New Jobs Gated Behind Completion of 2.0 Story?

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I am not opposed to gating the new jobs, but those gates should be no sterner than the gates behind our current jobs. Ideally, you should be able to access the new jobs at level 10, the same time we can access new classes. Level 30 would also be an acceptible gate, if we're going to semantically insist that since they're called "jobs" they should be accessible no earlier than existing jobs. Access at level 50... iffy, but not too bad; it's not hard to level a job to 50, but it's difficult to come up with a rationale for this restriction.

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35 makes sense. I think it's roughly equivalent XP wise to the XP required for the 30/15 split required for traditional jobs and has the benefit of being the level you start adventuring around Coerthas. It wouldn't be hard to slot in a quest where you get a pass to enter from one of the Ishgardians you help out around the area.

If you were to compare it to ffxi, it would be like getting to level 75 and completing the rank 10 quest, in order to unlock ninja. Since you would have to be item level 90 and complete all of 2.0-2.55 story quest to unlock the new jobs.

I really don't think they will do it this way personally. It would be a huge mistake if they did, something like one of Tanaka's design decisions.

Lazy players complain about content gated behind a dragon fight that's "too hard" (which many ppl have beat) > SE nerfs dragon fight (which was easy for Pty with proper communication) and removes gated content (which was tied to lore) > RMT gains access to new high lvl areas and continues to devalue the game further by botting new resources and oversaturating the market on every server > lazy players complain vanity items + everything else on market is too expensive...

Ahh the circle of life, working as intended

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

If you were to compare it to ffxi, it would be like getting to level 75 and completing the rank 10 quest, in order to unlock ninja. Since you would have to be item level 90 and complete all of 2.0-2.55 story quest to unlock the new jobs.

I really don't think they will do it this way personally. It would be a huge mistake if they did, something like one of Tanaka's design decisions.

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Not

Even

Close.

Rank 10 was required for nothing. Rank 5 was where the nation stories and the main stories split. Zilart was more applicable to the main story than rank 6-10.

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

If you were to compare it to ffxi, it would be like getting to level 75 and completing the rank 10 quest, in order to unlock ninja. Since you would have to be item level 90 and complete all of 2.0-2.55 story quest to unlock the new jobs.

I really don't think they will do it this way personally. It would be a huge mistake if they did, something like one of Tanaka's design decisions.

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That isn't even kinda close. It takes much more time to level a job to 30 and get rank 5 in FFXI (actual gate to get new jobs in that game) then it does to get to 50 and MSQ done in FFXIV. You are way overestimating how hard it is to get those done. This is a story focused game, it will likely stay that way. If a new player doesn't like that aspect of it they aren't going to be sticking around anyway.

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Originally Posted by Ayrie

Because FFXI is a paragon for new player experience.

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I would never suggest such a thing. Just about all things in FFXI featured grinds that would put this game to shame - but the same can be said for a lot of earlier MMO's. It was just the style of the time. In relative terms, leveling to 30 is the FFXI equivalent of an "easy" task like leveling to 30 is in FFXIV.

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Heck, even getting to 30 the first time for a player was a massive chore.

Then getting to rank 5, arguably harder the getting leveled.

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Getting to rank 5 was not required to unlock any of the new jobs, and it did not prevent exploring the new areas. You could get an Airship pass to Norg at rank 1 - and many did.

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Then getting to Norg and doing the ninja quest... or fighting the nm for the job unlock quest.

It wasn't just getting to level 30 and magically the problems were over.

Don't let people think that. It is very unfair.

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Again, speaking in relative terms of what was considered easy in FFXI, where you could pretty much do jack-all unless you had a party to do it with, unlocking NIN at level 30 was weaksauce easy. It IS fair to compare the two games in this manner, rather than directly comparing number of hours spent working on the task (which, for FFXI, will pretty much always blow anything in FFXIV away in its absurdity).

Just because FFXI was a soul-scarring grindfest doesn't mean that it did not have its share of GOOD ideas, or that everything it did was a horrible mistake which should never be repeated.

