FFXIV's level/stat sync system is also pretty cool for keeping the older stuff playable long past its original release, players get levels and stats and skills scaled down to the max level appropriate for the content

4-player dungeons still end up being a bit of a faceroll, but it's definitely possible to wipe on the 8-player bosses if mechanics are not observed

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vbezhenar 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know much about FF. But a thing with WoW is that new release often brings a significant rework of many game mechanics; they might squish everyone's level; edit stats for millions of items; rework class talents and abilities, sometimes even bringing up the whole new approach to the talents.

So while just scaling down characters is technically not hard to do and there's tech in WoW for that, it's never the same as playing previous expansion. And players want genuine experience.

And preserving all the old mechanics for 12 of expansions would present a whole new class of challenges to a team. WoW is a huge game. They already plagued by lots of bugs.

	▲	tsimionescu an hour ago \| parent [-]
		In FF, the system is very simple, and indeed is not trying in any way to give the original experience. You can sync to a level 30 dungeon, and your character will be scaled so it has the exact abilities it would have today as a level 30 class. Stats from gear are also scaled down by some formulas that still try to take into account the quality of your gear relative to the current best possible. But this system exists for an entirely different purpose than a TBC server. It exists mostly to make sure low level content is still full of players, so that new players going through the story or players leveling up new classes can always find parties for dungeons. It also helps break the monotony of doing the same few current dungeons/raids all of the time Note that in FF you have to do the huge main story quest on any new character before you can really access the latest content, regardless of how much you might level, and the main quest also involves runs through most dungeons. I should add that normally people only do this once on one character, since you can level all different classes (called jobs) on the same character - you can be a level 90 robe-wearing black mage if using a staff, and then you equip daggers and become a level 31 ninja in leather armor, or an axe and become a level 67 tank warrior.

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ocdtrekkie 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

WoW has been doing this for like a decade. A lot of the old expansion content gets level scaled for new players, many dungeon groups get scaled to the same level, some of their time travel events have scaled old dungeons up for current players, etc.