[Hyrist]

I was always under the impression that while SE releaced Min/Max gear to appease people, it was never really their intention to have the game as it has been the past few years.

With each corresponding update, the game gets more and more nudged into mixing front and back lines together. This is dreadfully apparent on how they rank campaign.

Now this latest update seems to discourage the idea of min/max gear outside the set situations they were designed for (read:Endgame.) While this may seem a bit obtuse, SE's always taken a console mentatiy when constructing this MMO, so this really does fall in line with that motive.

Oddly enough, this sort of thing did not hurt my Fiance or Myself, who were soloing our Merits for the most part. We both avoided negetive statistics on our gear, and suffer very little harsh consequence as a result (which is intriguing considering that she is a WHM and I am a RDM.) Granted, we could have better gear equipping for the actual parties themselves. However our generalist approach to the game lended itself very well to this new feature.

I'm beginning to wonder if the ability to solo thanks to the EP/DC improvements, paired with Level Syncing, is going to slowly change some of ways people play this game.

There will evidently be negative consequences: Players at endgame who don't know how to function in an event that requires Min/Maxing. However, I also wonder if it'll bring some new perspectives to the table. I would like some more open teamwork and co-ordination seen as an advange. Being able to choose the way you play, as well as grow familiar with your friends via partying more often together, may develop some rather interesting combinations.

Now all that's left is to develop some sort of "Endgame Event" that lends itself well to this. Nyzul Isle is a good start, but right now there is a sheer number of events that would discourage such a play style.

[Karinya]

I'm not sure what you mean by min/maxing here.

I got into a level sync party with my DNC last night and found that at level 14, Emperor Hairpin gives +0 DEX and AGI (3 at 24) and Spike Necklace gives +0 STR and DEX (3 at 21). (Leaping boots still worked, of course.)

You could argue that the hairpin is elitist gear and they meant to break it, but spike necklace?

Overall the party was made of fail, and I can't help wondering if the fact that most of the players were synced and probably had similar gear issues contributed to that. (As far as my own performance went, the answer was obvious: 14 is a gimp level for DNC. I expected the designee to ding fairly quickly - low TNLs and all - but because of the sheer fail, they didn't and I was stuck with nothing but Samba for hours.) Although it could have just been the puller, so who knows.


DEF appears to scale linearly, or roughly linearly, which means that vanilla def gear will apparently scale down and become vanilla def gear. I didn't get enough data to be positive about DMG but it seemed to scale to a reasonable level-appropriate amount.

But anything that you were wearing for an actual beneficial effect on a role other than tanking has a danger of becoming worse than useless, which is rather strongly against the (probably) intended effect of allowing people to join synced parties or capped events without shopping for new gear.

Clearly, SE was concerned that scaled-down gear could outperform gear available to people who really are level X. (For that, it certainly worked, except possibly for the COR, who wasn't stuck with gimpbullets or no gun at all. In a few cases the gear available to level X people is off the curve to begin with.) But I think they went a little overboard with the harshness of the formulas for things other than dmg and def. Anything you normally wear at your actual level, but breaks under caps forcing you to buy an alternative piece for capped parties/content, works against the idea that you can just join capped parties/events and come as you are.

Maybe players are just abusing the sync system and it was never intended for people 10+ levels away from the cap level, but only for camp outgrowing and "there's not quite enough people within 2 levels". But this still has disturbing implications for getting people to help with capped events.


P.S. Does anyone know if nonstandard damage types (e.g. Bourdonasse) are preserved under cap? What about additional effect procs like bolts, acid weapons or Mezraq/Thalassocrat?

[Ellipses]

My guess is that they don't actually intend for all this gear to be gimped this badly. This is just their first attempt, and they're just using some simplistic across-the-board formula that was easy to implement. Once the full player base does their beta testing for them and they get enough complaints and suggestions, they'll hopefully work out something else. It's right in the update notes "Further equipment attribute-related adjustments in the Level Sync system are scheduled to take place in future version updates."

[Sylvane]

Originally Posted by Karinya

P.S. Does anyone know if nonstandard damage types (e.g. Bourdonasse) are preserved under cap? What about additional effect procs like bolts, acid weapons or Mezraq/Thalassocrat?

I synced down to level 23, and I didn't notice the additional from my Dark Mezraq, sometimes I hardly see it when I'm not capped, but I'm assuming it doesn't proc under sync.

[Ellipses]

Karinya isn't talking about Additional Effect: X Damage, but about weapons that do a different type of damage than their category typically does. The Bourdonasse does blunt damage instead of piercing despite being a polearm.

