Idea to solve the low level gear problem.

[Satyr]

So after perusing this board for a while I see a lot of people asking for a solution to the low level gear problem. More often than not these threads turn in to flame wars about crafting and the fact that supplying low level players with gear is a waste of time. But...something must be done if we expect to get new players to stick with this game. Linking all the AHs in the upcoming version update is a good start; however, it is still a problem when the gear just isn't there.

Many of the solutions that have been proposed are more or less too complex or just a roundabout way of "sort of" solving the problem. The solution is not to try and come up with some way to get crafters to start making low level gear again...the solution is to come up with something new to address the problem.

I propose the following:

add Rare/EX gear sets that can be purchased with fields of valor tabs.

There would be a set various sets for different level brackets starting at 11:
11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70.
*the reason for this is that 1-11 gear can easily be found from vendors and beyond 70 the gear issue no longer exists. The progression would be that the 11-20 set would have half of the stats be +1 and the other half +2. The next bracket adds one to all of the lower stats bringing everything to +2 for the 21-30 bracket. The progression would continue to add +1 to half of the stats in each bracket thus making the final 61-70 set be +4 to all the attributes. An example of this would be that for the 1st 3rd and 5th brackets the Stats(STR AGI etc) get +1 and the 2nd 4th and 6th brackets would add +1 to skills or attributes(parry attack accuracy)

Within each bracket there would be three sets: Tanking, Damage, Caster.

For example:
Lv 21-30 Head pieces:
Tank Helm: +2 Enmity, +2 VIT, +2Evasion, +10HP
Jobs: All Jobs

DD Helm: +2 Accuracy, +2 Ranged Accuracy, +2 Attack, +2 Ranged Attack,
Jobs: All jobs

Caster Helm: +2 INT, +2 MND, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP

A Full example set would be:
LV21-30 Tank Set:
Tank Helm: +2 Enmity, +2 VIT, +2Evasion, +10HP
Tank Body: +2 Enmity, +2 AGI, +2 Parry, +10HP
Tank Gloves: +2 STR, +2 Guard, +2 Shield
Tank Legs: +2 Enmity, +2 VIT, +2 Evasion, +10HP
Tank Boots: +2 AGI, +2 Guard, +2 Shield

LV21-30 DD Set:
DD Helm: +2 Accuracy, +2 Ranged Accuracy, +2 Attack, +2 Ranged Attack
DD Body: +2 Accuracy, +2 Ranged Accuracy, +2 STR
DD Gloves: +2 STR +2 DEX +2 CHR
DD Legs: +2 Attack, +2 Ranged Attack, +2 AGI
DD Boots: +2 CHR, +2DEX, +2 AGI

LV21-30 Caster Set:
Caster Helm: +2 INT, +2 MND, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP
Caster Body: +2 INT, +2 CHR, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP
Caster Gloves: -2 Enmity, +2 Magic Attack, +2 Summoning Magic Skill
Caster Legs: +2 CHR, +2 MND, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP
Caster Boots: +2 Conserve MP, +2 Magic Accuracy, +2 Singing Skill

A System such as this adds a way for new or current players to obtain respectable gear that does not involve crafting or the economy. The gear itself is quite good, but it still allows for current NM drops and some crafted gear to be better than these Rare/EX pieces (such as Lizzy boots are still better than the DD boots until you get to the lv 41-50 set). The tab cost of the sets would be very reasonable such that gloves and boots would cost as many tabs as one equivalent level FOV page awards and the legs chest and helm would cost about as many tabs as two equivalent level FOV page awards.

Note: I think that these sets should be usable by all jobs due to the current state of the game. It is very common these days for people to low man XP or solo XP. It would be great if people had the option to use whatever gear they needed for what they were doing. For example: a WAR could use the tank set to tank in a group and then have the DD set for when they just wanted to solo; or a WHM could use the caster set in a group or sub WAR and use the DD set to solo.

Overall I think this would be a very simple way to solve the lower level gear issue and give lower level players a much more enjoyable leveling experience.

[Flunklesnarkin]

and they could all be the same model as perle , aurore , and teal gear~~~~`

[Emitremmus]

I like this idea. At the same time though, it's going to make a lot of the gear in the game more irrelevant than it already is. It's hard as crap to find some of that stuff that people have NEVER wanted to wear for the dumb little girl Brygid in Bastok.

But yeah, this is pretty cool.

[Kingofgeeks]

not quite sure about how exactly to handle distributing this gear but i agree. If there was some way of making low level gear available independent of crafters then i believe it will help out anyone wishing to level up. I wouldn't mind seeing better gear available via NPC retailers, or even given us more RSE gear for different levels. RSE and AF gear makes things easier, adding more AF and RSE (for example) might alleviate our low level gear headaches.

