Communal outcry against sub-prime gear lockouts

[Kallera]

Has anyone played a brand new MMO that was loaded with end-game content at launch? ive played alot and i sure havent. even ffxi that everyone keeps referencing.. didnt have much.. sky and dynamis after several years. Expectations need to be realistic. it takes time to get content created, especially when they redirect funds and manpower to buying new servers to fix the flooding. The alternative was keeping the game offline for an extra 6 months to a year to get lots and lots of content options for end-game which was not a viable option.

What flooding are you referring to that would affect 2.0's servers? The dev team hasn't told us of that. ffxi didn't have to service a population of players that have already reached lvl 50. This game is, and even on new servers you are getting players that have already reached that point and beyond, and more are getting there by the day. If they didn't plan for this with how easy leveling is, than they need to plan for it, and not in a year.

[Ryios]

Join the dark side and level another character (different toon, e.g. an alt) like the rest of us and bypass the 2nd job problem. On an alt you can farm 300 myth (450 after 2.1) separately from your main toon. You can run BCB twice, CT gear twice, etc etc etc.

So basically, my main is my tank. My Alt is my healer, and eventually I'll level another one for DPS. And I do all my crafting/gathering on my tank.

If you just do Hunting Log, Story Quests, required dungeons, and fates you can level an alt to 50 in about 5 days at 4 hours a sit.

It sucks mailing stuff to alts (you can't), so I just get my alt's to their retainers and post a 1 gil item on the ah for 100,000 gil or w/e then log on my main and buy it. Or I have a friend trade me stuff.

To level an alt, I basically followed this path

1: Get all aethrytes in starting nation
2: Do Story quest, hunting log, and a leve or 2 till 15
3: Get all aehterytes in the other 2 nations
4: Do Satasha etc to 20
5: Get Chocbo
6: Grind out 2k seals with fates, and GC Hunting Log
7: Go get every teleport point in the game
8: Continue story mode and save all quests before level 30 for cross class jobs
9: Use quests/fates/dungeons > level 30 to get to 50

Takes about a week 4 hours a night

[Ryios]

Also, to say FFXI didn't have much endgame content at NA launch is true. It was just SKY really.

However, the thing people are forgetting is that you didn't get to end game easily in FFXI. You needed to be in a group of 6 people to level up, which meant it was impossible to get to level 75 first without simultaneously getting 5 other people to 75 too. 99% of the player base at NA FFXI Launch didn't hit level 75 on a job till many many months later. It took me about 6 months to get 1 job to 75 with all my sub jobs leveled up.

[Orophin]

Personally I see lockouts as necessary to prevent content from being depleted faster than new content can be developed, as annoying as a lockout can be.

I just don't agree with them putting lockouts on content that's technically obsolete already for several players' "main job". Maybe the people who haven't attempted Coil greatly outnumber those who have, but if there were a limit of only one item per run in CT then those who are behind could catch up and start doing Coil. I'd wager that those who are behind will still be working on Coil until 2.2 hits.

I'm fine with how Coil currently operates. The group I run with is still struggling on Turn 4 because we're at a gear disadvantage due to the lack of useful drops in Turns 1 and 2. I was hoping CT could help fill in the gaps and then use it as an option to gear up alt classes, but SE obviously has other plans.

Join the dark side and level another character (different toon, e.g. an alt) like the rest of us and bypass the 2nd job problem. On an alt you can farm 300 myth (450 after 2.1) separately from your main toon. You can run BCB twice, CT gear twice, etc etc etc.

The whole point of the Armory system is to be able to do everything on one character. Having to level a completely different character just to be able to gear up a separate class defeats the entire purpose.

I'm fine that Myth and Allagan gear are limited in how you can obtain them because they're currently the best available, but it's a backwards step putting a limitation as severe as 1 item per week in CT for lower ilvl items. This limitation is even more disappointing considering it's something that can be done in the DF. Every other piece of content done via DF can be repeated ad nauseum, except now for this. (and I guess the extreme primals, but I'm ok for only being able to do them once a week for an i90 item)

[Ryios]

The whole point of the Armory system is to be able to do everything on one character. Having to level a completely different character just to be able to gear up a separate class defeats the entire purpose.

