Quote Originally Posted by MariaArvana View Post
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.
You'd have to balance around the top DPS. Yes, someone who isn't optimal would then be below par. Low level dungeons already have huge variations in DPS for very simple reasons like using AoE vs not. Nothing really changes. If it's that big of an issue, then players could be given the option to swap between potency or level sync (I know you have more to say on that, but I'll add more when I get to that part of your post).



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.
I think I'm missing the point you're making here. If everyone is using the same toolkit (which isn't true between level variation within a level sync window and role actions, which don't get synced) then you don't need leeway. Everyone is balanced by default. We have excess leeway right now, and it's not because of skill syncing, it's because of item level and player skill.

What this means for potency sync: there is leeway, which reduces the precision to which skills need to be balanced. A potency synced player and an on level player don't need to have the exact same potential DPS. The game will work despite them having fairly large differences in performance. All SE would need to do is scale potencies such that synced and unsyced are in the same general DPS range. They have to know what these DPS ranges are, or dungeons balance would be completely inconsistent. Balancing is also helped by the game's difficulty curve, lower levels have more leeway for imbalance higher levels, while higher levels will naturally require less and less syncing.



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.
Stats will need to remain synced but that's fine because they don't change anything about gameplay, they're just numbers and however they're synced now will work with potency sync. Potency sync would have synced stats, all skills available, and modified potencies. Level sync would be what we have now. We already know that skills can be replaced based on level (ie Thunder I vs Thunder III), which could potentially be used to introduce modified potency versions of skills. I'm sure it will take work on SE's part, but I'd like to see this implemented so the trade off is worth it in my opinion. If they can make it work, great, if not, oh well.



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.
Level 15 ED, in level 15 content, is already stronger than Benediction. It's an 85ish percent heal on a 40 second CD vs a 100% heal on a 3 minute CD. Comparing the skills side by side, AST wins. A high level WHM obviously has a better skillset as a whole though, particularly regen availability as you point out. This doesn't change the fact that healing at level 15 isn't very demanding. A synced AST can go for nearly 100% DPS uptime and weave ED every now and then. A high-level potency-synced WHM could put regens on the tank constantly. It's not much of a difference. The mid 20's/low 30's where ED is a little weaker and AST still can't regen makes thing a little tougher to balance, but not by much. Regen might just be reduced to a secondary heal that lets you space out Cure casts rather than be strong enough to heal on its own.

Was there any particular reason to choose 1% damage reduction for Temperance? That would make it nearly pointless (I'm assuming the healing increase would be the number), but it doesn't have to be reduced to 1%. Let's make it 5%. AST can already manage to heal entry level dungeons almost without touching Benefic, so if WHM doesn't need to press something one of its skills, that's not terribly different. Also remember that you'll be getting Holy and Assize. Even if Temperance is pointless that doesn't negate the benefits of having other skills.

When it comes to AoE, it's literally no different from now. DRG's don't have AoE at low levels. RDM's and BLM's do. RDM's and BLM's are absolutely without a doubt superior to low level DRG's in dungeons with level sync. With Potency sync, Some DRG's will have AoE and deal more damage than DRG's that aren't leveled enough. At least some of the DRG's will be able to compete with RDM's and BLM's in that situation. This is the leeway I mentioned. We only have to balance to the extent that the game is balanced now, which gives us a lot of room to play with potencies.

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.
SE has the rough potency scale for all levels already from expected dungeon run times. So the first step is creating a multiplier curve that will scale down a level 80 to the appropriate DPS for all levels. From there we might need individual tweaks, but the game already has the ability to handle this, or something relatively close (tiered spells/abilities). A level by level adjustment is completely unnecessary, and near the top levels, probably 60 on, adjustments will be minimal. It's not a snap your fingers and done thing, but I see nothing indicating that it's outside the realm of possibility.