Pricing of Grand Company Allied Seal gear

I'd like to take a moment to stop griping about the group dynamics of Hunt Marks... mostly to START griping about the pricing of the items you can buy with Allied Seals.

Seriously, I don't get it. 20-40 allied seals gets a piece of i90 gear. 500-750 seals (less if you get lucky with an S-rank) gets Sands or Oil of Time to upgrade an i100 piece to i110 (and hey, you've been getting soldiery from the hunts, so that'll help buy that base i100.) But if you really want to splurge, then starting at 600 seals and going up to 1740, you get... an i70 weapon or piece of armor.

Yep, for nearly triple or quadruple the price of a complete set of i90 gear, you can have a single i70 piece.

Given that the GC gear seems to be intended for glamouring (and it looks really cool - see http://i.imgur.com/UJYRvVG.jpg for what Maelstrommers can look forward to), why is it so much harder to get than items that have more of a material effect on progression? I don't understand this.

This along with many other fatal flaws in the Hunts system in inexplicable. I have zero comprehension of what square enix was thinking.

Absolute agree with you OP
I really love the look of the new sets but at that price no chance, I would rather save up for sands/oils for alt jobs, than grind for the overpriced ones
They shouldn't be too cheap , but at least 100-200 a piece

It's the same as other vanity gear or dyeable AF, for some reason they feel they have to make new vanity stuff difficult to obtain. Maybe they're worried that they made something people will like and everyone will want to wear it and we'll all have the same vanity outfits glamoured and all look the same and it would be boring?

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

It's the same as other vanity gear or dyeable AF, for some reason they feel they have to make new vanity stuff difficult to obtain. Maybe they're worried that they made something people will like and everyone will want to wear it and we'll all have the same vanity outfits glamoured and all look the same and it would be boring?

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Most people on my server don't even bother with vanity

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

It's the same as other vanity gear or dyeable AF, for some reason they feel they have to make new vanity stuff difficult to obtain. Maybe they're worried that they made something people will like and everyone will want to wear it and we'll all have the same vanity outfits glamoured and all look the same and it would be boring?

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But then if we don't use glamour we'll all end up looking the same and boring. :P

Completely ridiculous, I agree. And a good point in itself about what a mess the system is.

I'm sure on any server, i70 is on the absolute lowest end of acceptable gear. These items are extremely meh ilvl wise, and appeal to "casual" hunters more than the people using the hunt system for much needed oils and sands. Casual hunters can't reach S-ranks in time to actually get seals from them, and are far less likely to form parties to get full credit, leaving them with daily hunts. iirc, dailies are 7 marks a day? Thats 143 days to get a bodypiece for casuals that really, really, really want it bad enough to screw over i110. It's terrible.

I agree. I think glamour gear should reside to crafters and achievement. This new gear should have been i90 with set bonus.

I think it's a ploy to get people with lower iLevels geared up to start running Coil, and once a sufficient amount of people have done this (according to Yoshi's concept of 'sufficient'), the'll hike the price waaaay up.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

It's the same as other vanity gear or dyeable AF, for some reason they feel they have to make new vanity stuff difficult to obtain. Maybe they're worried that they made something people will like and everyone will want to wear it and we'll all have the same vanity outfits glamoured and all look the same and it would be boring?

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It's more of a " who wants it more " kind of thing.
SE made it a grind to weed out the masses as they want to see who can and would actually do it. So its n

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Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

It's more of a " who wants it more " kind of thing.
SE made it a grind to weed out the masses as they want to see who can and would actually do it. So its n

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So its not like a type of thing where u can just drive by it ( fates ) and just get seals to redeem later on when ur back in the city.
Similar to sightseeing, only attainable by the ppl who reallllly want it. But one thing tht made sightseeing harder is that it required good jumping skills and it didn't have an app that would help players cheat.

personally, I think the i70 gears should be purchasable by allied notes. Jack up the price per piece if they want, but it's i70. If it were to be intended for glamor only, shoulda just removed stats from it.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

I think it's a ploy to get people with lower iLevels geared up to start running Coil, and once a sufficient amount of people have done this (according to Yoshi's concept of 'sufficient'), the'll hike the price waaaay up.

