A potential rework to the level-sync system.

[Jeeqbit]

SE views each new expansion as a "whole new game".

When you sync down to level 70, you are playing Stormblood and doing the Stormblood rotation. When you sync down to level 60, you are playing Heavensward and doing the Heavensward rotation. When you sync down to level 50, you are playing ARR and doing the ARR rotation.

I'm glad that if I go back and do old content minimum item level then I also get to do the rotation I would originally have been using in it.

[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...

[Kaurhz]

The reason why is because older dungeons and trials aren't really scaled with the abilities that we have at the current level cap, so the chances are that it'll be stomping on old content, which whilst it'd feel nice is not really healthy to newer players that are doing the dungeons and trials for the first time. Sure, you can argue that you don't learn much at a lower level but it sets the foundation of everything going forward.
Whilst I hate pressing 2 buttons for 11-14 minutes, I would certainly like it even less if everything turns into a stomping.

[ItMe]

So why not reward them for reaching the endgame and just let them use all of their skills even in older content?

We just had a thread on this start not 2 weeks ago.
If you wanna read up on what was discussed, you can check it out here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...evel-Synced%21

tl;dr, Having a skill synch system would be a nightmare and we should probably never expect them to add something like this to FF14.
To quote the most upvoted post from the thread:

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.

[Jojoya]

Could change all potencies on abilities above the synced level of the dungeon/trial/raid to 1. Seems like that shouldn't be hard to program since it wouldn't actually be trying to scale anything. Either the dungeon/trial is at or above the ability level so you get normal potency, or it's not and you get 1 potency. It's not like players who want to use their end game rotations are going to care about the potencies, they just want to be able to use those abilities. Abilities not at full potency could be greyed out or given a red outline to alert those players who care about potency to avoid them (probably most relevant to healing).

Yes, I can imagine the chaos that would create. It also has the potential to make those low level dungeons feel more difficult thanks to many wasted GCDs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for the new player experience. A game can rapidly get boring when too much of it feels faceroll and its going to be a lot less faceroll if part of the party is getting in a 200-300 potency attack in every third GCD instead of every GCD.

[Hasrat]

Now this may not relate to the current discussion at hand, but am I the only one who actually likes that "consequence?"
After all, I've noticed that this very community also likes complaining that "most endgame players suck at their jobs."

The problem here is you're trying to expect Savage-level efficiency from players that may not even want to play at Savage-level efficiency. I have no desire to run any current Savage content, because I recognize my skills are not up to the challenge. I'm perfectly capable of handling normal/story mode content. Such a nerf would mean all synced content I get placed in will lead to me being more hindrance than help, in content that does not otherwise require that level of skill from at-level players.

For better or worse, the majority of the game only asks that you have an average level of competency. Most content does not require players to be fully optimized. This is by design. Asking devs to make changes such as these is against their intended design for the game. It boils down to "I don't like how you made your game, can you change it to satisfy me personally?"

Don't get me wrong. I fully understand the sentiment of simply wanting more to do, wanting a bit more "action" in low level content, the satisfaction of seeing your full kit in use and knowing you're contributing fully. But, the answer is simply to run the content that gives you that satisfaction; there's plenty of it. If you're an end-game player bored of running low level content, just stop running low level content.

[ForteNightshade]

People keep mentioning balance yet every new job added isn't balance whatsoever. Dancer is far and wide the strongest DPS in any dungeon by a significant margin. Hell, it has access to 1,000 potency AoE attack 25 levels before Dragoon and Ninja even learn their first. Meanwhile, you get oddities like Samurai being hilariously and comically weak at level 70. On the flipside, Ninja at the level is leaps and bounds ahead because Raiton didn't have 800 potency back in Heavensward or Stormblood nor did Kassatsu have a 30% damage buff . If we look at the other roles, Gunbreaker dominates the other tanks. So much in fact, Warrior can barely catch up to it with a potion. Dark Knight, on the other hand, doesn't even get its AoE mitigation or combo finisher until Shadowbringers. There is a 66 level gap between Unleash and Stalwart Soul. On the healer side of things, White Mage has literally nothing to compete with Astro because for some reason, Rapture doesn't unlock until 76. And with no access to Misery early, it simply can't touch Astro's cards. Nevermind the sheer healing and shielding capabilities.

All in all, synced jobs aren't balanced in the slightest.

[MariaArvana]

Could change all potencies on abilities above the synced level of the dungeon/trial/raid to 1.

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.

[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?