AF gear - handed to you for dinging 45/50

[Klefth]

Truth is hilarious? I don't think I'd have worded it quite like that. In the last days of 1.0 before character data was locked I helped some people try and get their AF bodies. We were able to one their white mage body, another their dragoon body... but the one going for the bard piece we just could not beat, even with following a strategy that had won loads of times before. Ultimately, we ran out of time and that person wound up having to wait till, well, now, in order to get their AF body. I only leveled the Gridanian classes to job status but from what I'd heard every body piece battle was tough. Some more than others, but tougher still was getting the help to run the battles. Little surprise the changes they made.

I find this really, really, REALLY hard to believe. Those battles were simply idiot-proof (as in, they wouldn't just hand over your rewards just because you hit level 50 and proved your ability to take on a quest), but not really that hard, let alone impossible to do. Also, the complaints about the AF quests were minimal - only a few crybabies that couldn't be bothered to try and win an easy fight kept crying ever more loudly until they got it nerfed to where they just literally hand over your reward pretty much for just taking the quest. The SMN AF quest, for example, was literally just talking with 4 NPCs and killing one extremely weak mob for each (just another one of those "trash mobs" we now have in the open) - It must've taken 2 or 3 minutes if at all to get the first 4 pieces, and then for the last one there was this "boss fight" which, instead of the remotely challenging battles we used to have in 1.0, was just a 2 on 1 battle with a NPC that was constantly healing me while I just mindlessly wailed at that... "boss" thing.

[Hayward]

if you don't have 7 hours to play a game anymore, then maybe mmorpgs aren't for you? stop forcing yourself to play a genre that doesn't suit your time frame, either that or make time for the game. you cant have everyone else suffer because the game doeskin conveniently suit your specific needs, granted the same can be said to just about anyone else, however, ff11 was and still is a very successful game, and the way it did it was in the respect of long challenging game-play.

[John McEnroe]YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS![/John McEnroe]

[LiadansWhisper]

the fact they just hand the AF gear to you has no rational positive excuse. they screwed up and wanted to cater to fail-gamers who cant diversify their gaming play style from non-stop leveling and fate farming.

any gear really good gear or loot in this game should also be hard to get. The fact that this game just throws it at you like this, really shows how much respect the game has for it's self. and it doesnt look good.

if you don't have 7 hours to play a game anymore, then maybe mmorpgs aren't for you? stop forcing yourself to play a genre that doesn't suit your time frame, either that or make time for the game. you cant have everyone else suffer because the game doeskin conveniently suit your specific needs, granted the same can be said to just about anyone else, however, ff11 was and still is a very successful game, and the way it did it was in the respect of long challenging game-play.

I will never understand how people who have never even made it to level 50, much less seen endgame, can be such elitist jerks. :-\ It's amazing. It's like those wannabe "hardcore" raiders in WoW who spit on "casual players" 100% of the time, while sitting at 5/13 heroic raiding 5 nights a week.

The truth is that the gear another player gets in no way affects me unless it's in my particular raid group. You can have all the Artifact, blues, greens, epics, relics, whatever, and it in no way changes my ability to raid or my ability to progress as a player. It doesn't make the bosses harder or easier for me, and it doesn't negate my need to down them if I want to see endgame gear.

When you've managed to down all the Turns of Bahamut, then you can come back and talk to us about fail-gamers, and how we should all spend 12+ hours in the game every day. I mean, seriously, if you actually believed that, you'd have hit 50 by now. Like, by days ago.

crybabies

"These people disagree with me, and I can't engage with them on an intellectual level, cuz neurons, dude, so I'm just going to call them names to make sure everyone knows they suck. Because me calling them "crybabies" proves that's all it was."

[Ramsey]

The real question is why any crafted (or even dungeon) gear exists between Gear Level 45 and iLvl 55, because it's all completely worthless. Take a look at Cobalt Armor for instance, what the hell is the point? And don't say converting because that's ridiculous, if you're going to convert at that level you're not even going to hit the ACC cap in cobalt, and you'd be better off converting Militia into tier IV materia.

Making AF ludicrously easy to get has destroyed the itemization from 45 to 50.

[Pibz]

The real question is why any crafted (or even dungeon) gear exists between Gear Level 45 and iLvl 55, because it's all completely worthless. Take a look at Cobalt Armor for instance, what the hell is the point? And don't say converting because that's ridiculous, if you're going to convert at that level you're not even going to hit the ACC cap in cobalt, and you'd be better off converting Militia into tier IV materia.

Making AF ludicrously easy to get has destroyed the itemization from 45 to 50.

Exactly what this guys said!

Why have these pieces of equip in the game(the ones obtained through crafting/dungeon) if there's absolutely NO USE FOR THEM?!

