Please Allow Scaled Down Abilities When Level Synced!

[Felduin]

This might be a shot in the dark, but I feel like so many other MMO's have level sync systems in place, but instead of removing spells/abilities that are above the synced level--they scale the number down to keep it consistent with the power level of the dungeon or area.

This is a huge frustration with almost everyone I play as they all feel like they level all their characters up while feeling none of the progress of leveling since you hardly ever get to use new abilities. Not to mention a lot of these sequences require practice but 90% of your play time in leveling queues/fates are done with very basic abilities. It's very frustrating. As I said before, it completely wipes out any feeling of progress.

I love this game, I have over 1,000 hours now and I hope to keep getting more in, but it's just so sad doing leveling queues and having only a third of my learned abilities. Probably not something that's going to change--but maybe with enough attention devs might consider it. Hope enough people feel the same.

[Hasrat]

Personally, think this system works fine as is. The difficulty with scaling abilities lies in scaling player skill. The point of syncing is to maintain some semblance of balance. There is much great difficulty in attempting to balance a level-cap job with an at-level job. The at-level job has very few buttons to press. The level-cap job has very many (usually). Worse, the scaling would need to be balanced at nearly every single level, to account for new skills and traits. Every job gets that final piece of kit at level-cap, so balance to that, but at level-cap-minus-1, you have very different potency, needing a different scale. Additionally, you run the risk of having bad/mediocre level-cap players not fully utilizing their kit. If the scaling balance is meant to take into account a certain expected skill level, and players fail to meet it, you will find duty progress severely inhibited.

These reasons and more, in much more detail, always come up when this idea is presented. Bottom line, it's a considerable amount of work that constantly needs checked and rechecked, and it's just not remotely worth the effort when the current system achieves the balance goal with much less trouble.

[DrWho2010]

People have been asking this for years. it has been debunked time and again - the answer is always going to be no. Please do a search for existing topics before posting a new one.

[ItMe]

So what happens when you get put into a party with someone still levelling?

Animosity?
"Ugh, they don't have their full kit yet. They're gonna be a drag."

Feeling like dead weight?
"Shit, I'm level 30. The other DPS is basically able to carry us through this. I'm not doing anything."

People leaving?
"I'm not gonna play with them. A cleric learning can be bad enough, but now the precedent has been set that I'm used to playing with healers that have their kit I'm NOT down for this."

Having a full kit even when synched would be kinda nifty, but man would it cause a lot of undue friction. Yoshi P has said he's against this feature and I don't see him changing his mind anytime soon.

many other MMO's have level sync systems in place, but instead of removing spells/abilities that are above the synced level--they scale the number down to keep it consistent with the power level of the dungeon or area.

Some game can pull it off better than others.
14, being so rotation focused, is not one of them.
Instead of fighting this uphill battle I'd rather the devs focused elsewhere.

This is a huge frustration with almost everyone I play as they all feel like they level all their characters up while feeling none of the progress of leveling since you hardly ever get to use new abilities.

I recommend running more endgame content.

[Hasrat]

Additional point, I made my first post with a very DPS-oriented mindset. But previous post raises probably the winning point. There is genuinely no way to scale down a full-kit WHM to a at-level WHM with nothing but Cure and Medica. Tanks and healers especially all have (mostly) a wealth of oGCD skills for utility/weaving. It may very well be nearly impossible to truly balance most of those to be roughly equal to a synced/at-level player. Back to the WHM example, literally the entirety of the level 80 WHM kit would have to be scaled to equal a level 15-18 WHM in Sastasha, with nothing but Cure/Medica for heals, and Stone(II) and Aero for damage. How do you scale Benediction? How do you scale things like PLD Cover, Clemency, Hallowed Ground?

[Yuletide]

I am against this idea, I like the way level syncing is. There are certain abilities we don't have access to at lower levels that would break dungeons or make them too easy. In particular any mitigation, stuns, CC, DoTs, etc. Having a full level 80 rotation available to you in a level 30 instance, no matter the downscaling, still means more dps.

