A potential rework to the level-sync system.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Of course, some of you might say that such a system would completely break lower-level content, but in my opinion, I don't think so. As I stated in the earlier paragraph, even if you sync endgame players' skills as well, their synced ilvls still end up being too high for older content anyways, which leads to mindless tank-n-spanks. In other words, even with level/ilvl sync, endgame players already break older content anyways.

And by allowing players to use their full capstone kits, that may just exacerbate the problem.
Sure in theory, DPS roles may be the easiest to 'balance', albeit with a lot of rework considering stuffs like potency creep and such. But how will they balance the other, especially tanks & healers? Since you mentioned DRK I'll use that as one of the example and few other:

1. DRK's [The Blackest Night] -- how will they balance this ability to lower content...say, Sastasha?
2. Tanks invulnerability cooldowns and their self preservation abilities.
3. Healers healing potencies and their plethora of instants & abilities? WHMs will be the most noticeable due to the fact having CNJ as a the first potential healer class at the start of game, and their pre-50 kits vs lv50+ kits.
4. Several classes' buffs such as DNC's [Devilment], DRG's [Battle Litany], BRD's [Battle Voice], etc.

Additionally, while I can understand how you come up with the idea that newcomers that may be encouraged, there's also the other side of coin of this. How do you know---or should I say: ensure that these newcomers will be encouraged instead of being disappointed of not having access to those flashy skills yet? Because there are certainly portion of players that do not enjoy getting 'carried' all the way through their gameplay, they exist. Considering how SE is trying so hard to not let any kind of 'meta class' emerging nor imbalance occurring, it feels like implementing this new system would be the last thing they would like to do.

I don't fancy getting my arsenal of skills greyed out...but to avoid that I just avoid queueing into lower duties and roulettes when I don't want to.

[Intellion]

And by allowing players to use their full capstone kits, that may just exacerbate the problem.
Sure in theory, DPS roles may be the easiest to 'balance', albeit with a lot of rework considering stuffs like potency creep and such. But how will they balance the other, especially tanks & healers? Since you mentioned DRK I'll use that as one of the example and few other:

1. DRK's [The Blackest Night] -- how will they balance this ability to lower content...say, Sastasha?
2. Tanks invulnerability cooldowns and their self preservation abilities.
3. Healers healing potencies and their plethora of instants & abilities? WHMs will be the most noticeable due to the fact having CNJ as a the first potential healer class at the start of game, and their pre-50 kits vs lv50+ kits.
4. Several classes' buffs such as DNC's [Devilment], DRG's [Battle Litany], BRD's [Battle Voice], etc.

Additionally, while I can understand how you come up with the idea that newcomers that may be encouraged, there's also the other side of coin of this. How do you know---or should I say: ensure that these newcomers will be encouraged instead of being disappointed of not having access to those flashy skills yet? Because there are certainly portion of players that do not enjoy getting 'carried' all the way through their gameplay, they exist. Considering how SE is trying so hard to not let any kind of 'meta class' emerging nor imbalance occurring, it feels like implementing this new system would be the last thing they would like to do.

I don't fancy getting my arsenal of skills greyed out...but to avoid that I just avoid queueing into lower duties and roulettes when I don't want to.

I think with regards to skill balancing, maybe a compromise could be created.

Maybe SE could implement an update to the level-sync system, where endgame players still have access to their whole kit post-sync, but also implement a rule where any skills that, under normal circumstances shouldn't be accessible yet in a content's level range, gets their potency halved or something. So for example, on a Lv. 30 dungeon for a synced endgame player, any attack skills or healing spells higher than Lv. 30 would get their potency halved, and mitigation skills like The Blackest Night would get its damage absorption percentage halved as well (maybe 12% instead of 25%). Same goes for mitigation skills like Shadow Wall (only 15% mitigated instead of 30%). Of course, skills that fall within a content's level range would be unaffected and remain un-nerfed.

That's just my take, though. I understand the balancing concerns regarding this, and I also understand that a compromise like the above would be super complicated to program and would take time to be implemented. If such a compromise is still not enough, then I'd gladly take another safety measure, such as syncing the ilvls of endgame players to only 10 levels higher than the content's minimum ilvl at most, if it means we still get access to our whole endgame kits. Anything that would make lower-level content less of a snoozefest for endgame players is overall beneficial in my opinion, and I truly believe it's possible to find a compromise.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

snip

I've said it before in these types of threads in the past and I'll say it again:

When the devs already have a system set up for level syncing that keeps moderate balance and is basically future-proofed for every expansion to come, why would they ever waste time designing a new system that is far more complicated and would need constant maintenance everytime the level cap changes when the current one works perfectly for their intentions?

Like, let's take a look at your proposed compromise system.

A level 30 DRK has rampart.
A level 80 DRK has rampart, shadow wall, dark mind, TBN, living dead.

It doesn't matter if you halve the %s on those abilities. A 12% TBN would still negate an entire set of autos from a pack of mobs at level 30, while the level 30 DRK literally has nothing to compete with it. take an 80 WAR vs a 30 one. The 80 WAR has nascent flash. Even if you reduced its lifesteal, it's still more lifesteal than the 30 WAR's zero.

In order to prevent level 80's from shaving 5+mins off of dungeon runs compared to a party of at-level characters, any system designed would have to effectively pretend all those abilities no longer exist (like reducing TBN to 1 HP shield, or reducing OGCds to 1 potency).