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If this is the rule 3 expansions from now there may be a problem.

Forcing someone to complete the base game before expanded content isn't exactly a new concept... Perhaps you'd like to refer to the definition of expansion.

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You can dig up whatever definition of expansion you like. The fact remains that if an easily tapped customer base isn't being reached, then the expansion isn't reaching its potential. If there are players who are JUSTIFIABLY not buying the expansion on release because it offers them nothing, who then play the game a while and decide it's not for them, then they never buy the expansion at all. If the expansion DOES offer them something, though, then they may buy the set regardless of whether they stick with the game or not. Right now, SE has offered nothing I can see to entice players who don't ALREADY PLAY the game to buy the expansion.

For new players they are offering a base game plus expansion combo pack for a much greater price than the cost of just the base game - but no new player with an ounce of sense would buy such a thing when they can get just the vanilla game for cheap, try it out, and buy the expansion later if they enjoy it. On the other hand, if the expansion were to offer things that are NOT locked behind base game progress, the temptation to buy the expansion along with the base game will be much greater.

I will admit that I'm not an advertising executive, but is the math really that difficult to understand? Expansion offers nothing to newbies = less newbies buy the product. Less newbies buy the product = less money. Less money = less money to spend making the game awesome for current players.

Folks in this thread need to step out of their shoes for a moment, set aside the "I had to work hard to be ready for the expansion, and I want it ALL to be JUST for people who've worked as hard as me!" and understand that I and like-minded are NOT suggesting we hand everything to them on a silver platter. We're suggesting we hand them SOMETHING on ANY kind of platter. It has to be something that they might WANT to have, that will entice them to spend money that they otherwise would not.

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Originally Posted by Mistoltin

Because why just get Expansion sales when you can force people to grind through the entire story and rake in that sub-money.

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Sub money? You can complete the story line in less than a month. Even for a newbie. It doesn't take that much really.

Battle content for Heavensward will be released in the LIVE LftP in April. Let's wait for that before burning SE's offices down.

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Originally Posted by Ayrie

Not

Even

Close.

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Originally Posted by CYoung187

That isn't even kinda close.

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Perhaps you are thinking of old FFXI, but I assure you that Whocareswhatmynameis is right about the pace when looking at how FFXI is now. I still play the game, and just yesterday got my Ranger from 18 to 52 in a five hours session, doing nothing but killing Even Match / Tough / Very Tough monsters with EXP ring on and my three Trusts. I could've been faster if I had been using Ground of Valor / Field of Valor and Records of Eminence bonuses, but I was being lazy. And even faster would it be if I had gone to Abyssea at lv30 to leech exp. People hit 75 in one day if they are dedicated. 99 too in the most crazy cases (I prefer to raise my skills as I go up, so I go slower.).

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Originally Posted by Bluevann

Perhaps you are thinking of old FFXI, but I assure you that Whocareswhatmynameis is right about the pace when looking at how FFXI is now. I still play the game, and just yesterday got my Ranger from 18 to 52 in a five hours session, doing nothing but killing Even Match / Tough / Very Tough monsters with EXP ring on and my three Trusts. I could've been faster if I had been using Ground of Valor / Field of Valor and Records of Eminence bonuses, but I was being lazy. And even faster would it be if I had gone to Abyssea at lv30 to leech exp. People hit 75 in one day if they are dedicated. 99 too in the most crazy cases (I prefer to raise my skills as I go up, so I go slower.).

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That is now with many nerfs. At the time when the expansions ToA, CoP, and WotG came out leveling was a massive chore. Yet I never heard any similar complaints from newbies.

This is a subscription model, selling new players on the longevity of the game is more profitable for SE then just trying to sell a shiny expansion. The biggest plus of XIV vs other MMOs IMO is the dedication to story.