The way the level sync is at the moment means that new players have fun with new content and veterans get to help them push forward with their queue times. Level sync is entirely about the new player's experience, not yours.

[ItMe]

There are certain abilities we don't have access to at lower levels that would break dungeons or make them too easy. In particular any mitigation, stuns, CC, DoTs, etc. Having a full level 80 rotation available to you in a level 30 instance, no matter the downscaling, still means more dps.

Oh my god... unless it means LESS DPS.
Like... if all of your moves are scaled down that DoT probably isn't even worth hitting. Players will find their rotation isn't the same at 80, because even though they have the same moves they're gonna be prioritizing different parts of their rotation.
If all your moves scaled down so you aren't so out DPSing someone not levelsynched your rotation might change in really unexpected and ugly ways.

If your potencies are lowered how does that effect your AoE rotation? DRK doesn't get the second hit in their AoE combo until they're in the 70's. Would you not lower the potency on their first hit unless the player has the second attack? Or would their AoE attack be doing basically nothing until mid 70's.
Like... how does this affect your moves as you progress before you hit cap.
If you only have 2 strikes in your 3 hit combo, or you have your combo and it's building meter but you don't have your meter spenders yet... you can't just lower the moves to similar values as a non-synched player puts out, you'd have to have your potencies synch down in stages as each job crosses certain thresholds. And boy is that gonna make people happy getting the next hit to their combo and suddenly getting nerfed for it.

Additional point, I made my first post with a very DPS-oriented mindset. But previous post raises probably the winning point. There is genuinely no way to scale down a full-kit WHM to a at-level WHM with nothing but Cure and Medica. Tanks and healers especially all have (mostly) a wealth of oGCD skills for utility/weaving. It may very well be nearly impossible to truly balance most of those to be roughly equal to a synced/at-level player. Back to the WHM example, literally the entirety of the level 80 WHM kit would have to be scaled to equal a level 15-18 WHM in Sastasha, with nothing but Cure/Medica for heals, and Stone(II) and Aero for damage. How do you scale Benediction? How do you scale things like PLD Cover, Clemency, Hallowed Ground?

Oh shit healer kits.
I was thinking about people's reaction to their party members, but I hadn't fully considered what using them would be like.
They'd have to nerf your heals. They can't let you into level 60 content with a level 80 kit. Your team would be untouchable.
But you can't simply reduced the potency of heals. You'd need to burn too many resources on things you should be able to just drop a Benefic on. You'd have to go through more than your whole kit just to keep up with what previously needed only a few moves, and then you'd still need all your cooldowns ready for the next pull.

Oh my god if not just the healing but also tank mitigation is reduced you'd run into so many ugly problems.
But if you didn't reduce it I'd sprint through duties never having TNB even break.

You can't just reduce the numbers attached to the moves to make them equivalent to the numbers being thrown around at the duty's level, and trying to find a good balance looks to be an impossible nightmare, a monumental task. And if the devs are gonna embark on a monumental task there are many more meaningful than this.

[Navras]

This might be a shot in the dark, but I feel like so many other MMO's have level sync systems in place, but instead of removing spells/abilities that are above the synced level--they scale the number down to keep it consistent with the power level of the dungeon or area.

This is a huge frustration with almost everyone I play as they all feel like they level all their characters up while feeling none of the progress of leveling since you hardly ever get to use new abilities. Not to mention a lot of these sequences require practice but 90% of your play time in leveling queues/fates are done with very basic abilities. It's very frustrating. As I said before, it completely wipes out any feeling of progress.

I love this game, I have over 1,000 hours now and I hope to keep getting more in, but it's just so sad doing leveling queues and having only a third of my learned abilities. Probably not something that's going to change--but maybe with enough attention devs might consider it. Hope enough people feel the same.

I’m on the huge minority that agrees with this 100%. It’s my biggest turn off in this game. Is it lots of hard work? Yes! Impossible? Hardly.
That’s why I avoid old content like the plague, I don’t want to use fire 1... I want fire 4 nerffed. No flare for aoe? Go go fire 2... yay...

