How do newly chreated characters / new players supposed to progress naturually

[Granyala]

Now that the super cheap i90 gear from hunts is gone, you actually have to start running dungeons and farming drops. Or you buy gil and buy the crafted ilvl 90 (no new player will be able to afford the AH prices).

With 2.4 it got 20-40x more time consuming to get to a point where you can go random expert.

Kinda a lame change if you ask me, considering the fact that poor peeps needing dungeon drops get trolled by outdated shitty craftmat drops.

[Lemuria]

Now that the super cheap i90 gear from hunts is gone, you actually have to start running dungeons getting tomes for the i100 gear.

FTFY

It sucks, but there's a pretty big leap now. Farming dungeons for the ilvl 90 gear is a waste of time. You're casting lots against multiple players, many of whom just want it for desynthesis skill, and you have to participate in high level dungeons to even get a shot. Prior to getting to that ilvl, every single dungeon now drops soldiery tomes which can be used to purchase level 100 gear. Welcome to progression SE style.

Step 1: get CT1 full gear
step 2: get ancient gear from the new dungeons
step 3: buy ilevel 100 gears you earned from CT1 and the new dungeons and get ilevel90 gears with the ancient gears

Why...? CT gear is worthless now too! ST gear is far more relevant, but even then it's now meaningless thanks to the abundance of soldiery tomes. Given that you can work towards ilvl 100 as a fresh-faced level 50 character now that every dungeon drops those tomes, there's no reason to do any of that content aside from a change of pace.

Call me crazy if you will, but the whole point of philosophy and mythology tomes were to enforce a nice steady progression. You worked towards Philo gear, then you built up Myth gear. It made sense. Then they ditched Philo, making Darklight a worthless random drop. Now they've done the same to mythology gear. SE just don't understand steady progression.

[Granyala]

It sucks, but there's a pretty big leap now. Farming dungeons for the ilvl 90 gear is a waste of time. You're casting lots against multiple players, many of whom just want it for desynthesis skill, and you have to participate in high level dungeons to even get a shot. Prior to getting to that ilvl, every single dungeon now drops soldiery tomes which can be used to purchase level 100 gear. Welcome to progression SE style.

I don't even know how many soldiery you can get if you don't have the item level to run the higher dungeons.
Remember: the dungeons that drop Ilvl 90 need ilvl 80 ALREADY EQUIPPED (at which farming I 90 would be a waste of time, I agree). The op was talking about fresh 50s with an avg ilvl ~ 50.
Might even have to farm daily story / low level roulette.

[Felis]

Then they ditched Philo, making Darklight a worthless random drop. Now they've done the same to mythology gear. SE just don't understand steady progression.

Myth gear is at the same time also still a tome gear. The tomes for it are now the antique gears you can find in the new dungeons.
1 antique gear for each body part, and you have the choise for what job you want it.

Example: http://xivdb.com/?item/9391/Antique-Sollerets

[Lemuria]

Myth gear is at the same time also still a tome gear. The tomes for it are now the antique gears you can find in the new dungeons.
1 antique gear for each body part, and you have the choise for what job you want it.]

The point is, by the time you're geared enough to run those dungeons you've already outgrown it. Also, it's still a random drop in a chest. There's no guarantee you'll get the headpiece, legs or body. It's entirely guesswork as to which armor drops in the dungeon, and you're still lotting against other players to obtain it. Tomes are earned regardless.

As for how much soldiery you get, I'd say you get sufficient enough amounts to gear up even on lower tier dungeons like Amdapor Keep. The downside now is that they've effectively cut off some players from being able to use Duty Roulette because... well, they're stupid. They've gone and attached the old 'extreme' roulette dungeons to the hard mode roulettes effectively increasing the ilvl requirement and the total number of dungeons you need to complete before it unlocks.

I think SE just hates new players.

[IzumiYuki]

The point is, by the time you're geared enough to run those dungeons you've already outgrown it. Also, it's still a random drop in a chest. There's no guarantee you'll get the headpiece, legs or body. It's entirely guesswork as to which armor drops in the dungeon, and you're still lotting against other players to obtain it. Tomes are earned regardless.

