A potential rework to the level-sync system.

[Intellion]

I've been playing FFXIV ever since 2.0, and after about 7 years of playing this game, I think it's time that the game's level-sync system got updated/reworked.


To get to the point, I think the level-sync system should be changed so that when endgame players get placed in older, lower-level content, especially in roulettes, their character levels and item levels still get synced to match the content... but at the same time they still get to use ALL of their unlocked skills, and I mean ALL OF THEM, including their Lv. 80 skills.

Now why am I proposing this, you ask? Because quite frankly, a common complaint I've been seeing among endgame players every expansion is that playing lower-level content is boring and brain-dead. Based on my experience, I feel that what exacerbates that feeling of dullness in lower-level content is not the endgame players' synced item levels still being too high for the content in question (resulting in mindless tank-n-spanks), but rather, being prevented from using the endgame skill rotations that they worked hard to unlock.

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.



So why not reward them for reaching the endgame and just let them use all of their skills even in older content? That way, even if the content is still brain-dead easy, at least the endgame players get to actually continue using and practicing their endgame rotations outside of endgame raids, expert roulette, or Stone/Sea/Sky.



For example, as a DRK main, I sure would enjoy leveling roulette a lot more if I can still use my AoE rotations, The Blackest Night, and Living Shadow even in dungeons like Sastasha. And don't even get me started on Alliance Raids roulette, where 9/10 times, you'd end up in Crystal Tower or Void Ark, which in my opinion are the two most painfully boring alliance raids in the whole game. At least those two raids would be even slightly more engaging if I was just going ham on the bosses with my super-long Lv. 80 rotations.


In addition, I think endgame players using their endgame rotations on lower-level content would serve as a nice encouragement for sprouts to reach the endgame, especially when they see their seniors unleashing long, flashy combos with lots of explosions, despite being level-synced to dungeon-appropriate levels, while the sprouts are stuck spamming the same few attacks.

In conclusion, I'm not asking for the level-sync system to be removed, since I fully understand why it's in the game. I'm just asking for it to be reworked so that it rewards endgame players more than it punishes them.

[Mesarthim]

You're not the first person to suggest this and at this point you won't be the last. I'll just repeat what others have said every other time this has been brought up:

"It isn't fun spamming more buttons to be equal to someone who only has access to a 2 button combo."

May or may not be paraphrasing. Then you open a new can of worms about people being rude to others because they don't have access to certain abilities etc something something. tl;dr There are flaws to your suggestion as "nice" as it sounds.

[Penthea]

You're not the first person to suggest this and at this point you won't be the last. I'll just repeat what others have said every other time this has been brought up:

"It isn't fun spamming more buttons to be equal to someone who only has access to a 2 button combo."

May or may not be paraphrasing. Then you open a new can of worms about people being rude to others because they don't have access to certain abilities etc something something. tl;dr There are flaws to your suggestion as "nice" as it sounds.

I can see it now, the can of worms you're referring to:

"Oh god the tank isn't synced so we're stuck with smaller pulls"
"The dps isn't synced, our aoe is going to suck"
"The healer isn't synced, they won't be able to handle big pulls"
"Ugh you're all synced, this is going to be so slow"

It would also be demoralising for some newer players to see others use abilities they have no access to from the same class. It could make them feel less powerful. And it could be confusing to them as well because a new player is likely to not know why they can't use Flare but the other blm can despite being the same lvl.

Never mind how higher lvl abilities would completely trivialise some mechanics in lower lvl content. Stuff that is supposed to kill you may not at all because you have access to abilities that far outpace the danger the instance is supposed to bring. This would result in instances feeling like entirely different content depending on how many players are synced or not. And it could also result in new players getting carried to the point that they are used to higher lvl players being able to do most of the work, and then get a huge shock when they end up in a party with no one synced.

[Deceptus]

I can see it now, the can of worms you're referring to:

"Oh god the tank isn't synced so we're stuck with smaller pulls"
"The dps isn't synced, our aoe is going to suck"
"The healer isn't synced, they won't be able to handle big pulls"
"Ugh you're all synced, this is going to be so slow"

It would also be demoralising for some newer players to see others use abilities they have no access to from the same class. It could make them feel less powerful. And it could be confusing to them as well because a new player is likely to not know why they can't use Flare but the other blm can despite being the same lvl.

Few counterpoints:

1) If a tank is a sprout and the healer is a synced 80, they can be drug to the finish line easily.

2) If the healer is a sprout down and the dps is 80 the pulls will die fast enough not to be concerned about their healing

3) On the flip side a sprout dps could see a synced down other dps that is lvl 80 and their flashy skills and it could motivate them to keep leveling that dps or perhaps level the job whose flashy skills they saw.

Or they saw a well played tank or healer and think, "Maybe I'll try to level one of those".

Never mind how higher lvl abilities would completely trivialise some mechanics in lower lvl content. Stuff that is supposed to kill you may not at all because you have access to abilities that far outpace the danger the instance is supposed to bring. This would result in instances feeling like entirely different content depending on how many players are synced or not. And it could also result in new players getting carried to the point that they are used to higher lvl players being able to do most of the work, and then get a huge shock when they end up in a party with no one synced.

People aren't asking for 80's to be in the same dungeons as level 15's normally. They're asking to keep all of their skills so they don't go from 24 buttons to 2.

[Penthea]

1) If a tank is a sprout and the healer is a synced 80, they can be drug to the finish line easily.

So you think it's a good thing if the tank can be carried? Also this situation only works if the healer is not a similar lvl to the tank. My comment about tanks would still stand if the healer wasn't at high enough lvl to carry the tank.

2) If the healer is a sprout down and the dps is 80 the pulls will die fast enough not to be concerned about their healing

Again this is framing being carried as an okay thing. And again this would happen only sometimes. What do you think would happen to a new healer player who happened to get lvl 80 dps in every instance and then suddenly does not? Well then suddenly the demands of their role could rise very considerably and they would be unprepared for it due to lack of experience with needing to heal a party that needs well timed heals.

3) On the flip side a sprout dps could see a synced down other dps that is lvl 80 and their flashy skills and it could motivate them to keep leveling that dps or perhaps level the job whose flashy skills they saw.

Sure that's true but I know that personally I wouldn't have been a fan of watching the other dps being able to do so much more than I could simply because of game design, and not anything that is my fault. I wouldn't have liked to feel as if my contribution mattered very little because the other dps was far higher lvl and I was unsynced. I HATE getting boosted.

People aren't asking for 80's to be in the same dungeons as level 15's normally. They're asking to keep all of their skills so they don't go from 24 buttons to 2.

And asking for this means a person fails to understand that lower lvl content is balanced with the parties having certain abilities in mind. Some higher lvl abilities would trivialise older content. And they're not all ogcds or major cds. Having strong aoe on its own can make a dungeon a joke if it's balanced for lower lvl classes who do not have strong aoe at that point.

Sure SE could rebalance the dungeons so that higher lvl abilities do not trivialise content but then that's asking SE to rework several expansions worth of content which is a tremendous amount of work to fix something that isn't even a big problem. I would go as far as to say that it's not even a problem. If a player doesn't want to get lvl synced, then they should avoid content that lvl syncs them. You can still cap your tomes while entirely avoiding lvl synced content.

However I will admit that the xp buff on some servers does land some players being much higher lvl than the content the msq requires them to do, but that is a fault of the xp gain being too high and being unable to turn off the buff. Not the nature of the balance of content being bad.

[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.