So anyone else tired of grinding tomes weekly for gear?

how does gearing up late game work in other mmos?

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

how does gearing up late game work in other mmos?

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That would depend on the game, really.

WoW: Do the raid once per week and pray that the piece you want drops, same goes for glamour runs since the weekly restrictions are still there from several year old raids. I hear they've made this better with Garrison drops and so on, but I can't say.
Korean MMORPGs: Farming endless hours for an enchantment item (or a few), only to fail the enchantment and get your item destroyed wasting several dozen or hundred hours. Alternatively, throw a few thousand dollars at the screen.

Well you only have one job per character in other MMOs so it depends on how their gearing progression works, like how people talk about "horizantal vs vertical" progression and all that.

FFXI really is the closest I can see for comparison since its the only other MMO I am aware of that lets you do mulitple classes/jobs on one character.

Also while I don't remember if it was a Korean-based MMO to start out as I can vouch for that type of grinding in one of the ones I've played the longest.

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Originally Posted by UBERHAXED

Tomestone is a raid drop; you don't need to use midan gears.

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Could anyone be a little more specific about which raid drops the high-capacity tomestone? I've googled and the only things I can find talk about the 7 weeks of midas..

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

how does gearing up late game work in other mmos?

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Gear doesn't get trashed as fast (although times are changing) so you gear up once with workable gear then work hard for BiS which is optional or trophy-like. Mostly, once you get up to workable gear you go and do the content. BiS may even be situational, so it is near impossible to have everything but none of it is needed (think red scrip class specific crafting gear vs shareable gear, except red scrip is not necessary, unlike the red scrip gear here). If you had BiS for some situation maybe you could pull off some cool video worthy stuff or have that moment of fame in a party.

In other words you don't gear up - you go and do content with mediocre gear and have fun doing the content because it's fun. (But again, times are changing)

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Originally Posted by Cinno

Could anyone be a little more specific about which raid drops the high-capacity tomestone? I've googled and the only things I can find talk about the 7 weeks of midas..

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Alexander The Cuff of the Son (Savage)

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

how does gearing up late game work in other mmos?

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In The Secret World, the best gear in the game came from doing Nightmare difficulty dungeons and raids.

There were intermediate drops from the Nightmare dungeons themselves, and you had a daily (iirc, maybe weekly?) limit of a currency called Black Bullions that could be used to purchase upgradeable gear that started out slightly worse than Nightmare drops, but could be upgraded with custom stats to surpass dungeon drop gear considerably. There were different kinds of gear you could get from DPS, to healing, to tanking, and you could mix and match stats to create hybrid gear for hybrid builds.

One of the more common hybrid gear sets/builds was for leech healing. Done correctly, and someone could be heal based on how much DPS they were doing.

You could also add signets of varying qualities that do different things (such as add raw % increases to stats, trigger procs when certain conditions are met, etc).

Not all that different from FFXIV really, just with more gearing choices, daily limits if I recall correctly instead of weekly limits, and unlimited second tier gear drops (think pre-upgrade Midas vs pre-upgrade Lore except without lockouts).

Edit: Also in TSW, you can play any role or any mix of a role. Your "role" depends on a mix of what two weapons you choose of the many available, and what abilities you pick for those weapons of the many available. So also like FFXIV, roles and classes are boundary-less, though the system works a bit differently and gear is only as specialized as you choose to make it.

I honestly enjoy fishing more than group content these days. I love this game for many reasons, but combat and dungeon/raid design are not two of them (outside of primals).

Yes, I'm tired of it. Yes, I want more FFXI style endgame content. Yes it was 100x more interesting and memorable.

Dungeon grind does get to me after a while, but gear grinding in any mmo does. I take breaks from all the games I play simply because they all get "icky" after too long of a spell.

I think this is equally the fault that most games lack enough choice AND the natural result of someone playing mmos for a long time now. :rolleyes:

The longer we play, the harder it is for game designers to offer new and exciting things, we the players are very critical and usually expect every "good aspect" of every other game we ever played to be present (and every one of us has a different definition of that lol) all wrapped up in one ...or else! I am just as guilty of that and always hope the "next one" will have it all and make me feel as excited as I was for them 15+ years ago, but again, that's not reality..

Wow raids/dungeons are generally the same design as is Rift too. Im not comparing difficulty, or mechanics, just the fact that you have to grind for gear in a repetitive few dungeons or raids. Or some event that is also....repetitive beyond words.