And to another post above, nobody is trying to be elitist and say new players shouldn't get access because "I had to work hard for this". First off all MSQ is not difficult to achieve at all. The story progression I feel is important to the game. To just throw it out the window and have new players skip to the end just cheapens the experience for them IMO. All new players are different. Some may want to skip to the end right away, some wont. I would rather hear what they say then having everyone try to assume what a new player wants.

The point I was getting at was FFXI didnt make you get to max level and complete all of the main city's story missions to unlock the new jobs. You only had to get to level 30.

If someone buys a combo pack, they should get to play the new jobs. Maybe not at level 1, but at a fairly early level. It shouldnt be higher than the current jobs' requirements.

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Originally Posted by Zplinter

Face it the reason why you make an expansion is to make money, so why in the world would have an expansion that has NOTHING to entice new players?

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If they are not remotely interested in the game itself, why would they suddenly be interested in its expansion?

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

The point I was getting at was FFXI didnt make you get to max level and complete all of the main city's story missions to unlock the new jobs. You only had to get to level 30.

If someone buys a combo pack, they should get to play the new jobs. Maybe not at level 1, but at a fairly early level. It shouldnt be higher than the current jobs' requirements.

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You argue like they arent allowed access to content or something. It's still available to them, in the same way it would be to anyone else.

Expansion packs, are exactly what they say they are. They assume you played the original game. So having a requirement of having played that game only makes sense.

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Originally Posted by CYoung187

This is a subscription model, selling new players on the longevity of the game is more profitable for SE then just trying to sell a shiny expansion. The biggest plus of XIV vs other MMOs IMO is the dedication to story.

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The story is the worst part of this game. FFXI's job system with FFXIV's combat would win me over in a heartbeat. I wouldn't stop talking about this around friends. I'd sing this game's praises from sundown to sunset. Right now, I can only honestly state that the class/job system is an overcomplicated mess and the story is shallow and a total chore.

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

The point I was getting at was FFXI didnt make you get to max level and complete all of the main city's story missions to unlock the new jobs. You only had to get to level 30.

If someone buys a combo pack, they should get to play the new jobs. Maybe not at level 1, but at a fairly early level. It shouldnt be higher than the current jobs' requirements.

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Except that in XI, it took longer to get from 1-30 on your first job, then it does to get from 1-50 in XIV

I'm not sure your understanding the concept of scale, in ffxi you had to play through maybe 20% of the content to unlock new jobs.

If you need to get into ishgard to unlock the new jobs in ffxiv, you will have to play through like 80% of the game to unlock them.

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

If they are not remotely interested in the game itself, why would they suddenly be interested in its expansion?

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a. New gamers that have arrives on the scene since launch.
b. Gamers that are tired of game x.
c. Gamers that see that the game has an expansion and think well they must be doing something right, maybe I should check it out.

How in the world can you take the position that if you are not plahying a game you are not "remotely interested?" Are you really going to take apposition that SE (or any other game company) makes an expansion ONLY for the current player base? Really?

Considering the scope of content, the main story is nowhere near 80% of what there is to do in FFXIV.

In FFXI 90% of the content was optional and irrelevant to getting to end game. This is a different game than FFXI (Thank the twelve) if you are this dissatisfied about the core parts of this game, why do you still play?

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

I'm not sure your understanding the concept of scale, in ffxi you had to play through maybe 20% of the content to unlock new jobs.

If you need to get into ishgard to unlock the new jobs in ffxiv, you will have to play through like 80% of the game to unlock them.

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You don't seem to understand the scale of time. In XI, as has been pointed out, it took a lot longer to get things accomplished. Reaching level 30 on your first job took you longer to do in XI than reaching level 50 on one Job + completing all of the story content that is currently available in XIV.

You also could not play the new Jobs in XI right from the get go, though they were available as long as you met the requirements. Correct subjobs were needed for unlock, and at a specific level (again this took a long time to level up).

The only thing that made later expansions easier to aquire the new jobs was that by that point you already had at least 1 max level job and likely a few subjobs leveled up that meant you could likely, go ahead and unlock the new jobs when the expansion came out. If you were a new player, you STILL had to spend months leveling other jobs than the one you wanted to play as before you could begin to unlock the Advanced Job.

