Thoughts on the new gearing progression (2.0 vs. 3.0)

So, a few pro's, first off:

1) The reduced costs on Esoterics to help bring people up to that cap fast is awesome.
2) Unlimited Farthings from Void Ark meaning you can farm to upgrade as many pieces as you want without spamming hunts and gives access to more casual players (or not wanting to set up farms) is awesome.
3) The fact that we can now get as many pieces of job-specific gear as we want is also awesome.



To say the least, as far as esoterics are concerned, everything is awesome in my book now that they're off cap. Lower price, easily accessed upgrades, and they look great. Now that this is out of the way...

What I hate about the new system:

1) The simple fact that the gear disparity between entry level (Esoterics) and the top level pieces (Raid / Lore) is too wide due to the additiona step of Crafting/Midas Story. This means that once again, we are being pigeon-holed into choosing which role we want, twice over. The only exception is if you are willing to invest in crafted gear, in which case, you are either gonna need to invest a lot of time, money or resources.

So, to say the least:
- Lack of a choice of UNLIMITED raid-dropping gear (Alexander being capped) = Bad.
- Forced to get Crafted gear if you want to do more than one job for the midcore content = Bad.

Suggested solution: Either release Alexander uncapped on release at the same time as the crafted equivalent, so that people can get at an equal rate by investing time and effort into the content, or remove the additional tier of gear so that people can bring all their jobs up to raid-ready faster and make it a third set for the same ilevel as the previous tomestone.

2) Concerns about the power creep were not addressed, but rather, were exasperated.
- Originally, our power was increasing pretty steadily. People were concerned about the power creep when we jumped only 20 ilevels every 2 major patches. Now, the power creep is even worst - we're jumping 30 ilevels now every 2 major patches (if this progression looks to be the same)


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As far as I am concerned, 2.0 had hit a very magical "Sweet Spot" for gearing and progression. Every other patch was catchup, every time you started a patch you started effectively with the ability to get every job raid-ready so that you could play whatever you want. Now, we are going to find that people are going to be investing into one or two jobs and the expectations will be much higher for content and ilevel that people will need to meet it.

I hope SE thinks about this and works on it in the future, either by giving us the option to go pure-Midas gear without a weekly cap (Thus meaning we can farm all the jobs we want) or by taking out the extra step all together (Which only adds to the power creep at the moment but I am sure they like it because it will keep the midcore crowd more content in their gearing)

The materia slots suck.

I'll have to spend 5-600k for materias for every new piece I got. These gears will be outdated and need to be replaced in the near future anyway. And removing materias will break them all. This is stupid.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

The materia slots suck.

I'll have to spend 5-600k for materias for every new piece I got. These gears will be outdated and need to be replaced in the near future anyway. And removing materias will break them all. This is stupid.

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I found the materia slots interesting, and it'll make it so at least there aren't any 'completely useless' pieces of gear. People can raise that gear up a little with a materia of their choice, which is muchly appreciated in my book.

I do agree, though, that when a piece of gear is upgraded - it should either give back the materia, or upgrade the materia with it (I believe I saw that when upgrading, we'll lose the materia.) It might be about time to add a system to remove materia without breaking it at a % chance or for a cost investment to transfer materia over.

dont' forget to do your weekly void ark - to get your free Grade V materia

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

dont' forget to do your weekly void ark - to get your free Grade V materia

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What do you mean please?

As far as slotting materia goes, just look ahead and compare all your options. I already know I'm buying the crafted healer pants, and already have the shirt. Knowing I don't have to blow Lore/Alex tokens on those 2 I get to decide what I'm saving the good materias for. Just make an informed decision before you drop a grade V in something silly and quickly replaced. If you are worried about spending too much, do your lv46 beast tribes for free grade IV's.

I don't mind the progression this patch tbh, if you know crafters you can get the gear made relatively cheaply, especially with mats being so available through Esos. Some Alex gear is quite good, and still pretty relevant ilvl wise for current content. They don't want us to be i220 on day 3, and unlocking Alex loot would devalue most of the new dungeons immediately. I'm already healing less and dps'ing more in the new dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Loki

What do you mean please?

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Void Ark gives you a Mhachi Fragment, like the Farthing, but you trade it in Idyllshire for a grade V materia.

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Originally Posted by Loki

What do you mean please?

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Mhachi Matter has been added to the item rewards received upon completing the Void Ark and can be obtained once a week.
By speaking with Smacklix in Idyllshire (X:7.6 Y:4.8), players can trade their Mhachi Matter for any Materia of their choice.

http://i.imgur.com/Z4iu9QI.png

You can also get up to 12 Materia lvl IV by the old beast tribe quests. I'll only meld IV unless it's a 240 piece or a crafted 220 one.

Since you can get max 1-2 of those gear per week, the V-materia you'll get per week (+ if you want from Diadem or Mutagenix) should be enough in most cases.
Not speaking for those ppl going to pentameld their crafted ones with V's.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

The materia slots suck.

I'll have to spend 5-600k for materias for every new piece I got. These gears will be outdated and need to be replaced in the near future anyway. And removing materias will break them all. This is stupid.

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Given how easy materia are to get now you really shouldn't be spending ANYTHING on them. I have so many tier IV materia now that I'm just selling them for a massive profit due to how many people can't be bothered to do the dailies to get them.

Thanks for your answers everyone :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Evangela

The materia slots suck.

I'll have to spend 5-600k for materias for every new piece I got. These gears will be outdated and need to be replaced in the near future anyway. And removing materias will break them all. This is stupid.

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Then don't slot materia? Or use less valuable materia...? I don't even know what this argument is, you could literally slot no materia at all and have the same effect as 2.0-3.15 gear. The only difference now is basically some marginal damage increases, Accuracy for healers, and I guess STR for tanks if you want to count that outside of "more DPS". Don't spend massive amounts of gil (tbf 5-600k isn't even massive amounts) on something you're going to replace quickly. Prototype/Crafted stuff are examples of things you can invest some IVs in, and then Lore/Midas are examples of things you can invest Vs in.