My only gripe despite loving the game.

[Genoreaper]

I've played on and off for ages and there's always been something that bugged me, and tbh I'm not sure I've put enough thought into consequences to correctly come up with a solution so I'll ask here. I love that we sync down with friends, but we DO sync in everything from fates to dungeons. And I do feel we go the cheap route by locking everything back up. I main blm and it's frustrating that in most roulette and fates half my kit gets locked away, expecially since this class has diff st and aoe rotations at 50, 60, 70 and 80, I mean like big differences. Why can't we get a reduced potency or reduced stats which in turn shrink potency when we level sync, I know some skills may be a bit op when were In old content but it isn't like we don't cheese old stuff anyway. It's so frustrating to get these shiny skills and only get to use them in very small selection of current end game content. Also makes it harder to even play the classes and learn the optimizations when half the content we do daily completely shatters what we need to do in high end content.

How would you guys like to see sync system adjusted?

[Avraym]

Absolutely. Other games do it and it just makes sense. Playing with half a kit is not fun. ESPECIALLY since there is an extremely high amount of low level content we do at max level on roulette's.

The reasoning why some are against it from what i've heard?:

A) Fear that players who are new will be kicked because they don't have the skills.
If we have harsher penalties for vote kick abuse, this would help weed out the bad ones. And besides, ffxiv is the best community - its a lot less likely to occur and its not like people can still vote kick dismiss abuse as things are now.

B) Allowing players their entire skill kit means old content will be cleared to quickly.
It's old content. Reduce the potencies, who cares if things are sped up a little. It's content that's over 6 years old.

Regardless of the why and why not, its clear that taking away half of our rotation ruins the fun, forces us to play something that feels dry and unfinished and overall discourages people from helping others with older content, something the roulette was designed for.

[Enkidoh]

But then what's the point of level sync if you still have access to your abilities in the first place? (Level sync is more than just about lowering your level and stats, it's a wholesale reduction back down to that level). And as SE has had this since FFXI (where level sync was first added back in circa 2007), it's always locked out access to abilities higher than the level you're synced to, so I do not see SE changing this at all.

Yes it's annoying getting into a habit of using higher level abilities or spells and not being able to do so when you're level synced, but really, is it that difficult do adjust? One wonders if players are having trouble adjusting down to low level content then level sync is doing it's job.

[Seraphor]

Higher level abilities have much higher potencies and with more oGCDs you can dish out mych more damage.

You'd have to reduce potencies right down to double digits, so that a full AF3 Fire IV rotation basically did the same damage as Fire I spam.

Where's the fun in that?

[Hasrat]

At least synced to level 20, I feel about as powerful as a level 20. Think it'd kinda suck just as much running an 80 rotation at 20 and only seeing double digit numbers pop up, as far down as you'd have to scale to make everything feel equal. And gods help you if you ever screw up your rotation, or if you're just not an optimal player, you may as well just be auto attacking.

[Genoreaper]

this is what I wanted to see, actual feedback and despite it going against what my thoughts are you've brought up good points. Yes potency and stat adjustments would need to happen as well as factoring all the ocds we get. Maybe I'm biased based on the fact that blm has skills like fire 2 that completely vanish from rotation after a certain level, not including Enoch and fire 4 ect. If our stats are reduced though I think potency would reduce with it perfectly fine I'm not a theory crafter and don't know how potency is calculated exactly, but I would think that stats reduction would affect potency max. I don't think this community is so toxic that in old content where we cheese the mechanics anyway that we'd freak about people not having their skills unlocked. Could be wrong but I think we'd be ok because we don't need much to clear old content as it is, even with sync we are still op. I just really hate having to keep bloat on my bars based on if I'm in X level range dungeon. Or completely abandoning my normal bar, or a weird hybrid of the two. Same for fates. Unless you're doing the latest content I always feel I never really get to use my toys which overall can harm player skill levels. Because In all content you're playing way diff with certain classes

[Genoreaper]

Also it's not so much the skill access that bugs me it's more so the fun factor of majority of roulette and fates you're not even taking advantage of the new toys from current expansion

[ForteNightshade]

Higher level abilities have much higher potencies and with more oGCDs you can dish out mych more damage.

You'd have to reduce potencies right down to double digits, so that a full AF3 Fire IV rotation basically did the same damage as Fire I spam.

Where's the fun in that?

To be fair, considering how absurdly generous the level syncs are, does it even matter? Look at Labyrinth of the Ancients. You don't even see anything. All the bosses may as well be giant target dummies. Even fights closer to the level cap like Dun Scaith or Creator aren't remotely what they once were. Maybe getting things like Fire IV or Nastrond synced down to level 20 would be too much but I think things could be re-balanced at 50 without much fuss. I get why they don't. At the same time, however, this is one of the main reasons I loathe getting anything below 60, and actively avoiding Leveling roulette once my jobs are max.

[MrKusakabe]

I think reducing the potencies would help a lot so we can still use our skills.

Back then, in 2007, I was lured into MapleStory (v0.25 back then), and I quite enjoyed it. But there was no such thing as lock-outs, level-sync, etc. It was common to see high levelled players being in the same location, doing levelling, as you. And what kind of envy and motivation it was for me, a level 23 cleric, to see a level 83 priest doing his job. Yes, "KS" happened a lot, but it's up on NEXON to fix that - or simply invited people to groups.

In FFXIV, this is basically not the case. For some stupid "we are all equal" reason, we got locked out of our spells and skills. And this leads to an absolute lack of that feeling of "Wow, this guy has some cool moves". Close your eyes and Imagine, you are a newbie, and you love this game and you plan to stay, but want to focus on a profession or just picked one to start because of being overwhelmed with the choises. You have to do Sastasha the first time, and you are actually playing the game's main content: A dungeon. Holy Trinity, team efforts, monsters that are 15x tougher than in the previous content you played called "the open world". And then you have a White Mage next to you, healing, protecting and cleansing you with everything fancy the toolkit has to offer. You ask about the level or just look at the beautiful gear and think: "Heck yes, I want that too"!

Now? This is not happening. New players are protected from this curiousity as if they are the younger crybaby siblings that go all whiney because they have not yet access to something the older siblings have. So nobody can. It takes a way some of the "justified" cool feeling of being high levelled. Granted, my hightest dungeon is 60, as I am stuck for several weeks at Stormblood beginning as I play in tandem with my Level 5x cousin and roulettes as he is stuck in Heavensward due to time issues. But it means in probably 20% of my dungeons I can use what a Level 60 could have, and so far in 0% of the dungeons I can use all what I actually learned. Despite... I learned those skills. I never revived someone in a dungeon because Verraise is Level 64. And here is my point now: I had once a Lalafell newbie healer that died in Copperbell Mines. She knew about the ability of a Red Mage to heal and revive, probably hoping I could do that as she just laid in the dust. And then she asked "Res me pls RDM". And this was a huge bummer I could not revive her, despite I am playing a class that is supposed to do that, and despite my Lalafell learned the spell. But some strange force forbids me to use my profession and my progress.

No, I am here, restricting myself to Jolt despite Jolt II is a thing. And in many early dungeons and trials I can't even "Disengage" - means: I can dash into a fight with Corps-A-Corpse, but I have to put in the reverse and walk back. Because "sorry, too low level". But why though?! I am looking like a high level with my beloved Duellist RDM AF gear but can play as much as the newbie in his dumpster clothes that started yesterday - I am held back artificially. What a bluff package I am.

So stupid and underwhelming on all levels..

Sincerely,

[Sonikku]

I would rather push three times as many buttons for the same dps in low level dungeons because that for me is more fun than only pushing 2-3.