changes to the game that would go hard

I just played during the free login and had some ideas that would help ameliorate my disdain for the game nowadays enjoy

I

Change: Short(er)-form combat design

-move away from long, linear rotations

-diversify cd timers and durations

Result:
1. less restriction on how players can approach encounters, thus opening up creative avenues for encounter design

2. this also makes questing/overworld combat less cringe, because it won't feel wasteful to pop giant cds for a mob that will die in five hits, run 20 yards to the next mob, and then not have any cds for the rest of the quest

II

Change: Endgame itemization

-upgradeable (meaning increased ilvl from tier-to-tier) cantrip gear from savage

-these could give thematic cantrips/effects from the raid, like:

-giving MNK a somersault dropkick oGCD that works like SAM's backdash

-maybe SMN could invoke Ixion or something in their primal rotation

-PCT get a new skill called "paint me like one of your cat girls" and it turns the targeted player into the Black Cat miqote for fun

-AF gear could directly impact job skills (think FFXI)

-tomestone gear will become prog gear with generic role-based attributes
-an example could be things like

-tanks get a short 10% mit when taunting off of another player

-healers have the mana cost of resurrections halved

-melee dps have a chance for their autos to hit twice

-just basic things that could help in prog, but not so useful that they usurp the greater stats/effects of savage tier

Result:
1. Long term gear acquisition that makes it worthwhile clearing old content, even when the next tier is out.

2. allows players to make builds based on what gear they equip

3. ilvl increase allows you to keep the treadmill going while maintaining value, tier after tier

-players can choose which pieces they want to prioritize upgrading based on how they'd function with the new tier

-hardcore players will want to collect and upgrade all pieces for the most possibilities

4. the upgrade process can also add an incentive to random content that isn't seeing enough activity (criterion)



(1/3)

III

Change: dungeons as repeatable content

-more freedom in pulls (trash + boss = fun chaos potential)

-faster bosses, we don't need learning phases five expansions in

-give trash identity beyond RP

-mobs all blend together because they all do the same thing (nothing)

-each mob should serve a simple purpose that creates a greater challenge when combined with others

-max level versions of all current expansion dungeons with a progressive difficulty system, like dungeon talent trees/affixes (WoW's M+ and VP2's Sealstones for example)

-gearing path

Result:
1. dungeons become more "hop on FF with da boyz and run some dungies" rather than "i missed hunt train i guess i won't cap tomes this week"

2. dungeons can be easily worked into the economy with crafting mat implementation (having certain affixes applied affects what materials are found in chests/from bosses)

-this allows players who exclusively play battle content to make money, and creates a supply-demand system with crafters

3. one of the requirements for increasing the ilvl of savage gear could be completing every current dungeon at +10 or whatev

4. gear gained from the dungeons should have its own worth, possibly allowing you to have very high raw stats (the higher you go in difficulty), at the expense of none of the cool effects that tier gives you

IV

Change: nerf crafted gear

-new crafted sets are equal to previous savage tier, rather than better

-instead, change augmented tome gear (or the item to do so) into a crafting recipe

Result:
1. the aforementioned economy with dungeons would play into the recipes for augmenting tome gear

2. crafted gear would still fulfill its role as catch-up gear

V

Change: loot lockout per role

-lockout is separate for each role (tank, healer, melee, caster, ranged)

Result:
1. if you clear on a tank, you can go in on any of the other four roles without the lockout being applied

2. allows up to five lockouts per week, meaning faster gearing for more jobs

3.the game prides itself on playing all jobs on one character, but doesn't want you to enjoy raiding with more than one or two before you get bored (pugs don't want undergeared alts, and it feels bad to bring them)

4. funneling gear to one job doesn't matter because:

1. clearing on all five roles takes skill

2. who the fuck cares

(2/3)

VI

Change: true story mode (solo) raid

-make one giant instance of the whole raid with trusts

-i'm gonna use this space to say that trusts don't need to be able to do mechanics; just make them borderline invincible it doesn't matter and isn't worth sacrificing boss design or the effort programming them

