/r/ffxivdiscussion: Should the endgame Tomestone cap accumulate each week?

Full title: Should the endgame Tomestone cap accumulate each week throughout the patch?

This is an interesting little post that I thought I'd share with the official forums too. This is actually a great idea and I completely agree with this. It's essentially a system that lets players catch up if they take an extended leave of absence.

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Original Post:

I'll preface this by explaining what I mean by an accumulating cap, it's the same system that WoW uses right now for their weekly Crest currency. In FF we currently have a hard cap of 450 tomestones earnable each week, which resets to 0/450 on the weekly reset. You can only ever earn 450 each week, and if you miss a week or take a break, well tough luck. With an accumulating cap, it would go Week 1: 0/450, Week 2: 450/900, Week 3: 900/1350 so on and so forth assuming you acquire the 450 each week. If you play actively, it's effectively the same as the current system, but for players that were otherwise inactive, the cap has rolled up and they'd come back on Week 3 to able to earn up to 1350 due to the accumulation (0/450 inactive, 0/900 inactive, 0/1350 oh hey I was playing Palworld and now I wanna do some Expert).

I feel like an accumulating cap would be healthier for the playerbase and is more in line with Square's overall messaging. If you feel the need to "go play other games", you can feel free to go play other games, and then come back in 2 weeks and be able to get 900 tomes because the cap has rolled up by 450+450=900.

Thoughts? I feel like some amount of change is needed at this point for the endgame, even if it's just to allow for breaks to reduce burnout or allow people to step away without punishing them for doing so.

(Also I think it'd be fine to keep Savage the way it is right now with hard lockouts, it's good to have some exclusivity there to reward people for fast prog efforts in endgame.)

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Notable Comments:

Yes it absolutely should, but for some reason they are terrified of increasing your max capacity of them so I doubt they will ever do anything about it. I like how trophy crystals work in PVP, you can earn over one patch and then even claim them the next patch whilst earning even more - they just need to give us something worth buying with them.

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Would be extremely good for the game yes.
I've been wondering for a while why it doesn't have a season cap, especially as the "take a break game".
If I join a patch 6 months late, I should be able to be able to farm 10.8k tomestones if I want and deck out all my jobs with tome gear. It's 6 months into a patch, nobody should care that I have the ability to do that. Nah you need to farm 450 tomes for 5 more weeks in month 6/7 to gear 1 job because you had the audacity to not play right away (and also play every week)
Even when I was playing actively, sometimes I was busy in a week and monday night begrudgingly went "oh right I have to log on to cap tomes". Would very much have loved the alternative of "well, I'll just farm the missing 100 tomes after reset".
I play a lot of both, and crests have made alt characters (jobs) in wow a feature that I never bothered with outside of leveling to cap to actively playing multiple when I normally would have quit. Cumulative crests + crest discounts for reaching ilvl points on main should both be added to 14 ASAP imo

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Yes, absolutely.
This is exactly how the weekly cap for Crests work in WoW. They start off low and each week the cap gets higher and higher. It keeps you from progressing too fast on your main but allows you to skip that time gating on your alt so you can gear them quickly.
Also think Savage should unlock on the next patch, as in 7.1 should've unlocked it. Raid came out in July, just let us farm it. Who gives a ****.

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They'll implement this and then also introduce a weekly "1000 tome purchase budget" so you can only buy 1000 tomes-worth of gear per week
The monkey's paw curls

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I remember when people asked for weapon coffers in EX, only to get shot down with arguments about how it was "necessary" to keep the content alive and keep people subbed. Somehow, people still run EX trials.
Somehow WoW, too, is maintaining subscribers, despite their currencies having a cap that accumulates over time.
Being able to earn gear in a reasonable time frame is not going to kill the game. It's not necessary at all.
Honestly, I'd say they're 100% going to make this change to the tome cap, but probably in about 2-4 years. They seem to like spacing out changes to the game so people have something to be excited for each patch. If they added all the QoL that made sense in one go, they'd have nothing to pad out future patches.

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...cumulate_each/

Feel free to discuss this topic amongst yourselves below, cheers.

The idea of being able to catchup is nice but I think my main issue is how low the current cap is literal months and months after they came out.
450 a week to put into perspective buys you one accessory, around 90% of a helmet, gloves or feet, and not even 2 weeks of the full 450 allows you to buy a chestplate or legs.
To gear a character full of tomestone gear only it would take you 11 weeks since it would cost you 4510 tomestones.

I know this is unrealistic as raid gear also comes in to supplement this (also still locked 4 months after release) but I have to really ask, why does a game that champions the idea that you can play every class have such a steep time gate behind actually gearing them in the best gear possible?
It's been 16 weeks since the release of savage and I still have only fully geared around 2 shared jobs.
Why can't they increase the limit of tomes to 900 after 2 months and up to 2000 after 4 months for example?

They should just increase the cap to 900/week no later than on odd number patches to facilitate gearing of different jobs.

They should cut the price of capped tome gear in half. Like actually.