So don't give me any of that comparison BS. Players in XIV that have been playing honestly are in the same boat as XI players that had been playing. And new players are in the same boat as well. The only difference is that XIV ties the main story completion to the requirement for the Expansion unlock. Which btw, takes a fraction of the time it took in XI to reach the new Job unlocks for a new player.

The bottom line is that it's actually easier to obtain the new jobs for new players in XIV than it was in XI. That is the fact.

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

I'm not sure your understanding the concept of scale, in ffxi you had to play through maybe 20% of the content to unlock new jobs.

If you need to get into ishgard to unlock the new jobs in ffxiv, you will have to play through like 80% of the game to unlock them.

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I'm not sure it's 80%.

Things you will not need to get to Ishgard;

• more than two classes and 1 job
• any DoH
• any DoL
• any Coil clears
• any CT/ST/WoD clears
• beast tribe dailies
• delivery moogle quests
• treasure maps
• hunt marks
• Hildebrand quests
• any side quests
• Housing
• FC membership
• seasonal events
• optional mounts, minions, or vanity gear in general
• anything in Gold Saucer
• Leves of any kind
• Atma/Animus/etc...
• spirit bonding for tier IV materia

I could be wrong, but I think all you actually *need* is the MSQ, HM primals, 1 Job + associated classes (at minimum level for the job) and can get by with gear purchased using tomes.

I'd estimate that you actually need to experience less than a quarter of what the game has to offer in order to see Ishgard.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

You can dig up whatever definition of expansion you like. The fact remains that if an easily tapped customer base isn't being reached, then the expansion isn't reaching its potential. If there are players who are JUSTIFIABLY not buying the expansion on release because it offers them nothing, who then play the game a while and decide it'snot for them, then they never buy the expansion at all. If the expansion DOES offer them something, though, then they may buy the set regardless of whether they stick with the game or not. Right now, SE has offered nothing I can see to entice players who don't ALREADY PLAY the game to buy the expansion.

For new players they are offering a base game plus expansion combo pack for a much greater price than the cost of just the base game - but no new player with an ounce of sense would buy such a thing when they can get just the vanilla game for cheap, try it out, and buy the expansion later if they enjoy it. On the other hand, if the expansion were to offer things that are NOT locked behind base game progress, the temptation to buy the expansion along with the base game will be much greater.
I will admit that I'm not an advertising executive, but is the math really that difficult to understand? Expansion offers nothing to newbies = less newbies buy the product. Less newbies buy the product = less money. Less money = less money to spend making the game awesome for current players.

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Thank you for understanding the business model of the online gaming world.
Expansions serve THREE primary purposes:
1. Generate new content to keep your currently subscribing player base (gated content of new zones, new gear, new raids, flying mounts, etc).
2. Attract NEW players (new races, new classes (term used in standard gaming terms NOT how this game calls them).
3. Create something to bring back the players that have left for various reasons.

WE the veteran players that like/love/enjoy this game want and need SE to attract new players to the game to fill in for those that leave for any number of reasons. If SE can not attract new players both to replace the natural erosion of the player base as well as expand it then this could very easily be the only expansion. Seriously you all need to look at the business model and player retention numbers in the industry.

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Originally Posted by Ecks007

You don't seem to understand the scale of time. In XI, as has been pointed out, it took a lot longer to get things accomplished. Reaching level 30 on your first job took you longer to do in XI than reaching level 50 on one Job + completing all of the story content that is currently available in XIV.

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If you skip all the reading and cutscenes, play as a tank or healer for faster queue times, and have gear waiting at level 50 that's unreasonable to expect a non gil-buying noob to have, then the time through the end of the MSQ would still be longer than going 1-30 in XI ignoring everything but leveling.

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Originally Posted by Zplinter

a. New gamers that have arrives on the scene since launch.
b. Gamers that are tired of game x.
c. Gamers that see that the game has an expansion and think well they must be doing something right, maybe I should check it out.