Ffxi was just a grind as well. A much longer and far worse definition of "grind" in fact, it was no more "exciting", the only difference was it was a "newer thing" and we were far far more forgiving and naive then we are now, BUT it did offer more choice of gear and how to obtain it. Which imo was a huge "plus".

A lot more avenues to get gear would be welcomed by me. Is that realistic given the inner workings of ffxiv? idk, none of us know....but it is a hope I will cling onto.

The gear could be different (appearance wise/stat wise) or the same, linear or vertical to me is irrelevant, but a large and varied choice on which journey I choose to undertake to obtain it...is the lure and the important part for me.

Offer many varied avenues and that would get me even more interested.

I don't have specifics of what they could offer us and also wouldn't try to in here.

MMOs = grinds , always, which I am ok with or else I would not have played them for so long, but my blanket statement is simply more variety of the grind would be a blessing.

I spoke out against the treadmill before Heavensward was even released and people took offense. People prefer comforting lies to unpleasant truths, so they'll tune out what they don't want to hear. This doesn't help anyone in the long run, because change is a vital part of every MMO and is why the genre has been so successful. Shaking up the status quo every once in a while can only help the game.

The problem now is that SE are a bit set in their ways. We already know EXACTLY how each major update will play out for the next year. Each update will contain: Two new expert roulette dungeons, a new tombstone currency, the removal of the oldest tombstones, and more story missions. It used to be three dungeons, but I guess SE decided less is more.

Honestly, the gear treadmill might not be as boring if there was an alternative means to get decent equipment. Stats are the only thing anyone gains from new equipment. There's no real customization since the base stats on all gear is equivalent to everything else of the same item level. Compare and contrast with the original game, which had unique bonuses on certain special gear. The original relic curtana, for example, had a chance to restore MP among other things.

Why are additional stats useful? Because it means that the flow of the game can go sideways instead of just up or down. Right now it's just about getting to the next tier, but add in gear which has equal main stats, but different supporting stats and you add the potential for significantly greater content. Due to caps and daily/weekly rewards, there is no merit to spending hours of the game grinding for gear. You're better off doing the one dungeon or raid for your gear per day and logging off. That is not healthy for an MMO, which needs to thrive on its community.

At this point, I don't even know how they'd go about fixing the problem. They've dragged along the same path for so long that I'm starting to think they're out of ideas. I do think it needs to be done, however, and before people start to tire of the storyline which is the only thing that has kept some of us subscribed.

For me it is no grind... I do weekly VA weekly, Midas NM, a bit Feast here, helping on primals there and usually am capped at the weekend. I stopped bothering to cap if I don't get there with my everyday stuff. I raid endgame (no savage clear yet cause derp/lag) and I have my "important" gear that I wanted already from Lore investing in off and offoffclasses now.
I don't run any roulettes!

Yup, stopped grinding after getting the first piece and seeing how ugly the lore gear is. Now I get my lore by accident mostly. My current options for daily end game things to do are lore grind through dungeon roulettes and red scrip grinding. Uh... No thanks. I should get paid to do those instead of paying myself.

Honestly I don't think the problem itself is the gear progression, but the durability of that said gear/content. It's a lose/lose situation...

The ones that have lots of time to play won't bother to grind because it'll be outdated really fast.
The ones that don't have more than a couple hours a day to play won't bother to grind because they might not even complete the grinding process before said gear/content gets outdated.

I stopped playing for like... 5 months at most and when I got back two weeks ago Bismark along with Ravana and Alexander are eye-rolling content already.
I gotta say I enjoyed this game a lot more before Heavensward.

But even though I'm not that satisfied I'd like to point that a lot of people are using FFXI as a reference with the memory of the game and all of his expansions and 10 years+ of history. And by that time I also saw the same complains that we're having right now from time to time until things got "fixed"; let's put it this way.
I'd say give it time, we might be gettin' some neat stuff in the future and if the community points out the game's flaws in a constructive and encouraging way, there's hope for ARR to last a long time in the market.

I might now like every aspect of the game and I might stop playing from time to time, but I always come back and feel like home again, until I get 'bored' and slow down my pace.