It's kind of nuts how there's over 21 jobs but you can only gear up one at a time. I understand gear can be shared, but the current system kind of forces you to pick one of the roles and stick with it. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing something like this, possibly even an individual role cap (ie tank, dps, healer etc). Another thing they could add would be to have some sort of system like glamour plates but for materia. As of now, it's kind of a pain to play more than one role, let alone multiple jobs.

I'd be curious what % of players gear up multiple jobs. I can't imagine it's high enough to risk most players not having anything to do.

i would totally gear up more jobs if it isnt that annoying

They should bump it to 500 a week and let you accumulate a month, the length of a sub. That's 2000 tomestones per month regardless of whether you play once a month or once a week. Gear should be cheaper like someone else said, too.

Two things they should change with tomes
weekly cap is 500 and Tome gear is more inline with savage books
so 300 for accessories,400 for helms,hands and boots then 600 for chest/leg piece

Leave it as-is. The time-cost of earning gear upgrades is so low. I can run low-risk content (expert dungeons, hunts) and upgrade my gear to be near what raiders have... without ever really spending time on difficult content. The only "balance" we have is we build up the tomestone gear during even patches and then upgrade them (if we don't raid) in odd patches. And technically speaking, there's no limit on gear upgrades per week if you go the hunt path.

And right now, we have an unlimited supply of i720 (tomestone-equivalent) gear through trading in crafted items and uncapped tomestones.

I know, we all want things easier, but it takes away its value.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

I know, we all want things easier, but it takes away its value.

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There is no "difficulty" or "value" in timelocks, they aren't even time consuming, playing 20 minutes per day for 5 days of the week in Expert Roulette is all it takes like you said yourself, what this thread is asking is to not punish someone for coming in later into a tier and effectively miss out on thousands on Tomes they can never get back while they are relevant.

Look at it this way, is there any meaningful difficulty difference in clearing a Savage tier 8 times in a row, or 8 times spaced across 8 weeks? you did the same actions, there was just some arbitrary time gate.

They should. Just like WoW crest cap goes up each week iirc.

No, just make criterion drop gear that's identical to augmented tome and release that half way through savage patches. Also disable savage lockout immediately when the next patch releases.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

There is no "difficulty" or "value" in timelocks, they aren't even time consuming, playing 20 minutes per day for 5 days of the week in Expert Roulette is all it takes like you said yourself, what this thread is asking is to not punish someone for coming in later into a tier and effectively miss out on thousands on Tomes they can never get back while they are relevant.

Look at it this way, is there any meaningful difficulty difference in clearing a Savage tier 8 times in a row, or 8 times spaced across 8 weeks? you did the same actions, there was just some arbitrary time gate.

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Without timegating there would be horrendous expectations placed on players. Want to do M2S? I hope you farmed M1 until you got all your gear from it first, repeat until end of tier. This would suck all the fun out of week 1 raiding.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Without timegating there would be horrendous expectations placed on players. Want to do M2S? I hope you farmed M1 until you got all your gear from it first, repeat until end of tier. This would suck all the fun out of week 1 raiding.

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This is not what this thread is asking though. They are asking to make the cap cumulative, so that it is 450 week 1, 900 week 2, 1350 week 3, 1800 week 4, ad infinitum, as a way to not punish someone for being unable to play a week or two, not to remove the cap entirely, I was simply addressing the point that dpsguy was trying to imply the timegates create difficulty in any way.

This wouldn't in any way create higher expectations of players, but it would remove the element of tome caps feeling like "be there or be square" at times.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

This is not what this thread is asking though. They are asking to make the cap cumulative, so that it is 450 week 1, 900 week 2, 1350 week 3, 1800 week 4, ad infinitum, as a way to not punish someone for being unable to play a week or two, not to remove the cap entirely, I was simply addressing the point that dpsguy was trying to imply the timegates create difficulty in any way.

This wouldn't in any way create higher expectations of players, but it would remove the element of tome caps feeling like "be there or be square" at times.

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Oh, that sounds great. Can't wait to run expert roulette 25 times before I can start raiding on week 2.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Oh, that sounds great. Can't wait to run expert roulette 25 times before I can start raiding on week 2.

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Presumably, you'd be capping each week normally since you'd be actively playing, just as you already do now. You'd only have to run expert 25 times if you wanted.

This is the 2nd disingenuous comment now. Because no week 1 group will waste time reclearing a fight for gear when you can use that time for progging the next fight, and you know that.

What's your problem?

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Originally Posted by IOwn92FCHouses

Presumably, you'd be capping each week normally since you'd be actively playing, just as you already do now. You'd only have to run expert 25 times if you wanted.

This is the 2nd disingenuous comment now. Because no week 1 group will waste time reclearing a fight for gear when you can use that time for progging the next fight, and you know that.

What's your problem?

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The expectation is generally that you have capped tomes in advance of raid and bought any upgrades that you can before raiding on week 2. This would definitely make that more painful.

The perceived problem is not solved by creating an ever expanding hamster wheel tome grind. They just need to add additional sources of equivalent gear that people can use to quickly gear off jobs later in a patch cycle.

As per my other response, a much better solution would be to release criterion a month or so after savage and have that drop augmented tome equivalent gear. Then you can use that to gear off jobs.