How in the world can you take the position that if you are not plahying a game you are not "remotely interested?" Are you really going to take apposition that SE (or any other game company) makes an expansion ONLY for the current player base? Really?

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How? Because you yourself said that there is nothing at all for new players if you take away the expansions content. That means the new players you are talking about are not interested in the current game. Why would they suddenly become really interested?


Are you trying to make a list just for the sake of it? Because your points 1 and 2 have nothing to do with players looking to get the game just for the expansion.



But you missed the point entirely, I see. Expansions are not for new players, they are for those that already played the base game.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you skip all the reading and cutscenes, play as a tank or healer for faster queue times, and have gear waiting at level 50 that's unreasonable to expect a non gil-buying noob to have, then the time through the end of the MSQ would still be longer than going 1-30 in XI ignoring everything but leveling.

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yea, I'm not buying that, took me 25 days (arguably less since most of early access the servers were offline), to lvl my first lvl 50 job and beat the 2.0 Main Scenario, add another day on top of that for each major patches story and that's 30 days to get to all caught up and get into Ishgard. This was also with watching all the cutscenes.

XI by comparison took about a month to reach lvl 30 if you grinded for lvls relentlessly, while ignoring the sub job system. If you did try to keep your sub job lvl'd too, and were more casual in your lvling or didn't have a party to help you grind, you were looking at 2-3 months.

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

How? Because you yourself said that there is nothing at all for new players if you take away the expansions content. That means the new players you are talking about are not interested in the current game. Why would they suddenly become really interested?


Are you trying to make a list just for the sake of it? Because your points 1 and 2 have nothing to do with players looking to get the game just for the expansion.



But you missed the point entirely, I see. Expansions are not for new players, they are for those that already played the base game.

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If you believe that then you have not studied the gaming industry. Expansion have two primary goals: retain your player base and attract new players.

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Originally Posted by Ecks007

You also could not play the new Jobs in XI right from the get go, though they were available as long as you met the requirements. Correct subjobs were needed for unlock, and at a specific level (again this took a long time to level up).

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Nope. I've been playing FFXI since 2006 and I was able to unlock all jobs with any of the first six jobs at 30. Subjobs were required to min-max and play a job at its best, that is no different than XIV's cross-abilities. Go take a look at FFXI wiki if your memory is foggy and you'll see for yourself. Long as you had sneak and invisible (and permits where needed, obtained from side-quests or expansion quest which were still obtainable at any level), you could go unlock any job you wanted soon as you were lv30.

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Originally Posted by Gralna

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So it's roughly the same if you magically have the level 50 gear waiting for you? What if the XI player magically has a healer following them around as a powerlevel?

With the amount of time per day that would get you through the MSQ in 30 days, in 2002 XI you could have been:
at level 12 in under 2 days, ready to party up at valk
at level 20 in under a week, getting exp at qufim
at level 25 in a week and a half, moving out to kazham
at level 30 in 2 weeks, unlocking the advanced jobs

The extreme slow down didn't happen until 50 in XI, when the tnl jumped through the roof each level.

Y'all really arguing in here that it's Good Buisness Sense to have the got dang Dark Knight Edgelord and The Guy With a Gun behind 50+ content? Is that what you're all doing? Because christ, guys. Jesus Christ.

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Originally Posted by Zplinter

If you believe that then you have not studied the gaming industry. Expansion have two primary goals: retain your player base and attract new players.

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Then I believe you havent actually studied what the developers of this game said on the matter.

''But muh research!''

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Originally Posted by Verdan

Y'all really arguing in here that it's Good Buisness Sense to have the got dang Dark Knight Edgelord and The Guy With a Gun behind 50+ content? Is that what you're all doing? Because christ, guys. Jesus Christ.

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Yes, people are arguing that new players should have to play the whole of the main story, hours and hours and hours of main story, as a class they don't really want to play just so that they can actually play as the class they really want to play. Screw newbs, I had to do it (over the course of a year) so they should have to as well!