I love ff games, and I want to love this one too but there's quite a lot of things that are not great as an mmo. I have only been playing for 3 months and im already not seeing the point of getting end game gear or a reason to carry on playing. There is no incentive to be the "best", getting the best gear ok, and now what?? In pvp you get sync to ilvl150! Thats just a joke, the main reason in other mmos to get the best gear is to be better than others. I do enjoy dungeons and primals, but I do agree doing roulettes everyday gets old soon. One of the things that bothers me the most is the lack of use of the great world they have created. I can log in and not move from one town and play all the roulettes/dungeons/primals/pvp I want, leaving all the cool looking scenarios they have made useless. I would love to be able to make a party and go fight some random mobs somewhere in the world, and get something out of it! ( Fates dont count, I have done lots already!)

Been tired since 2.0. And this topic is as old as 2.0 mythology tomestones grind. They won't change it though, they're comfortable not being creative *at all*.

I don't mind the lore grind, wish we could get more per week, but that is cause I like to play end game on more than one job. Weekly lock outs are the part that is getting old. Hit the magic number and done for the week. No reason to do more. I did like that they made bcob and scob meaningful again for crafted glamours and music. Have had a lot of fun collecting Music. The hard ones are CT, ST and WoD. the queues are long to put it mildly.Would be nice if they tossed something fun in there to do. Same with the old primals, they are a lot of fun but not much other than ponies now. Hoping relic has two routes, the casual way and the grind hard content (sync only) to go much faster. That would be a plus for 3.25.

Nope, not me. It isn't really grinding. You do a dungeon here and there, and by the reset you are capped. It is quite casual. I just wish the cap was higher.

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Originally Posted by Synrin

Nope, not me. It isn't really grinding. You do a dungeon here and there, and by the reset you are capped. It is quite casual. I just wish the cap was higher.

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This. I wish the cap was higher too!

I don't grind dungeons, i do 1-2 expert for week and cap with raids / ex / Alex / Hunts and other... I think that red scrips is far WORST a grind.

FF XIV CDL

FFXIV
FFXIV: A Realm Reborn
FFXIV: Heavensward
FFXIV: Still More Tomestones



¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I must admit, you can´t call it "grind"...

I do my weekly schedule of a full roulette, midas, voidark, acutal A5S... and im done in one day, and quite bored the rest of the week cause i skip expert etc.. (cause it feels so wrong grinding tomes i dont get in the end).

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Originally Posted by DevilsDontFly

I stopped playing for like... 5 months at most and when I got back two weeks ago Bismark along with Ravana and Alexander are eye-rolling content already.
I gotta say I enjoyed this game a lot more before Heavensward.

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Gotta agree in i220 and then you get echoooo even Thordan is not a bit of challenge anymore :(
Almost carried a DF through but enrage at 15% cause 20 or so raises and then they vote abandoned.

Sadly I'm getting tired too. I don't have an issue with the gear itself since I do enjoy grabbing new gear from time to time and just get a nice armor on me. But I will say that I dislike the cap, since it's just that small in order to pad the game further.

Yes it's "Required" to keep endgame content relevant (because there were no other ways I suppose?) but here's my issue: how about making the cap 1) higher 2) bound to the job? I seriously never understand the appeal of "multi-classing" that this game offers when in reality you can only properly play ONE at the time.

For example, when we got the 200 gear - which was job locked - I was forced to gear one of my three tanks (my warrior), since DRK gear and PLD gear aren't shareable (unlike now, which I deeply like). Yes you can gear up thanks to VA and other places but again why should I bother when my 1 job is going to be stronger regardless of the effort I put in? I would definitely spend more time doing queues as a AST or a MCH to get my specific tomes so I can get my specific gear (which I prefer in terms of variety, but dislike because it can't be shared), instead of just rush with my tank and farm tomes for another job. For one thing, it would actually force us to play different jobs at level 60...but then the dungeons are a bore and unlike the first ones we had in 2.X, the new ones always felt rushed, are often recycles of old dungeons and, worst of all, are constantly padded with gates and few enemies just to keep you busy 2 minutes longer.

Please, stop putting areas where you can only kill 3 enemies before moving on: either make these 3 enemies interesting and/or unique, or just allow us to AOE everything on our way. It shouldn't be that hard!, but I digress.

I don't have any ideas on how to make this better though: in other games there's usually a cap on something, yes, but you usually have other means to obtain good gear rather than just doing one thing. Whenever I get a lower ilvl gear than 230-240 I always think "it's gonna be pointless as soon as I get the lore-upgraded gear", because there's nothing wanting me to keep that gear. In other games you also have sets stats but in here? Oh there is...on GC gear, which is not even updated to HW levels!

