The most Limited Content: Low-Level Dungeons

[MariaArvana]

Balance around DPS. If a level 20 does 1000 DPS and a level 80 does 10000 DPS, the potency sync for level 80 is damage * 0.1.

Again, what milestone would you balance the 80 idea around? I've seen MNKs do anywhere from 14k dps to 6k dps in the DF based on skill. That 6k MNK would be fine doing 1000 dps with a 2-button rotation, but you'd literally neuter and make that player weaker by using the scaling method on them if you assumed they'd be capable of doing the same as the 14k MNK. It's literally far more complicated than you think, since you have to balance around not just potencies, the content, etc. But you also have to balance around player skill to not make the new system literally a waste of time due to it making everyone weaker.

We don't even need to be precise because leveling dungeons already aren't precise. They give lots of leeway for missing skills, variations in job balance (which can be terrible below the level cap), inexperienced players, and more. It's not as complicated as it's being made out to be and SE already knows roughly how to scale for level already because they know how much damage you're supposed to do in each dungeon.

They give a lot of leeway precisely because they know every single player will have access to the same potential toolkit. Throwing in potency scaling just creates a giant mess of developer balancing nightmares.

We can keep level sync as an option for those who want it. Players could choose between potency or level sync.

That's not how the roulettes are programmed though, and I doubt they're interested in re-programming the roulettes to account for such things. Also it wouldn't be a potency or level sync, it'd be both at once. You can't be level 80 and waltz into a dungeon due to the fact you have 100x+ stats than a level 15 player in sastasha does, so level sync would be active no matter what. Potency scaling implementation would be all or nothing with how they've programmed their current system.

At level 15, AST is a broken healer when level synced because of ED. All those extra high level skills are unnecessary and while they might make things easier they won't significantly change much. As for the MRD/WAR example, Rampart, etc, doesn't work on potency, but the numbers could still be adjusted. For example a level 80's Rampart might only be 10%. Again it doesn't really matter because at level 15 you almost don't have to heal as things are currently. What will make the biggest difference is the skill of the player, just as it does now.

Remember when I said 'developer balancing nightmare'? What you said is literally the reason why it'd be a nightmare.

How would you change the high level abilities so that they'd still be useful with their new numbers, but not completely useless due to synced potencies/numbers? Think carefully on it for a minute.

Lets go with WHM quickly. a level 15 AST has zero regens. For regen to not be OP and completely outright crush everything that level 15 AST could ever possibly do, you'd have to nerf its potency so much that it'd be literally worthless to use, completely defeating the point of implementing potency scaling. Lets go with another. WHM's wings ability, which currently grants 10% damage reduction. If you nerfed it to say 1%, then what's the point of it even existing anymore at that level? 1% is going to do basically nothing, so what was the point of implementing potency sync if it may as well not exist? How about benediction? How would you modify a 100% full heal to meet parity with a level 15 AST without making it useless?

Also how do you balance jobs with AoE at 80 vs jobs with no AoE at level 15? like DRG. Having a LNC would always be statistically 100% worse all the time, since having AoE > no aoe. Unless you want to also nerf the DRG's aoe potency to the point it'd be useless to use which again calls into question the point of even implementing potency sync when half of your skills would be useless/nerfed to the point of non-use.

It's literally far, far more complicated and would essentially be asking to re-write every single ability at literally every single level to account for a TON of variables, requirements and balancing quotas. I've worked as QA testing for game companies when I was younger, these systems sound easy in the eyes of consumers who don't have to worry about every single fact of balancing that would be involved, but are infinitely more complex than what you're imagining to actually implement and not simply be a broken mess. A potency scaling system as you described would be a statistical nightmare of balancing issues, infinitely more work for essentially little to no payoff in the developers eyes.