Result:
1. allows you to expand upon the RP elements (puzzles, trash, exploration) without compromising weekly/prog content

2. allows you to make normal difficulty raid have a semblance of difficulty, providing the tuning of EX with the more complex mechanical density of raids

-this would allow you to make the first two savage bosses actual prog content as well, but also feel free to make more than four bosses a tier no one's stopping you

3. allows you to tie it in with the main story, as you don't have to worry about scaring MSQ nerds with optional content

VII

Change: remove positionals and make it a MNK cd

-you guys truncated the combat system crazy style, yet positionals were worth keeping???

-all bosses are omnipositional

-MNK's get a cd called "Chiropractic" where the target ring gets segmented into different colors indicating where your hits do big dam (green/yellow/red representing intensity)

Result:
1. positionals are gone

2. MNK get something unique that's funny and maybe cool




anyway, that's my quick rambling brainstorm of how to get this old man (about to turn 30 and its already over) to resub


(3/3)

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move away from long, linear rotations

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I don't personally agree with this. I used to enjoy Paladin's long, linear rotation before it changed in mid-Endwalker. I still enjoy Dragoon's long, linear rotation as well. Not all jobs should be long and linear; it's fine for some of them to be proc-based or whatever, but having options is good. Maybe if they go ahead with the skill tree idea in 8.0 they can give people a choice in this area.

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diversify cd timers and durations

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Agreed. It would help if they just made them all align at 6 minutes because then different jobs can have buffs at: 15s, 30s, 1min, 1min 30s, 2min, 3min - and all would align mid-fight for the DPS check. Or they could just get rid of party-wide damage buffs and stop them being multiplicative.

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these could give thematic cantrips/effects from the raid, like:
-giving MNK a somersault dropkick oGCD that works like SAM's backdash
-maybe SMN could invoke Ixion or something in their primal rotation

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Seen suggestions like this before. They could drop rewards that give unique effects to each jobs from duties. The only hope of us seeing it is probably 8.0 when they rework leveling and power gain, as well as look at job uniqueness. The potential issue I can see SE having with it, is that they don't want to be stuck revisiting rewards from old content for new jobs that they release. But they could just stick to making improved power versions of the same things in each expansion too.

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we don't need learning phases five expansions in

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I think this is aimed at Returning players tbh. So a player that has been away for, say, 5 years and last played in Shadowbringers. You might say "but that's quite far into the game" but if they haven't played for 5 years then...

I think it is also trying to solve a problem the game had a long time ago where it didn't explain mechanics at all, so a lot of players just never came to understand the mechanics ever and it was predictable they'd cleave you with everything and give you 5 vulns stacks. The result is it became a backloaded solution where the greater difficulty was in ARR and HW. They're slowly revisiting that now as well.

I think they are trying to revert to ARR and HW design again to some extent, so according to what they've said they are trying to enact your suggestion already in Dawntrail, but how successful they are at that is for everyone to judge or otherwise remains to be seen.

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mobs all blend together because they all do the same thing (nothing)

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They have actually made more dangerous mobs sometimes. In Dohn Mheg, there are some enemies the tank interrupts to make it WAY easier for the healer. They can choose to do a really large, dangerous pull at the end. In The Twinning, some of the mobs have interrupts that also make it easier on the healer who already is frantically keeping the tank alive at the start. You can prevent a pretty devastating raid-wide for the healer in Akadaemia Anyder.

Even in the latest dungeons there are some examples of different enemies. Tender Valley starts off with a big cactuar and one of the casts sprays needles that takes most of the tank's HP if it hits. It's easy to get hit as well because the mobs are all doing AoEs and it's hard to distinguish them from eachother. The end of Stayborough does something of a heal check with all the raid-wide spam and you can do a lot to mitigate it, including stuns, reprisal, Arm's Length and raid-wide mit.

They have shown they can make some interesting trash in criterion as well.

