Where is my level sync

[Sephr]

People talk up level sync, about how it "helped low level parties". However, at the same time, it all but killed high level parties. Most players, the majority, easily... never touched high level areas after they realized they could just sync their way to 75 in Qufim.

This happened for two reasons:
1) People who only cared about getting xp as fast and easily as possible, immediately took to it.
2) People who didn't want to do it, or at least not all the time, almost had no choice but to go along with it, 'cause putting together higher level parties became *extremely* difficult, even by XI standards.

I tried to "take the initiative" and form parties to go to other, more level-appropriate areas, because I got sick of looking at the same 2 or 3 places every single party... among other reasons. I could only occasionally get a group of people where everyone was interested, or at least open to the idea of leveling in different, more level appropriate areas... you know, like we used to. In most cases, at least 2-3 of the people insisted on level sync'ing in Qufim or some other low-level area, or they wouldn't join.

Level Sync was an example of SE having a good idea, and having their heart in the right place, but fumbling it on execution. I have no problem with a system that allows friends or siblings to play together when there are many levels between them. However, in XI, SE did not think or plan it through very thoroughly.

If they do implement level sync'ing, then I seriously hope there are more restrictions and limitations on how much or how quickly one can progress while sync'd, else we're just gonna see the same abuse happen here. SE needs to maintain some kind of benefit to leveling on higher tier, level-appropriate mobs, to keep people from turning some lower level area in XIV into another Qufim Island.

People are quick to argue that the low-end game shouldn't suffer as people progress. This is true. But by the same token, the high level game shouldn't become all but redundant at the expense of the low level game either.

On the other hand, if they'd balanced things so that rewards reflected effort more, it wouldn't have been such an issue. Capping xp at 300 or whatever no matter what you fought and what level it was really didn't make sense. If for example, they'd made xp per level increase more than it did, and increased the xp per mob (and had xp reflect more accurately than just level, some enemies were MUCH more challenging than others) as you levelled up in a similar way people would be less inclined to want to sync.