Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Granyala]

Why do you feel this way? I never understood this feeling of "mandatory" in a video game.

I raided in WoW for 9 years.
I have seen and felt the difference between a Mythic raider that raids mythic for the challenge and dudes that are just there for the "incentive". You may guess once, who ends up being the burden on progressing and who causes loot drama.

I also see what an extreme item level gap does to characters of non raiders. It SUCKS to feel like trash next to a raider, no matter how well you play.

I play FF-XIV as a retired non raider and like it because that BS doesn't exist here.

However, gear that you obtain raiding doesn't even get you started on the next raid tier. For example, you could have had full 210 raid gear from Gordias, but as soon as midas dropped, crafting + midas NM + seph ex were better and you needed that before going into Midas Savage. It would have been nicer if the gordian savage gear got you started in Midas Savage - for example.

If you NEED pentamelded crafted gear to progress, that indeed would be quite the design fail on their part. I agree.
I always thought it was an option for those hardcores willing to go the extra mile.

Can't speak about the actual balancing of content though, because I do not raid in FF.

That said, power of gear isn't a huge issue, but the staleness of it.

On that we can definitely agree.
Gear visuals are cool but I do miss set bonuses that spice things up and reward you extra for completing a set.
These could also be used to make raiding gear more unique w/o going into the "insane power" territory, although I'm not sure if that can be pulled off w/o one set ending up superior and being deemed "mandatory" by all raiders.

As I also said in my initial post: materia is dead boring in it's current passive incarnation.

[Kaurie]

snip.

I feel we agree on a bunch, but are just coming from opposite ends (me from FFXIV to WoW, you from WoW to FFXIV) so have a few different things that we've tired of.

In terms of the gear set pieces, I don't think that increasing power is a bad thing. This can be alleviated by making set pieces part of rewards in raids, no one would require it as a pre-req to enter a static as you need to do the raid in order to get it. You're all grouping together to get those set pieces and progress.

I think set pieces can be made which give you +power without being so mandatory. I mean right now, someone in a 230 weapon can be fine in Savage, but a 240 weapon is sure nice. No one is forcing people to have the 240 weapon though.

Further, set pieces could just make things easier to accomplish, or increase your burst, without making you do (much) more damage overall. I put much in brackets, as increasing burst would likely result in higher overall DPS due to coupling buffs.

[Granyala]

In terms of the gear set pieces, I don't think that increasing power is a bad thing. This can be alleviated by making set pieces part of rewards in raids, no one would require it as a pre-req to enter a static as you need to do the raid in order to get it. You're all grouping together to get those set pieces and progress.

And as soon as you get grouped with a raider in a PuG/DF you realize that your character is trash because you do not happen to like scheduled large group play.

No thank you.

This is the main thing that drives me away from playing WoW as a non raider, despite still loving Azeroth and feeling at home there. Just because I don't raid anymore doesn't mean I don't analyze and evaluate my performance. Constantly being crap due to a lack of raw stats sucks the fun out of playing completely. Being forced into raiding to get proper stats to be able to compete at least a little bit also doesn't help matters.

[Kaurie]

And as soon as you get grouped with a raider in a PuG/DF you realize that your character is trash because you do not happen to like organized large group play.

No thank you.
This is the main thing that drives me away from playing WoW as a non raider, despite still loving Azeroth and feeling at home there. Just because I don't raid anymore doesn't mean I don't analyze and evaluate my performance. Constantly being crap due to a lack of raw stats sucks the fun out of playing completely.

I feel you are confused about the current state of FFXIV. Gear currently does provide power differences. Someone with a 240 weapon can do quite a bit more than someone with a 210, 220 or 230 weapon. However, no one is kicking people who have lower ilvl weapons (at least I've seen no stories of such).

[Granyala]

I feel you are confused about the current state of FFXIV. Gear currently does provide power differences. Someone with a 240 weapon can do quite a bit more than someone with a 210, 220 or 230 weapon. However, no one is kicking people who have lower ilvl weapons (at least I've seen no stories of such).

You are inexperienced in WoW, so I don't blame you.
In WoW there is a power difference of 2x between a heroic geared and a mythic geared raider alone.
That difference easily climbs up to 4x if you look at a non raider because not only does he have lower item level, he also is denied proper trinkets and set bonuses.

Yes raiders should have a power advantage. After all they do beat the hardest content and put in a lot of effort.
I feel that the difference FF provides is more than enough. There is no need to go to ridiculous levels like in WoW.

BTW: as a mythic raider, all content they added was immediately worthless to me in terms of item level.
That too is an effect you get from having raids net A LOT more character power than anything else.

[Kerii]

I feel you are confused about the current state of FFXIV. Gear currently does provide power differences. Someone with a 240 weapon can do quite a bit more than someone with a 210, 220 or 230 weapon. However, no one is kicking people who have lower ilvl weapons (at least I've seen no stories of such).

Raid groups are, but content done through party finder and duty finder is usually synced to a minimum ilvl. Having higher ilvl gear does actually help, but you're still synced down to the upper most bounds of that level range.

[Kaurie]

Raid groups are, but content done through party finder and duty finder is usually synced to a minimum ilvl. Having higher ilvl gear does actually help, but you're still synced down to the upper most bounds of that level range.

You're only synced for old content, not things like Expert Roulette.

You are inexperienced in WoW, so I don't blame you.
In WoW there is a power difference of 2x between a heroic geared and a mythic geared raider alone.
That difference easily climbs up to 4x if you look at a non raider because not only does he have lower item level, he also is denied proper trinkets and set bonuses.

Yes raiders should have a power advantage. After all they do beat the hardest content and put in a lot of effort.
I feel that the difference FF provides is more than enough. There is no need to go to ridiculous levels like in WoW.

No I get that, and I said one can add set bonuses without making you do 2x more damage.

[Kerii]

You're only synced for old content, not things like Expert Roulette.

I don't want to make assumptions, but I imagine that everyone who isn't sporting full raid gear or upgraded currency gear would be within the acceptable ilv range for the dungeons when they're current. Looking at duty finder, what they end up syncing almost looks random, but maybe I'm just forgetting something. In either case, I think it is still fair to say that you don't get kicked out of dungeons over gear disparity in duty finder.