Lack of Gear progression

We all know the lack of gear progression in the game. I kinda came up with a solution, temporary tho.

AF gear. Instead of them handing it out. Add some world events where you can take a part of to obtain the gear and after obtaining the set you want you'll be able to upgrade the set to AF 2, 3. The initial set will be all greens then AF 2 all blues and AF 3 will be Epic. What yall think?

Are you suggesting relic gear? The issue is that it would piss off raiders. I'm not totally against this, but on raid patch, it shouldnt be even as good as crafted gear because it will make the tier too easy for some. It could be updated later to be better, but still shouldn't surpass savage gear until the next patch. What you are suggesting is a casual but grindy approach to gear, so it wouldnt be for raiders. And before anyone goes off on the "catering to raiders" shtick, casual content in this game doesn't need gear. There would have to be a fundamental rework to the type of content that exists in this game for it to even matter. The closet thing currently is OC gear which is better than crafted, worse than tome, but gives an advantage in OC and takes a considerable grind.

The other issue though is that I don't know who it is for... the same type of people who like grinding relics perhaps? I think its a no from me because I'm just not sure this will fulfill any real niche in the game.

So you're suggesting an Occult Crescent-like world area where you grind something to get AF gear with a currency like Silver Pieces and then augment it through that content? (of course, this is actually in Occult Crescent)

In the open world, you can fight hunts such as A ranks and S ranks, which gives you tomestones to exchange for gear (as well as another tomestone than gets you materials for crafted gear). They drop materia to improve its stats. Then in the odd-numbered patches you can get augments with the currency they drop. Essentially you can do all your gear progression through hunting if you want.

I think OP meant for gear to have variable ilvl where more effort = higher ilvl and stats. So technically something like Eureka gear + relics. I wouldn't mind those but tbh, I think the main problem is that this game doesn't make gear valuable outside current tier, where everything goes to the trash except for glam whenever new tier is out. Last tier savage gear can only withstand at most +4 levels of new expax before it's obsolete

This game has needed alternate ways to generate gear for a long time. Its crazy how limited the gearing is in general in this game.

honestly I don't think they should give stronger gear then X.0 does the reason why it's often because they always balance later content at those ilvl. so what I think should happen is the gear should give more stats instead or have a Bonus stats added

I always found it weird how wonky this game was in gearing compared to other MMO's that made you feel powerful and happy when you get a new piece of gear. Because the gear reflected into how well your character performed in ALL content.

In FFXIV it always felt like just a glam thing. I guess endgame is the only place it really matters, haven't done much of that, since it feels like just DDR dance after DDR dance. I see no point in tanking those when the boss just moves on it's own to do endless dodge gauntlets instead of me as a tank having to control the fight and do.. I dont know.. TANK things.

I'm used to gear mattering during leveling, in dungeons and in raiding after that, with a ladder to improve your character. From quest drops, to dungeon drops to some crafted gear and eventually tiers of endgame. Gear having tiers too from uncommon to legendary. All of this gear reflecting how you can do dungeons, raids and open worlds. Making you feel like you accomplished something.

While in FFXIV the materia system is cookie cutter, never changing, you can't really modify it or play around with it. Because everything seems to be just "get more dmg" even for tanks. And it seems after a while it always reaches up to "Just buy all the crafted gear, pentameld it and go for savage" ?

FFXIV's lack of a meaningful open world doesn't really help either

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

So you're suggesting an Occult Crescent-like world area where you grind something to get AF gear with a currency like Silver Pieces and then augment it through that content? (of course, this is actually in Occult Crescent)

In the open world, you can fight hunts such as A ranks and S ranks, which gives you tomestones to exchange for gear (as well as another tomestone than gets you materials for crafted gear). They drop materia to improve its stats. Then in the odd-numbered patches you can get augments with the currency they drop. Essentially you can do all your gear progression through hunting if you want.