Should a new player have to complete the MSQ to get to the new MSQ chain in heavensward? Yes, absolutely.
Should they have to hit level 30 to open up the new jobs? Again, absolutely. That's the minimum for a new job.
Should completing the 2.55 MSQ be required to open the new jobs? ....

I understand gating the quest chain and content. If there was a valid story reason that they couldn't hand-wave around, I might be able to understand one of the jobs being gated, but not all of them. As has been said previously, there are still nearly three months to go and development isn't finalized yet, so I'm holding out hope that this isn't the last word on this.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I'm not sure it's 80%.

Things you will not need to get to Ishgard;

• more than two classes and 1 job
• any DoH
• any DoL
• any Coil clears
• any CT/ST/WoD clears
• beast tribe dailies
• delivery moogle quests
• treasure maps
• hunt marks
• Hildebrand quests
• any side quests
• Housing
• FC membership
• seasonal events
• optional mounts, minions, or vanity gear in general
• anything in Gold Saucer
• Leves of any kind
• Atma/Animus/etc...
• spirit bonding for tier IV materia

I could be wrong, but I think all you actually *need* is the MSQ, HM primals, 1 Job + associated classes (at minimum level for the job) and can get by with gear purchased using tomes.

I'd estimate that you actually need to experience less than a quarter of what the game has to offer in order to see Ishgard.

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But this ignores:
- Grinding to get to level 50 so you can start earning tomes to...
- Needing to get to ilevel 90 to do those quests.

A new player with no help can't do the first part in under a month, and can't do the second part in under a week. Especially if they pick DPS. On the other hand a new player who starts as a Tank can probably do everything in under a week if they spend 18 hours a day on it.

There is a bit of a bell curve between getting level 50 and being able to actually do any of the "hard" dungeons using only tomes gear. If you're a fresh 50 you likely don't have a level 50 main weapon, nor do you have any level 50 right-hand-side gear. The hard mode dungeons don't really have to be played to complete the storyline except for the one "expert dungeon roulette" - "Keeper of the Lake" which is level 90 (and rewards ilevel 100 gear.)

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Yes, people are arguing that new players should have to play the whole of the main story, hours and hours and hours of main story, as a class they don't really want to play just so that they can actually play as the class they really want to play. Screw newbs, I had to do it (over the course of a year) so they should have to as well!

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What class? They are adding classes in heavensward?

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

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A new player can do all of that in a months time. Leveling a battle class takes little time. In fact you get a level per day just from the roulette bonusses/rested.

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

A new player can do all of that in a months time. Leveling a battle class takes little time. In fact you get a level per day just from the roulette bonusses/rested.

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By playing 6-8 hours a day... for a month... just to start on the content they bought the game to play; the stuff on the box.

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

What class? They are adding classes in heavensward?

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Ah, pedantry. A fine spice to terrible posts.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

By playing 6-8 hours a day... for a month... just to start on the content they bought the game to play; the stuff on the box.

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No, thats by playing only a small amount of time. 6-8 hours a day would get you to 50, in what, days?

I also have to ask again, why assume new players bought the game for just the Heavensward content? Why would the content before that be worthless to them?

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

No, thats by playing only a small amount of time. 6-8 hours a day would get you to 50, in what, days?

I also have to ask again, why assume new players bought the game for just the Heavensward content? Why would the content before that be worthless to them?

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It shouldn't be. I'm not sure the crux of the argument against this is 'Should the players be unwilling to clear the story mode?' because, you're right, in order to get to the new zone and some of the new features they absolutely should be willing to.

Neither do I think leveling to 50 is all that onerous now that people have figured out the fastest ways to do it. My original leveling experience was all over the place, so I took a look at how long it took to level ROG/NIN and I did it in about a month...of playing that class maybe an hour or two a night on average. If you're able to commit a lot of time, it's less than two weeks (it certainly can be done in a week or less if you push). If not, it's still probably less than a month.