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max level versions of all current expansion dungeons with a progressive difficulty system, like dungeon talent trees/affixes (WoW's M+ and VP2's Sealstones for example)

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It would be nice if SE harnessed their old content in ways like this, across the board really. But their solution is always to make a brand new version instead: Hard Mode dungeons were brand new versions. Variant/Criterion are brand new versions as well. They seem resistant to just making use of what they already have when it'd instantly create more content for people.

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new crafted sets are equal to previous savage tier, rather than better

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Agreed because it feels awful to shed your savage gear and replace it all with crafted gear, after what you did to earn it - enduring wipes and potentially PF for weeks. It just doesn't feel good.

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remove positionals

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I feel like people come from other games and just aren't used to these, yet they are one of the few things the combat system still has left that were part of what people liked the game for in the past. There are plenty of jobs without positionals and they made doing them have a very minimal overall impact compared to the past anyway.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I feel like people come from other games and just aren't used to these, yet they are one of the few things the combat system still has left that were part of what people liked the game for in the past. There are plenty of jobs without positionals and they made doing them have a very minimal overall impact compared to the past anyway.

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Sorry for derailing this thread, but there's one thing about positionals that I never understood. With the server operating only on snapshots that are seconds old, and most bosses rotating faster than a fidget spinner: Do positionals even work?
Personally I gave up on them years ago - seeing how often I got hit by ground effects while clearly not standing within the area, I doubt the server sees me standing on the boss's side required for a positional even in 10% of the cases...

All the changes tbh are pretty based. Shame Yoshi loves his cookie cutter MMO and none of this will ever happen.

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Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

Sorry for derailing this thread, but there's one thing about positionals that I never understood. With the server operating only on snapshots that are seconds old, and most bosses rotating faster than a fidget spinner: Do positionals even work?

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They do work, provided the boss doesn't rotate. This is more of an issue in higher level duties, especially in Endwalker, because of how the bosses re-center themselves all the time. It's annoying but since it's scripted you can anticipate them as well.

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often I got hit by ground effects while clearly not standing within the area

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That's mainly because the snapshot happens when the cast completes / the red telegraph disappears. If you were in it at this moment, you get hit, even if you subsequently run out. It takes a few seconds for the hit to be enacted, allowing you to run out of it still. Ping, SE waiting for animations to occur and server processing and all that.

I was watching Yoshi-P play the other day on BLM. I noticed something interesting, which was that an attack hit him immediately after the snapshot. It makes you wonder if SE has any idea that it's an issue because they have 0 ping.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I was watching Yoshi-P play the other day on BLM. I noticed something interesting, which was that an attack hit him immediately after the snapshot. It makes you wonder if SE has any idea that it's an issue because they have 0 ping.

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Considering they ignore the animation lock issue being ping related even though people using [A12S boss] and [MS word assistant] notice immediate differences, it's fairly obvious he either doesn't understand, or doesn't care.

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anyway, that's my quick rambling brainstorm of how to get this old man (about to turn 30 and its already over) to resub

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Christ I was reading OP thinking is this how the kids talk these days but then I saw this

I'm on the same wavelengths on most things.
I'd add that savage gear shouldn't be the only gear giving people cool tools to strive for. Casual players also deserve to have fun and goals to reach. The ilvl difference between the two is already an incentive to go for savage. I also do think that bringing back a system like Diadem 1.0 for gear would generate an endless threadmill about running fun content, and could also make gear from dungeons less useless as well. This game really does struggle with the fundamentals of any RPG which is based on gear progression, finding newfangled stuff, replacing an old piece with something unique, etc. Being happy or proud of one's gear and not just a carbon copy of the BiS that everybody else also uses to a T.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'm on the same wavelengths on most things.
I'd add that savage gear shouldn't be the only gear giving people cool tools to strive for. Casual players also deserve to have fun and goals to reach. The ilvl difference between the two is already an incentive to go for savage. I also do think that bringing back a system like Diadem 1.0 for gear would generate an endless threadmill about running fun content, and could also make gear from dungeons less useless as well. This game really does struggle with the fundamentals of any RPG which is based on gear progression, finding newfangled stuff, replacing an old piece with something unique, etc. Being happy or proud of one's gear and not just a carbon copy of the BiS that everybody else also uses to a T.