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I don't think you understand... this game lack gear progression.. we want different ways to get gear not just tome gear

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Are you suggesting relic gear? The issue is that it would piss off raiders. I'm not totally against this, but on raid patch, it shouldnt be even as good as crafted gear because it will make the tier too easy for some. It could be updated later to be better, but still shouldn't surpass savage gear until the next patch. What you are suggesting is a casual but grindy approach to gear, so it wouldnt be for raiders. And before anyone goes off on the "catering to raiders" shtick, casual content in this game doesn't need gear. There would have to be a fundamental rework to the type of content that exists in this game for it to even matter. The closet thing currently is OC gear which is better than crafted, worse than tome, but gives an advantage in OC and takes a considerable grind.

The other issue though is that I don't know who it is for... the same type of people who like grinding relics perhaps? I think its a no from me because I'm just not sure this will fulfill any real niche in the game.

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Yet again the "It would piss raider off" thing, as i raider, no it wouldnt piss us off, most of us dont even do the raid content because of the "gear" we do it because of the challenge, if its on the same level as crafted gear and increases to the same ilvl like savage, it would be completly fine because after all BiS is always a mix between Tomestones/Savage and with the last Tier even Chaotic, so even if you add another layer of it, to get absolutly max dps and BiS you would anyway probably need savage gear

so its completly fine and actually i would like it, it would make the open world a bit meaningful

I need reasons to get gear besides raiding.

Nothing in this gear tier will benefit from having BIS the minute you got everything out of M8S.

Occult Crescent is synced to 700, Deep dungeon will have its aetherpool weapon and armor system, no Ultimate, no Criterion.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Are you suggesting relic gear? The issue is that it would piss off raiders. I'm not totally against this, but on raid patch, it shouldnt be even as good as crafted gear because it will make the tier too easy for some. It could be updated later to be better, but still shouldn't surpass savage gear until the next patch. What you are suggesting is a casual but grindy approach to gear, so it wouldnt be for raiders. And before anyone goes off on the "catering to raiders" shtick, casual content in this game doesn't need gear. There would have to be a fundamental rework to the type of content that exists in this game for it to even matter. The closet thing currently is OC gear which is better than crafted, worse than tome, but gives an advantage in OC and takes a considerable grind.

The other issue though is that I don't know who it is for... the same type of people who like grinding relics perhaps? I think its a no from me because I'm just not sure this will fulfill any real niche in the game.

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It wouldn't piss us off, especially if it takes a bit of time to kick it off.

If anything I welcome it, it gives me something to do outside of waiting around in pf.

Bonus I can actually raid on more jobs when needed on my one toon whenever someone in the static is missing.

Also I don't really care that the il is "savage level". If it really concerns the devs, make it tome level on the patch savage comes out and make it upgradable on the off patches. Not going to care at all.

I think they need to re-evaluate gear sources, namely dungeon loot and NM raid gear, as well as AR gear.

- Crafted gear should be the baseline ilvl0 for each tier for people to get started.
- Dungeon gear should be at least identical ilvl with additional perks (more on this below), but shouldn't out-compete crafted since it can be farmed without restrictions.
- NM raid gear should be ilvl+10, same as baseline tome gear. NM raid gear is capped per week much like tome gear and has no business being starting ilvl like crafted. NM raid gear should also drop weapons with time caveats, much like tome.
- AR gear should be ilvl+20, same as augmented tome gear. No reason not to, else it's useless in its current state and doesn't offer any alternatives to tome BiS. Odd patches are where savage tiers are already old and casuals start to compete with savage loot when they finally can augment their tome gear anyway, so what's AR gear more? More options = better

Making gear more than just +1 or +2 on the main numbers:

- Dungeon loot could have semi rng perks (bring back pink gear from Diadem!), and perhaps those could be upgraded with various casual tokens obtained over time so that it can keep up with NM and tome gear. Go wild, bring fun random perks players can be proud of beyond +10 to the main stat or whatever. This would be disabled in savage content for safety (or not idc).
- Savage loot could also have fixed, by design perks (not rng) that keep it better than even tome gear or anything casual, specifically in hard content where any wild perk is disabled.

But what do I know... I just think the only thing Diadem 1.0 did right was the gear, funnily enough. It was fun going in to get better and weirder gear in there.