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This is arguably more flawed than even Hunts, in my opinion - Basing the success of end-game raiding on a single scenario with a lockout. "Since not as many people are running Coil, people must not be interested in end-game raiding."

/sigh If they kept the same difficulty as Coil, made it 4 person (accessible to more groups/easier to make a static group), made chocobos an optional party member in a raid, and got rid of the terrible sci-fi setting (again my own opinion), I'd even resub. One flavor of raiding doesn't represent every player who might be interested in it............and then they only go and expand on it instead of adding more options...

As for the disproportionate costs, as well as the ease of getting BiS option upgrades...... they better act fast or a rollback might be necessary. Or I guess that's the benefit of having a new patch every 3 months. This whole fiasco will be irrelevant once the treadmill starts again.

I just think that the Elite GC gears are meant to be expensive to let those hardcores to grind it out.

Maybe it's just my server, maybe it's just my FC and the majority of the kind of player I mix with. It's quite surprising that quite a lot of us who have already cleared coil2 and put it on farm and grinding seals NOT for sands nor oil. We dumped it all into the Elite GC gears for glamours, especially true for those in Maelstorm. I don't really seem them too concerned about oil and sands because they can get them and HA gears for other jobs from coil and such. Or maybe it is just us - we really love glamours a lot and willing to spend time and gil (on things like sailor set, dresses etc).

Other than that, I can't think of a logical reason for that kind of pricing, other than "giving you something to do" :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

It's quite surprising that quite a lot of us who have already cleared coil2 and put it on farm and grinding seals NOT for sands nor oil. We dumped it all into the Elite GC gears for glamours, especially true for those in Maelstorm. I don't really seem them too concerned about oil and sands because they can get them and HA gears for other jobs from coil and such. Or maybe it is just us - we really love glamours a lot and willing to spend time and gil (on things like sailor set, dresses etc).

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I suspect you're correct here. But dammit, I want to be able to show some Maelstrom pride and look good too, even if I'm not going to stay logged in all day to do it. It's a bit frustrating that the expectation seems to be that only the hardcore will have that in reach, especially when from a game progression standpoint there doesn't seem to be a reason to limit it.

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Originally Posted by Seyrr

I suspect you're correct here. But dammit, I want to be able to show some Maelstrom pride and look good too, even if I'm not going to stay logged in all day to do it. It's a bit frustrating that the expectation seems to be that only the hardcore will have that in reach, especially when from a game progression standpoint there doesn't seem to be a reason to limit it.

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I agree, the price is indeed a bit on the crazy side. I think that there should be a basic Elite set that can be obtained at half of the current price - having any piece costing more than 500 seals, which is the price of an oil of time, is a bit meh. While we can farm coil for our gearing and a handful of us are already decked in i110 or even having HA weapon for alt job and stuff, but I'm sure the majority of the players aren't yet and probably sands/oil have greater value to them VS Elite gears.

Then for the hardcore grind, another set that looks cooler that comes with achievement unlocks. For example, Bring Your B Game III (300 Bs) gives gloves, Bring Your A Game III (200 As) gives boots, Bring Your S Game III (200 Ss) gives chest and Straight Bs+Straight As+Straight Ss (1000 Bs 500 As 500 Ss) gives you weapon.

Gotta say when I saw the Immortal Flames mage gear you can get with Allied Seals I flipped my lid lol. Totally thinking about switching GC just to be able to wear it, but then I saw the price and I really haven't tried hunts but seems like getting 1,000 will be a task in itself -_-

Thanks SE, always giving me sweet looking gear that I must throw my life away on to get \(>_<)/ lmao

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Originally Posted by Gemma

Gotta say when I saw the Immortal Flames mage gear you can get with Allied Seals I flipped my lid lol. Totally thinking about switching GC just to be able to wear it, but then I saw the price and I really haven't tried hunts but seems like getting 1,000 will be a task in itself -_-

Thanks SE, always giving me sweet looking gear that I must throw my life away on to get \(>_<)/ lmao

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I rushed about 820 seals last night to have enough for a chest piece lol >.>

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Originally Posted by Seyrr

Given that the GC gear seems to be intended for glamouring (and it looks really cool - see http://i.imgur.com/UJYRvVG.jpg for what Maelstrommers can look forward to), why is it so much harder to get than items that have more of a material effect on progression? I don't understand this.