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Tbh Savage and Tome gear straight shouldn't be the only max ilvl gear, it's sad and pathetic. The Chaotic gear is a great start, but there needs to be more. I've been saying pretty much since ARR that Alliance Raid gear should be max ilvl, simply to add variety to gearing/optimising, but also just as another way to gear up. SE did it for accessories via EX in ARR too, which were also max ilvl. I have no idea why they regressed on that outside of the first EX of the expansion.

The fact dungeon gear is useless the moment it releases is also awful.

I think having tome/savage gear be the only BiS gear is an intentional decision to avoid players having a laundry list of hoops to jump through to get their gear. IDK what the best solution is but gearing in FFXIV is so boring that removing stats from gear entirely would be preferable over the current system.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

I think having tome/savage gear be the only BiS gear is an intentional decision to avoid players having a laundry list of hoops to jump through to get their gear. IDK what the best solution is but gearing in FFXIV is so boring that removing stats from gear entirely would be preferable over the current system.

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Pretty sure it's to deliberately slow gear progression and optimise subscription retention for as long as possible.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

Pretty sure it's to deliberately slow gear progression and optimise subscription retention for as long as possible.

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IDK, do you think gear progression is slow? I think it's fast compared to other MMOs that I've played.

It's also largely irrelevant. The crafted gear that you can buy within 10 minutes of a raid patch going live is enough to clear the hardest content that the majority of the playerbase even play. You don't even need tome/savage gear unless you're logging or running ultimate on release, which the majority aren't.

I think what makes gear progression feel the most hollow and pointless to me is the fact that the only real progression is savage > ultimate, with there being no real reward in terms of power progression for clearing ultimate. Maybe it would feel better if we needed gear from extreme to clear savage and then took our savage/tome gear to ultimate, for example?

I think I would prefer if crafted gear was the same ilvl as the previous BiS set, so it could be used to catch up when a new patch released if someone had taken a break and needed to get up to speed, then you had to farm extreme for a few pieces to be ready for savage, then you farm savage/tomes to gear up for ultimate. Some unique effects like WoW's tier bonuses would also make things a bit more interesting.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

IDK, do you think gear progression is slow? I think it's fast compared to other MMOs that I've played.

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It's incredibly slow if you play more than one role and don't week 1 clear, yes.
Even more so if you PF and have to rely on book pity timers.

Tome gear in particular is the worst. It's pretty much impossible for a static to get all the upgrade mats for a single job in a reasonable time without spending books, and if you do that, you sacrifice being able to buy actual savage gear. It's a really dumb system.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

It's also largely irrelevant. The crafted gear that you can buy within 10 minutes of a raid patch going live is enough to clear the hardest content that the majority of the playerbase even play. You don't even need tome/savage gear unless you're logging or running ultimate on release, which the majority aren't.

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Not irrelevant. Why should I grief a group by using a 710 job when I could use a 730 instead? Why settle for lower performance if my goal is to enjoy playing at my peak? I want to push myself, and restrictive gear prevents me from doing that.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

It's incredibly slow if you play more than one role and don't week 1 clear, yes.
Even more so if you PF and have to rely on book pity timers.

Tome gear in particular is the worst. It's pretty much impossible for a static to get all the upgrade mats for a single job in a reasonable time without spending books, and if you do that, you sacrifice being able to buy actual savage gear. It's a really dumb system.

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I feel like needing BiS for multiple roles is a fairly minor complaint? A set of crafted gear would surely suffice, no? There's enough time to gear 3-4 roles between savage and ultimate release. Surely anyone who feels that they need multiple roles geared immediately is playing with multiple groups and already needs an alt to circumvent lockouts anyway.