And at that point, the ultimate question would need to be asked: what was the point? if you have to gut an 80's kit just to maintain even the smallest semblance of parity, you're no longer playing the same job as you are at 80. All the dev time for nothing. Square makes it clear they want some semblance of balance, so unless you can create a system that:

1) is future proofed for every expansion, without ever needing to modify %s, potencies, etc ever to make it work and keep the same effectiveness
2) can be programmed in about 1 minute (why bother modifying so many skills when the current sync system is literally 1 minute of coding to change a single variable temporarily?)
3) lets you maintain relative parity with a level 15 of your job as a level 80.

Then it stands zero chance of ever being worked on. This topic will continue to be brought up, but the reality is, the current level sync won't be changing. It functions exactly how the devs want it to, its easy to work around with when designing new jobs, and it never has to be changed for future expansions. you can level up and cap tomes without ever needing to touch roulettes; you don't have to touch roulettes unless you want to.

[Jojoya]

No offense, but that'd be the pinnacle of wasted time. Why would anyone ever use a 1 potency attack? You'd literally be trolling the party, and the devs would be trolling the playerbase by ever letting it be an option. Even if it took 5 seconds to do code wise, that 5 seconds would infinitely be better spent on literally anything else.

How many players pay attention to potencies in the first place? The game never even explains what role potency plays in the damage formula. Someone who raids seriously would take the time to understand. The typical casual player won't. At most they look up a recommended rotation online then memorize it.

I'm not saying I think SE should do it. I'm fine with how level sync works with our abilities though I wish they'd take a closer look at ilvl sync and clean up the dungeons where the ilvl sync is way out of line with the intended ilvl for the dungeon.

But it's an interesting question. How many players would give up potency in low level dungeons if they got to keep their full toolkits, and how many would skip the full toolkit to get the best possible potency?

[Mikey_R]

How many players pay attention to potencies in the first place? The game never even explains what role potency plays in the damage formula. Someone who raids seriously would take the time to understand. The typical casual player won't. At most they look up a recommended rotation online then memorize it.

I'm not saying I think SE should do it. I'm fine with how level sync works with our abilities though I wish they'd take a closer look at ilvl sync and clean up the dungeons where the ilvl sync is way out of line with the intended ilvl for the dungeon.

But it's an interesting question. How many players would give up potency in low level dungeons if they got to keep their full toolkits, and how many would skip the full toolkit to get the best possible potency?

But you shouldn't completely neuter potencies just because people don't care. Just to give an idea of how bad the idea is of giving things 1 potency;

Take Paladin, Fast Blade is 200 potency, Attonement is 1 potency. How many Attonements do I need to match Fast Blade? The answer is 200. 200 GCDs used just to match the potency of 1 GCD in Fast Blade.

It is a complete detriment to everyone in the party and the idea should not even be entertained.

However, this then plays the game of, where do you put it? As others have said, it would be a complete mess. Better to just keep the current system.

[Iscah]

How many players pay attention to potencies in the first place? The game never even explains what role potency plays in the damage formula. Someone who raids seriously would take the time to understand. The typical casual player won't. At most they look up a recommended rotation online then memorize it.

That's exactly the problem with the idea of "keep all the skills but reduce the overlevelled ones to negligible potency".

The average player won't consult the tooltips about what level they learn a skill and whether it is doing damage in this immediate dungeon. The button is there and lit up; your character does an attack when you press it. What more do you need to know?

The absence of skills is what tells you, simply and instantly, that they're not available to use. You automatically press your third combo skill button, you get nothing, you realise you have to start over from 1. If instead the skill worked, you'd press it and you'd keep on pressing it if you didn't notice the lack of damage alongside the flashy effect.

[Hasrat]

I've said it before in these types of threads in the past and I'll say it again:

When the devs already have a system set up for level syncing that keeps moderate balance and is basically future-proofed for every expansion to come, why would they ever waste time designing a new system that is far more complicated and would need constant maintenance everytime the level cap changes when the current one works perfectly for their intentions?

Honestly even kinda underestimating it here. Updating every time level cap changes would be a blessing. They'd have to comb through every job every patch with any potency changes just to make sure they're not throwing something off at some lower level they forgot to consider. Balancing potency tweaks is surely already a pain as is, I'd hate to consider the headaches that would come with trying to account for all the domino effects any buffs/nerfs would entail.

[Kuroka]

[*]DRK's [The Blackest Night] -- how will they balance this ability to lower content...say, Sastasha?[*]Tanks invulnerability cooldowns and their self preservation abilities.[*]Healers healing potencies and their plethora of instants & abilities? WHMs will be the most noticeable due to the fact having CNJ as a the first potential healer class at the start of game, and their pre-50 kits vs lv50+ kits.[*]Several classes' buffs such as DNC's [Devilment], DRG's [Battle Litany], BRD's [Battle Voice], etc.[/LIST]

You talk like our 500+ gear isnt already extremely OP for everything lower, or like, from 50 onwards tanks already got their invulnerability so its 6 or 7 dungeons earlier, yeah, huge difference...

IF they made a really decent sync our skils would not matter that much... Of if theyd stop to cut and move around skills, or manage to have everyone get an aoe around the same level...