I've stopped bothering with endgame content after wasting my time in FCOB (and I never got to finish t13) but I'm not going to complain about my choice. What I'm going to complain is the lack of possible choices I got in terms of endgame: it's only raiding, dungeons and/or crafting/gathering (aren't they also locked by a weekly cap? Please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not even going to count relic: I did that stuff back in 2.X and I hoped for something more exciting than "theorically" do 800 runs of Alex.

If anything, I've been spending most of my time in pvp. Took quite a bit to be deliver, but at least I can queue and get into a match within human times.
However if it wasn't for my beloved house (which is another issue that requires fixing too), I would've gone way before HW even came about.

One of the nice thing about final fantasy XI online is it seemed like a real adventure. Getting from Point A-B actually felt like a journey especially with death lurking around every corner. In this game it pretty much jumping from aether crystal to aether crystal. The community today would never survive that game because it actually took a strong sense of community and friendship. If you made enemys in Final Fantasy XI you might as well cancel your subscription. The game required having a strong and social community and you needed the ability to help others without any personal gain for your-self. But you made really good friendships in that game and the community there was outstanding.

Once you complete the content for the latest patch its just urgh. You do the two new dungeons, fun the first few times, clear the new primal and ex version, get your new weapon. Do the new raids, again fun the first few times, finish the story and thats it. Then your back to the chore of capping every week until new content comes.

It just gets so mundane. :(

Love the game and wish it had more to offer but nothing ever seems to change so I might as well face that this is all it will ever be. My sub runs out in a month or two so I think that will be it for me. :(

Umm there is also crafted gear which in some cases is actually better then midas and lore gear.
Capping does not really take much effort.

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Originally Posted by Maero

Umm there is also crafted gear which in some cases is actually better then midas and lore gear.
Capping does not really take much effort.

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But theres no point in spending so much on gear that will be outdated by the next patch.

I think adding elemental and bonus stats to different gear could really mix the game up.

Stats>ilv, not the other way around
Besides if you have someone that can craft for you it's not all too bad.

I swear if the next expansion is just new zones level to 70, 3 new jobs, little bit of story, 2 EX primals and a 4 tier raid. With a couple expert dungeons I'm out.

I

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Originally Posted by Maero

Stats>ilv, not the other way around
Besides if you have someone that can craft for you it's not all too bad.

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What they mean is the next set of tomestone gear will be better than any crafted items out atm.

Which again begs the question, if you aren't pushing for world first why even bother with it? The gearing up in the game is simply a chore, there is nothing fun about it, I run a dungeon a day at the end of the week I buy an item...Its been this way since the game came out thats what people have a problem with.

I only see complains, but no one can tell a system that let you gear up, but also, make you continue playing, a syste FAIR FOR ALL PLAYERS (not only for the hardcore ones), which is also fun, at the same time challenging, but you won't be behind because you're casual and not hardcore.

I'm probably one of the few that find the tomes system is really good. I will agree, tha cap should be 900 or 1000, not 450 (or, the price of the items more cheap), but I think is the best way to give all players access to high level gear.

I gave up caring forever ago. My goals have changed to getting 210 gear for all 57 classes then quitting again out of boredom.

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

I only see complains, but no one can tell a system that let you gear up, but also, make you continue playing, a syste FAIR FOR ALL PLAYERS (not only for the hardcore ones), which is also fun, at the same time challenging, but you won't be behind because you're casual and not hardcore. .

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Personally im of the belief that hardcore players should be able to gear up faster if they put the time in.

Sure there should be a system in place that means even a casual player can gear a class at the same rate but using the current lore as an example, a hardcore player should be allowed (if they want to) to say gear up all classes in lore gear in the time it takes a casual player to do one class.

But thats just my opinion.

I enjoy it.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

Please suggest a better system.

The current system has a cap, but high income of lore tomestones.

So lets say theres no cap...
People would grind them all out for their main class day 1, and then maybe grind for their alt classes the next week. What happens? -> Burnt out very easily.

What if tomestone armors/accessories isnt the highest ilvl gear outside of savage? Lets say it drops from a primal like seph ex (but another primal) That could be good, similar design to seph ex weapons.
But not EVERYONE can access them.

Diadem was another alternate system. People hated it.

So you see alternate systems aren't casual friendly.

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Yes people hated diadem but there was alot of feedback for improving it on the forums that ultimately was ignored.

Its not necessarily that everyone has to be able to obtain a piece of gear, more so that everyone has an option of choice for obtaining gear.