I agree that the distribution of loot is a mess though. Due to so much of the gear and also tome mats dropping from the 2nd fights, you need to reclear it so much more than the others to get your loot.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

I feel like needing BiS for multiple roles is a fairly minor complaint? A set of crafted gear would surely suffice, no? There's enough time to gear 3-4 roles between savage and ultimate release. Surely anyone who feels that they need multiple roles geared immediately is playing with multiple groups and already needs an alt to circumvent lockouts anyway.

I agree that the distribution of loot is a mess though. Due to so much of the gear and also tome mats dropping from the 2nd fights, you need to reclear it so much more than the others to get your loot.

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With this logic, why bother gearing at all?
Why should anyone care about gearing up? It's pointless to do so.
It's a terrible reply to this discussion. The entire point of the endgame loop is to gear up your jobs.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

With this logic, why bother gearing at all?
Why should anyone care about gearing up? It's pointless to do so.
It's a terrible reply to this discussion. The entire point of the endgame loop is to gear up your jobs.

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Literally my point. Gearing in FFXIV is pointless and boring and I would rather it was removed than endure the current state of it.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Literally my point. Gearing in FFXIV is pointless and boring and I would rather it was removed than endure the current state of it.

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They're never going to get rid of gear treadmill.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

They're never going to get rid of gear treadmill.

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The gear treadmill isn't the problem. I'm fine with ilvl increasing over time. The main problem is that there isn't anything to do with gear once you have it. It's just gearing for the sake of gearing.

A new patch releases. You buy/craft crafted gear, which completely invalidates all of your previous progression in a matter of seconds. You meld it. Done. Go do savage. Anything beyond that just makes the content trivial and doesn't serve any purpose other than parsing for the next 4 months.

In other MMOs, like FFXI or WoW, getting gear upgrades means that you're able to push into new content, which means you can get better gear, which means you can push into new content, which means you can get new gear, repeat. Progression actually exists. Gear has a purpose.

I think gearing in FFXIV would be much more interesting if, for example, when a new expansion releases, the best gear that we have access to immediately is dungeon gear from the highest level dungeons, then we use that to get the extreme weapon and accessories, then we use that ex gear to do savage, then we use savage/tome gear to do ultimate. It would be nice if we had something (like criterion/chaotic) in the 4 months between savage and ultimate, where we could take our savage/tome gear to get a few more pieces that we would need in order to do ultimate too.

When the next tier is released, crafted gear should not be better than previous BiS. Where other games have catch up gear, FFXIV has gear that fast tracks you to the end of the process.

If people are worried about crafting becoming useless, they could do something similar to what FFXI does and add some expert level crafts that are BiS items. The recipes for those could be added fairly late in the progression cycle. Your BiS for ultimate could be savage/tome/criterion/chaotic gear with a couple of crafted pieces that are very hard to craft, and the current crafted gear could still exist as catch-up gear.

All of this will cook the brain of the average "casual" who struggles with expert therefore we will never have any of these. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

I think gearing in FFXIV would be much more interesting if, for example, when a new expansion releases, the best gear that we have access to immediately is dungeon gear from the highest level dungeons, then we use that to get the extreme weapon and accessories, then we use that ex gear to do savage, then we use savage/tome gear to do ultimate.

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This is exactly what happens now except we have crafted gear on Savage patch as well. Crafted gear exists to serve as a reset. To allow people who only care about progression or are behind for whatever reason to still be able to enjoy the content as it releases.
You are looking at gearing singularly from the perspective "I get my gear to do the next content with the gear" and not "I get my gear to push myself as high as possible in content that is already out" or "I get my gear to help out my friends who are struggling" or "I get my gear to play other jobs without griefing everyone else in the party"

The majority of the playerbase doesn't give a shit about Ultimates, so what are they even doing Savage each week for?

The answer is because fundamentally, gearing up and doing more damage is fun. Being able to do that on more than one class is even more fun. Gearing up multiple jobs should be faster. Idk why this is such a controversial thing.

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Originally Posted by Purrnauskis

All of this will cook the brain of the average "casual" who struggles with expert therefore we will never have any of these. Sorry.