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

Yet again the "It would piss raider off" thing, as i raider, no it wouldnt piss us off, most of us dont even do the raid content because of the "gear" we do it because of the challenge, if its on the same level as crafted gear and increases to the same ilvl like savage, it would be completly fine because after all BiS is always a mix between Tomestones/Savage and with the last Tier even Chaotic, so even if you add another layer of it, to get absolutly max dps and BiS you would anyway probably need savage gear

so its completly fine and actually i would like it, it would make the open world a bit meaningful

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Thats the point rofl. Day one, its supposed to be hard because you don't have the gear. After a few weeks or months, this no longer matters.

It likely won't piss off the raiders, and if it does...just let 'em get pissed? They won't quit; they'll whine for a little bit and then get over it. It's not like raid gear does much for you other than let you be slightly better at raiding. IMO more options for doing everything in this game is a good thing. All the gating and time-gating ultimately just serves to reduce my interest in playing. I'd be way more likely to level up and play alt jobs, fill roles in PF or other people's raid groups, etc., if it didn't take months to put a job in Tomestone gear. Instead I just literally play my one main raid job and log out the instant raid night is over.

Honestly, just remove gear and make weapons and armour purely aesthetic. It's completely meaningless in modern hamster wheel MMOs. All of your progress is deleted every 8 months. All your old gear goes in the trash, you buy another set of crafted gear, and do the same tome/savage grind for a few weeks to get back to the exact same place that you already were before.

Nothing has any unique effects. Nothing is worth keeping for more than a few months. Everyone who played FFXI still remembers the Krakken Club from 2004 but I doubt most people who play FFXIV could even name a single piece of gear that they currently have equipped.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I think they need to re-evaluate gear sources, namely dungeon loot and NM raid gear, as well as AR gear.

- Dungeon loot could have semi rng perks (bring back pink gear from Diadem!), and perhaps those could be upgraded with various casual tokens obtained over time so that it can keep up with NM and tome gear. Go wild, bring fun random perks players can be proud of beyond +10 to the main stat or whatever. This would be disabled in savage content for safety (or not idc).
- Savage loot could also have fixed, by design perks (not rng) that keep it better than even tome gear or anything casual, specifically in hard content where any wild perk is disabled.

But what do I know... I just think the only thing Diadem 1.0 did right was the gear, funnily enough. It was fun going in to get better and weirder gear in there.

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That was the worst part of Diadem. Doing all that work for the bis weapon only for it to roll only accuracy and nothing else.
No, random substats belong in the trash.

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Originally Posted by Valence

- NM raid gear should be ilvl+10, same as baseline tome gear. NM raid gear is capped per week much like tome gear and has no business being starting ilvl like crafted. NM raid gear

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That's probably the only thing in there that I agree with.

The bigger issue is horizontal gearing on one toon is just a pain in the arse. I have all these classes leveled, why is it difficult to get them geared after 2+ months?

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Originally Posted by Alahard

That was the worst part of Diadem. Doing all that work for the bis weapon only for it to roll only accuracy and nothing else.
No, random substats belong in the trash.


That's probably the only thing in there that I agree with.

The bigger issue is horizontal gearing on one toon is just a pain in the arse. I have all these classes leveled, why is it difficult to get them geared after 2+ months?

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Is 2 months really a long time in the context of a game that's designed to be played for years, or does it just feel like a long time because it's a pointless grind that doesn't take you anywhere other than back to the same relative power level that you were at last patch?

In FFXI, you'd still be working on getting your jobs geared after 2 years. ...And that isn't a bad thing. The endgame is tiered, so you have a bunch of different content to work through for different rewards, and a lot of gear has unique effects that makes it situationally useful long after you get it. The level cap has been 99 for a decade and there are still lvl 75 pieces that are useful.

I don't think the problem is that it takes too long to get geared, because it simply doesn't. It's actually insanely fast. The problem is that gearing is so meaningless that it only serves as an inconvenience.

FF14 has issues more along the lines of being predictable and not parsing out content at a good cadence.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with additional forms of gear progression.

