Please let us keep our abilities on sync down

[Buttobi]

Fine, bare with me as I'm phone typing so long paragraphs aren't gonna be easy and this will come out as a scattered ramble.

A lot of jobs are basically incomplete until lvl70, missing core parts of what their final lvl100 state will be. Off the top of my head, Paladin, Dark knight, Gun breaker, Reaper, Summoner and Dancer all feel painfully lacking in ARR and HW content (Summoner has maybe a single OGCD that matters added from lvl 26 to 86......let that sink in).

Many of these jobs have room for more skills to be added and removed actions that could be reimagined as different skills for cost-saving.

For example, condense some of the 60-80 skills into 40-60 lvls then add some more niche skills to the 60-80 range. I would argue that more focus should be put on making higher level skills situational skills usable outside of the normal rotation for better player skill expression (e.g. red mages reprise, monks six sided star, machinists flamethrower), the sort of stuff that is not ALWAYS the best answer but when used smartly can be a DPS/Utility gain.

To put it as a food metaphor, rather than cramming the plate with even more meat, give us some potatoes alongside the core of the meal.

Sounds like a decent solution. I will not pretend my solution is the best one, there are many ways to tackle this problem. I just think between your proposed solution and mine, both of them are very time intensive to implement. Personally I want SE to take the time to rework this part of the game so whichever solution they go with, I will give it a chance.

[AvoSturmfaust]

Lowering the Level you get xyz Skill isnt the Solution either, the only real Solution is literally do let us keep our Skills in every cirumstance, i mean one of the most important things to improve is to learn your rotation and to use your rotation in certain situations be it a Dungeon, a Raid a Trial or anything but you cant even use your full Rotation in 95% of the Content avaible in the Game with this change it would even improve with the time the skill player have because they will always have acces to the Skillset in every situation.

[Deniza]

Lowering the Level you get xyz Skill isnt the Solution either, the only real Solution is literally do let us keep our Skills in every cirumstance, i mean one of the most important things to improve is to learn your rotation and to use your rotation in certain situations be it a Dungeon, a Raid a Trial or anything but you cant even use your full Rotation in 95% of the Content avaible in the Game with this change it would even improve with the time the skill player have because they will always have acces to the Skillset in every situation.

Another great point that I didn't think of. XD

[Sheriyana]

Lowering the Level you get xyz Skill isnt the Solution either, the only real Solution is literally do let us keep our Skills in every cirumstance, i mean one of the most important things to improve is to learn your rotation and to use your rotation in certain situations be it a Dungeon, a Raid a Trial or anything but you cant even use your full Rotation in 95% of the Content avaible in the Game with this change it would even improve with the time the skill player have because they will always have acces to the Skillset in every situation.

This is one of the reasons why I keep advocating for it too. Like how are you supposed to practice your rotation in actual content when 95% of content forces you to sync down and make you unable to use a portion of your kit.

[Atreus]

This subject has come up a lot since Endwalker. I created a similar thread in September and cited a few reddit sources with the same discussion.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...very-expansion

In short, a lot of people find level sync in its current form insufferable. While the opposition have valid points about the balance of the content with full abilities, something does need to be done. You can improve the new player experience all you want, but it's the older players you need in order to populate roulettes.

I will only speak on my own experience, but I know I'm not alone. I no longer touch synced content at this point pre-Shadowbringers. If I'm doing Wondrous Tales, then I'm unsyncing and solo'ing most of it. As much joy as I get from helping new players, syncing is dreadfully boring.

[Atreus]

Follow-up comment... a number of opposing viewpoints rightfully bring up the issue of potencies for high-level abilities.

For the last few expansions, SquareEnix has been using the trait system in order to facilitate abilities turning into other abilities and gaining potencies. If SE wants to build a better infrastructure for level sync, they can utilize traits that cull the potencies of attacks when used in different level brackets. To make up for the gain from high-level oGCD attacks, they can trim the difference between required item level and what the item level actually syncs to for individual duties.

In b4 "but that takes too much work!" Get out of here, they spent an entire expansion just changing the game's graphics a little. They can invest in the playability of their game.

[hydralus]

They're fine with giving viper 2 buttons to press until level 55 so I'm not holding my breath.

[AnnRam]

"Just please think about those new free trial accounts that wants to experience the marvelous ARR battle system in Sastasha for first time, yes a dungeon from a decade ago YOU MUST lose 95% of your kit and press 1-2 for straight 30 minutes, this game ISN'T for you my dear veteran player".

[ViinaS]

The worst is that a huge amount of content you'll see in most roulettes will be lv.50.
Alliance Raid, Trials, 'High End' Dungeons, Levelling.

Especially awful with Alliance Raid cause the roulette is like 85% Labyrinth, CT or WoD.

So most of the time you'll sit there with your lv.50 kit.
And for most jobs lv.50 rotation is awful.

I am currently leveling BLM from 90 to 100 and had (of course) WoD in Alli Roulette and BLM at lv.50 feels like utter shit. The only one that comes close in absolute awfulness is VPR at lv.50.
If I do not level and do roulettes and play VPR and get lv.50 content I leave if it's 8-man or 24-man.
Cause I just can't do it with VPR without falling asleep.

[technole]

Well I'm a dev, personally it doesn't seem worth the hassle to implement a whole new database of downgraded skill potencies, nevermind all the QA that would have to be done to see what outdated or even sync'd content like criterion or ultimate ends up breaking as a result. Players would rather battle team spend their time doing job rehaul in 8.0 rather than this play-it-safe meta we got in 7.0