The question is, is there a valid reason to gate the new jobs behind the MSQ? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe for some and not all. I'm personally in the camp of, probably not for all.

Changes will probably happen. Still plenty of time for clarification. If it's gated through content(which makes sense really from a story perspective) then that's just how it is. No one is trying to be a jerk when it comes to this. From a logical stand point, I do not see how a brand spanking new adventurer(who gets dropped off in Grid/Uldah/Lominsa) can suddenly waltz into Ishgard where the new jobs are. How would you even incorporate that just to be 'fair' to the new people? MSQ does not take that long to get through. It really doesn't if you want to skip cutscenes. It may take long if the newcomer wants to enjoy the story(which by this point, Ishgard's jobs are irrelevant). Leveling one job to 50 does not take a ridiculous amount of time. At most two weeks. Perhaps less depending on how much effort you put into it. (It took less than 24 Hours to hit 50 when NIN was released)

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

So it's roughly the same if you magically have the level 50 gear waiting for you?

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What's magical about it? Hit 50, you have i55 chest, i50 hat, gloves, pants, feet. That's about ilvl 19, ignoring weapon, belt, and jewelry. Weapon is probably 48 or so; belt is probably 39 or something because the game hates belts; jewelry is probably either all 38/39 or all 48/49. Even with the lowbie jewelry and belt, your average level is around 45. Replacing just the jewelry gets you around 50.

So, you do CM and Prae, which combined give you 240 Soldiery. You're now done with 2.0 story. Next is hard mode Primals. You already have the ilvl for Ifrit, easily. First time Ifrit puts you at 312 Soldiery. Do a few more goes for weapons and tomestones (or get tomestones from elsewhere, whatever's fastest). At 375, replace your lowest ilvl gear with Soldiery gear. This puts you into Garuda territory. Howling Eye Hard nets you another 72 Soldiery. Do a low level and a main scenario roulette to boost this to 312. Try to get a Garuda weapon, and replace your lowest ilvl jewelry at 375 again. This puts you around ilvl 59; 60 or higher if you have a primal weapon. That's enough for Titan and Moggle Mog and Leviathan. That's 252 Soldiery. Spend a night trying for the Leviathan weapon, and replace the lowest jewelry again at 375 (9 runs of Leviathan, or a couple of hunts if you want to do that). If you got the Levi weapon or detoured for the relic, you're now at ilvl 65. Ramuh is open for 90 Soldiery.

If you got the relic, you have about 150 Soldiery at this point, 15 if you didn't farm Leviathan at all. It's at this point that detouring to open up all the other dungeons starts sounding better, especially since you can gear up along the way. Or, you can buy gear. Or, you can hunt for gear. Or you can join EX primal parties. Or you can do about anything else for gear. Assuming you get no other gear from dungeons/primals/whatever, you need about 3 more pieces to unlock Snowcloak and Shiva. Another 3 pieces after that for Chrysalis and Steps of Faith. Snowcloak and Shiva combined will get you 230 Tomes, not counting whatever drops in Snowcloak. That's about a third of the way to Steps of Faith. Every day that you do low level and main scenario roulette, you get most of a piece.

You could, for example, do the two roulettes each day during the week and then work through the story on the weekend. Or do the roulettes any day that you run into an ilvl block. Of course, current crafted gear will likely be cheaper in 3.0. And all this assumes that current gear stays at current prices. If they do away with Soldiery and make Poetics the easy gear to get, that means even fewer pieces of gear to replace.

The current cost on Balmung to gear a PLD (minus weapon and shield) in all i90 crafted is 1.6 million straight off the MB. Except, of course, you won't need to pay that much because you'd be mixing it with Tome gear. And with the exception of weapon and shield, right now the slots that cost the fewest tomes cost the most gil. With about 3 tomestone purchases, you'd be below 1 million gil, assuming you couldn't stand to wait any more. And as usual, it's cheaper still if you can get an FC mate to craft it for cost of mats.

It's called an EXPANSION.

EXPANDS UPON.