If anything it'd be nicer for people to be able to gear up faster as it stands right now with the lock outs not being able to help friends if you cleared before they did or vice versa really effects being able to join people for raids for the fun of it.
If I do a raid on Tuesday but my static raids on Wednesday I screw them over and that sucks or if I want to help a group that raids on Friday get their clear I can ... but then they get less loot.

So adding another form of progression on top of that would actually kinda be aids.

As it stands players who do come to FF14 (Yes we still do get new players from other games) specially those who are just raid orientated like being able to enter into raids with crafted penta meld greens and some tome stone blues and being able to raid.

So we got that going for us... We actually need to make gearing more open than closed off or limited to a grind.

...

Nooooow. if for example a certain Dev Team wanted to Iunno... make Raid equivalent catch up gear items as rewards in Variant/Criterion dungeons. Either separately doing Criterion or doing Variant dungeons once a week for a certain period for a piece of gear. (pity system)

That would at least give people both an alternative to raiding (If only half your group shows up for raid night you could do a Criterion), a place to use high ilvl gear, make joining groups and them losing a chest not as big a deal, gearing alt jobs faster....

That would be a good idea.

... For a 7.3 patch... With nothing really in it... that be cool if it had that ... @Yoshida. AHEM*

I'd advocate for more player choice and consistency over progression systems.

• Keeping FFXIV accessible to new players
  
• Giving veterans meaningful alt-content
  
• Making social raid systems more forgiving

I've been waiting for FF14 to take this leap and if I could take my beloved Yoshi-P by the collar and shout angrily at him for just 10 minutes, this be the core value I wish to express. More jump in points. More openness and more interconnectivity in the content.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Honestly, just remove gear and make weapons and armour purely aesthetic. It's completely meaningless in modern hamster wheel MMOs. All of your progress is deleted every 8 months. All your old gear goes in the trash, you buy another set of crafted gear, and do the same tome/savage grind for a few weeks to get back to the exact same place that you already were before.

Nothing has any unique effects. Nothing is worth keeping for more than a few months. Everyone who played FFXI still remembers the Krakken Club from 2004 but I doubt most people who play FFXIV could even name a single piece of gear that they currently have equipped.

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Works great in PvP. In fact the only time I grind relics is if I think they'll look cool in Frontline.

Getting (relevant) gear from boss-loot drops pretty much disappears once you hit lev50.
Don't know if I'd want drops from A or S ranks, or whatever, but dungeon drops could do with an extra ~10-ilevs added to them.

The token system is reliable, but also really... dull?

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Originally Posted by Alahard

That was the worst part of Diadem. Doing all that work for the bis weapon only for it to roll only accuracy and nothing else.
No, random substats belong in the trash.

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1) Diadem 1.0 gear appeared in the odd patch following Gordias, where Gordias was already obsolete, but with it offering i210 items I do hear the complaint about it and that's probably why SE only used i265 gear for the second Diadem in 3.55 instead of BiS item level (even though they fucked up big time with the i280 coven weapons).

2) What I wrote never mentioned it to be BiS for savage competition, and in fact I'm pretty sure I mentioned that savage could disable all those perks anyway. This was strictly proposed within the confines of casual content. You even quoted the part where I specifically say "Savage loot could also have fixed, by design perks (not rng) that keep it better than even tome gear or anything casual", so I'm not sure how much clearer I can be.

3) By definition there is no BIS if substats are rng, except perhaps an absolute mathematical maximum that is unreachable anyway. Which is perfectly fine in casual content and improves shelf life dramatically.

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Originally Posted by Nadda

I'd advocate for more player choice and consistency over progression systems.

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We need both.

Alternatives are great for flexibility and gearing up horizontally especially when it comes to alt jobs, etc, but also to offer more options with gear stats and effects. Progression is mandatory in any MMO built around RPG gear systems because that's a core part of what drives players ahead as people naturally want to get stronger, find new exotic things and loot, and that's what gives the game its shelf life as well.

I do not like the idea of just getting one's gear for free with no playtime put behind because as Cheez said above, you could just remove all gear at this point, it would solve you the headache.

