Problems with the strength of gear coming from easy mode Alexander

[Nezerius]

Edited it for you, your numbers were a bit strange, this would make much more sense to me, not 100% accurate but should give an idea, only problem I see with this is is the gap between tomestone and crafting gear, which could be adjusted in some ways and might think about it

The numbers in my post merely reflected my interpretation of the OP's suggestion, who wanted the easy raids (normal Alexander, Mhach) to be the same iLvl as the previous raid, with the Savage gear being the same as it is now. (Tomestone gear wasn't mentioned, so I assumed that was considered as raid gear, as it's upgraded with raid items)

Though even with your suggested numbers, crafted gear still wouldn't be all that useful, unless it's really, really, really easy to craft and meld. (As in, even easier than 3-star crafts)

[alimdia]

When Yoshida was discussing why they don't add more secondary stats (the same fear of difficulty as usual) he mentioned that one of the features of the game is that you can get the best gear (ilvl wise) without raiding, so keep that in mind for whatever suggestion you make, as i dont think thats something they will change.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That's because of the lack of horizontal raids/content in this game, since there isn't anything on par with savage difficulty to use your hard earned gear on, you will end up using your savage gear only to kill savage faster than before and nothing else.

Horizontal progression will not change that. It's an illusion of choice. If you're a raider, you'll typically want the most optimal stats obtainable, meaning you will seek out whatever gear results in the highest potency increase.

And i never said the opposite, true, but not like in this game, even the devs know that very few people are interested in raiding and they still don't know why.

It's the same reason in every game: very few people raid compared to other activities. They could bring Savage back down to Coil, gate the story behind it and put all sorts of procs and whatnot on the gear you obtain. That's still only going to attract a small portion of the fanbase. Now that isn't to say they can't make improvements because this game is far from perfect. But raids will always be a 1% thing in any MMO.

[vp_cmc]

The problem is that raiders who left - they left. And even if devs now make good raids, they won't return, because:
a) They don't know about it. Because they don't watch about ff14 updates.
b) They don't care, because probably they already found something else. Maybe it's not better in a long run, but it's currently something new, so it's perceived as better for them.

[Brannigan]

Assuming I understand your post completely here, this is what 3.x would be like with your suggestion:


Sorry OP, but your suggestion doesn't look all that great to me.

I think you misunderstand a lot here.

First of all, if normal doesn't drop higher item level gear than the previous raid's savage, there is no reason for the new savage gear to go up by so many item levels. Another person raised the issue that the raid would be tuned around gear that is 30 ilvls lower than what it drops; this is not the case because the item level would not need to go up by so much.

Regarding your post, I have no idea why you think the 24 man raid would be dropping items 30 item levels lower than the raid. These things have consistently dropped items 10 levels lower than raid gear/equal level to non-upgraded tomestone gear. Not sure where you're getting -30 from. The 24-man raids would continue to drop gear equal to un-upgraded tomestone gear. The actual numbers don't matter, by the way - what's important is relative strength. So, it would be very much the 2.x model. In 2.0 you got crafted gear that equaled entry level raid gear. In 2.2 crafted gear equaled Binding Coil 1 gear. In 2.4 it was equal to Second coil gear. The exception was they held back on accessories until the odd numbered patch because crafted accessories were super overpowered.

This wouldn't change the actual situation w/r/t raiding for gear being ultimately pointless much at all, but it would make it feel less pointless, because you wouldn't be trashing the entire gear set you raided for on patch day. Really, I don't even care about what the solution is, but something needs to be done about how stupid raid rewards are right now.

[Thoro39]

1. Because only like 1% of the community raids.

Not going to delve into the whole topic argument too much, but I always take issue with statements like these, especially if they are spoken with confidence.
It's true that there were many statistics and researching pinpointing the clear rate of final raiding turns to 10%, 5% or lower, even in final coil, but that's really all it says, final turns. It does not take into account any people that are still progressing,were progressing but are taking a break, are starting to progress, or are interested in starting. In short, a big amount of people.
It's an invisible number that only SE knows, but surely is much bigger than the amount of people that have actually cleared everything.
Afterall, the soccer community is not limited to only 207 teams because that's the number of national soccer teams, but much bigger, to pull a comparison.

On the topic, it would be nice to have a8s gear relevant for a9s+, but crafted gear having the power currently it has, has its advantages too. A member of our raid static that cleared A8S actually just rejoined the game in 3.3 after a year break. Crafted gear being i220 really helped him boosting up to a raid-ready ilvl really quick and we couldnt have done it without it. Personally, I wouldnt mind delaying crafted gear and alex normal to 3.45 or something like that to make a8s gear not completely worthless, but still offer a quick catch up option for any returnees later
I would like more lasting incentive for clearing final turns tho, I still dont know why raiding and clearing savage does not bestow you any special titles anymore, I'd really like that for my personal epeen and it wouldnt hurt anyone :^)

[Nezerius]

First of all, if normal doesn't drop higher item level gear than the previous raid's savage, there is no reason for the new savage gear to go up by so many item levels. Another person raised the issue that the raid would be tuned around gear that is 30 ilvls lower than what it drops; this is not the case because the item level would not need to go up by so much.

