Critical issues that need to be addressed

[XtremePrime]

[LIST][*]Level Sync System
At level 100, most content removes half our skills. I avoid roulettes because I don't want to play a watered-down version of my job. WoW's timewalking lets you use your full kit while scaling damage appropriately. FFXIV needs a similar system to make old content more enjoyable.

Maybe things changed since I last tried WoW, but a big issue with their mechanic of scaling down resulted in cases where to run an old dungeon like Ragefire Chasm, the party member with the closest damage would do insane damage with just 1-2 spells/attacks while you'd have to use your entire rotation just to compensate for your lowered damage. That doesn't feel good, that makes you feel weak.

[Elephantality]

[LIST][*]Level Sync System
At level 100, most content removes half our skills. I avoid roulettes because I don't want to play a watered-down version of my job. WoW's timewalking lets you use your full kit while scaling damage appropriately. FFXIV needs a similar system to make old content more enjoyable.

WoW doesn't have time walking for the entire world though. An entire wasteland. At the very least level sync applies to most areas with fates. I will say I enjoyed time walking. Yet I did not enjoy easily blasting through early content when I had access to Dragon Flight. Also there is the problem of higher level players being able to use abilities that the rest of the party might not have.

[IzanamiNoMikotoo]

WoW doesn't have time walking for the entire world though.

It does. Activate chromie time and you can go into any expansion, do the story, do all quests and dungeons and they scale to your level. Chromie time is basically time waking for the entire open world and every dungeon in it. The open world itself is also scaled with level. If you play in the The War Within areas and are level 71, the enemies are also level 71. If you are level 79 the enemies are also level 79. Basically wow's entire world is scaled automatically with either chromie time, timewalking, or natively. Old raids are periodically cycled to also scale the same way, also giving you either great leveling gear if you are not max level or catch-up gear if you are.

[virianna]

Benediction is already available at level 49 and it's something like a 3-minute cooldown. How exactly would it break the game to have it available at level 16?

I don’t think it will break the game, however i can see it breaking the community - ie. people being upset conjurer/white mage is not using benediction because they DONT HAVE IT YET, because they are a a 40 lvl sprout. Speaking from experience of leveling rdm and people being upset i don’t rez them in content below lvl 66 or whatever lvl the rez is unlocked at.

[Elephantality]

It does. Activate chromie time and you can go into any expansion, do the story, do all quests and dungeons and they scale to your level. Chromie time is basically time waking for the entire open world and every dungeon in it. The open world itself is also scaled with level. If you play in the The War Within areas and are level 71, the enemies are also level 71. If you are level 79 the enemies are also level 79. Basically wow's entire world is scaled automatically with either chromie time, timewalking, or natively. Old raids are periodically cycled to also scale the same way, also giving you either great leveling gear if you are not max level or catch-up gear if you are.

During dragonflight I tried to do Chromie time and had difficulties, and the option never showed up. Memory is fuzzy beyond that. My new player experience though, was just everything dying in one hit as I did some story quests. I was never directed to Chromie time as a new player. (This was last year mind you) So confusing process, but if it has improved during The War Within, that may be why my experience does not seem to match up to what you are saying. If it's similar to how level sync works here, then I may enjoy it more as I would love to play BFA and Legion one day while level synced.

[PorxiesRCute]

I don’t think it will break the game, however i can see it breaking the community - ie. people being upset conjurer/white mage is not using benediction because they DONT HAVE IT YET, because they are a a 40 lvl sprout. Speaking from experience of leveling rdm and people being upset i don’t rez them in content below lvl 66 or whatever lvl the rez is unlocked at.

That's a good point. Maybe if there was some kind of indication of what the player's "real" level is so you're not expecting what they can't deliver?

[Zeekdober]

I've been playing both WoW and XIV (WoW a lot more), what I miss when I play XIV is just stuff out in the open world. Every day I open up youtube and I'm met with a short that tells me there's a hidden weapon, pet, transmog, mount, crafting recipe, etc. in WoW that I've never seen before, and it always involves something intricate in order to obtain. Then I look at XIV's open world and it's just this boring map with next to nothing. Seriously the maps are used for FATEs, a place for the MSQ to exist, a handful of gathering nodes, and Hunt mobs oh and treasure maps. The most I see in terms of hidden stuff in XIV is maybe there's a FATE out there that drops a pet or TT Card. Much like the OP I don't want them to just copy paste WoW, but they could do more than this.

I want the zones to be something I want to explore, not a one and done where I only ever come back if a treasure map or hunt train brings me back.

[virianna]

That's a good point. Maybe if there was some kind of indication of what the player's "real" level is so you're not expecting what they can't deliver?

That would again imply everyone in the game knows what to expect from a job at level X, which is unrealistic both because not everyone levels everything and because often, even if they do, they don't play everything often enough to know these things, it really just brings some toxicity this game really doesnt need more of.

Imo what could be done is reshuffling skills and having 123 combos available starting in sastasha, aoe combos for every job available at the same level (also by sastasha) so there is still something to do! Personally my enjoyment is that 'sastasha' (aka low level dungeon really) is dictated by the job I play... because one dps will have aoe (ranged) other who knows (i think SAM doesn't get any aoe before like 40+? - might be wrong don't quote me on that), one tank will have one aoe button, other 2 or 3 at the same level and so on.

I think all that could be easily solved if dungeons scaled up to you instead of you down to the dungeon.

Not in a game where everything is 'dead' content - you want sprouts to never go past sastasha because the game is unable to find 3 more people who are also at level 16?

[Atreus]

I don’t think it will break the game, however i can see it breaking the community - ie. people being upset conjurer/white mage is not using benediction because they DONT HAVE IT YET, because they are a a 40 lvl sprout. Speaking from experience of leveling rdm and people being upset i don’t rez them in content below lvl 66 or whatever lvl the rez is unlocked at.

These situations are solvable with basic communication in the moment. I honestly can't, in good faith, be concerned about peoples' lack of communication or game knowledge when trying to improve the state of the game.

[TaleraRistain]

- Saying things are impossible to solve, such as network data limits and database limits. Nothing is impossible. Where there is a will, there is a way. I can think of easy solutions to these issues, and frankly, every other MMORPG has solved them.

We have an adage in software development. You can have things quick, cheap, or good. Pick two. It's not impossible to have all three. But it's not likely and not the norm.

For your example, you want it quick. So which of the other two do you want? If you want it quick and cheap, it's most likely not going to be good. If you want it quick and good, it's most likely not going to be cheap. And cheap isn't just monetary. It could mean cost in resources like system strain, storage, labor, etc (many more but just to name a few)

Also, say they implement these easy solution of yours. Well, are they creating more technical debt because they're trying to work around a limitation in the system instead of being able to put in the time to rewrite that part entirely to avoid that technical debt in the future? And are all MMORPGS exactly cookie cutter systems that all use the same code, databases, cloud services, etc? You also have to convince the bean counters. Development teams have budgets they have to work with and there are things the business wants so we often have to convince the bigwigs of the value of what we want to do over what they want us to do.

I just hate statements like this because it minimizes all the factors that have to go into good software improvements.