By factoring components the same as with men
That would be a good first step in addressing the addition of quads to women's programs, though it wouldn't be enough on its own.
I was talking more about adding quints to the Scale of Values for both sexes, which would unbalance things much more severely if those jumps were given much higher base values than quads and if some skaters could actually rotate them in a program (which might be otherwise empty).
The more I look at the numbers, the more I feel that this battle has been lost and cannot be re-fought under any tweaking of the rules. Quads get lots of points. I do not see how it could be otherwise, just like a pole vaulter gets more credit if he jumps 18 feet than if he jumps 17.
The only scenario where the desired balance would come into play is if everyone was doing multiple quads and getting 100 points in TES base value. Then maybe getting 9.5 in PCSs instead of 8.5 would make a difference as a tie-breaker.
This dilemma may eventually drive interest in the separate "Technical Program" and "Artistic Program" suggestion. I don't know.
I can think of several approaches to maintaining balance in the scoring. I don't know how many are on the ISU's radar. Probably a combination of approaches would be needed.
Raising the PCS factors would help a bit.
Lowering the total number of jumps allowed in the freeskate, while allowing for maximum difficulty, could give incentives for skaters to include their hardest jumps without making the whole strategy about maximizing jump in-air revolutions.
Concurrently, raise the number of blade-to-ice elements, especially edge-based skills.
Separating "technical" and "artistic" programs, or separating jump programs from spin programs from skating programs, could allow skaters who excel in each area to win medals in their areas of strength and skaters who are good at all of the above to place better overall than those who excel in jumps and are deficient elsewhere.
The point values available for jumps, non-jump elements, and PCS could be approximately equal within each program (SP or better-balanced freeskate) or across whole competitions (more points for jumps and to a lesser degree spins in a technical program, more for skating and performance in an artistic program) by adjusting the number of elements in each and also maybe building in ways to push the technical envelope even further on spins and step sequences, and/or making the positive GOEs for those skills worth as much as the positive GOEs for jumps with higher base values.
Or if it's too hard to balance the TES points available for different kinds of skills, then maybe add another layer to the scoring to factor them out.
E.g., if there are separate programs respectively emphasizing technical content and artistry, or separate programs for each type of element, then add up TES and/or PCS to achieve placements in each program and then use factored placements to come up with combined results for the competition as a whole.
Or do something similar within each program. So, e.g., the maximum jump content+quality would earn a 10 for jumps, maximum spin content/quality would earn a 10 for spins, same for steps and pair moves, then add up the score out of 10 for each type of skill, maybe factored so that a 10 in Jumps is worth more than a 10 in Skating Skills or Transitions, but only 2 or 3 times as much, not 5 times as much.
Some of these ideas might not work at all or might need tweaking, but if balancing the value of on-ice skills vs. in-air skills is a priority these could be places to start thinking about how to do so.
Also, to answer to gkelly statement - ISU already removed one jumping pass in free skate and together with no repeating quad rule scores for components these days in free skate are mostly higher than elements scores. Not to say that only part of that elements score are points for jumps, and even less are points for BV of the jumps (and differential of the quads BV). Actually, you can argue that blade to ice skill is more than enough valued in the current scoring system (comparing to what we have 2-5 years ago), taking into consideration that majority of skaters can jump triples and 2A and that jumps are inseparable part of the sport. We can take as an example Alina who can easily score 230+ points or Jason who can easily score 270+ points if they are skating clean. Those are more than respectable numbers and other skaters as Sasha or Boyang need to jump not one clean quad, but 3 to beat them.
