unsync ruins stuffFollow

The main problem with forced syncing is it runs counter to the general concept of MMOs, and that's to make your character stronger.

The desire to preserve the difficulty of antiquated content, while well-meaning, tends to ignore the reality of how frequently said content is done. This gap translates into longer queue times, but with higher difficulty, also comes a higher chance for failure. One long queue can become multiple long queues becomes someone is unwilling to teach, be patient enough for someone to learn, or if someone is even capable of learning a given encounter's mechanics. String things out enough and people wind up bored and/or frustrated.

When said content is also a wall to later things, it's not exactly good PR to be seeing people talking about XYZ new stuff while you're stuck way back on Q and the people on XYZ don't want to help you because there's honestly nothing in it for them. The possibility to steamroll the content at least makes the temptation to help more tangible, as a newbie not knowing the ropes may not be as catastrophic to the run's success.

This is honestly a lesson SE should've learned with CoP back in XI. To see caps revisited in XIV is a bit of a headscratcher, but I guess it is what it is.

Level syncing is one of the things about GW2 that drove me nuts. The entire game was essentially level synced, so your level was more or less a ticket to safely travel new parts of the map -- not really anything that made you feel excessively strong. Like, why are these squirrels still attacking me in starter areas?

Actually, quite a few FCs do minimum item level challenges as part of recruitment to their high-end raiding (because high-end raiding is pretty much a minimum item level challenge in itself; you can't just brute force your way past the mechanics) or just to have something interesting to stream on Twitch.

But I don't have a problem with the option for old content to be unsynced. It's better than having it all languish unused, and it really only benefits someone farming for drops. It's not my thing, but I wouldn't deny someone who loves grinding for such things.

Some jobs change pretty dramatically as you level, though. It's mainly why I didn't RDM through CoP despite it being my main. For melee, I'm sure losing their level 60+ WS for content was also a downer, among other abilities. In the end, it's just the game saying, "We're making you weaker because we want to!" Some tried to rationalize it that it'd bring higher people to lower, but that's not really how it seemed to play out in majority. You either static grouped or enjoyed shouting for a long time hoping the right people wanted to help out. Gear was an inconvenience, sure, but I'd say manpower reqs ranked higher in the hassle column.

Ironically the level capping made me like CoP MORE because I could do it without having to be level 75 in omgwtfbbq gear.

My linkshell back in FFXI did the promy ENM runs all the time BECAUSE of the level sync. That made it really easy for us to form parties with lower-level members who couldn't do other things. So, yes, level syncing does have value. That's actually a big reason why I'm excited for Deep Dungeons... finally, I'll have a reason to play as jobs that I otherwise wouldn't ever use.

I've been dabbling in FFXI still, and just recently decided to start working on the Adoulin missions and potentially wrap things up for good... and while the game still has its charm, good god is it tedious.

It's like... I got annoyed with Aht Urghan constantly making me wait for JP midnight to do things for no real reason..... that was better.

I'm no Nidgog ex expert, but doing Levi extreme back in the day taught me to look for nidhog's shadow like levi's water spout. to avoid getting killed in the first phase

And this is the biggest problem I have with the way Yoshi feels we "want": to do content.

No, I do not want to touch the same god damn 2013-2014 dungeon set for the 4th time for a new more powerful weapon. I don't care if you found "Aetherial Crystal of Smiting" all of a sudden, how about make that come from ...new level 60 content designed around the relic quest? Why are you "suddenly" finding items in a dungeon we ran 2-3 times prior and somehow missed? >.>

That aside though, that's why I enjoyed CoP regardless of the hate for level caps, because as you progressed the story and content base it had a sense of you getting stronger naturally, not because you're the warrior of light. I don't mind the setup of XIV's content in concept since it made FAR more sense in 1.x, but there's no reason to have us revisiting content they obsoleted in the name of vertical progression for new content. Adding birds to primals we have no need to fight is kind of silly, they could have added instanced arenas where we fight them and get their drop. Yoshi loves instances for the XIV content and world, so it's actually so easy to do.

Just like people think them making "Savage content for so few" is a waste of resources when in reality, Savage is the FIRST version created, so they could easily reuse instances for some side activities, they did it for the first relic. So yeah, while unsyncing blows content away, we technically shouldn't even be touching the older stuff at this point in the game if you're caught up.

Um.. that's an update.

Also it creates a situation where you'd potentially have level 50 fights offering quality gear at level 90 several years down the line.

How badly do you want to be farming Titan EX every expansion for the next six years? Because that doesn't seem appealing to me.

I mean, look at the relic quest. Do you really think they wouldn't find someway to do this regardless?

Quite honestly and this does go back towards Thordan EX days - they already create content for "non-hardcore players", the problem is, as seen with Weeping City with...well, it's not about hardcore/midcore/casual, it's about player skill and willingness to actually want to be good at your job/the content. Remember, the content designed "for hardcore players" is the content the team designs FIRST, then REDESIGNS (which is actually taking more time) for the more casual orient crowd.

The game sadly doesn't create a progression of "get gud" in order to tackle even the easy "hard" content. Much like Thordan and Sephirot Ex, it's universally accepted that Nidhogg Ex is painfully easy...disappointingly easy, it's just "pay attention to mechanics". There's a less DPS check for Nidhogg Ex than there is Sephirot Ex, something released ages ago, which is a problem on its own for a different topic because a big downer is the fact anything you "work hard for" is worthless very soon after. So why do anything that takes an iota of skill? Why not just wait for the catchup patches and do easy content for the halfsteps?

Similar to FFXI - Your progression goes from basic quests to NMs to Rank missions which gradually involves more and more people (in the early days) to actual content systems like Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul and so on and requires you to actually know what the hell is going on in the game mechanically and that not everything can be brute forced. In XIV, you just kill everything with Fire, including the LORD OF THE INFERNO.