New crafted gear should be the same iLVL as previous raid tiers BiS, not better.

This is a small thing that I have been thinking about and it actually has began to bother me a bit. Essentially at the launch of a new raid tier, all your work in the previous tier does nothing to help you launch into the next tier because you just replace it with crafter gear on patch day.

I get that it's good to have a system where new players or players who skipped a tier can catch up, but really the crafted gear should be a catch up, not a skip ahead.

In this case new crafted weapons for this tier should be i505 and armor/accessories be i500.

Gear you earn in savage should be the best possible gear to start the next tier of savage not crafted gear that anyone can buy off the market board. It gives the gear a slight bit more life than helping you clear the fights you already beat quicker.

And no, this would not make crafting sets worthless, they would still be a viable catch up mechanic for the players who do not do savage or want to change jobs for the new tier and didn't have that job geared. The only big loss would be that week 1 raiders wouldn't have to pay exorbitant prices for gear they will be throwing away in a few weeks.

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Originally Posted by Thi

And no, this would not make crafting sets worthless, they would still be a viable catch up mechanic for the players who do not do savage or want to change jobs for the new tier and didn't have that job geared. The only big loss would be that week 1 raiders wouldn't have to pay exorbitant prices for gear they will be throwing away in a few weeks.

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I think it would make it worthless. Because catching up for a raid tier can be done with the uncapping of memoquartz, or the 24 man raid gear that gets unlocked too. And on top of that, the new normal mode raid gear gets available.
It's also negating the "chore" of crafting this new gear as you need new mats, new scrips mats etc. All that effort for a gear that isn't better than 7 month old gear doesn't make sense to me.

But the deeper problem that I read in what you say is that gear itself doesn't feel right. There isn't a lot of choice, and unless you are in that tiny population of day one / week one Savage, you'll get good enough gear anyway. We would like to hold onto our old savage raid gear because it is our only reward for doing Savage in the first place, but its only purpose is... making Savage easier and getting forgotten come the next raid tier. It doesn't feel like progression or rewarding to gear up, in my opinion.

This is the way it was back in 2.x. SE realized it was a waste of everyone's time by HW and have not gone back to ARR patterns since for good reason.

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Originally Posted by usernameuwu

i actually found no reason to run any of the normal edens verse raids because they dropped 480 gear and the crafted was also 480. so those normal raids were obsolete to me on launch. kinda strange how they did that.

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It is a strange decision that ultimately leads many to do exactly what you did - ignore Normal Raids and then they never do savage because that its own beast that the game never teaches you how to perform in.

It largely depends on itemization. As a healer main the i480 set was horrendous compared to my previous tier bis, even pentamelded. I’m fine with the pieces being higher than previous tier, it keeps the new gear competitive and gives you options. I can craft the 480 cheat piece and aim for 480 legs from normal raids while my group works on progging savage for that sweet 500 gear.

To add to it it’s also a great source of catch up gear, get a set of 480 of your choice and augment it to 490 now so you’re not as far behind the curve. The suggestion to nerf crafted ilvl doesn’t benefit anyone, it just makes entry level harder for newer players or fresh 80 jobs.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

This is the way it was back in 2.x. SE realized it was a waste of everyone's time by HW and have not gone back to ARR patterns since for good reason.

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That was the way things were up to 3.2 when they changed ilevel calculations and gear release patterns after Gordias pretty much destroyed the raid scene in 3.0/3.1. It took nearly 5 weeks after Gordias normal mode was released to be geared enough for Gordias Savage which was released 2 weeks after normal. Prior to Midas the best crafted gear was equivalent to uncapped tomestone gear. Starting with Midas the best crafted gear was slightly superior to normal mode raid gear.

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Originally Posted by usernameuwu

i actually found no reason to run any of the normal edens verse raids because they dropped 480 gear and the crafted was also 480. so those normal raids were obsolete to me on launch. kinda strange how they did that.

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As far as I know, ilvl is not everything. Both sets might be 480, but what about the stats they have? As a BRD, I go for whatever piece has crit in it, so you're usually looking at a set composed of a mixture of pieces. The normal raid gear isn't obsolete on launch, and if you think this, then your understanding of the gearing up system is flawed. Besides, on launch, the prices are usually high, so maybe some people don't wanna spend that much money or can't afford it.

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Originally Posted by usernameuwu

the crafted set was way better than the 430 beginner stuff i had on my alts, and i waited a week or two after it came out to buy the armour, so i think it was like 1mil per set back then. im not telling everyone to just buy crafted, but i personally dont like waiting for one piece of jewelry at a time from raids and then 4 chest pieces for 1 top.

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You lost me. Weren't you talking about the 480 gear? As for the 430 you speak of, I'll have to go back and check both crafted and normal raid gear to judge. I just know that there has never been an instance where a full gear set had all the best stats, crafted or not. The best set is usually mixed.

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Originally Posted by Thi

And no, this would not make crafting sets worthless, they would still be a viable catch up mechanic for the players who do not do savage or want to change jobs for the new tier and didn't have that job geared. The only big loss would be that week 1 raiders wouldn't have to pay exorbitant prices for gear they will be throwing away in a few weeks.