Asfor how much soldiery you get, I'd say you get sufficient enough amounts to gear up even on lower tier dungeons like Amdapor Keep. The downside now is that they've effectively cut off some players from being able to use Duty Roulette because... well, they're stupid. They've gone and attached the old 'extreme' roulette dungeons to the hard mode roulettes effectively increasing the ilvl requirement and the total number of dungeons you need to complete before it unlocks.

I think SE just hates new players.

I think most of what is said here is totally innacurate since none of you are actually new players and are just making assumptions. I am a new player who is still under the one month free trial (4 days left) and I just reached 50 not long ago.

So, far, I have not actually outgeared any content and all the gear I get are usable. I have cleared Ifrit, Garuda, Titan Ex and all the high level dungeons so far through the DF, after I barely made the ilvl requirements. I can assure you we don't lose anything not being able to do roulette right away. The gear progressions is just fine.

Of course, we won't be able to do content at the same difficulty as release but that is the nature of all MMOs. Old content need to be easy to allow new players to get a party easily by making it attractive for old players to do those old dungeons. One of the difficult things new players face in an MMO is getting to the same tier as the rest of the playerbase. As of now, I think SE is doing a great job. It is neither too fast nor too slow to catch up to the current playerbase. Once we get to your level, then we can experience content at the same difficulty as everyone. If gear progression is too slow or old content still too hard, then it will be impossible for us new players to reach to the current content. We would forever be playing catch-up, until an expansion releases where gear is reset.

So, I must say good job to SE. Sure there are problems like slow queue times for DF and players wanting to disband after 1 wipe but that is a problem of the playerbase and not SE. As of now, SE is making FF14 a great experience for new players at 50 to catch up to the current playerbase, unlike any of the other MMOs I have played where it is either impossible to reach the current content or too fast.

[Lemuria]

So, far, I have not actually outgeared any content and all the gear I get are usable. I have cleared Ifrit, Garuda, Titan Ex and all the high level dungeons so far through the DF, after I barely made the ilvl requirements. I can assure you we don't lose anything not being able to do roulette right away. The gear progressions is just fine.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but considering how easy it is to get Soldiery tomes even WITHOUT level 60+ gear, I fail to see how you can consider it a progression. The soldiery gear, I remind you is level 100 and you can earn these tomes on the basic dungeons.

So, in short. Do Amdapor Keep, do Wandering Palace. Both of those are easy enough even in your quested AF gear. Both drop soldiery tomes which are used to purchase level 100 gear. If you get an upgrade in the meantime, great. Equip it. But it's not worth RELYING on those random drops any more. By the time you've found the piece you want, you could've EARNED a better one.

[Alukah]

New players get a soldiery bonus on top of the base soldiery reward the first time they do a dungeon, considering they have to clear each dungeon once to unlock high level roulette this alone ensures a big amount of soldiery over the time, people also get ~200 soldiery per main scenario roulette if there's a new player, which is most of the time.

By the time you unlock most dungeons you should have enough gear drops AND soldiery accessories to overcome the ilvl requirement for Titan HM, at that point you can get your zenith relic, unlock CT, unlock ST and run ST for i100 drops, UAT, oil and sand, along with soldiery, also run T1, T2 and T4 for the first time bonus + i90 drops, by then your ilvl should be high enough to unlock expert dungeons, and by then you should have a somewhat steady income of soldiery to keep upgrading pieces to i110, while still having some i100 pieces from ST and slowly working towards poetic gear.

This of course will take several days (no more than a week tho) but you are not supposed to get full i110 gear right as you get to 50.

tl;dr you guys assume too much, gear progression is fine, it's not hard for a fresh 50 to catch up, I find it a lot better than early 2.2.

EDIT: don't forget about S rank hunts, they give 50 soldiery for doing nothing but zerging monsters that take 2~3 mins to be killed, if you get into an active hunting linkshell and also happen to be online when most S ranks spawn that's a really nice soldiery boost, you can also use the seals for extra soldiery pieces and any log that drops for extra sands/oils.