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While I agree there are some HUGE and Fatal flaws in the implementation of the Hunt Marks themselves, I disagree with the need to have "vanity" items cheap if they do not have a "material effect on progression". I want MORE of this type of content. This is what GW2 promised but never delivered. Continual and interesting progression of my character outside of the more linear, raid centric ilevel increase of other MMOs. We need more and more vanity in addition to the other stuff. I do not want to return to the realm of "linear raid progression or gtfo" that was WoW and other mmos that I chose to leave.

Yes there are some huge glaring issues with the way Hunt Marks work (most notably their ability to be monopolized by cheaters) but the prices would be workable if the Marks weren't horribly implemented.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

I rushed about 820 seals last night to have enough for a chest piece lol >.>

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Wow nice, yea I'm gonna have to look into the best way to do that cause yea its smexy and I want it lol

The New GC gear are probably for Glamor. I personally think it all looks great.

I'm sure the gear will be available for purchase with regular GC Seals when whey raise GC promotions.

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Originally Posted by niwaar

I disagree with the need to have "vanity" items cheap if they do not have a "material effect on progression". I want MORE of this type of content. This is what GW2 promised but never delivered. Continual and interesting progression of my character outside of the more linear, raid centric ilevel increase of other MMOs. We need more and more vanity in addition to the other stuff.

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Yeah, I have to admit that you're right - there's a good argument to be made for having these kinds of vanity items require a lot of work. But I'd like to know if that really is the intention of the dev team, and if it's in keeping with what the player base wants (or why they're going against that; they've gone against what players want for good reasons before.)

For me, it's another frustration on top of all of the other ones about hunts. Because quite frankly, while I could certainly use the ilevel increases from sands and oils, what I WANT is to look really really cool.

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Originally Posted by Seyrr

Yeah, I have to admit that you're right - there's a good argument to be made for having these kinds of vanity items require a lot of work. But I'd like to know if that really is the intention of the dev team, and if it's in keeping with what the player base wants (or why they're going against that; they've gone against what players want for good reasons before.)

For me, it's another frustration on top of all of the other ones about hunts. Because quite frankly, while I could certainly use the ilevel increases from sands and oils, what I WANT is to look really really cool.

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It's really a non-issue. Just do what you find to be a bigger priority (which generally should involve "fun"). Need the sands/oils to have fun with your FC or whoever in doing Coil? Maybe that's a bigger priority. Doing well enough that NOT going for sands/oil would be all right? Go for the glamour. It's all about prioritizing things... that's all it ever is.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

It's really a non-issue. Just do what you find to be a bigger priority (which generally should involve "fun"). Need the sands/oils to have fun with your FC or whoever in doing Coil? Maybe that's a bigger priority. Doing well enough that NOT going for sands/oil would be all right? Go for the glamour. It's all about prioritizing things... that's all it ever is.

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Well, the thing that I find frustrating is that the vanity items are significantly MORE expensive than the sands/oils are. I get that they may not want to make them super cheap... but a GC body piece costs the same as 2 oils (again assuming no luck from the S-rank drops, which on average would only make the oils even cheaper.) A GC weapon is equivalent to two sands. Even the other "vanity"-ish items, the minions, are only around 500 seals. So why are these weapons and armor so much more expensive?

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Originally Posted by Seyrr

Well, the thing that I find frustrating is that the vanity items are significantly MORE expensive than the sands/oils are. I get that they may not want to make them super cheap... but a GC body piece costs the same as 2 oils (again assuming no luck from the S-rank drops, which on average would only make the oils even cheaper.) A GC weapon is equivalent to two sands. Even the other "vanity"-ish items, the minions, are only around 500 seals. So why are these weapons and armor so much more expensive?

