and really drive home that muscle memory not only for current endgame content but to see what slight advantages could be discovered by using a full nerfed rotation on lower content. All in all, the old content is already "broken" as is. I think the OP's solution, if implemented wisely, breaks it no more than it's already broken, and the pros outweigh the cons, not only from the individual perspective of the endgame veteran, but also from the perspective of the lower level rookie and the game's populace as a whole.

Being able to "look cool" is something this community greatly admires. It's also something that SE positively reinforces, and not just for the surface level reasons either.

"Looking cool" gives the player a sense of ownership over their character. Looking cool also gives the dev team the chance to showcase their work. Looking cool also entices lower level players. Normally I wouldn't put so much stock in that last point but it shouldn't be overstated. I remember even way back in 1.0, I was running leves with my linkshell buddies and we were recruiting new players. One of those new players was absolutely floored with the look of my Dragoon at the time (I was only wearing AF1). Nonetheless this rookie player was impressed not only by how cool I looked (btw "I" didn't look cool, Akihiko Yoshida and the dev team developed cool looking and stylish armor and characters but I digress) but he was also amazed at what I could do (Mainly just jumping on mobs from a distance.)

To veterans it's basic stuff, but to someone who is currently running through the slog of early game, being able not only to see what a character can look like, but what a character can do at max level is quite a treat from a rookie players perspective.

Now also take into account that lower level players in the current game that don't buy jump books are stuck in pretty much dead zones. While the rookie players are exiled to areas no longer populated, they spend most of the game alone...

Until they get in a dungeon.

As of now, they only get a glimpse of how cool a character's armor looks, but, if veterans had access to their full kit, not only would they get to see such amazing armor designs, but they'd also get to see the awesome animations and spell effects that go along with it.

The only adjustments to OP's suggestion I would make are that, you shouldn't be "more effective" at level than when you're synced down, as this is already not the case. Not only does ilevel severely throw the current level sync balance out of whack, but even most sync'd dungeons have a max level that fresh players just unlocking the content haven't even reached yet. So the argument against sync'd players being overpowered is already moot. New players don't actually care at this moment. They just want to get the dungeon complete, which is vastly more important than balancing it for "at level" rookies.

A rookie will be better served by having a full rotation displayed by a veteran player. The veteran player would be better served by further cementing their endgame rotation in to muscle memory. The development team would be better served by having more instances of their content put on display (especially the battle and animations and effects team). The populace is better served by mitigating rookie burnout in the way of giving players going through the slog of redundant fetch quests something to look forward to whenever they see a high level character of their same job pulling off amazing acrobatic feats and flashy skills.

The rookies aren't concerned with being competitive at low levels. They are more concerned with fully actualizing the character they created and the OP's suggestion only helps to cement that incentivization structure into a veteran heavy game.

Great suggestion OP.

TL;DR Rookies want to become veterans, not be better than veterans. Veterans want to finely tune their muscle memory. Dev teams want to display their work. OP's suggestion fulfills all three.

[NanaWiloh]

I have played Whm and now play Ast, trying to balance their full 70 tool kit to work at low levels would be a headache. Level sync'd healers and tanks are already op in low level dungeons using the few skills they have, give them their full kit; Pffft you may was well being sending gods into low level dungoens with unsync level players. I don't have to explain how powerful Aspected benefict+time dialation+bole+ tank CD's are all combined. New players don't need to be impressed by level 70 skills they need to learn to use the skills they have first, not spend their time in a dungoen idolizing a high level player. Hunts and PotD are the places to go for new players who wish to experience high level play. If you are at 70 and want your full rotation run a 70 dungeon!!

[Zephera]

I don't think any change is currently necessary, besides it sounds like it would be a nightmare to balance. Any time spent on balancing this suggestion is likely better time spent on new content.