Some people are cool with the tomestones.
Some people like midas/savage
Very few people are able to craft their gear due to control and craftsmanship requirements.

Me? I like large scale farming/grinding adventures like sky/dynamis/sea etc.<= these arent going to be for everyone just like the other 3 options arent.

Im not trying to change this game or gear progression (as much as i hate the ilvl system...) i just wish their were more options. I felt like diadem was a step in the right direction but fell flat because their was no structure to it. Its just a mindless zerg from what i hear.
Things like sky/sea/dynamis etc were all very large scale raid environments, you may not be able to do everything in a day, more often than not you simply did what your time allowed. FCs set priorites and worked together for gear progression.
Their was also smaller scale content like seals and nyzul. Nyzul was a 100 floor system in which you started from zero and went up to 100 with every 20th floor having a very difficult boss that dropped gear. It was a much smaller scale system that still worked.
Im not saying they have to be just like ffxi. Ffxi has alot of stuff they could build off of and brainstorm with. Find out what worked and what didnt.

Tl;dr
We just need more options for endgame gear and progression. Thats my honest opinion. Im tired of tomestones and savage just isnt my cup of tea. The crafting gear isnt worth the gil till its arguably irrelavent.

Completely agree with the OP. I've already quit once due to exactly that reason, as have most of my friends. I came back for this patch hoping I'd be re-inspired, but it's the same monotonous tome grind. Very boring. I pretty much just log in now to say hi to FC and friends and to run an EX with a couple friends because it's something to do as a social event and we enjoy that. As a gaming activity though, something to get me to log in and wish to run things and play, XIV really needs something more engaging. I'm gonna hang out with my sub another month or two since I truly enjoy the company of some friends online, but I'm looking to other games to actually play. Guess I'm in a holding pattern.

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

I only see complains, but no one can tell a system that let you gear up, but also, make you continue playing, a syste FAIR FOR ALL PLAYERS (not only for the hardcore ones), which is also fun, at the same time challenging, but you won't be behind because you're casual and not hardcore.

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I dunno. I'll bite. Probably my reply will be more indicative of the kind of game I wish to play than an actual valid solution, but:

The game imho needs a lot more RNG and taking of cues from hunting games. I'm thinking PSO but Monster Hunter works just the same for the purposes of example.

If your play style is such that you craft and use the economy, there's crafted gear. This time around the 220 gear is perfectly good enough to get someone through to the next patch. No need for time grinding, raids etc.

If your play style is roulettes and dungeons, or pvp, you can grind tomes.

If you are more the raiding type, there's Savage.

The game already has this, but as pointed out, you can really only gear 1-2 characters this way and the content is too minimal to do all that for months, so for more of a gaming/grinding play style the game imho needs what hunting games offer - RNG from lots of sources so you can get higher end gear if lucky or spend the time. Adds excitement for running old content over and over and gives another source for higher end gear to equip many jobs between patches. I'd also add some weapon variation, special effects beyond simple glow, more complex stats etc - things to make it more interesting to actually play - but that starts to go off topic.

It would then be as it is now. Raid tier would probably still be the best to preserve game balance for raiders, but just below that could be a bunch of really good, really rare RNG things found or crafted from all over. Below that are then tomes for grinding and then basic crafting tier stuff.

People need to try and understand this from a Game designers point of view as im sure they have limited resources and time. You have to try and cater to as many as possible, so for the raiding groups a few new shiny challenge plus the shiny loot. Great the hardcore and softcore raiders done. Now what about those who have families, jobs and other issues meaning they only play about 1-2 hours a day. Yet they need to still have the same gear progression as a Raider or someone who puts on avg 6 hours into the game a day. Hence tomes just enough to cap each week if you spend about an 1 hour or 2 doing it. So then yes this become limited and boring but what else can you do that caters to everyone? You need your hardcore super challenges for the raiders/Hardcore fans but you also need stuff for those with less play time or who just do not have the time or commitment to raid.

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Originally Posted by ScarletDawn

People need to try and understand this from a Game designers point of view

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Oh I'd say I and a fair few do look at it from their Pov, the problems arrive when it doesn't matter what reasons they have for it if its resources or time, if it just simply isnt fun people will complain and move to other games.

Agreed. Whether or not it makes sense from a developmental standpoint is irrelevant if it's causing people to grow bored and leave. They need to branch out and make some horizontal gear progression and experiment more with content.