The current time to BiS isn't an issue at all.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

The expectation is generally that you have capped tomes in advance of raid and bought any upgrades that you can before raiding on week 2. This would definitely make that more painful.

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You cap in between raid times on week 1, week 2, etc. You know, like we've always done. And, if tomes drop before the raid does? You cap for those weeks like normal. This suggested change changes nothing for you.

Speaking of painful... That last minute week 2 clear, amiright? Maybe that's why you're under the false impression that there would be a ton of extra farming to do for a suggested change that would be a mechanic used to catch up/prevent progress loss.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IOwn92FCHouses

You cap in between raid times on week 1, week 2, etc. You know, like we've always done. And, if tomes drop before the raid does? You cap for those weeks like normal. This suggested change changes nothing for you.

Speaking of painful... That last minute week 2 clear, amiright? Maybe that's why you're under the false impression that there would be a ton of extra farming to do for a suggested change that would be a mechanic used to catch up/prevent progress loss.

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Who does this?

You cap tomes before raid so you have your tome gear for raid. You need to raid on Tuesday because if you wait until Wednesday or later, there are only droolers left in PF.

I am confused where the 25 times statement is even coming, at a 450/week tomes, you'd have to run a level 100 dungeon 9 times to get to the cap, even if you completely missed week 1, it would be 18, and this assumes you aren't trying to be smart about it, like saving your previous day roulettes to do after the weekly reset but before the daily reset if you are able, thus getting 2 Expert Roulettes day 1 of the week, and you don't get at least one line from Wondrous Trails and such.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Who does this?

You cap tomes before raid so you have your tome gear for raid. You need to raid on Tuesday because if you wait until Wednesday or later, there are only droolers left in PF.

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So you are being very open about the fact you raid like an insane person, capping tomes the picosecond you are physically able, and thus this change would have zero impact on anyone who plays like you, so why argue against it? or are you against the idea of letting anyone catch up of they couldn't play for a while?

I agree it should increment in any given season/tier.

In general I do think we need a higher cap as if you play something for a couple weeks and buy something or other and in the end need to change jobs for whatever reason ( Don't enjoy the job you've been playing anymore, find something more fun, filling a different role in a friend/static group.)

I can say from experience i just came back about a month ago starting playing again to raid with friends and just went back to what I was playing before hand. After playing a few weeks again just realized I did not enjoy it anymore and wanted to try something else out and have switched. Those 4 weeks of tomes that i got and bought gear with for the first job are now just wasted.

Either a higher cap to make a transition to a new class not as bad.
or even say a vendor you could recycle your tome gear into that gets your tomes back to retry.

This is a great system in WoW and it even applies to characters that are created mid tier. Some times you just want to play another game (which Yoshi fully supports and has stated so several times). It's a great QoL change that has no negative effects on people who cap immediately and only helps other players catch up.

I agree that something needs to change. I've long thought that for a game that ostensibly wants you have the flexibility to play multiple jobs on the same character, they make actually gearing said jobs more tedious than I think is necessary.

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Originally Posted by Iyrnthota

I agree that something needs to change. I've long thought that for a game that ostensibly wants you have the flexibility to play multiple jobs on the same character, they make actually gearing said jobs more tedious than I think is necessary.

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FFXIV is great and advertising all these considerations such as job flexibility or not needing to be subbed to keep your house (way back when). It's not so great on following through with them, or rather is quick to backtrack.

YES. And so should beast tribe and anything daily capped. Where is the difference between 24/7 no life and 48 hours hardcore grind? FSS if you really wanna cap tome you do hunts or spam the ex dungeon.

Why even have gear in this game to begin with. That’s the real question. Glamour slots and cosmetic unlocks would be enough for the level of depth and gameplay this has.

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Originally Posted by Kandraxx

Why even have gear in this game to begin with. That’s the real question. Glamour slots and cosmetic unlocks would be enough for the level of depth and gameplay this has.

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This probably sounds glib but it's very true.
The whole paradigm of 'grear up' over time is nonsense, and done for no reason other than 'but eet MMO!'

Why make an instance easier after you've already conquered it on X difficulty? You don't. The only value it has is to pull the ladder up on people when the next tier comes around.
- Gear up.
- Qualify for instance.
- Then reward speed of kill, or cleanliness of kill with escalating rewards.

If you want a harder experience for week 1 clearers create a week 1 difficulty, and escalate rewards. Just give a title.

But the whole business of gearing up makes no sense unless there is a play style to customise.
If there is 1 BiS meta, again that's pointless. It just serves to pull the ladder up, and make the game shitter for anyone left behind. (Which is a huge majority. Only moderate by the fact that casual players are leaving in droves, converting that majority into a minority)
There is always a better option.
It's software. Game system resources are not a zero sum game.
Peoples time , and interest, is limited, and is a zero sum game.
Instead just blocked from high end for weeks on end. Even Extremes which is supposed to be the bridge content is a complete joke.
Unreals are old content. Not interested. Plus more than half the time the balance is just awful and swings wildly. Not worth it.

I loved this idea, but i think it would work better with a more... round number, like 400 or 500 instead of 450.
Anyway... yes, yes and yes! Pls devs, we need this system