Should Alexander hard drop highest item level gear?

[Galdous]

I think this is getting away from the original thought that entered my mind. The question is why raid if you can aquire gear of equal item level as raid gear doing 30 minute dungeon a day? I only want the MMO genre to retain some of what made it unique to players who enjoyed that element while the genre is changing to new standards in its attempt to become more main stream form of gaming.

Even if people complain that they should be able to obtain raid level gear though other means then raiding it does not fit the mold that the theme park gear grind that ff 14 follows. The entire mold will have to be drastically restructured if we are going to go a different path. The perverbial carrot on a stick running you on the gear treadmill is core bread and butter of the game and people who do not want to raid and care about being on par with raiders in gear normally unsub after a while. You cannot say that raids cater to a hardcore few because raiding right now is very casual. If you can put in a few hours every week and advance in progression with Alexander HM bosses then you can raid.

It is the mentality of finding a raid team that fits your mold that is the real hard point over raiding itself. The required social interaction to meld together in cooperation with a team is the fundamental core of an MMO and the more people can stay in their own little non social world the more it affects the health and longivity of the MMO.

[Gilraen]

I only want the MMO genre to retain some of what made it unique...

Okay, going to stop you there. What made MMOs unique isn't how they operate, it's in those three letters. "Massively Multiplayer Online" That is, more than a few people playing together in a persistent world. Raids were just smaller shared content in much bigger game. As such, raids are not the heart of the MMO experience, the MMO is. Secondly, Yoshida has never said anything that suggests that raiding is the focus of XIV. In fact, I don't remember any of the developers saying this. It's been rather the other way around with them announcing time and again the easing of raid difficulty, sometimes to booing from players (like at a recent event, sad really). You claim to want to retain some of MMO's uniqueness yet keep pushing the elitist line in wanting the best things locked away from those who can't devote the same amount of time as you... I don't think you care about anyone else at all, except yourself.

[Galdous]

Okay, going to stop you there. What made MMOs unique isn't how they operate, it's in those three letters. "Massively Multiplayer Online" That is, more than a few people playing together in a persistent world. Raids were just smaller shared content in much bigger game. As such, raids are not the heart of the MMO experience, the MMO is. Secondly, Yoshida has never said anything that suggests that raiding is the focus of XIV. In fact, I don't remember any of the developers saying this. It's been rather the other way around with them announcing time and again the easing of raid difficulty, sometimes to booing from players (like at a recent event, sad really). You claim to want to retain some of MMO's uniqueness yet keep pushing the elitist line in wanting the best things locked away from those who can't devote the same amount of time as you... I don't think you care about anyone else at all, except yourself.

You forget what kind of MMO this game is. This is a grind themepark mmo which at its core is the gear treadmill. Why should the same type of gear be easily had from doing a 30 minute queue with a dungeon of strangers over people who coordinate and work as a team towards the goal in raids. Your argument is actually invalid considering the gear is still quite achievable. It is just some people do not want to raid and nothing is wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with having gear that is one tier weaker below raid gear since you are not doing any content that requires said raid gear.

[SDaemon]

Shiva EX is not story. HM is 80, Steps and Chrysalis is 90.

Never said it was part of the main story. That period represents a separate thought. He argued that i90 was only needed because the story ends at i90. But there is content besides Coils that uses higher than i90, that was the point you missed.

[StouterTaru]

There is nothing wrong with having gear that is one tier weaker below raid gear since you are not doing any content that requires said raid gear.

Said raid gear isn't needed to do said raid either, or else you would never get it. It's the top gear for 3 months, then proportionate gear is available.

[CGMidlander]

As it happens to be that is exactly the case for caster gloves for BLM.

Evenstar Gloves i110: 34,908 effective INT
Augmented Ironworks Gloves i130: 34,444 effective INT

The gloves are absolutely horrendous DPS wise.

If you look at equipment in a void, maybe.
But realistically, accuracy has to be made up for somewhere in the gearset.

[Elim]

It always puzzled me as to why SE allowed purchased gear to be the same item level as bahamut coils when considering risk vs reward that has always been a staple in MMO's. I understand that range is an issue in drops and sometimes people have very bad luck but I hope the new tomes do not let you buy the same item level gear that drops in Alexander raids.

The main reason I don't like this idea is because BiS would likely end up being all Alexander gear. No min-maxing. It'd be boring. Unless Alexander dropped two sets of every type of gear or crafted gear ended up being better for some classes. Also I hope the loot system in Alexander is better, or you could have raiders running around in bad gear until the next expansion because their loot never dropped... You have no idea HOW much bad luck my static has had. Do you like DRGs? Because all of my statics drgs are full dreadwyrm. I can't complain too much though, because recently we've been lucky and stopped raiding FCoB outside of potential carries.

[Nominous]

Locking the highest ilv gear behind the hardest content would be bad for the masses, and create more stress in the community. And for what?

Again, to give greater satisfaction and motivation to clear the hardest content in the game. Let me try to frame this in a way that's easily understood.

There's all kinds of different players in the game. There's casual players, middle-tier players, and hardcore. There's RP players, people who only want to collect minions and mounts, and people who like to play only for story. Nobody can deny we have a robust, unique community with varying levels of skill, and differing interests. That is to say, we all know what content we're interested in, what motivates us, and what skill level we're comfortable with playing at. It's not bad at all, this exists in any large-scale community.

By this logic, and a pinch of yours, casual players (who don't care, or don't find motivation to have the best gear) don't need the best equipment offered in the game. However, they still have something to aspire towards if they choose to get interested. They have tome gear, and normal Alexander gear, as well as the 24-man set. They will have content that ranges from faceroll (Primal) to mildly thought provoking (Alexander), and even some content in-between (dungeons/24-man). Low to middle-range content is NOT, and will not be sparse in 3.0. They aren't going to be ignored, and if anything, the majority of content is catering to them in the first place. But the minority of the community shouldn't be ignored either. They deserve something to call their own, just as much as the other communities in the game.

[SDaemon]

snip

Players farming/downing FCoB already show off the fact that they have with their Dreadwyrm gear and weapons. That is what they call their own. If they want more prestige let them run Savage SCoB for their titles and greater epeen.

[Whiteroom]

I think the hard mode version should have at least one piece of unique gear that you can only get from there, be it a glamor, or one piece of gear thats better than others. That way its not game breaking, but you do have something to show for it. I still won't be running it most likely, my schedule doesnt allow me to commit to a static.

Tbh, I feel that people who cry out "You just want your epeen piece!", reaĺly just want it too. A super over powered set leads to excluding those without it. A rare, one off drop doesnt.