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If you still struggle with expert after 100 levels, I worry.
But also the rest of the playerbase shouldn't have to suffer such a stale game just because you're unwilling to improve after 300+ hours in a game.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

This is exactly what happens now except we have crafted gear on Savage patch as well. Crafted gear exists to serve as a reset. To allow people who only care about progression or are behind for whatever reason to still be able to enjoy the content as it releases.

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Nah, it isn't what happens now. What happens now is that an expansion releases, you turn your brain off for 3 hunt trains and buy the uncapped tome gear to do extreme, then you get extreme gear which serves no purpose other than parsing. Then you buy a set of crafted gear to do savage, which rewards you with savage and tome gear which serves no purpose other than parsing. Most people stop here and don't do ultimate on content. They might do it later but we'll have access to higher ilvl gear and you won't need savage gear by then. For the people who do prog ultimate on content, you do actually get some mileage out of your tome/savage gear but the 4 month delay between savage and ultimate completely removes any feeling of progression.

The problem is that there is no progression from content to content. The progression is "buy easily accessible gear for content > do content". Progging ultimate on content is the only exception to this.

I'm fine with crafted gear allowing people to catch up but it shouldn't be mandatory and should not replace your previous BiS. It should be the same ilvl as previous BiS.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

You are looking at gearing singularly from the perspective "I get my gear to do the next content with the gear" and not "I get my gear to push myself as high as possible in content that is already out" or "I get my gear to help out my friends who are struggling" or "I get my gear to play other jobs without griefing"

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Yes, I'm looking at gearing from the perspective of it being functionally beneficial in-game, rather than tangentially beneficial in the FFLogs metagame. Pushing damage in content by being better at the game is inherently more interesting than pushing damage by getting gear that makes the content easier.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

The majority of the playerbase doesn't give a shit about Ultimates, so what are they even doing Savage each week for?

The answer is because fundamentally, gearing up and doing more damage is fun. Being able to do that on more than one class is even more fun. Gearing up multiple jobs should be faster. Idk why this is such a controversial thing.

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Because, as garbage as it is, the illusion of progression is the only progression that the game affords them. There's nothing else to do. Reclearing for gear so you can play content without grey parsing is better than clearing once and coming back in 8 months.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Nah, it isn't what happens now. What happens now is that an expansion releases, you buy the uncapped tome gear to do extreme, then you get extreme gear (which serves no purpose other than parsing). Then you buy a set of crafted gear to do savage. Most people stop here and don't do ultimate on content. They might do it later but we'll have access to higher ilvl gear and you won't need savage gear by then. For the people who do prog savage on content, you do actually get some mileage out of your tome/savage gear but the 4 month delay between savage and ultimate completely removes any feeling of progression.

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The tomes for that uncapped gear come from dungeons, which also drop the accessories you need before you can even get the uncapped tome gear. It’s essentially the same process.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

I'm fine with crafted gear allowing people to catch up but it shouldn't be mandatory and should not replace your previous BiS. It should be the same ilvl as previous BiS.1

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Even if it were the same ilvl, it would still be stronger because 5 materia slots > 2. Granted, some pieces have less desirable substats like SKS or TEN, but in general, more slots still provides a clear advantage.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Yes, I'm looking at gearing from the perspective of it being functionally beneficial in-game, rather than tangentially beneficial in the FFLogs metagame.
Because, as garbage as it is, the illusion of progression is the only progression that the game affords them. There's nothing else to do. Reclearing for gear so you can play content without grey parsing is better than clearing once and coming back in 8 months.

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But wanting to improve my performance isn’t only about parsing. I’d still strive for better gear even if logs didn’t exist. Saying the only reason to gear up is for FFLogs is incredibly reductive.

I’ve offered plenty of reasons why gearing multiple jobs at a decent pace is reasonable, yet the only response you've provided is "lol it doesn't matter you don't really need the gear just stop caring about your parse". I actually enjoy the content we have, I’d just like to play it on other jobs without feeling like I’m griefing the party because I want to play something that isn't my main.