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Originally Posted by Valence

1) Diadem 1.0 gear appeared in the odd patch following Gordias, where Gordias was already obsolete, but with it offering i210 items I do hear the complaint about it and that's probably why SE only used i265 gear for the second Diadem in 3.55 instead of BiS item level (even though they fucked up big time with the i280 coven weapons).

2) What I wrote never mentioned it to be BiS for savage competition, and in fact I'm pretty sure I mentioned that savage could disable all those perks anyway. This was strictly proposed within the confines of casual content. You even quoted the part where I specifically say "Savage loot could also have fixed, by design perks (not rng) that keep it better than even tome gear or anything casual", so I'm not sure how much clearer I can be.

3) By definition there is no BIS if substats are rng, except perhaps an absolute mathematical maximum that is unreachable anyway. Which is perfectly fine in casual content and improves shelf life dramatically.

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Even when it's not BIS, this game has a really bad time dealing with specific substats.

Throwing around random skillspeed/spellspeed when classes like PLD exist is just a disaster.

But more importantly, it's not even useful if it's only applied at the lower level.

Lets only allow the casual players get frustrated over their loot while the hardcore gets a clear progression path? Oh god. Both sides would be up in arms. Again.

The better solution is adding alternative gearing to more engaging casual content, and adding an upgrade path through that into near savage loot.

For example -> lets say OC had a DLL equivalent. Having the +2 gear out of it ( and +3 on the FT we currently got) upgrade IL outside of instance along with inside would be an improvement.
Allowing dungeon gear to feed into the upgrade path by converting items into currency ( like silver) would also give some use for those items.

Now you have a clear path, you know what substats you are getting, and it's not nearly as bounded by the RNG gods.

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Originally Posted by Valence

We need both.

Alternatives are great for flexibility and gearing up horizontally especially when it comes to alt jobs, etc, but also to offer more options with gear stats and effects. Progression is mandatory in any MMO built around RPG gear systems because that's a core part of what drives players ahead as people naturally want to get stronger, find new exotic things and loot, and that's what gives the game its shelf life as well.

I do not like the idea of just getting one's gear for free with no playtime put behind because as Cheez said above, you could just remove all gear at this point, it would solve you the headache.

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I don't know about removing gear progression.

Like I said I enjoy how gearing is in FF14 to get people into high end content.

I want that horizontal content both as catch-up but also to test the mettle for our Hardcore raiders who already got their savage gear. To me Criterion is good for this because of it's boss gauntlet style - I actually consider it to be almost pseudo ultimate.

Criterion - second source of raid equivalent Gear. (and maybe even a means to upgrade savage gear you get from the savage raid)
Variant - weekly casual pity system to get the same gear over a longer period.

You remove progression entirely it sort of makes doing difficult content just for the sake of it kinda pointless. I simply want other sources and other content for people to sink their teeth into. Variant especially for casuals because you can do it solo or with friends, and allows players of all ranges more options.

The way how FF14 gearing is to get people into the raid on our even number patches... I want to make it so that people can experience equal or slightly further progression on the odd patches, so there's always something.

Jump in when you want. That's FF14's strength. I want to multiply that feeling so that no matter when you are playing FF14 you can find ways of doing things for your character that are both easily accessible but can also test your mettle that expand the number of ways players can engage with content and progress alt jobs it creates more social cohesion and activity to have progression. Not because of a hamster wheel but more like different modes of completeness for your character. Give everyone a sense of accomplishment however they choose to do it. A multi-lane highway for player agency, without turning it into a forced treadmill

I know it's possible. And I wish I could get the devs ear for it.

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Originally Posted by Alahard

Even when it's not BIS, this game has a really bad time dealing with specific substats.

Throwing around random skillspeed/spellspeed when classes like PLD exist is just a disaster.

But more importantly, it's not even useful if it's only applied at the lower level.

Lets only allow the casual players get frustrated over their loot while the hardcore gets a clear progression path? Oh god. Both sides would be up in arms. Again.

The better solution is adding alternative gearing to more engaging casual content, and adding an upgrade path through that into near savage loot.

