PLEASE Fix Tomes

I feel like this is beating a dead horse at this point, but SE has tried to put more incentive into buying Tome Weapons with the release of the Exquisite Weapons and it's just another thing to spend tomes on.

FFXIV is a game that tries to play the idea of not needing alternate characters, the idea that you can build every character onto one job. However, the restrictions of the tome system as they are currently implemented make it extremely difficult to play more than one role, to the point that it's frustrating trying to play anything else.

I play just about everything in the game, so as an experiment I made it my goal to get everything into BiS this tier.

Anabaseios dropped 5 months ago.

Because of the tome system, I still have roughly 3 and a half months left of tome capping to get every role into something that resembles BiS, notwithstanding the variances for things like healers and Blackmage. If I added those it would be another 4 months.

Granted, I missed a week or two due to things like traveling to Las Vegas Fanfest, but this is absolutely ridiculous.

SE Please, for the love of God, quit putting things behind tomes or at least change the tome system.

I would be all for a 450 tome restriction for first 4 weeks, then a 900 tome restriction up to 8 weeks, and after week 8 just unrestrict it, personally.

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Originally Posted by yoshinoharu

I would be all for a 450 tome restriction for first 4 weeks, then a 900 tome restriction up to 8 weeks, and after week 8 just unrestrict it, personally.

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I think that instead we should just have a system where if you buy piece of gear, then you qualify to get that same gear for all other jobs for free. Then there would be no problem with secondary classes. Alternatively, tomestone pieces could be exchanged back for tomestones in case you switch mains.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I think that instead we should just have a system where if you buy piece of gear, then you qualify to get that same gear for all other jobs for free. Then there would be no problem with secondary classes. Alternatively, tomestone pieces could be exchanged back for tomestones in case you switch mains.

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Though that would be wonderful for someone like me in the short term I DO think it makes it way too easy and almost invalidates the tome system entirely which is why I was going for a more middle-ground approach.

Beyond that, a 450 tome limit means I ultimately end up playing the game LESS, because I don't have to. I cap my tomes at the beginning of the week, do my reclears in like a day or two, and then I'm done for the week unless my static is doing anything.

If my goal is to get BiS on every job and there is not a tome limit, I can spend bits of time every day working towards that goal in the long run and proceed at my own pace instead of just hitting the gas on reset before having to slam on the breaks because of a lane closure due to construction. The goal is to play more in a meaningful way.

I'm not trying to shorten the amount of overall time it takes by suggesting this, I'm trying to remove the hard restriction on how I spend my time.

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Originally Posted by yoshinoharu

Though that would be wonderful for someone like me in the short term I DO think it makes it way too easy and almost invalidates the tome system entirely which is why I was going for a more middle-ground approach.

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The problem with your approach is it also means the tomestone grind is finished faster for people who start later in the tier and only gear one job, which could affect the amount of people doing things such as expert roulette still. Exchanging gear back for tomestones means you still have to grind all the tomestones if you want all the jobs, but it allows you to switch mains if, for example, a static wants you to switch.

If we just want all all jobs to be fully geared but faster, then just making it the same as grinding for one job is really the only way, however it's done. But it would affect the amount of people doing content such as expert roulette because their reason for doing it is significantly reduced once all jobs have their gear. I don't have much reason to do it since I don't use many of these other jobs, but it is the reason I give myself to do it and I would stop doing it if I had no jobs left to gear.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The problem with your approach is it also means the tomestone grind is finished faster for people who start later in the tier and only gear one job, which could affect the amount of people doing things such as expert roulette still. Exchanging gear back for tomestones means you still have to grind all the tomestones if you want all the jobs, but it allows you to switch mains if, for example, a static wants you to switch.

If we just want all all jobs to be fully geared but faster, then just making it the same as grinding for one job is really the only way, however it's done. But it would affect the amount of people doing content such as expert roulette because their reason for doing it is significantly reduced once all jobs have their gear. I don't have much reason to do it since I don't use many of these other jobs, but it is the reason I give myself to do it and I would stop doing it if I had no jobs left to gear.