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Actually, it would... for crafters. Shadowbringers has already made crafting so damn easy markets die comically fast. Making the 5.4 crafted gear i500 would more or less kill its worth from a sales perspective. Not many people are going to buy gear when they can opt for a free alternative with no weekly restriction. Now if you have zero interest in crafting or don't think crafters should be able to charge the prices they used to, then obviously this isn't an issue. But in that same breath, crafters could argue why should they care if your BiS lasts beyond a tier?

The actually problem is gear progression is far too linear. With tomestone gear so easily obtainable, there's just no way they can balance every avenue without another suffering. Ultimate is sort of the middle ground, and highlights another problem. FFXIV has shockingly little at ilvl content. It's a big reason people keep asking for a version of Mythic+.

I like having a day or two every patch cycle where crafting is relevant and feels like a rewarding part of the game.


14 has a LOT of itemization issues to fix if it wants to not handle things in the way it does. I don't like how that aspect of the game works (vertical only progression using only an ilvl system with random stats is the laziest way you can ever design your itemization) but thats what they're going with.

There was a time I would have grabbed the pitchfork and argued strongly against this.

But now? Sure, it'd make the crafted set worthless. But crafting is already worthless, it's so easy it's a joke and the endgame Master Recipe sets are practically free handouts. They've lost all purpose. You can't make crafting faceroll easy but still have it able to churn out sets that are better than practically everything below Savage. Since they've decided crafting must be accessible and are unlikely to change stance on that, then I agree it's only fair to nerf the crafted set to an ilv respective of the effort put in.

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Originally Posted by usernameuwu

i actually found no reason to run any of the normal edens verse raids because they dropped 480 gear and the crafted was also 480. so those normal raids were obsolete to me on launch. kinda strange how they did that.

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I do the same as you, normal mode once To unlock savage and craft gear that’s equally or in most cases better than normal mode gear. Never set foot in normal mode again.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

That was the way things were up to 3.2 when they changed ilevel calculations and gear release patterns after Gordias pretty much destroyed the raid scene in 3.0/3.1. It took nearly 5 weeks after Gordias normal mode was released to be geared enough for Gordias Savage which was released 2 weeks after normal. Prior to Midas the best crafted gear was equivalent to uncapped tomestone gear. Starting with Midas the best crafted gear was slightly superior to normal mode raid gear.

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Quoting to agree with you. TC's suggestion would create another Gordias and would put raiding on life support, because a world first race that takes 5 weeks will bore everyone, raiding will be much less accessible to people who want to start late in the tier for whatever reason (financial, time, etc), and all in all, just won't be great for the continued longevity of the game.

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

Quoting to agree with you. TC's suggestion would create another Gordias and would put raiding on life support, because a world first race that takes 5 weeks will bore everyone, raiding will be much less accessible to people who want to start late in the tier for whatever reason (financial, time, etc), and all in all, just won't be great for the continued longevity of the game.

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Gordias' problem was more that the tuning was to high and to tight. A1S through A4S were tuned assuming i190 for A1S and i205 for A4S with a max ilevel of i210. Uncapped "entry" tomestone gear was i180 at that time. This meant that players needed +10 to +25 ilevels over "entry" gear (+0 to +15 for normal mode raid gear). The i200/i210 capped tomestone gear was job locked which meant that switching jobs within role came with a severe loss in ilevels.

With Midas they started tuning Savage expecting +5 ilevels over uncapped gear for part 1 and +15 for parts 3 and 4 and crafted a +10 over uncapped. With Omega they started tuning part 1 to uncapped and parts 3/4 to +10 over uncapped.

As long as the ilevel tuning doesn't really change, all changing crafted gear ilevels from +10 over uncapped tomestone gear to equal to tomestone gear would be to extend the world first race from the current 48 to 72 hours to 8 to 15 days due to gear locks.

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Originally Posted by usernameuwu

I don't believe crafted should be nerfed because a lot of people are still just hitting 80 and they don't want to be wearing 78 gear in current content when everyone is so far ahead. you can essentially buy a full set for 500k right now and not do poopoo damage if you're new. and also the whole point is to let raiders use this gear to go in fast. what would they have entered e5s in...460 stuff??LOL
and some people just dont raid too and that's fine.

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In theory, Raiders could have entered E5S in the i470 BiS gear they ended patch 5.1 in, but that gear was mostly meaningless save for vanity because they almost immediately upgraded to i480 pentamelded gear when 5.2 launched.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

There was a time I would have grabbed the pitchfork and argued strongly against this.

But now? Sure, it'd make the crafted set worthless. But crafting is already worthless, it's so easy it's a joke and the endgame Master Recipe sets are practically free handouts. They've lost all purpose. You can't make crafting faceroll easy but still have it able to churn out sets that are better than practically everything below Savage. Since they've decided crafting must be accessible and are unlikely to change stance on that, then I agree it's only fair to nerf the crafted set to an ilv respective of the effort put in.