I don't mind being given the damn AF gear for nothing, not at all! But it should definitely be adjusted so that other gear has some purpose.

[Ryios]

Because AF is kind of crappy for the level 50 content. It will get you through Wander's Palace but that's about it. You will struggle in AK with AF. And the real grind is acquiring AF2 which is about 5 months of farming one of two dungeons (Castrum or AK). AF is just starter level 50 gear to get you through WP and Ifrit HM (and ifrit HM would be pushing it). The gear that drops in WP (the first 50 dungeon) replaces AF entirely. And AK gear drops replace WP. It's not until you upgrade it to AF2 that it becomes good gear at item level 90 and better than darklight.

[blowfin]

I can see where the OP is coming from, I was pretty amazed that all I had to do was run around and collect bags. For me this gear was a LARGE upgrade even though I was fairly current. Seems the effort for reward is slightly skewed to be perfectly honest, it should take more than 10 minutes to get a substantial upgrade, they could have included a bit more lore about each item.

However, i'm saying this as a veteran XI player. Back then we had to open coffers behind the gates in Garliage Citadel and the Necropolis. Not to mention the fights for the head armor which generally required a party (at the level you were supposed to get the armor). However, a big difference between XI and XIV is that AF had utility all the way through to 75 really, basically because of the sidegrade nature of a lot of XI's gear. AF in this game does not have the same utility.

[ChickensEvil]

Because AF is kind of crappy for the level 50 content. It will get you through Wander's Palace but that's about it. You will struggle in AK with AF. And the real grind is acquiring AF2 which is about 5 months of farming one of two dungeons (Castrum or AK). AF is just starter level 50 gear to get you through WP and Ifrit HM (and ifrit HM would be pushing it). The gear that drops in WP (the first 50 dungeon) replaces AF entirely. And AK gear drops replace WP. It's not until you upgrade it to AF2 that it becomes good gear at item level 90 and better than darklight.

Not entirely true. I don't know why people keep saying the AF gear is "completely worthless". It is perfectly fine to get you through everything up through Garuda HM and AK. Titan might be the only thing where I would be inclined to believe you need to have SOMETHING better. The AK gear is not likely where your gear deficiency lies, it is most likely in every other slot on your character. You have 8 other slots (7 if using a 2H weapon) and most seem to forget this. Especially regarding the weapon which is the single biggest upgrade no matter what you are playing. If you have all level 45+ gear on, like you should, then you can do all that content without "struggle". "struggle" implies that you are technically undergeared but because of some fancy play you are able to push through the game.

All three AK bosses have pretty strict DPS requirements getting worse as you go through. With 45+ gear on, on all 4 people in the dungeon, we have been able to clear all 3 bosses in the dungeon without missing any one of those DPS check points. (Killing the rocks before they AOE, killing the wall before soft enrage, Killing the last boss before hard enrage). In most cases we far exceed these check points (even without a LB used we killed the wall with 1 pushback to spare, last boss we killed using a LB before the final gargoyle spawned). So please stop saying the gear is "worthless". Only after the fact have I finally replaced out my head, gloves, and boots with something else.... and honestly, I haven't noticed much of a difference.

[DwightParkman]

the reason i havent hit level 50 yet, is purely out of choice, im taking my time now due to pure observations form all the many level 50 players, its perfectly fine for non level cap people to act like they are talking about, because they usually do, why? because when youve played one modern mmorpg you have played them all, they really play it safe wayyy wayyy too much.

[ChickensEvil]

the reason i havent hit level 50 yet, is purely out of choice, im taking my time now due to pure observations form all the many level 50 players, its perfectly fine for non level cap people to act like they are talking about, because they usually do, why? because when youve played one modern mmorpg you have played them all, they really play it safe wayyy wayyy too much.

Ok, but you don't know what you are talking about, because you mention that great gear should be hard to get. AF gear is decent at best. Where does it sit in the gear progression? random whites - 45-49 dungeon greens and GC greens - AF - WP/AK greens - Darklight - AF2. Now where does the "end game" content sit? Well, by definition "endgame" is anything you do when you are max level. Hrmmm that makes AF gear pre-endgame level... making it not amazing... making it perfectly fine to hand out like candy.

Just because it is called "Artifact Gear" doesn't mean that it is anything special. If you think a name has anything to do with something, have I got a deal on a Lamborghini for you! Only 100k!

That's totally NOT a honda Civic... see, cause it has the lambo doors... obviously because it looks like a lambo it must BE a lambo!

Edit: Actually that progression of gear isn't entirely correct, there is some GC pre level 50 stuff that because of material slots and set bonuses might actually be better, there are also crafted items that are better... so it pushes AF gear even lower on the scale.