For example -> lets say OC had a DLL equivalent. Having the +2 gear out of it ( and +3 on the FT we currently got) upgrade IL outside of instance along with inside would be an improvement.
Allowing dungeon gear to feed into the upgrade path by converting items into currency ( like silver) would also give some use for those items.

Now you have a clear path, you know what substats you are getting, and it's not nearly as bounded by the RNG gods.

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Why do you need a clear path and a path to what? We're not talking about binary atmas. We're not talking about rng into BiS. We're talking about a limitless loop of casual gearing. Check out the borderlands model if you're not convinced.

Reading those two last answers honestly make me feel like I have no idea where you both are coming from with your replies. Extremely puzzling to read, sorry.

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Originally Posted by Alahard

Even when it's not BIS, this game has a really bad time dealing with specific substats.

Throwing around random skillspeed/spellspeed when classes like PLD exist is just a disaster.

But more importantly, it's not even useful if it's only applied at the lower level.

Lets only allow the casual players get frustrated over their loot while the hardcore gets a clear progression path? Oh god. Both sides would be up in arms. Again.

The better solution is adding alternative gearing to more engaging casual content, and adding an upgrade path through that into near savage loot.

For example -> lets say OC had a DLL equivalent. Having the +2 gear out of it ( and +3 on the FT we currently got) upgrade IL outside of instance along with inside would be an improvement.
Allowing dungeon gear to feed into the upgrade path by converting items into currency ( like silver) would also give some use for those items.

Now you have a clear path, you know what substats you are getting, and it's not nearly as bounded by the RNG gods.

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Why would casual players be frustrated?

What do people need savage ilvl loot for if they aren't doing savage? You don't need savage gear for savage, never mind normal mode content.

Instead of AF gear (since it is per job basis) they could use the the gear you can buy with the non-capped tomestones (Neo-Kingdom for this expac) and upgrade through other content. Or even make it augmentable with the augmentation items.

And for making the dungeon gear the same ilvl as crafted gear but with random substats. I think that would piss off crafters more than raiding folks as any gear that doesn't have High Crit would be farmed from dungeon instead or to add something else to craft for gearing process. If I were to implement the random substats idea I would make the dungeon gear have their high stat to be fixed but their lower stat to be random + no materia could be affixed to it. If not, any gear that doesn't have crit as a sub-stat would get abondened. But I think the core idea is fine, should be fun to iterate it among ourselves!

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Originally Posted by Valence

Why do you need a clear path and a path to what? We're not talking about binary atmas. We're not talking about rng into BiS. We're talking about a limitless loop of casual gearing. Check out the borderlands model if you're not convinced.

Reading those two last answers honestly make me feel like I have no idea where you both are coming from with your replies. Extremely puzzling to read, sorry.

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Borderlands work because the entire game is structured to gain all kinds of wacky weapons and random raritys with tons of different stats. One second your using a rocket pistol, and the next a smg that spits acid and grenades.

It doesn't work in 14 because
1)Randomized gear in ff14 is : substats that don't change how you play. Except for one. That makes certain clases a hinderance to play if the value is not optimal. There is no exciting gameplay change when gaining +50 det.

2) Its not endless due to the fact there is only like 4 things gear can roll, and realistically it's only going to be dungeon gear. Which will get replaced with the tomegear anyways, which needs to have fixed stats.

3) Every time random gear has been added, its caused more complaints then its worth for the whole community.

A better "endless" form of gearing is alternate gearing, assuming square can get their OC/Bodja/Eureka equivalent out earlier, and proper. Long grinds that reflect in actual power gains both inside and outside that players can work towards.
Of course any better casual gearing system, requires the dev to make good casual content. So closer to bodja style mix of content, but introduce it on launch, build on it patch by patch, and allow other activities ( treasure maps for example) also assist in the process.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Why would casual players be frustrated?

What do people need savage ilvl loot for if they aren't doing savage? You don't need savage gear for savage, never mind normal mode content.

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While I agree that its not needed per say, thats not the goal of the gear.

The goal of the gear is to give a goal for those players to pursue. The goal just needs actual good content around it.

