Proposal for New Tomestone Schedule

Patch 6.57 fell the week after 8 months since Savage released. We are only just now, on WEEK 33 getting a tome-stone cap increase and raid tier unlock.

I feel like these restrictions are a remnant of a bygone time when we didn't have gear coffers (loot used to be random drop from the full job pool, meaning you could run savage and no one got anything), Belts were a thing, and we didn't have the accelerated gearing rules that we have now.

Baring all of this in mind, I feel like the tomestone and tier unlock schedule should be updated to match the raid drop schedule.

My proposal is as follows:

Week 1-8: Maintain current system

Week 9-16: Increase Tomestone cap to 900. At this point, a lot of the groups that are competitive have finished their progression and even gearing. The tomestone cap increase at this point would allow for catch-up, additional tome weapons, and increase of food/potion materials in the market. Players seeking to gear other jobs would also find some relief and have more reason to play the game for longer periods of time.

Week 17-24: Tier unlock. At this point in the tier, people are either playing catchup or have been struggling, or are starting to raid-log after reclears. Tier unlocking at this point would allow veteran players to farm out Savage weapons before they become irrelevant and also assist other players with getting their clears without potentially destroying their loot pool.

Week 25-Onward: Full Tome unlock. At this point, this allows players to fully gear other jobs that they might be interested in playing on the next cycle. Tome limitations at this point just become a nuisance and everyone questions the validity of them.

Of course, this timeline is just a suggestion, but I feel like the schedule needs to be accelerated, if nothing else, just to match how fast gear progression for raid-drops is now.

"But you dont need BIS on every job, crafted is enough!"

-Totally agree, but also let us upgrade the tome weapon earlier from the raid/hunt token, especially if the relic outclasses it long before...

Oh I definitely agree. My original post talks about the tome schedule but everything having to do with tomestones is archaic and in desperate need of update to be in line with current systems.

Gaining tomestone weapons from hunts/raids as an alternative means of progression comes too little/too late as they are entirely irrelevant by the time that option is available.

I would rather see a gearing system besides savage raids and tomestone gear reduced in importance. Tomestone gear was meant as a failsafe for bad luck with the raid loot.

But since they added coffers and tokens to the raids they have their own failsafe mechanic now.

Tomestone gear has no business being that strong and should be reduced in item-level. It makes every other content except the savage raids redundant.

Unlocking it would just mean that gear from 24 man raids and other content would become even more useless than it already is.

Maybe some people are "playing catchup" because they are late for the raid tier. But most people who don't have raid gear don't have it because they don't want to play the raids - they have nothing to catch up to. They need a gearing system which gives value to them and the content they play. And tomestones are the opposite of that: Running some 5 Expert Roulettes a week and getting BiS gear for that is just boring.

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Originally Posted by yoshinoharu

Week 9-16: Increase Tomestone cap to 900. At this point, a lot of the groups that are competitive have finished their progression and even gearing.

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Now what about groups that are not competitive, of which there are plenty? People began progressing these raids for the entirety of that 8 months.

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At this point in the tier, people are either playing catchup or have been struggling

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Not necessarily. Many people just return to the game and start progressing the raids, starting their gear cycle from the beginning. They aren't playing catchup, necessarily. It is just their own personal progression has just begun whereas others' started earlier.

It would be nice if helping people clear didn't take away their loot though. It would be better if when we've cleared, we automatically roll Need on the loot but it "cannot be obtained" if we win the roll.

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Week 25-Onward:

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This timeframe is about 6 months. That is how long it would normally take for a tier to unlock. I think the timeframe has just got pushed back further because of the increased duration between patches and the unlock timeframe hasn't been moved to a different patch to account for it.

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Originally Posted by Tint

I would rather see a gearing system besides savage raids and tomestone gear reduced in importance. Tomestone gear was meant as a failsafe for bad luck with the raid loot.

But since they added coffers and tokens to the raids they have their own failsafe mechanic now.

Tomestone gear has no business being that strong and should be reduced in item-level. It makes every other content except the savage raids redundant.

Unlocking it would just mean that gear from 24 man raids and other content would become even more useless than it already is.

Maybe some people are "playing catchup" because they are late for the raid tier. But most people who don't have raid gear don't have it because they don't want to play the raids - they have nothing to catch up to. They need a gearing system which gives value to them and the content they play. And tomestones are the opposite of that: Running some 5 Expert Roulettes a week and getting BiS gear for that is just boring.

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I fail to see what the argument here is? All of these people would remain largely unaffected, and if anything their gearing experience would be streamlined and allow them to access more content more quickly if they would like to. Tomestone gear IS the non-raiding option for players to increase their item level without necessarily having to raid.

Also, 24-mans would become MORE relevant as players would actually be able to afford tome gear on top of the actual upgrade items that they get from 24-mans. The non-raiding community will often blend tome gear, augmented crafted gear, and 24-man gear to get something that gets desired stats.

Having access to more tomes earlier helps everyone, and for the non-raiders unlocking the tier earlier doesn't affect them at all.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Now what about groups that are not competitive, of which there are plenty? People began progressing these raids for the entirety of that 8 months.

Not necessarily. Many people just return to the game and start progressing the raids, starting their gear cycle from the beginning. They aren't playing catchup, necessarily. It is just their own personal progression has just begun whereas others' started earlier.

It would be nice if helping people clear didn't take away their loot though. It would be better if when we've cleared, we automatically roll Need on the loot but it "cannot be obtained" if we win the roll.

This timeframe is about 6 months. That is how long it would normally take for a tier to unlock. I think the timeframe has just got pushed back further because of the increased duration between patches and the unlock timeframe hasn't been moved to a different patch to account for it.

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What about the groups that are non-competitive? These changes really wouldn't affect anyone outside of pushing up the 'clear on content' self-imposed goal line. For returning players it would streamline their gearing experience so they're not arbitrarily gated out of content because they have to farm for several weeks to get their item level high enough. That time can literally be cut in half.

Also, the timeline here suggests:
2 Months - Tome Cap Increase
4 Months - Tier Unlock
6 Months - Tome Cap Removed

I'm calling for the tier unlock to be moved from 8 months to 4 months and the tome increase to be moved from 8 months to 2 months, and introducing a full tome unlock after 6. For end-of-expac this gives a LOT of room for experimentation for players, allows for more farming, allows players to catch up while content is still relevant, and makes the savage tier actually become irrelevant around the time the relic is completed. Everything else has been accelerated, so it just feels like tomes are lagging behind.

Schedule is fine as is. Raiding in this game is designed for casuals. Raid when you want. No exp loss. Negligible gil loss. No world spawn contention, etc etc. Guaranteed drops by way of weekly tokens from raid bosses.

Can't have it both ways.

I will take "How to make the game easier for 500 Alex"

If they did this then people would whine there's nothing to do. Any games with raids takes time to get better gear. Want easier then go single player games and not a online MMO. I mean not even WoW has it easy on gear drops.

A decent idea though in theory but not practical given the time between patchs. Should have ample time to gear up. If ya far too busy to have the time tho then it's not for you yeah.