Edit: Oh, hey, I'm dumb. There's a question right there in Karinya's post about additional effects. Stupidity preserved for posterity!

[Armando]

I'm going to wait 'til there's more data before jumping to any conclusions.

But if I had to guess, most stuff doesn't do anything at level 14 because there isn't anything equivalent to it at level 14 (read: a necklace that does something useful.) I don't think the system is as broken as people think it is, yet. I mean, yes, a good deal of your gear is doing nothing at level 14 but what does at that level? Rings? Yeeeeah... If SE doesn't want synced people being better than non-synced people then it wouldn't make sense for your scaled-down gear to give you a stat boost that no other gear at that level can provide (especially since a 75 can put stats in practically every slot...it would add up over your entire gear set even if scaled down.) There aren't any STR neck pieces at level 14, nor are there any DEX head pieces, and the only AGI head pieces are Ryl.Ftm. Bandana which only gives 1.

And even then, come on, lolbasestats. I would be worried if my Attack and Acc are significantly lower than a non-synced party members, but STR/DEX/AGI? I couldn't care less, except maybe if I were a two-hander job. And even then I'm sure a scaled-down two-hander would still have an Acc/Attack advantage over all the one-handers.

[Durahansolo]

lol this was fun for me and a friend of mine, I was a lvl 26BLU and he was a lvl 24BLU, so i sync'd to his level and we ran out to qufim to duo VTs and Ts. Tossed on Emp band and we were netting about 300 XP per mob and on a chain 1 360. It was pretty fun and we both dinged a level.

[Sylvane]

Originally Posted by Ellipses

Karinya isn't talking about Additional Effect: X Damage, but about weapons that do a different type type of damage than their category typically does. The Bourdonasse does blunt damage instead of piercing despite being a polearm.

Also asked about additional effects from things like Mezraq, figured I'd answer at least part of the question.

[Ellipses]

Originally Posted by Sylvane

Also asked about additional effects from things like Mezraq, figured I'd answer at least part of the question.

Yeah, I just caught that. Sorry.

[TheGrandMom]

I just have to laugh at people that heard about the level syncing and sold all their lower level equips. Personally I'm changing some of my equips for important stats if I level sync.

[Spazz]

Do we know if Merits are still in effect when you sync down to a lower level? My brothers 75MNK has maxed out H2H merits and STR. Yet when he synced down to Lv18 with me, he was missing like a mother ****er! lol

[Ellipses]

I can't imagine merits work any differently under Level Sync than they would in any other level-capped situation. The merits appropriate to the capped level are active. At level 18, that's 1 merit per item.

[Malacite]

The idea is they don't want you abusing your awesome gear in capped areas, so it makes perfect sense.

[Ziero]

Originally Posted by Hyrist

Now this latest update seems to discourage the idea of min/max gear outside the set situations they were designed for (read:Endgame.) While this may seem a bit obtuse, SE's always taken a console mentatiy when constructing this MMO, so this really does fall in line with that motive.

There will evidently be negative consequences: Players at endgame who don't know how to function in an event that requires Min/Maxing. However, I also wonder if it'll bring some new perspectives to the table. I would like some more open teamwork and co-ordination seen as an advange. Being able to choose the way you play, as well as grow familiar with your friends via partying more often together, may develop some rather interesting combinations.

Now all that's left is to develop some sort of "Endgame Event" that lends itself well to this. Nyzul Isle is a good start, but right now there is a sheer number of events that would discourage such a play style.

What? No.

Min/Maxing will still be the best way to party, but even in most parties before the update people wouldn't bother with that. I know that in my experiances more people stayed with one set of gear an entire party then those who would swap depending on the situation.

Also, this change will have no affect on End Game at all. People will still lvl in normal pts and people will still gear swap while in them as it's still best to have a group your own lvl. And I don't see how this will allow more "open teamwork and co-ordination" seeing as how the basic strategies won't change at all.

And no event, outside of PVPs, cater to utilizing only a single set of balanced gear. Nor should they.
______________________________

Originally Posted by TheGrandMom

I just have to laugh at people that heard about the level syncing and sold all their lower level equips. Personally I'm changing some of my equips for important stats if I level sync.

I'm doin a Promy run this Thursday and I'll prolly only have 1-2 "high level" items. Everything else will stay as my usual Promy run set up.

[Armando]

If it weren't because my level cap gear works accross the board for a couple of other jobs that are only slightly past the Lv.40 caps, I'd have sold my stuff already. But I probably won't bother bringing level-appropriate gear on my PLD any more.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I'll likely sell my Eisenplate gear.