Here is what I don't understand about the CT Lockout

[Xystic]

If Crystal Tower gear is supposed to be catch up gear/gear for those who aren't capable of running coil yet to use to be able to run it - Why is a lockout in place?
How on earth are you supposed to catch up if it takes you 5 (assuming there's only 5 pieces to collect) weeks to do it?
It simply does not make sense, Crystal Tower was always marketed as an alternative for those incapable of handling Coil yet to use to prepare.

Cause a few pieces is plenty to put casuals into coils. You don't need the entire set. People were not in coils with complete sets of anything prior to 2.1. Is it beneficial to have many pieces, yes, but not necessary.

Lockouts are to prevent things like problems occuring in duty finders from happening. We are having enough issues with 4 people, take that and multiply it by 2.

Lockouts also prevent people from getting lucky and getting all their gear in one week and never showing up ever again. Not everyone joins a FC and raids for the same reason.

For example:

Half your FC raids to progress, while half raids for gear. If lockouts are removed and half of your FC gets all their gear in 1 week, you are instantly down to have half a raid group. Now you are stuck looking for more people. The process will rinse, repeat a milion times.

Lock-outs force people to come back every week so you have people to raid with, so you have a chance at some gear. Remember not every member in your FC is morally nice and will show up to raid when they have had their complete set for the last 14 weeks.

Any MMO designer or MMO analyst or MMO veteran can tell you that lock-outs are to keep the community together and stable. We pay a small price to keep the MMO community healthy. Is it annoying? yes. But are lock-outs essential to MMOs, yes and some of the biggest MMO titles and longest living MMOs use lock-out systems because they keep MMO communities healthy. Remove it and we will see Duty Finder players all day.

[Zerosix]

True but there needs to be a balance stuck here. We want to level alt jobs but they are useless to us because we cannot gear them. A cap on top-tier gear is acceptable, but capping 2nd and 3rd tier just prevents us from enjoying all of the available jobs. I can easily handle (skill-wise) healing in coil, but I simply cannot acquire the gear for it, as my main job is a DPS. I cannot enjoy the other classes in end-game content, as doing so would require sacrificing progressing my main job. That is the problem.

100percent right.

[Zantetsuken]

We want to level alt jobs but they are useless to us because we cannot gear them. A cap on top-tier gear is acceptable, but capping 2nd and 3rd tier just prevents us from enjoying all of the available jobs. I can easily handle (skill-wise) healing in coil, but I simply cannot acquire the gear for it, as my main job is a DPS. I cannot enjoy the other classes in end-game content, as doing so would require sacrificing progressing my main job. That is the problem.

You have two routes for ilvl90 gear. If you are grinding ilvl90 myth gear and then running Coil to replace that same Job's ilvl90 with other ilvl90 gear, you're doing it wrong.

Use one path for your main job, and the other to outfit your 2nd job.

[Ryans]

Was there an official announcement on Crystal Tower having a lockout? The fact that it is a duty finder instance with two other random parties made me think it wouldn't be.

[Zerosix]

I'm sorry, but I was under the impression you could buy ilvl90 gear with tomestones...

With the myth cap raised to 450 per week, you could easily run Coil for your main, and use AF+1 to gear up your alt.

You have two routes for ilvl90 gear. Why not use them both?

What about the other jobs that are in the game, and the other jobs to be added to the game. I want experience the games content on all the jobs, not just a couple... In other games you can at least have different specs for one character. With this game you can have 1 spec/job at endgame and maybe one slightly less, and a ton of other jobs that sit there rotting.

Does not sound like the "expansive armory system" that was boasted about arr to me...

[Zell]

I'm sorry, but I was under the impression you could buy ilvl90 gear with tomestones...

With the myth cap raised to 450 per week, you could easily run Coil for your main, and use AF+1 to gear up your alt.

You have two routes for ilvl90 gear. Why not use them both?

Because if you're wiping in coil, you can't justify holding out on further gearing your "main job" so that you can buy i90 gear for another job. When you commit to coil, you'll have to hope for drops and spend your myth because that is was your FC expects in order ot increase the chance of success.

If this was any other p2p game, or even f2p game (rift), as soon as I was done using monday or tuesday finishing cap in coil, myth for warrior, I could log onto my other character and cap them as well.

As it stands now, as soon as one job is capped, there's no other way for my to use myth or coil on my second job. My second job is tied to my character, where as in other mmos it's tied to another character. So what started out as a great selling point for FFXIV, is turning out to be a burden. As someone who loves playing 3 to 4 different jobs, I have no effective way to advance them with my FREE time. I've had an artificial cap placed on my playing time where such a restriction does not exist in another game.

[Churchill]

The most hilarious part about people defending the need for the lockout for whatever various reasons (don't break away from casuals, extend the game, etc) is that the lockout hurts casual players and players having difficulty with Bahamut's Coil/Turn 5 more than any single group.

The people clearing Bahamut's Coil 1-4 easily, clearing Turn 5 easily, they don't care (call them hardcore, whatever) because this change doesn't effect them. They get 7 pieces of gear and 1 i95 weapon per week from Coil and anywhere from 1-2 pieces of Mythology gear every 2 weeks. Regardless of whether it's the gear you wanted, if everyone took one piece that's 3 items a week of i90 or above and doesn't even include items from Extreme Primals. Instead of wasting Myth on +1 relics, they'll have the Primal option, instead of dealing with a 1 item/week lockout, they get 2-3 pieces of gear a week of a higher item level. We're already gearing other classes in Coil and have been for a long time, I'll still do CT and lot my item per week/get tomes, but past that it doesn't hurt me or slow me down or effect the little time I get out of this game if I can only lot/win that one time.

For the people not in my situation, this is definitely intended to hurt you and impede your ability to play the game or get caught up.

[NeonC]

Uh there is still DL. That has no cap...

[Zerosix]

Because if you're wiping in coil, you can't justify holding out on further gearing your "main job" so that you can buy i90 gear for another job. When you commit to coil, you'll have to hope for drops and spend your myth because that is was your FC expects in order ot increase the chance of success.

If this was any other p2p game, or even f2p game (rift), as soon as I was done using monday or tuesday finishing cap in coil, myth for warrior, I could log onto my other character and cap them as well.

As it stands now, as soon as one job is capped, there's no other way for my to use myth or coil on my second job. My second job is tied to my character, where as in other mmos it's tied to another character. So what started out as a great selling point for FFXIV, is turning out to be a burden. As someone who loves playing 3 to 4 different jobs, I have no effective way to advance them with my FREE time. I've had an artificial cap placed on my playing time where such a restriction does not exist in another game.

In rift we had several different roles and specs on the same character that are viable at the same time on end game content. Here we have one class/job with one rotation for the endgame content. So by those standards even one character in rift offered what would take 4 separate characters to do here.

Uh there is still DL. That has no cap...

Screw DL gear... That wont help my alts be viable for anything as dl gear sucks and has low vitality and will be worth nil in 2.2 and 2.3.

[Zantetsuken]

. As someone who loves playing 3 to 4 different jobs, I have no effective way to advance them with my FREE time. I've had an artificial cap placed on my playing time where such a restriction does not exist in another game.

Nobody is stopping you from making an alt Char if it's really that important to you.. FF has the job system, but you can just as easily ignore it and make other chars then same the way other MMO's are set up.

Last I checked, you can make 8 alts per server if you have the higher tier service. That's one alt for each class.