Some suggestions for gearing in FFXIV

This is somewhat related to Sfia's post here ( https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...aring-in-FFXIV )

My general thought process behind this post was to follow these rules:
1. Minimize the amount of development work needed to implement the changes
2. Maximize the amount of possible gear sets and variety for players to pick and choose from
3. Not invalidate any piece of content while also making sure that players can still decide not to do content they don't enjoy

As Sfia noted, there's a lack of variety in the current endgame gear sets. This is a bit stale at this point considering how long it's gone on. But, to counter the point, developing tons of new gear is time consuming. The gear looks and stats all have to be designed by a team that is, frankly, probably already nearing overwork just to give us what we have now.

With that in mind, I suggest that all of the gear that starts a tier also have upgrade paths to the end of a tier. This means that crafted gear and normal mode token gear can be upgraded from their starting item levels (610 for Abyssos) to the maximum item level of that tier (630 for Abyssos) starting within the patch they are added in (X.0, X.2, and X.4 patches).

I also suggest that the alliance raid gear and artifact gear (the colloquial name for for the gear given out for free in each expansion) should also have upgrade paths towards the maximum item level, but one patch after a tier is introduced (so the X.1, X.3, and X.5 patches).

For the token and crafted gear, the upgrade path would be the same as the tome gear, but in increments of ten item levels, using the same tokens as the tome gear from the savage raids (and later the alliance coins).

Now, this does introduce the problem of potentially making gearing slower than it already is, but I'd also like to suggest a small change to the current drop system to alleviate that somewhat: the upgrade items that drop from savage should be locked in a similar way to how the token gears tokens are locked, IE that they continue to drop clear after clear until the player successfully receives one item, and then from there they can no longer roll on that item until the next week comes around. This should hopefully help with a number of gearing issues, though I do not believe it will work without adding more possible endgame gear sets.

Next, for the alliance and artifact gear, I suggest that they are upgradeable using the same system as the current augmented crafted gear system, also in sets of ten item levels at a time until they reach the maximum. This does mean that the artifact gear would take considerably longer to upgrade, but this would ultimately be a players choice to work through.

These alone are, in my opinion, excellent options that minimize the amount of developer work required to increase the number of gear sets for endgame, while increasing player interaction with all content, including the alliance raids.

However, I do have one more suggestion to make. This one comes slightly more from a personal standpoint, but I feel it's also something that will be more helpful than harmful so I'm going to at least suggest it.

I suggest that gear set substats should be standardized to the sets themselves. This suggestion comes from my inherent dislike of the current tank substats in the Abyssos gear more than anything else. As a tank, I personally much prefer faster GCDs (around 2.40-2.42), but with current gear this is difficult and, rather unenjoyably, a detriment to my damage output. This has the effect of making me feel like I'm being forced into a playstyle I don't enjoy (as the current best in slot for tanks typically runs above 2.45), which makes me dislike the game to some extent.

Now, there are plenty of suggestions to make for what to standardize, but I want to suggest a few guidelines rather than hardset values:

I would suggest that the objective best substat, critical hit, feature most prominently on the savage gear. This should, hopefully, make it so that the savage gear tends to be sought after the most, which should mean that the encounters are rarely irrelevant, which is something I don't want.

From there, I'd suggest that the other sets have one substat that's most prominent for their gear set (direct hit for tome, speed for crafted, and determination for normal token). This should make it so that best in slot comes from more than one or two sets, but also increase player freedom in choosing their gear if they, for instance, want to maximize speed and still not be a detriment to their parties (such as monk with a 1.50 GCD)

As for the alliance and artifact, I suggest half and half of the other sets (half crit half det for alliance, half speed half direct hit for artifact) so that those players who are trying to catch up to the endgame for whatever reason have reasonably solid gear they can pick up in order to do so.

These are of course, the suggestions of one person. I'm not omniscient, and these are by no means perfect. But I suggest them because I feel they are better for the health of the game going forward and even if they aren't the best, I'm hoping the mere act of suggesting them will lead to change with the gearing system for FFXIV.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.