Please Allow Scaled Down Abilities When Level Synced!

[Jonnycbad]

How do you scale down aoes and oGCD to be balanced
You can't. Because low level players don't have any aoe or any ogcds. So even if you scale down an 800 potency attack to 60 potency in satasha, that's still a 60 potency oGCD that players at that level don't have. No matter how you slice it, it still makes low level content even easier with high level players (aside from the fact that high level players are sync'd down to the maximum stats/melds for that leve) l

[Lenarr]

How do you scale down aoes and oGCD to be balanced
You can't. Because low level players don't have any aoe or any ogcds. So even if you scale down an 800 potency attack to 60 potency in satasha, that's still a 60 potency oGCD that players at that level don't have. No matter how you slice it, it still makes low level content even easier with high level players (aside from the fact that high level players are sync'd down to the maximum stats/melds for that leve) l

You aren't going to be balanced...that's a given, but is that really all that bad? We're talking going back and doing old content, yes it'll be easier if you're scaled down, but so what? Just my opinion. I don't expect anything to change, so it's a moot point. I'm guessing that under the current system that a level 80 scaled to 50 will often perform worse than someone who's just at level 50, since the new 50 has their 50 rotation down, whereas (at least in my case) the level 80 who finds themselves at 50 will be going "duh, I just lost most of my kit...what exactly was I doing when I was 50 with only 50 skills"?

[Hasrat]

You aren't going to be balanced...that's a given, but is that really all that bad?

Considering the dev's goal of level sync is achieving some sort of balance between new players and veterans, yes.

[Hasrat]

How do you scale down aoes and oGCD to be balanced
You can't. Because low level players don't have any aoe or any ogcds. So even if you scale down an 800 potency attack to 60 potency in satasha, that's still a 60 potency oGCD that players at that level don't have. No matter how you slice it, it still makes low level content even easier with high level players

In theory, this miiiigght be possible. Big maybe. But it involves sorta... distributing the nerfs to potencies across the board. It's not enough to simple scale down potency numbers of everything equally. To balance for a oGCD damage skill, you'd basically have to work out its potency/second, and applying an appropriate nerf to the entire rest of the kit to compensate/balance for it. Might possibly be the same for AoE. And, back to previous point, these are balancing passes that would need to be done at every point where a skill is changed/added for every job.

The result is basically that, in low level duties, you're required to play your job much closer to perfectly, just to match up with a mediocre low level player. And a mediocre high level player will quickly find themselves to be dragging the group down.

BLM is coming up a lot (and it's one I'm most familiar with). I'm really bad about always using Sharpcast. But, Sharpcast undeniably adds some additional potency to the BLM rotation. To account for that, the rest of the rotation needs a small nerf, to keep me balanced. The more I neglect to use Sharpcast, the more I'm punished for missing potency I'm expected to be using.

Failure to balance/nerf in this way results in a much bigger gap between mediocre and skilled players than currently exists, which I would argue goes against the intended design. As is, playing a job at-level perfectly absolutely contributes more to the group, but the gap isn't so wide that mid-range players with under-utilized kits just start feeling useless. Yes, I should really be using Sharpcast and Swiftcast and Manafont and Triplecast more (and I don't always use Ley Lines on cooldown). But, the difference between me and someone playing BLM perfectly is only something I'd personally be worried about in Savage/Extreme content, which I'd argue is a bit outside the scope of this discussion (and is content I don't jump into much anyway).

[ItMe]

In theory, this miiiigght be possible. Big maybe. But it involves sorta... distributing the nerfs to potencies across the board. It's not enough to simple scale down potency numbers of everything equally. To balance for a oGCD damage skill, you'd basically have to work out its potency/second, and applying an appropriate nerf to the entire rest of the kit to compensate/balance for it. Might possibly be the same for AoE. And, back to previous point, these are balancing passes that would need to be done at every point where a skill is changed/added for every job.

The result is basically that, in low level duties, you're required to play your job much closer to perfectly, just to match up with a mediocre low level player. And a mediocre high level player will quickly find themselves to be dragging the group down.

BLM is coming up a lot (and it's one I'm most familiar with). I'm really bad about always using Sharpcast. But, Sharpcast undeniably adds some additional potency to the BLM rotation. To account for that, the rest of the rotation needs a small nerf, to keep me balanced. The more I neglect to use Sharpcast, the more I'm punished for missing potency I'm expected to be using.

Failure to balance/nerf in this way results in a much bigger gap between mediocre and skilled players than currently exists, which I would argue goes against the intended design. As is, playing a job at-level perfectly absolutely contributes more to the group, but the gap isn't so wide that mid-range players with under-utilized kits just start feeling useless. Yes, I should really be using Sharpcast and Swiftcast and Manafont and Triplecast more (and I don't always use Ley Lines on cooldown). But, the difference between me and someone playing BLM perfectly is only something I'd personally be worried about in Savage/Extreme content, which I'd argue is a bit outside the scope of this discussion (and is content I don't jump into much anyway).

That sounds like a fun problem to rewrestle with every expansion when they change every jobs kit.
When you lay it out like this I don't expect we will ever see scaled down abilities when level synced.
Shame, it could be cool, but it just seems so incompatible with FF14.

[Hasrat]

That sounds like a fun problem to rewrestle with every expansion when they change every jobs kit.
When you lay it out like this I don't expect we will ever see scaled down abilities when level synced.
Shame, it could be cool, but it just seems so incompatible with FF14.

Man, just imagine even simply leveling up in the middle of a leveling roulette run. New skill get, but we're in a rush, so no time to read what it does. But, balancing equation doesn't care, nerfing all your potencies, enjoy being newly weak until you can re-optimize. Tanks pulling wall to wall suddenly realizing their defensives aren't quite as beefy, or a healer suddenly noticing their heals aren't quite as big.