Job progression pacing and how it affects old content

[Jojoya]

To counter this, the devs simply adjust the damage calculations for earlier levels so that everyone is overpowered. That way there's no risk that you might fail an old duty because you were unlucky and got a group with jobs that sync badly. But this has the additional effect of trivializing old content to the point that DPS checks are non-existent and you don't even get to see a lot of what bosses do before they die, EVEN when running at Min ilvl/No Echo. When just playing synced normally, the content just falls over so quickly you wonder why they even still make you do it.

Adjusting the item level sync for each dungeon would probably be simpler for SE to do and almost as effective.

Some of the synced 50/60/70 dungeons could probably have their ilvl synced lowered as well. Look at Drowned City of Skalla as an example. It's intended for 300 but the sync is set to 370. That's a massive power gap. Lowering it to 340 (what players are more likely to have had when it was first released) would make a noticeable difference.

[Jirah]

I agree, at least for DPS, all those saying “it’s supposed to not matter” have it all wrong

I played the game in HW as a BRD, and SB with MCH and didn’t understand anything about my kit nor did any content aloud me to fail in order for me to learn (rare cases include; Shinryu, Aurum Vale, that one solo instance with the Siren, that one solo instance to save illberd)

It’s fun as a healer because the jobs rely on you, don’t heal the party wiped, don’t dps...who cares. And I can imagine it’s gotten a lot worse as dungeons got a lot more accessible with the role responsibilities. It is not fun, to go in blind and win with no thought, and it’s not healthy for new players to have this thought process for 80 freaking levels then try their hand at EX and learn they’ve been doing their jobs wrong and feel alienated to ever try anything harder than “Expert” roulette

[Nishira]

On my WHM (now 60) I found it a bit odd that I’ve gotten a bunch of instant heals in a row, where at least one of those would have been really sweet at say level 35. On summoner and scholar I noticed it started picking up in the 40’s, they got really fun by then because of the way abilities interact with each other. In that sense I do think the spacing is a bit wonky, and I feel it might not prepare (new) players very well for the weaving of abilities from the get go, while that actually is a lot of fun once you get access to it It crossed my mind before how it might be fun to get a ‘baby’ version early on which gets replaced by the current abilities later on, so that you don’t feel entirely gimped in a lower level fate or dungeon, and you still have somewhat of a rotation. But that’s probably a nightmare to implement and balance.

[BigHoffie]

Yeah I hate doing raids or 50/60/70 on my Whm because its such a bad experience trying to do those without lilies. You'd think that one the core components of the job might be thrown in before 50+ levels...

[Rowde]

I'm in agreement that they should probably go back and tweak the early game experience for a majority of the jobs. There's just certain things that I do think should be "homogenized" (i know it's a dirty word) at this point.

Primarily I think everyone needs to have access to AoE and AoE combos much earlier. There's definitely precedent for them slotting in AoE at earlier levels since that's what they did to PLD at the beginning of ShB with Total Eclipse.

I also think that all jobs within a role that already have a skill that is essentially the same thing should either have that skill become a role action or they should all learn it at around the same level. An example of something that could be a Role Action: Bard Troubadour at 62 when MCH and DNC get their similar skill at 56. Some example of things that maybe have the level learned shuffled around:GNB, PLD, WAR all get the 2nd part of their AoE combo at 40... DRK gets theirs at 72... Tank Raid Wide Mitigation buttons... could still do different things, so maybe don't need to be a role action... but they should all get them at the same level. Like how Nebula, Shadow Wall, Sentinel, and Vengeance are all learned at 38.