A potential rework to the level-sync system.

[Seraphor]

This isn't something that can be balanced easily.
Even accounting for stats being synced, base and gear, your level 80 rotation still deals many times more damage than a level 15 rotation, because you acquire countless skills that increase your damage by a %, or your base potencies, or you gain more oGCDs to weave between your GCDs, and these all stack and compound your damage output.

In order to properly balance the level 50 Extremes for level 80 movesets, they had to basically fine tune each specific fight, and that's what became Unreal Trials.

[Kristale]

Echoing some others, I think it would be quite the undertaking to balance for this and for the same reasons others have had.
What they CAN work with however is how gear scaling works.

An idea could be that queueing for a dungeon syncs your ilvl to the average ilvl the content is designed for. Upsides are many: earlier instances would be kept more engaging since you know, you have to actually try and not just steamroll everything. It would fix the infernal alliance raid roulette and the people cheesing it into a mind-numbing desert of LotA/ST. The average skill level of newer players would also increase I feel, since actually having to try a bit will enforce some kind of game knowledge barrier to progression rather than just being carried through dungeons in 10 mins by max geared players.

Personally I see no downsides unless you just like steamrolling everything, in which case, you do you I guess? I personally would rather be engaged than not.

[linayar]

Echoing some others, I think it would be quite the undertaking to balance for this and for the same reasons others have had.
What they CAN work with however is how gear scaling works.

An idea could be that queueing for a dungeon syncs your ilvl to the average ilvl the content is designed for. Upsides are many: earlier instances would be kept more engaging since you know, you have to actually try and not just steamroll everything. It would fix the infernal alliance raid roulette and the people cheesing it into a mind-numbing desert of LotA/ST. The average skill level of newer players would also increase I feel, since actually having to try a bit will enforce some kind of game knowledge barrier to progression rather than just being carried through dungeons in 10 mins by max geared players.

Personally I see no downsides unless you just like steamrolling everything, in which case, you do you I guess? I personally would rather be engaged than not.

Nowadays, I don't think I'd mind if they're doing it for all contents in the game. (In past threads, I've opposed singling out ARR Alliance raids with this limitation.)

On the other hand, technically, these contents are supposed to be designed for min ilvl. Otherwise, it would be impossible to clear at min ilvl. So to appease a little bit some of the people who already hate ilvl sync because they want a sense of progression, sync leveling contents as they are, but sync non-leveling (or upper leveling like 49, 59, etc.) contents to the max ilvl in the major patch in which the particular content was released.

[kaynide]

I may have said this somewhere before, apologies if I sound like a broken record...

I would say every job needs to have its base job kit set at level 30, with the full kit of all skills done by 50. From 5ere it should be skill speed bonuses or increased potency or flashier animations (eg stone 1 to stone 3 or whatever).

So all future jobs would unlock with the entire skill set available and maybe an intro quest that serves as a tutorial.

I also think level sync should sync to the ilvl of the gear dropped in the dungeon/raid...

[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.

[LilyPendragon]

I may have said this somewhere before, apologies if I sound like a broken record...

I would say every job needs to have its base job kit set at level 30, with the full kit of all skills done by 50. From 5ere it should be skill speed bonuses or increased potency or flashier animations (eg stone 1 to stone 3 or whatever).

So all future jobs would unlock with the entire skill set available and maybe an intro quest that serves as a tutorial.

I also think level sync should sync to the ilvl of the gear dropped in the dungeon/raid...

I honestly agree this is the best way to go about it. Some jobs (especially Black Mage) are absolutely horrible to be synced down on due to their rotations changing every few levels. Front load all the core skills from 10-50 and then have upgrades and potency increases from there, with later capstone abilities (following the BLM line, Foul and Xenoglossy) retaining their level requirements. Keeping Enochian up and spamming Fire IV is literally black mage, and you don't even get a taste of it until level 60.

The earlier you learn how to play your class, the more likely you are to actually be able to do something. You'd probably see less curebots in DF if WHM got most of their relevant healing tools before 50, as 'Press Cure to heal' doesn't become ingrained in the player.

[Deceptus]

I have and always will think we should keep our skills while level synced. Perhaps even a box we can check just like min ilvl is selectable

1) Synced Weapon damage will normalize the damage at lower levels.
2) The content we are talking about is old, and outdated. Who honestly cares if we steamroll it?

Might a DPS pull aggro by blasting foul on a pack of enemies? Yes. Will they die from it? Maybe, maybe not. MAYBE they might learn some aggro management skills that have been lost over the last 6+ years.

In fact, one of the biggest complaints about keeping skills synced down is "What if a DPS goes ham and a tank is a sprout and doesn't have those skills?"

I would bet if we allowed tanks and healers to keep their skills synced down and the DPS to not keep them to avoid that exact scenario, DPS would be screaming to keep their skills.

I've been in numerous dungeons where the tanks were utterly incompetent and we still managed the run. Hell, I've tanked low level instances on my SCH PLENTY of times because of a sprout tank who for some reason didn't know aoe existed or never turned on their tank stance. Even after being asked to do it.

Low level instances are nothing more than DPS races anyway. If for some reason, you don't know how to properly play your job by Dzemael Darkhold, where most jobs should have a good deal of their kit, that's a you problem and quite honestly you simply need to play a bit better.

For those people who for some reason demand the challenge, minimum ilvl exists. Go find like minded people who share your goals.

[Mavrias]

Short version: Unlikely. The devs care about balance, and this would be much harder to balance then you think it would - if not downright impossible.

Long version: I dont feel like typing a long version today. Search the forums, this comes up frequently enough.

Final note...

The sync system is in place solely to benefit the low level players - how it feels to an endgame player is irrelevant. The rewards you get from doing these sync'd roulettes are the part thats there for the high level players - and this is where low level peoples opinions are irrelevant.

I disagree with your statement that an endgame player's feelings on the syncing system is irrelevant when consistently Square Enix forces level synced content to complete current level cap content.

prime example being the bozja weapons.

[Hasrat]

1) Synced Weapon damage will normalize the damage at lower levels.
2) The content we are talking about is old, and outdated. Who honestly cares if we steamroll it?

1) oGCD weaving exists
2) Since the intent behind the design of the current sync system is to avoid steamrolling it, probably the devs would care.

[linayar]

I disagree with your statement that an endgame player's feelings on the syncing system is irrelevant when consistently Square Enix forces level synced content to complete current level cap content.

prime example being the bozja weapons.

Well, that's just it. Your feelings are irrelevant because they already have the "carrot" for you to do those contents.