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Probably they look way cooler than anything you have right now :p

Damn that Maelstrom bow, that's my next target since I have the Maelstrom chest and boots :D

I agree with the OP. The price is too high just for vanity items. I was surprised when I found out that ilvl 90 gear was much cheaper than the company's.

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Originally Posted by Seyrr

Well, the thing that I find frustrating is that the vanity items are significantly MORE expensive than the sands/oils are. I get that they may not want to make them super cheap... but a GC body piece costs the same as 2 oils (again assuming no luck from the S-rank drops, which on average would only make the oils even cheaper.) A GC weapon is equivalent to two sands. Even the other "vanity"-ish items, the minions, are only around 500 seals. So why are these weapons and armor so much more expensive?

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That's kinda just it though. It's something to work towards that does not impede on your progression. If endgame itself is intended to be done by everyone, then no one is really ever "unique". Part of the appeal of MMORPGs for many players is feeling special in some way, as sad as that is. Mind you, I'm also among those players, as that's a mentality that everyone has in some way. You want to stand out. Putting something behind a rather lengthy process makes it a rare item of value (both financially and socially).

By recent example, assuming the rumor of how to get that one Sea Breeze vanity equip is true, it's going to be VERY rare and valuable. Seriously, vanity goods are a huge deal in games and life itself. When you take into account the culture its being created through, it just adds more to that view. Japan is a significantly huge business when it comes to vanity. I guarantee that if you travel through any location in Tokyo, you will always find a ton of people wearing brand name attire that costs hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. What seals the social "importance" that it has there, the majority of these people don't even make enough money to buy these goods and still afford to live in a decent place. Heck, many don't even have jobs to pay for these things. Of course, this can be seen anywhere in the world, I'm just using Japan as an example since... well, it's developed in Japan.

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Originally Posted by LadyVal

But then if we don't use glamour we'll all end up looking the same and boring. :P

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OMG you're right! Let me spend my 50 million immediately now!

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Originally Posted by Seyrr

see http://i.imgur.com/UJYRvVG.jpg for what Maelstrommers can look forward to)

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How do you try on more than one item at a time?!? (sorry, derailing thread, though we're friends because I agree with you on the absurdity of all this)

As a SCOB player, I invested my allied seals on that and the books on the remaining sands.

http://i.imgur.com/RKjyUZb.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CGXyn17.jpg

I can say: Best decision ever! I didn't like the tank chest, tho.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Probably they look way cooler than anything you have right now :p

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I resemble that remark. >8O

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

It's something to work towards that does not impede on your progression. If endgame itself is intended to be done by everyone, then no one is really ever "unique". Part of the appeal of MMORPGs for many players is feeling special in some way, as sad as that is. Mind you, I'm also among those players, as that's a mentality that everyone has in some way. You want to stand out. Putting something behind a rather lengthy process makes it a rare item of value (both financially and socially).

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I think you are exactly correct, and so it's probably not going to change... but dammit, I wanted to look cool too. :( Can't it at least be a LITTLE cheaper?

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Originally Posted by TheRogueX

How do you try on more than one item at a time?

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No idea, I got that picture from Reddit. I wish I knew!

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Originally Posted by Cyrus-Wallace

As a SCOB player, I invested my allied seals on that and the books on the remaining sands.

http://i.imgur.com/RKjyUZb.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CGXyn17.jpg

I can say: Best decision ever! I didn't like the tank chest, tho.

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... I'm gay, and I'm still finding myself having the hots for your character. Dammit, I want to look that cool.

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Originally Posted by TheRogueX

How do you try on more than one item at a time?!? (sorry, derailing thread, though we're friends because I agree with you on the absurdity of all this)

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He did not try on multiple items at a time. He just tried single items, screenshot each of them and merged in photoshop

Here's my Maelstorm DoW set (chest boots and gloves)

http://i59.tinypic.com/fqjjq.png

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Originally Posted by TheRogueX

How do you try on more than one item at a time?!? (sorry, derailing thread, though we're friends because I agree with you on the absurdity of all this)

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Magic (photoshop).