And To everyone who day they don’t want this system I say, the system can be implemented and you cab just use the old skills.
simple, but I doubt you would

They have the tools to make this happen, they just can’t bother with it.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Imagine when a newcomer WHM can fix a tankbuster with a single [Cure II] but as a synced down capped healer I need to expend more than that because my potencies are reduced...? (i.e. [Cure I] + [Tetragrammation] & [Assize])

Yeah... No.

Imagine when a newcomer SMN can contribute decent amount of damage with their Baned-DoT, but as a synced down capped SMN I need to cycle through my Demi-Bahamut to dish out the same damage...?

Yeah... No.

Imagine when a newcomer PLD is struggling with a pull because they’re paired with an inexperienced healer can only do so much with their available defensive cooldowns but as a synced down capped PLD I can throw in a [Clemency] to help out—or worse(better), [Hallowed Ground]?

Yeah... No.

Is it frustrating to continuously get low lv dungeon via roulette? Sometimes, yep.
Am I forced to use roulette? Nope.
Do I consciously queue into low lv duties when I don’t want to? Nah.
Are we stuck to roulettes to level up quickly? Absolutely not.

So yeah... no. I am against this idea as well.

[Frizze]

And To everyone who day they don’t want this system I say, the system can be implemented and you cab just use the old skills.
simple, but I doubt you would

That can not work in a balanced way. Lets use your BLM example. I get sent down to halitali in a leveling roulette on my lvl 80 BLM, and the roulette matches me with a lvl 20 THM. We get to a boss. He casts Thunder, i cast Thunder 3. Thunder 3 does the same damage per tick as Thunder(so far so good), but T3 lasts 2 ticks longer plus its initial hit is 40 potency higher AND it has a chance to proc thundercloud. You could do some math to find a balance point for the ticks and initial hit, but the fact that i get to wait 6 extra seconds before reapplying is a real advantage and if it can still proc at all(even at a reduced percentage) then the lower level caster can never catch up on damage - and thats before you account for the fact that my gear is sync-maxed and his is likely a mix of poor quality stuff that already puts him at a disadvantage. Enough DoTs, direct burn is the BLM specialty. So you nerfed my F4 to compensate. You say i can just use the old skills? Ok. Im spamming F1 for the same damage as the other guy. But no, i have 3 stacks of AF and he can only get 2 stacks(plus im running Eno and he doesnt have that yet). I can still end each round with a Despair - he doesnt have anything similar. I can pop manafont to extend a burn session, use ley lines for that sexy speed boost, drop manawall to ignore some mechanics, use xeno sharpcast triplecast and swiftcast to do damage on the run - he has swift and none of those other options. Oh, and lets not forget your umbral phase. When his mana is out he needs to use transpose and wait 7-12+ seconds before he can transpose back into his astral phase(needing to rebuild his stack). I use B3, have all my mana back in 4-8 seconds, and can F3 back over without losing my stacks. And thats just single target, we're ignoring the imbalance of an AoE pull where i can multi-dot and he cant, where i have multiple useful spells and he doesnt, and where i can still swap astral/umbral at full stacks and he is stuck with transpose.

And all that is for a DPS class, seemingly the easiest to balance. How do you propose we balance Group A having a healer who can only cure 1 and medica 1(both on GCD, both with a cast timer, and no other options) against Group B having those same options, plus stronger versions, plus 9 instant cast heal spells with varying traits(including shields, regens, aoe heals, and a full heal)? Oh, and the second groups healer has 3 AoE damage spells(one of which has an attached stun, another of which has an attached heal), and the first group has none.

Final note, i also disagree with the OPs assertion that the level sync "completely wipes out any feeling of progress". I feel like if anything, it re-asserts just how far youve come. Your character used to struggle just to do a 2 hit damage rotation. Now you have a 15 move opener sequence you do that is optimized to the nth degree. Looking back occasionally really helps that feeling of progress.