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I do agree that it CAN be finished faster by people joining the tier later, but I disagree with it adversely affecting Expert.

All it would do is change the dynamic of Expert Roulette. Currently, every week Expert roulette kind of peters out towards the end of the week anyway as people finish their 450 tomestone grind for the week. Instead of having this happen weekly, you would get surges of weeks of players aggressively doing their grind and it slowly tapering off towards the end of the patch.

Let's not forget that we're talking about a nearly 18,000 tome grind here if you are aiming for all jobs. Most average people are going to cap their tomes once, maybe twice a week if it was unrestricted. If someone is coming after week 8 and it takes them just a week or two to get their gear done, that's fine. You get tomestone gear in other to do other content, Expert is a means to an end, not an end goal. A large majority of people that complain about the rate at which they get tomestone gear are primarily interested in raiding, let's not forget that.

If anything, I'd kind of prefer this system because after tomestone gear, SE could then utilize the current tier tomestones for content after week 8, or likewise they could move potion and food production mats to current tier tomestones instead of last tier tomestones, that way there isn't the egregious overlap of using last tier tomestones for so many things.

I feel like once a savage tier is getting farmed, the cap needs to slowly go up until it's gone. Like right now, there is nothing to do. Let people go nuts and get 2000 tomes with no lock out. Literally, nothing is going on right now. It's Dawntrail waiting room. I'm not even a savage raider, and this gearing system is annoying to me. My progress is being arbitrarily limited to gate people who quit months ago because the tier is over. Morons all of them. You can take a break whenever, but not if you just came back to a dead tier and wanted to get better gear to play casually. No SE hates you go anguish in it for months until you halfway do it and quit from boredom. Bravo! Bravo!

Apologies if I'm too casual for this discussion but why does every class need to be BiS?

You can play most content with crafted gear. You can play with any job. You just can't BiS all jobs.

I think a good approach to both not making it so quick to grind while also not effecting the raid progression would be to add a gradual increase of the weekly cap each week (5,10, or 20?) until it reaches a cap of 900, which the usual cap at the tail end of an expansion. This would both help players to more quickly gear other jobs while also make it easier for players that reach endgame midway through a raid tier and can enable them get into the tier more quickly since most party finders will requested ilv above that of the minimum by that point.

I think being able to pick from multiple dyable gear pieces might be the ultimate casual desire.

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Apologies if I'm too casual for this discussion but why does every class need to be BiS?

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Strictly speaking they do not need to be. I'm just doing it as an experiment because one of the major selling points of FFXIV is the ability to play every job. That being said there are some scenarios where it's relevant

This is kind of a niche scenario but let's say, for instance, that I am capable of playing Summoner but played Paladin for the tier and there was an ultimate released on that tier. A friend asks me to play Summoner in the ultimate, but I can't because it takes 7 weeks of tome-capping to get the gear required. Though I am perfectly capable of playing Summoner, I am completely gear-gated from helping my friend.

In those kinds of instances it might matter and I have run into that problem personally, but like I said, for most players it doesn't matter, I'm doing it just to prove a point.

Edit: On retrospect it's also somewhat relevant for players just going through Savage because as the tier drags on people start putting very heavy iLvl restrictions on parties, so players trying to play catch up have a much harder time doing so.

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Originally Posted by yoshinoharu

one of the major selling points of FFXIV is the ability to play every job.

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That was never really meant to be a major selling point. It was just how FF11 was designed so this design was extended to FF14 as well. In Heavensward, they always talked about the raid tiers in terms of people having a main job for a given raid tier. Recently, they acknowledged most people actually play multiple jobs, but raid tiers are still designed around the idea that you choose a main for it.

I think the marketing for this selling point has been done a lot more by players than by SE.

However letting people trade in gear for the same gear on another job would solve the problem of not being able to switch jobs for a static at least.