Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Zojha]

So basically what you are saying is "Who want's things to make you think more? Why don't we just have nothing and never think at all."

Honestly, after the initial math, you do not think much anymore in either set-up. Similar goes if someone else did the math already and published it, the thing we call "guides". Ariyala got a nice "no-thinking" site people like to visit if I recall correctly - most people didn't bother calculating stat weights themselves. I know I didn't. I only did my rotations myself and I can tell you there's more muscle memory than thinking involved at this point.

In fact, many people don't bother much with gearing/stats at all, which is why some people run around with 800+ accuracy (A gearing trap that already exists in the game). These are the people that are actually most affected by trap stats - people who bother reading up or doing the math will just ignore those stats good as they can. And then somebody comes rushing to the forums telling the playerbase to "git gut" and SE to stop nerfing content because people who didn't bother with such things are underperforming in their +Manareg gear on Monk.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you feel such stats add flavor, be my guest to advocate for them. All that changes for me is that I'm gonna be groaning a little more whenever I visit a gear vendor because I can't get the stats I actually want on my gear.

[Underdog2204]

Dunno if that shrug was meant to imply "well you'd get what you want but you'd come to the forums complaining about poor deepz".... I think I've shown on numerous occasions on this forum (specifically about df) that I am not such a person so your assumption is flat out wrong. But yes people asking for nerfs because of their own inadquacy should be ignored though. You saying people wearing ilvl 60 gear trying to beat Garuda extreme but its "too hard" would have a valid point? They certainly would not.

Yeah people care so little they are constantly looking for ways to impove their gear... I see many people still in their questing gear at lvl 60 because they just don't care about it. I also see tanks stacking piety all the time, it's so common that I have them 90% of the time in DF /sarcasm.

You have a point on that first one though, still doesn't make the items themselves more interesting than "+10 ilvl" all the time.

[Duelle]

I agree that it could do that.

Balance that against starting next week, casual content will be giving 3 weapons at i235-i240 and in some of those cases, as was stated in another post here, the relic becomes hardly worth doing, because of it's high cost of entry.

1) PotD gives an i 235 that can be completed in about 8, maybe 10 hours or so.
2) Void Ark + Wiping City will now give the i240 upgrade, if you count in the time for (10) A8 clears, that takes about 4, maybe 5 hours total.
3) The relic weapon, can requires 24,000 Eso, The Aetherochemical Research Facility awards 150 Eso. 24,000/150 =160 clears. At 20 minutes per clear, that is roughly 53 hours, we'll call it 50-60 with the other items added in. I am not even going to consider the time requirement for starting one from 0. That would be too ridiculous to even consider.

That is balanced???

You're bringing up something completely different. My issue is with the people asking for "unique" stats without understanding what that does to progression.

As far as acquisition, yes the system is lopsided, though that's largely because of what the devs did to relic acquisition after the initial quest. They had a really good idea in making relic require killing Hard Mode primals, since it was setting the precedent of doing challenging content to progress your relic. Then they decided to implement a million grinds instead of continuing to use stuff like EX primals for relic progression.

The devs also know that comparable/better rewards are what get people to do content, which is why Padjali weapons are i235 instead of 230. By the time PotD was implemented, everyone more than likely had their 230 weapon, so on that end the decision makes sense. Personally, I still haven't set foot in there, and don't plan to in the near future; I have my 230 weapon and that place is not content I specifically asked for, so I have no interest in it.

I have an i240 relic and I am working on #2 out of boredom, but I agree with what was stated here. Other than wanting it for whatever reason, there really isn't much reason to chase the relic. Especially if you are not a raider, the small increase in DPS does not justify the cost in time.

Again, I'd rather relics require difficult content instead of grinds. You'd see more people going for them without being bored to tears. I still remember back when ARR launched a group of people in my FC decided to start running HM primals nightly to try to progress our relics.

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

The best stage of the Relics was the 2.0 relics with HM primals. After that has been a decline from challenging fun content to mindless boring grind.

[Hyrist]

Raiding difficulties should be on a slider, not a set hard/difficult.

Raiding rewards are irrelevant, even as they are now. They don't effect participation so much as they provide an excuse to keep it the same via circular reasoning. Raiding must be hard to justify the gear they get. The gear has to be better than everyone else to justify the difficulty.

It's not just a difficulty, the idea needs to be re-thought from the ground up. Thankfully, due to SE pretty much segmenting its entire system, this sort of massive revision is possible - albiet it would not be seen for quite some time (About 2 years is what I'd guess to take a brand new development idea, provided they're not stopping production on existing projects. Not this coming expansion but the next.)

As far as where relics go for their upgrades. Why can it not be both? Something that upsets me about this game is how segmented a lot of its reward systems have become. It's time released rather than effort released - which causes overall burn out. Weekly lockouts, items for upgrades that can only come from specific content with no alternatives for multiple months. The way the reward system in this game is implemented is very divisive of the player base itself - as if raid culture alone did not cause enough of a rift.

[Duelle]

As far as where relics go for their upgrades. Why can it not be both? Something that upsets me about this game is how segmented a lot of its reward systems have become. It's time released rather than effort released - which causes overall burn out. Weekly lockouts, items for upgrades that can only come from specific content with no alternatives for multiple months. The way the reward system in this game is implemented is very divisive of the player base itself - as if raid culture alone did not cause enough of a rift.

Well, the post-relic grind (getting the +1/Zenith) was a nice break from killing HM primals to get the relic in the first place. I half expected them to make EX primals part of the upgrading process; then Atmas and animus books were introduced.

Hard content with reasonable grinds in-between would make sense. Making the whole of relic progression rely on grinds was simply a bad call. And the reason why I ignore relic-related content.

[Istaru]

Again, I'd rather relics require difficult content instead of grinds. You'd see more people going for them without being bored to tears. I still remember back when ARR launched a group of people in my FC decided to start running HM primals nightly to try to progress our relics.

I remember that as well and also agree that the original relic path at 2.0 was the best.

[AerisVII]

The majority of players I know that raid have an alt to run the raid twice. So I believe that the real number of people that cleared Midas savage is far less than those numbers.

[Archaell]

The majority of players I know that raid have an alt to run the raid twice. So I believe that the real number of people that cleared Midas savage is far less than those numbers.

Atm I am pondering if it is really worth it to do this. On one hand I already have a lvl 60 alt stashed on Balmung that would be easily geared up, on the other one I am not sure I want to spend additional time and money on something I consider a design flaw - there are way too many timegates and lockouts

[Instrumentality]

We are not just talking about raid stuff here. Everyone anticipates raids becoming easier either by direct or indirect nerfs. Items like primal birds, coffin lid, thavnarian set, minions, etc, should remain rare for ever to give players long term goals to work on. It's just like fenrir and the minicactpot, it gives people a reason to log in every day.

If you anticipate that every grind associated with a reward will be nerfed into the ground, you can literally wait until the end of the expansion to sweep up all the rewards for a fraction of the effort. This type of problem stretches across the entire game, nothing is worth doing while it's current.

My philosophy applies to every single thing in the game.

When I spend 40 million gil on the full Thavnarian set I don't do it because I want to feel special and more privileged than other players or feel like I have something that other people will never get. I do it because it is pretty and I want it right now. I don't feel bad that others players get to buy it two or three months later for 40k or less. I didn't even feel bad when other players got to buy it one whole week later for less than half that price.

There is nothing wrong with every single thing in this game becoming more accessible as time passes.