And as raiders, you need that player base to stick around because realistically they give a much larger share of the money to square than we do. More of them potentially means they can push more raiding content for us raiders.

As long as dailies are the most valid way of making the new player experience better, or leveling new jobs, then we will never get any kind of gear progression that feels good.

Dungeon gear will always be a waste of dev resources (for progression, some people like the glam), and it will always be a linear mess that for the most part unless you are parsing makes your character feel like its playing like its supposed to, as opposed to making your characters feel "more powerful". I mean FFS the skills we got in this expansion were almost nothing. The final Paladin rotation skill looks weaker than the Endwalker one lol.

That said if the devs said F it and wanted to make drastic changes, they could make it so tombs were used in something like artifact gear upgrades, and in between, different parts of content in dungeons, raids (yes including savage and ultimate), and the open world fates (normal and rare), had chances of dropping individual pieces of gear that were meaningful. This would give people a reason to WANT to do the different newer content. That said, they could go a step further and make certain harder to get pieces give really good stat boneses or skill bonuses but then they would have to actually try new things. But none of this will happen unless the incentive to MAKE old players do old content (which I might add is made to be obsolete the second you finish it) so new players think that the game is social and that old players necessarily want to be there while playing on classes above the content level with a lesser kit.

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Originally Posted by Alahard

Borderlands work because the entire game is structured to gain all kinds of wacky weapons and random raritys with tons of different stats. One second your using a rocket pistol, and the next a smg that spits acid and grenades.

It doesn't work in 14 because
1)Randomized gear in ff14 is : substats that don't change how you play. Except for one. That makes certain clases a hinderance to play if the value is not optimal. There is no exciting gameplay change when gaining +50 det.

2) Its not endless due to the fact there is only like 4 things gear can roll, and realistically it's only going to be dungeon gear. Which will get replaced with the tomegear anyways, which needs to have fixed stats.

3) Every time random gear has been added, its caused more complaints then its worth for the whole community.

A better "endless" form of gearing is alternate gearing, assuming square can get their OC/Bodja/Eureka equivalent out earlier, and proper. Long grinds that reflect in actual power gains both inside and outside that players can work towards.
Of course any better casual gearing system, requires the dev to make good casual content. So closer to bodja style mix of content, but introduce it on launch, build on it patch by patch, and allow other activities ( treasure maps for example) also assist in the process.

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1) That was the whole point of bringing in exotic perks and making substats that do matter. Unless you're actually trying to defend the bland substats we currently have?

2) Refer to above, and cf tome gear: no it won't because it would keep up in terms of efficiency with tome gear ideally. Savage would still get an edge because you can't get augmented tome during a savage patch.

3) Because they keep fucking it up.

Having alternative gear sources is also a great thing I've been advocating for yes, but everything they have given us during the whole of XIV history has been a shitshow that is always inferior to tome gear. It should COMPETE with it, else it's just useful inside eureka/bozja/oc and nowhere else.

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Originally Posted by Valence

1) That was the whole point of bringing in exotic perks and making substats that do matter. Unless you're actually trying to defend the bland substats we currently have?

2) Refer to above, and cf tome gear: no it won't because it would keep up in terms of efficiency with tome gear ideally. Savage would still get an edge because you can't get augmented tome during a savage patch.

3) Because they keep fucking it up.

Having alternative gear sources is also a great thing I've been advocating for yes, but everything they have given us during the whole of XIV history has been a shitshow that is always inferior to tome gear. It should COMPETE with it, else it's just useful inside eureka/bozja/oc and nowhere else.

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1) Im not defending the current substats, But then it needs to be applied uniformly. Cant just give those effects to one group and not the other. Which either the savage effects need to be so broken to compete with the casual ones, which also need to be good to be worthwhile to grind for, or they will also be in a rng grindfest.

2)If it keeps up with tome gear then the rng also applies to raiders since we rely on that level of gear. Half of the bis on average is upgraded tome, and non upgraded is also used while prog is happening.

3) I guess you can say that? but in what way can they not mess it up? you either get a good roll or you dont.