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Ironically. maybe then they'd realize how much they've destroyed crafting since even less people would care. It's such a shame how much of a joke Shadowbringers has made things.

crafted set allows anyone to jump back into current raid tier without having to spend potentially weeks of catch up.

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Originally Posted by Thi

This is a small thing that I have been thinking about and it actually has began to bother me a bit. Essentially at the launch of a new raid tier, all your work in the previous tier does nothing to help you launch into the next tier because you just replace it with crafter gear on patch day.

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Realistically speaking, you can run the next savage tier with the old one.

A bit of story for that.

Back in HW, people complained about the same thing. How their BiS became totally useless once the next tier/major patch dropped.
Devs heared it. For example right now, the next 2 turn in the next tier will be ilvl 500 min.
Sure, you definitely won't want to go min ilvl if you can get some better gear (crafter or normal mode raid), but it's good to know that your previous BiS isn't totally outdated and you can at least clear the first two floor with, which give you some time to grab other gear.
They are seen as temporary solution until you get better if you can't afford the crafted set and because nm raid/tomestone are capped.

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I get that it's good to have a system where new players or players who skipped a tier can catch up, but really the crafted gear should be a catch up, not a skip ahead.

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You can't catch up if you're already behind. Plus, player would need to have the money to buy the set to "catch" up. Nm mode and tomestone gear are capped. So they wouldn't even be able to participate in savage right away if they wanted too.
This would unecessaraly slow them down.

In this case new crafted weapons for this tier should be i505 and armor/accessories be i500.

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Gear you earn in savage should be the best possible gear to start the next tier of savage not crafted gear that anyone can buy off the market board. It gives the gear a slight bit more life than helping you clear the fights you already beat quicker.

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No. Because every major patch is a "reset" patch. Like you said, people who had to skip previous tier for some reasons (no need to argue about that) can just come back with the idea of just be in line with everyone else without fearing of being aside. This would make pf require people who only cleared previous tier in the first training/kill parties.
No one should feel attached too much of their old gear honestly. The gearing system in this game is really not interesting at all. Plus, i'd like to remember that BiS aren't savage gear alone. That's a mix of Savage gear + tomestone gear because of substat. So "savage should be the best to start" wouldn't work either. And there's no reason with how this game works to give a bonus to someone clearing the previous floor. Any new patch, everyone start at 0. I understand the frustration, but that"s how devs want to the game to run, and it works quite well, because just like I said, people aren't afraid of coming back whenever they want and they won't have to far like crazy to catch up.

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And no, this would not make crafting sets worthless, they would still be a viable catch up mechanic for the players who do not do savage or want to change jobs for the new tier and didn't have that job geared. The only big loss would be that week 1 raiders wouldn't have to pay exorbitant prices for gear they will be throwing away in a few weeks.

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It toally would.
Because ilvl 500 is meant to be outdated. It can work at the start until you get better gear, but as weeks pass, they'll totally loose their value, which would kill the market and then, the effort crafter put into this.

For every reason and other I may not have think of, this is a terrible idea for the raiding scene, crafter, the market...
For the community.

The current system works well and shouldn't be changed.

Do that and probably should just make crafter make lvl 1 vanity gear only. Because that is what will happen if you do this.

All crafts outside food and meds are worthless 2 weeks after a raid patch as it is... this will just make them pure worthless.

In my opinion there should be a way to craft Current Raid Tier gear actually. Just using rare mats from Hard fights and such. Economy is already horrible, do not need to make it worse.

As a crafter i like the idea that we can make relevant gear each patch cycle. It helps those that have jumped back in after a break and need to catch up as well as it makes crafting more than just something that no one wants to put their time into.

if they added a way to augment savage gear, similar to how the neo crafted gear works, when a new tier drops it could alleviate some issues of gear not being totally useless outside of glamour and would let you keep your savage gear for maybe a month longer into the new tier. That way you savage gear is the same ilvl as the new crafted and you can mix and match any new bis without dropping ilvl.

This could also be used to move certain weapons to max ilvl of any given tier. For example, TEA weapons could be augmented with eden choir weapons to change its ilvl, in increments of ten, from 475 to 505. Just seems like a waste to have such a hard weapon to obtain only to not be able to use it in future content.

while we are at it, I dont like that I have to pvp for some gear.

Seriously though, if the OP wants to get rid of crafting from the game just say so. as has been pointed out, gear generally has a shelf life, whether it be crafted or raid. removing the brief relevance of crafted gear from the game and you may as well remove crafting.

The thing is, due to the ability to overmeld crafted gear, the same situation would still exist. Depending on substat allocation for the crafted, the old BiS, and the normal mode raid gear of the subsequent patch, some of the old BiS will till be good to use at the start of the patch. Yet, even if the crafted gear was the same iLvl as the old BiS, due to substat allocation and the ability to overmeld, a lot of it would still outright beat the old BiS or replace it with pentamelds.

To make crafted gear worse than old BiS you would have to make sure that none of the pieces have substats that align with the old BiS or trump them, and then also make their iLvl lower. That'd make them nearly pointless.