SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[Ultimatecalibur]

And this is an issue in itself, It shouldn't be the case that the gear with the highest stats / ilvl in the game comes from quite literally ONE location each patch cycle. I have already said earlier in this thread that we need a variety of content to offer up that sort of gear, not just one type of content at a time, whether it be multiple types of raids or even a raid that works in tandem with crafting, a system like this one would work quite well.

This isn't a solution that needs to be one or the other, there are tons of ways to make various methods of high level gear acquisition desirable without sticking the best of the bunch in one raid for 6 months and calling it at that.

2.0 tried to do this, but the fact that Myth gear was i90 caused people to ignore BCoB, the endgame raid, after fully gearing up in Myth ~8 weeks after hitting 50. This is why from 2.2 on they started doing a +20 ilevels for hardcore players every 6 months/+10 ilevel for midcore and casual players every 3 months upgrade rotation. 2.3 had a slight fumble in the midcore range with the gear upgrades gained from Hunts being gained to fast and players fully upgrading in 1 or 2 weeks instead of the roughly 8 weeks intended. Sources of gear that are to easy/fast negatively effect the play ability of harder/slower sources of similar gear. Crafted gear is pretty much the easiest/fastest way you can get gear.

Also the Abjuration system already exists and has been used since 2.2 in the form of Sands and Oils of Time and now Carboncoat and Carbontwine.

[Catsby]

snip.

No. raiders ignored BCoB because raiders don't give a shit about glamour pieces. If the allagan gear did more than take myth gear stats and stir them around a bit them players probably would have been more excited to do it. Adding a 10 level power difference doesn't fix anything but makes it much worse (the entire point of this thread).

Oils and Carbon are nothing like Abjurations. Abjurations drew from open world bosses, exploration, other players, and crafting. It also involved destroying goods but to a lesser degree. Weathered gear is bought with player bound tokens earned in the same instances were you get the player bound item to upgrade them.

[Akiza]

I'm sorry, but a Sphere Grid would be the WORST decision this team could ever make. I despise it in every game that has it. I would rather the skill system from FFT:WotL, that would suit this game much better!

Aren't you the same person saying grinding for gear would be fun as well. Grinding for gear with different stats isn't any better.

[Tiggy]

No. raiders ignored BCoB because raiders don't give a shit about glamour pieces. If the allagan gear did more than take myth gear stats and stir them around a bit them players probably would have been more excited to do it.

Lol. Tons of players back then ran the coil for BiS pieces. Simply being i90 wasn't all out took it get all of your potential. I don't think you knew why people ran coil in 2.0/2.1. The raider absolutely ran coil for those pieces. That jumble of stats your downplaying was a pretty big detail to raiders. No different than it is today.

[Sadonix]

I think the issue here is that FFXIV is aiming to be a story driven MMO

If this is the case then I think it's very weird for "story driven" content to be shut down behind the hardest difficulties that is for "good players" only. Last I checked many people still can't get through T5,is this how "story driven" content supposed to operate ? A few MMOs that I have played made it quite clear to seperate the two things at endgame,story and gear progression. FFXIV on the other hand seem to mix them altogether.

[cookiecutter]

If this is the case then I think it's very weird for "story driven" content to be shut down behind the hardest difficulties that is for "good players" only. Last I checked many people still can't get through T5,is this how "story driven" content supposed to operate ? A few MMOs that I have played made it quite clear to seperate the two things at endgame,story and gear progression. FFXIV on the other hand seem to mix them altogether.

Binding coil is a small part of the story that has more to do with past events than current ones. You're only missing out a small part of the story by not completing coil and once 3.0 launches that story will be accessible to all. I believe any good endgame content should have some type of compelling story otherwise the bosses just feel like loot pinatas and lack dramatic flair. It would feel kinda anticlimactic to beat the last boss and, chest full of loot drops with nothing else.

[Akiza]

The problem with locking the highest ilvl gear behind raiding coils was all it did was ensure hard core players have shiny high level gear to lord over the casuals. What SE did from 2.2 onward was an MMORPG No. Without a variety of ways to obtain the same high level gear a divide was created between casual and hard core players. Hardcore Gamer are able to progress through Coils and get all their BIS and ilvl 110 coil gear in 6 weeks. Mid Core players get screwed over because by the time they get their BIS and ilvl 110 gear a new set of gear is out in a week and Casuals are simply left to play Coils just to see the story and unlock the next Coils.

[Sadonix]

Binding coil is a small part of the story that has more to do with past events than current ones. You're only missing out a small part of the story by not completing coil and once 3.0 launches that story will be accessible to all.

Going by that logic one can say the same about gear progression as well,you're only missing out a small part of gear arsenals by not completing coil and once 3.0 launches those gear will be accessible to all. Only that it's pretty much an outdated content by that point.In MMO where they encourage people to keep up with contents that would be quite contradictory,don't you think ? Proclaiming to be "story driven" but the circumstances try to make a large crowd wait and fall back a few months after release in order to see it ?

I believe any good endgame content should have some type of compelling story otherwise the bosses just feel like loot pinatas and lack dramatic flair. It would feel kinda anticlimactic to beat the last boss and, chest full of loot drops with nothing else.

WoW,for an example,has a heroic mode that existed for the reason of challenges and bis loots. There's nothing new story-wise and people still do it. That should prove you wrong enough.

[Tiggy]

Hardcore Gamer are able to progress through Coils and get all their BIS and ilvl 110 coil gear in 6 weeks. Mid Core players get screwed over because by the time they get their BIS and ilvl 110 gear a new set of gear is out in a week and Casuals are simply left to play Coils just to see the story and unlock the next Coils.

A) you are severely over estimating the rate at which raiders gear up. I've gone over three months of wins without getting a single drop. How does that fit in your six week time frame??

B) "casuals" got Syrcus Tower and unlocked sands and oils in hunts over three months before the new coil came out completely invalidating your assertion.

Your using hyperbole to attempt to justify your opinion, but you're so far off base that it can't be taken seriously. Either you aren't paying attention to patch notes or your willfully ignoring the true pace of progression. They do a very obvious patch cycle. 3 months for hardcore then 3 months for the more casual group.It's been that way from the beginning.

[cookiecutter]

Going by that logic one can say the same about gear progression as well,you're only missing out a small part of gear arsenals by not completing coil and once 3.0 launches those gear will be accessible to all. Only that it's pretty much an outdated content by that point.In MMO where they encourage people to keep up with contents that would be quite contradictory,don't you think ? Proclaiming to be "story driven" but the circumstances try to make a large crowd wait and fall back a few months after release in order to see it ?

How is it contradictory? The only place where you might need that small gear set is coil anyway. Everything is else is completely accessible to every type of player. If SE wanted to they could just make coil a faceroll at the beginning. They'd lose all their hardcore players but, then you wouldn't have any division of players anymore right? Maybe one day SE will do that down the line it really depends where most of their money is coming from and if they no longer want to make challenging group content.