Generally a pretty good list.

But IMO above anything I would just take an open world that is actually alive and matters versus something like scaled 4-man instanced dungeons, which is, at best disappointing with the amount of over-reliance on instanced content to have a remotely engaging experience. I agree with the sentiment, of having repeatable content, but in 4-man content.. I already feel like I am not playing an MMO.

Dungeons and other side content used to actually be tied in really well with crafted content, if you look at some of the material requirements from HW, people were driven all over the place for getting materials, e.g., Grand Company... That was an amazing time for crafted, so anything that creates a stronger connection with battle content and crafted again has my thumbs up. This disappointing "Go cap your old tomestones", just ain't hitting it.

Alliance Raid gear should be equivalent to BiS, it releases an entire patch cycle later, and is still weekly capped. It's beyond a disappointment.

I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of nerfing crafted gear, crafting is in a really bad spot, IMO, and that 1 week every 9 months is one of the few good things about it. Not speaking monetary/Gil-wise, but the amount of collaboration and prep that people put into that is one of the few good things. Although, I understand and appreciate the perspective or reasoning behind it to a degree for some people (e.g., the savage gear feeling like it matters long-term).

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Originally Posted by squatdepthbroooo

2. this also makes questing/overworld combat less cringe, because it won't feel wasteful to pop giant cds for a mob that will die in five hits, run 20 yards to the next mob, and then not have any cds for the rest of the quest

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You know you don't have to do your 2 min burst on a random mob, right? You can use some of your cooldowns on one mob and then your other CDs on another.

Not to mention, staggering CD timers won't actually help this at all, because if you're of the mindset of "I gotta pop all my CDs!" then with the spacing of fights in MSQ, most likely when you get to the next group of mobs all your CDs will be ready despite differing CD timers, you'll press them, and then you'll still have the same issue even though some of your timers (for example) are 90, some are 120, etc. This sounds like an issue you're making yourself.

Then the others:

II: These suggestions are terrible and would either be extra dev for nothing, or a balancing headache. The last thing this game's encounter design needs is less balance, just because WoW does something doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing to take.

III: Yeah, I think dungeons could do with more mechanics, but considering how some people handled DT's launch, we might need to wait a bit more if we're gonna introduce more of a bump there. I don't agree with having M+ type mats be required for savage gear progression, but some kind of sellable item from dungeons would be cool (and Criterion basically does that to an extent already, mounts are decent money).

IV: Nah. As someone who gets BIS every tier, and then has it all invalidated by the introduction of crafted the next tier, I prefer how it is now. If new crafted was only equal to savage, then with substats/etc there would inevitably be savage pieces that are better than the equivalent crafted, and I'm not a fan of prog from the previous tier bleeding into the current tier.

V: Yeah this gets suggested often enough, it'd be a good idea but I assume at this point SE has some kind of backend issue with it that makes them not want to implement it. Oh well.

VI: "Just make trusts not do mechanics to not have to do extra programming" shows how little this was thought about, considering how many mechs there are that'll kill someone (the player) for someone else's mistake (the NPC). This would be a substantial amount of work regardless of how they choose to implement it. It could be neat though.

VII: Complaining about SE making combat boring in point 1 and then going "yeah take away positionals except from one melee" is quite the take.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

The tomes for that uncapped gear come from dungeons, which also drop the accessories you need before you can even get the uncapped tome gear. It’s essentially the same process.



Even if it were the same ilvl, it would still be stronger because 5 materia slots > 2. Granted, some pieces have less desirable substats like SKS or TEN, but in general, more slots still provides a clear advantage.



But wanting to improve my performance isn’t only about parsing. I’d still strive for better gear even if logs didn’t exist. Saying the only reason to gear up is for FFLogs is incredibly reductive.

I’ve offered plenty of reasons why gearing multiple jobs at a decent pace is reasonable, yet the only response you've provided is "lol it doesn't matter you don't really need the gear just stop caring about your parse". I actually enjoy the content we have, I’d just like to play it on other jobs without feeling like I’m griefing the party because I want to play something that isn't my main.