You were agreeing with the i210/i240 numbers for savage raid gear in your second post in the thread. If you weren't, perhaps you should've worded things better in that post.

Regarding your post, I have no idea why you think the 24 man raid would be dropping items 30 item levels lower than the raid. These things have consistently dropped items 10 levels lower than raid gear/equal level to non-upgraded tomestone gear. Not sure where you're getting -30 from. The 24-man raids would continue to drop gear equal to un-upgraded tomestone gear. The actual numbers don't matter, by the way - what's important is relative strength. So, it would be very much the 2.x model.

You said it yourself, that the easy raids (which I consider both normal Alexander and 24-man raids) should drop gear with the iLvl of the previous raid tier. That'd be i210 in the Weeping City of Mhach.
Unless the 24-man raids are somehow excluded in this, despite the fact that they're on the same difficulty level as normal Alexander.

In 2.0 you got crafted gear that equaled entry level raid gear. In 2.2 crafted gear equaled Binding Coil 1 gear. In 2.4 it was equal to Second coil gear. The exception was they held back on accessories until the odd numbered patch because crafted accessories were super overpowered.

It's a bit iffy to compare the 2.0 gear with the rest of 2.x, considering upgradable gear wasn't a thing until Second Coil.

You're looking at it from the perspective of "2.2 crafted gear was equal to Binding Coil, 2.4 crafted gear was equal to Second Coil"
My perspective is "2.2 crafted gear is 10 iLvls below unupgraded soldiery gear, 2.4 crafted gear is 10 iLvls below unupgraded poetics gear."

Both of these are accurate for 2.x, but only the latter works for 3.2. i220 crafted gear is 10 iLvls below unupgraded lore gear.
3.0 had crafted gear that was 20 iLvls below unupgraded esoterics gear, and you can see how that turned out. (hence the much needed change to the i220 crafted gear)

This wouldn't change the actual situation w/r/t raiding for gear being ultimately pointless much at all, but it would make it feel less pointless, because you wouldn't be trashing the entire gear set you raided for on patch day. Really, I don't even care about what the solution is, but something needs to be done about how stupid raid rewards are right now.

There's no easy solution to this, and your suggestion certainly isn't one.

One solution is to simply cut 10 iLvls away from each piece of gear introduced in 3.2; i230 (Midas Savage/Upgraded Lore), i220 (Lore/Mhach), i210 (Midas Normal/Crafted).
This means that a raider in full i210 Gordias Savage/Upgraded Esoterics won't have to bother with Midas Normal since it offers the same iLvl as the gear they already have. This partially solves your issue with trashing a set of gear, though you'd likely have to get crafted gear anyway, as melded i210 would likely be better than any other i210 set. But you can't drop the crafted gear down to i200, as then it'll be 20 iLvls below unupgraded tome gear, and we'll get a repeat of 3.0.

This would also remove the incentive to run Midas Normal due to lack of upgrades, as people will just farm the uncapped tomes for i200 and upgrade it to i210 with Void Ark tokens.

Personally, I wouldnt mind delaying crafted gear and alex normal to 3.45 or something like that to make a8s gear not completely worthless, but still offer a quick catch up option for any returnees later

A8S gear isn't made completely worthless by crafted gear on the patch day of 3.4, since there's no crafted weapons. That's assuming only the weapons are counted, since the rest of the A8S gear is the same iLvl as the upgraded Lore equivalent.

[Brannigan]

One solution is to simply cut 10 iLvls away from each piece of gear introduced in 3.2; i230 (Midas Savage/Upgraded Lore), i220 (Lore/Mhach), i210 (Midas Normal/Crafted).

Right, so to have the easy mode and crafted gear be the same ilvl as the previous raid's gear. Like I said. Crafted is an option for those who really want to push substats, but like 2.2 and 2.4 it isn't 100% necessary, even for getting very early clears. The actual item levels do not matter much. Relative strength is what is important. Also, I do not consider the 24 man content to be "easy mode" raids because there is no hard mode of them. They're pretty much irrelevant for item level progression as well, so they should be ignored.

Again, I don't really care about the solution, but it would be dumb to keep completely invalidating raid gear like they did in 3.2.

A8S gear isn't made completely worthless by crafted gear on the patch day of 3.4, since there's no crafted weapons.

Also, this is a similar issue - Gordias weapons were completely invalidated by Sephirot weapons, which was also dumb. Sephirot should have been 215 at most.

[Nezerius]

Right, so to have the easy mode and crafted gear be the same ilvl as the previous raid's gear. Like I said.

You skipped over the part of my post where I said that solution doesn't work, as it makes Midas Normal seem pointless to do for anyone, just so a small minority can hold onto a few pieces of gear.

Replacing gear is a natural thing in MMOs, perhaps you should get used to the fact that the gear obtained in Midas (Savage) is used to further progress in Midas (Savage), or allowing you to clear is faster when you have it on farm.

[KarstenS]

A8S gear isn't made completely worthless by crafted gear on the patch day of 3.4, since there's no crafted weapons. That's assuming only the weapons are counted, since the rest of the A8S gear is the same iLvl as the upgraded Lore equivalent.

There will be a primal with i250 weapon and like happened in 3.0 and 3.2, nearly every raider will farm it before stepping a foot into the next savage.