[Karbuncle]

I'm thinking if the AH Merge doesn't work, We need to just literally say "Okay, Crafting/AH isn't working, F**k it." and Implement a system just like this. Its late enough in the game that Low Level armor is not profitable to make, So people don't cause there are too few new people. While new people are here, Theres just too few to make crafters consider a steady supply of i on AH.

This System Is not HANDING newbies gear, It'll be like Assault. a system where you work towards the goal of Armor. Except Fields of Valor is actually useful to low level players so it works out. This is actually the most well thought out solution I've seen on these boards. I know everyone wants the solution to involve the Auction house, But giving new players The Ability to get Armor through other means, Especially something like this, Is a brilliant idea.

Some armor like Leaping Boots, Empress Hairpin, Republic Subligar, Etc would clearly still be king for their slots low on, so it wouldn't completely obsolete everything.

Really Like it. Nice work.

[Eeek]

Wow, this is actually a pretty good idea. If, like Krabnuckle mentioned, the AH merge does little to solve the problem, then yeah, I could see the OP's proposal as a solid idea and good foundation upon which to design a solution. I think buying low-level gear with FoV tabs is a clever idea.

[Coephoros]

There's already a ton of freely available gear through your conquest vendors.

I don't understand why this is a "problem". People keep talking about how "you can't find crafters because low-level crafting isn't profitable", but that's the lazy way out. Low-level gear is (mostly) cheap to make; if it isn't on the AH, why don't you just buy the mats and shout for crafter? Tip them if you get a +1. Sell it back on the AH when you're done with it. Congratulations, you've just kickstarted the economy.

Adding a whole new stack of rare/ex gear is only going to make your "problem" worse.

[azjazo]

Also, there should be more gear that has scalable stats you know the ones with the ~ symbol, that should solve not having to change gear every 5-8 levels and mantain the power balance as you level.

[Karbuncle]

There's already a ton of freely available gear through your conquest vendors.

I don't understand why this is a "problem". People keep talking about how "you can't find crafters because low-level crafting isn't profitable", but that's the lazy way out. Low-level gear is (mostly) cheap to make; if it isn't on the AH, why don't you just buy the mats and shout for crafter? Tip them if you get a +1. Sell it back on the AH when you're done with it. Congratulations, you've just kickstarted the economy.

Adding a whole new stack of rare/ex gear is only going to make your "problem" worse.

The problem with Conquest gear is that its not always the best, And that its Nation Specific, and requires Rank (while i dont think the Rank thing is a problem at all, The Nation Specific is). Like say you're windurstian and you want Legionnare's Gear. Windurst has to be above Bastok in Conquest ranking, and its double points to purchase.

Hell in the last thread to suggest this, I was on the side of "Use the NPCs, Use the Conquest NPC, The armor is there". but the more i thought about it, Some new players won't immediately have the friends to Rank up to get the Conquest armor, Or get the Conquest points to purchase it. Especially from other nations. And the NPC-gear only goes so far, most of it is stat-less NQ junk. (a lot of low level armor is, albeit...). Us established players tank Nation-Rank and etc for granted. a New player is going to have -hell- finding people to help them rank up.

I think the AH merge will fix a lot of the problems, However, If the problems of New players being unable to find crafters, or find armor on the AH, I think something like this would be a good Solution. It erases the Randomness from the Equation (Conquest Ranking, Nation allegiance, Finding a Crafter, Etc) and allows new players to actively work towards the ability to equip themselves with Better armor.

Most new players (which is where the biggest problem is) Don't have access to places like Jeuno either, how many crafters do you think sit in Port Bastok, or Windurst Walls that Aren't afk? I'd be willing to be 0-1 per day. Those new players are then screwed. Plus in new cities theres also the problem that even Synth mats are rarely in stock unless they're easily gotten from surounding creatures.

There is a problem with New-new players finding armor, its not a huge problem obviously due to lack of new players, and i really think the Auction house-Merge will solve 99% of it, but if it doesn't, It might be time to consider moving away from AH and just letting new players work toward an "Assault" system-like Goal of Obtaining gear through FoV.

[RAIST]

EDIT: as I was typing this all up, it looks like people started bring these points up, but I'm going to leave it as is since it covers some aspects not brought up yet, though more needs to be mentioned still.

I'm surprised this hasn't come up yet...so guess I will have4 to play devil's advocate again....