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Most people just run a couple of hunt trains for enough tomes for a full set of gear + clusters for the materia to meld it. Pretending that we're doing anything other than a very short mindless zerg for that gear is a little disingenuous.

Get rid of the overmeld slots or make crafted gear a few ilvl lower than previous BiS then. This feels like a very easily solved problem.

I completely agree that improving at a game is one of the most fulfilling parts of playing them but equipping a new stat stick doesn't really factor in to that. Optimising strats and ability usages are the interesting parts of an MMO. Gear should be a means to an end but FFXIV has no end.

The fact that you consider running savage without savage gear to be griefing demonstrates the problem with gearing in FFXIV better than anything that I could say. In the nicest possible way, I think you've been playing FFXIV exclusively for too long, have become XIVbrained and can't see past the status quo. I'd recommend trying another MMO, like XI or WoW, if only for a short time to remind yourself what meaningful player power progression in an MMO actually looks like. Getting new gear is infinitely more rewarding when it will allow you to do something that you weren't able to do before. Getting new gear to make the content that you're already able to do easier, and then throwing it in the trash and replacing it with a new freebie for the next piece of content, is just pointless busywork.

Working your way through ambu to omen to dyna and beyond in FFXI is fun. Pushing through heroic/mythic or pushing M+ keys in WoW is fun. Doing savage to get savage gear so the same boss you were already able to kill dies 6 minutes into the 10 minute fight is not particularly interesting or fun. The fulfilling part is supposed to be the progression that comes as a result of that upgrade but it's absent in FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

The fact that you consider running savage without savage gear to be griefing demonstrates the problem with gearing in FFXIV better than anything that I could say. In the nicest possible way, I think you've been playing FFXIV exclusively for too long, have become XIVbrained and can't see past the status quo. I'd recommend trying another MMO, like XI or WoW, if only for a short time to remind yourself what meaningful player power progression in an MMO actually looks like. Getting new gear is infinitely more rewarding when it will allow you to do something that you weren't able to do before. Getting new gear to make the content that you're already able to do easier, and then throwing it in the trash and replacing it with a new freebie for the next piece of content, is just pointless busywork.

Working your way through ambu to omen to dyna and beyond in FFXI is fun. Pushing through heroic/mythic or pushing M+ keys in WoW is fun. Doing savage to get savage gear so the same boss you were already able to kill dies 6 minutes into the 10 minute fight is not particularly interesting or fun. The fulfilling part is supposed to be the progression that comes as a result of that upgrade but it's absent in FFXIV.

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For what it’s worth, I still play FFXI regularly. I 6box and can fully clear Ody C/Sortie on 3 of them (working on the other 3 now). I’ve more or less completed the game, which is why I'm doing 3 more chars. I love FFXI's endgame gearing progression. Furthermore, I also agree that FFXIV offers very little content by comparison, which is why I keep returning to FFXI. Unlike FFXIV, FFXI doesn’t heavily restrict how you gear up, and it offers far more than just two pieces of content for progression.

In FFXIV, I’m left with no real choice but to run the same content repeatedly, either to help friends or just for fun and to push for self improvement. But at minimum ilvl, neither of those is really possible. I love FFXIV's combat, but I can't enjoy it when I don't have any goals.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

If you still struggle with expert after 100 levels, I worry.
But also the rest of the playerbase shouldn't have to suffer such a stale game just because you're unwilling to improve after 300+ hours in a game.

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Say that to the people who were posting here at the start of DT because Alexandria was impossible.

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Originally Posted by Purrnauskis

Say that to the people who were posting here at the start of DT because Alexandria was impossible.

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Happily. If you're still struggling, you're holding the game back for everyone else.

I think struggling with content, any content is fine... But I think if a player sees it as a game design issue, then I think it's 'holding back', but if they can at least acknowledge that they aren't as good as they should be, then it's fine.

The reality is to a degree is that 'skilled' players hold the game back, just as much as what 'bad' players do.