I agree completely. But I am tired of waiting for SE to fix it and get it right. So I am leveling an alt like the rest of the people I play with. I'm tired of paying 15$ a month to do nothing for 6 days when I could level an alt and at least have something to do for 2 days instead of 1. In other words, I took this problem into my own hands. I don't like that I have to level an alt, but it's currently the only way around the lock out system, so that's what I am doing.

Also it comes with perks,

2 * alt AH Retainers (4 atm),
100 * Alt Count Leve Allowances (I have 200 atm)
450 Myth Per Alt
BCB Per Alt
CT Lockout Per Alt
Being able to mine Unsoiled Nodes Twice (if you level multiple gathering classes per alt to 50)

[Xystic]

SE,

My question here is: How do you plan to address the increasing frustration with all of these gear lockouts?

Player,

My question here is: How do you plan to address the increasing issues with removing all of these gear lockouts?

Ignoring them is not an answer.

[Luso]

I don't understand why they don't create content that doesn't need a lockout. I see people on the forums saying that SE is doing this to prolong the content, but honestly SE develop content that takes a long time naturally. Putting artificial holds on stuff really takes away from the game.

Let people play dungeons as much as they want. There are other ways to slow down progression besides completely closing off parts of the game. Put in long progression quests, RNG some of the rare loot to actually be rare, add a collection game or scavenger hunt.

Keep people in the game everyday. Even if its for short 1-2 hour periods. If players log in once a week, it will be easy to replace a game they play on Monday with another game that is more entertaining.

RNG, grinds, and prerequisites are mandatory in an mmo to keep it alive for a long time. Accomplishment for getting something that took a lot of time and effort is what an mmorpg should stand for. Sure its frustrating sometimes when luck isn't in your side, but at least players will keep trying rather than log off to wait for next weeks dungeon timers.

[Sinth]

Player,

My question here is: How do you plan to address the increasing issues with removing all of these gear lockouts?

Ignoring them is not an answer.

Please cite any "increasing issues" encountered by removing gear lockouts from sub-prime gear. Nice attempt at condescension though, however, next time you might want to think it through.

[HamHam]

I'm on category B right now. I'm a bit dishearten right now. I hardly logged in at all this week. I logged in yesterday and logged out about 30 minutes after not doing anything. I spend it mostly just talking in Mumble to a few friends.

I'm at a point where there's nothing to do in this game. I'm tired of doing the same two dungeons (AK and WP). Can't do coil, because everyone in the FC has their own static, and I'm just in a reserve list in case someone else doesn't show. The weekly lookout cause this btw. You can't just pick people from the other groups because they are looked out on a turn ahead of you. GREAT!!! and shout groups are only "looking for bard only" so, hey, here I am, not enjoying the game... bored...

[Alhanelem]

The whole point of the Armory system is to be able to do everything on one character. Having to level a completely different character just to be able to gear up a separate class defeats the entire purpose.

I've said this about a hundred times but you don't have to level another character. Ilvl90 gear other than a relic is not really required for anything other than turn 5 of coil, and there is no lockout on relics. You don't have to get all your ilvl90 gear on one job, you can spread it around, and ilvl70 gear is sufficient to challange 99.9% of all content (read: EVERYTHING but turn 5) in the game. There is no cap on tomestones for darklight gear so you can gear up all jobs as fast as you can get tomestones, and there is no lockout on primal weapons.

Nobody *has* to level alts. impatient people who have to be the best at everything immediately do it because they don't have the paitence. I know some people who have more than one ilvl90 item on several jobs. Even with the lockout on coil enough time has passed for some people to have geared multiple jobs on one character.

And once again, that gear is not required to enjoy virtually all content. Some people just can't stand not being #1 in the business on whatever job they're playing.

I do somewhat understand people feeling that new content that is already lower tier than coil shouldn't have a lockout, but I think this may be temporary to prevent the gear from initially being obtained too fast. It should be removed once the next patch hits I think. I'm just annoyed that people feel like they can't play their other jobs because of this when they most certainly can.