This sort of thing already exists via Conquest Points. And before you say it, they don't have to use THEIR CP to get it when they first start. As stated, they can already find decent gears for the first 10-12 levels really cheap from vendors. It should be noted that this actually continues to around level 20, after that it gets questionable whether it's better to get it crafted or hunted on the AH for something better than the CP gear. You are moving through levels so fast, you only need to update armors and such about every 7 levels or so, and the CP gear upgrades in 5 level tiers via simple crafts (bond an ingot to a harness and it goes from level 10 to level 15, a sheet to mail and it goes from 20 to 25. When the vendor/CP gears aren't available in your home nation (or you don't have the CP yet), you can get a friend to get it for you. not like those of us sitting on 150+ CP really need it that much now.

And that is another problem with this idea...new players won't have the tabs for a while, just like with CP. At least with the CP system, other players can get the item and send it. With the proposed FoV system and making them R/E, it would create a problem by trying to solve a problem--they would need to be maybe Rare, but not R/E for it to work as intended.

Here is a quick rundown of the gear options available to new users/new jobs:

Vendor gears are available at varying levels all the way to around level 40 or 50, forget the exact cut off. But the prices become unreasonable in comparison to the cost to have the gears crafted by someone (used to be available in the AH cheaper) at around level 20-24. However, the lvl 24 Chainmail set is still 50/50 on that front and though expensive is still a viable option to purchase as it can by upgraded for players with a simple crafting recipe to level 36 Silver Mail that is in the upper tiers for defense rating at level 36 (just need to bond silver chains to it, 46 GS cap to make it). All these pieces can be bought/sold via AH/Bazaar, most can be crafted, and some even drop from NM's as well. NPC's bbuy them back for a fraction of the cost, and you are better off posting them on the AH if you aren't going to get a crafter to upgrade them later. Yes, I am bringing crafting into the mix again. A handful of these vendor gears can be upgraded later for better gear--some of it is the gear some of these users are looking for on the AH, and are made by simple recipes like applying 2 lizard
skins to a level 7 pair to leather trousers (@500 gil from NPC) to make a level 17 pair of lizard trousers. This particular example only has a level 18 leather craft cap, and can be made as early as level 8 leather is made (with difficulty), but reliably at level 15 leather--you will get lizard skins while xp-ing during the early levels in dunes (11-14) if you go there, so this can be essentially a free upgrade if you know a crafter.

CP gears/weapons are available starting at level 10, and can be purchased as low as 1000 CP at rank 1. Most all the items in the first 5 rank levels, again, can be upgraded via simple crafting recipes to cover intermediate levels to carry a player through to the next tier: 10>15, 20>25, 20>34, 40>43, 50>52. As you go up in level tier, the rank goes up by one and the cost doubles from the previous tier (level 10, rank 1, 1k CP> level 20, rank 2, 2k CP, level 30, rank 3, 4k CP). These pieces can be traded, delivered, bazaared, and auctioned, and I think the NPC's will buy them from you as well.

Allied Notes Gear. While this is not so much directed at the new players, it is an option for exisitng players that have been doing campaign and are taking a job from 55 up. however, SOME of these pieces are just labeled Rare and CAN be traded, bazarred, and sold via AH/NPC's as well--so older players CAN get these for new players that have made it to 55+ and are having trouble finding gear. There is no Conquest Standing mechanic restricting access to these pieces--only rank (medals for campaign). If the item is not from your allied nation, you just go to that nation and pay a higher price to get it (1.5x markup). These gears comne available at level 55 and Stars/ medal rank (5th evaluation and up), and some peices cost as low as 7,000 AN to buy if in your allied nation (10,500 if not). These pieces are staggered in level and cover all the way up to level 71. They do not have any crafting recipes to upgrade them, but some of the lower level pieces are still reasonable pieces to use as high as level 75 at least as swap-in pieces for situational use.

In the beginning, no one knew ANYTHING about ANY of this information and had to explore and discover it on their own. As things were discovered, sites started cropping up to share the information--first in Japanese only sites, then eventually in English. Now, there are countless sites with all this information out there and can EASILY be found by googling, but if anyone asks in a group, chances are they will at least get pointed to the FFXIclopedia site. Another site is Alla--which has great lists (although slow) of all gears available by job, grouped by slot, and listed in order of level:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/dyn/items/job.html

This shows the level of the item, it's stats, and whether it is purchaseble, crafted, quested, dropped and which zone to get it from if it isn't a crafted only piece. You can click on the item (I right-click, open in new page--faster researching) to get all the details on the item's acquisition.

In short, a system IS in place to cover these issues. Granted, it isn't easily known to a new player--but then again, it wasn't in the beginning, but IS now readily available online for all to see.