Request : In Stormblood, allow us to gear without tomestones

[Zumi]

But then you have to run that same dungeon over and over again, most likely MORE times, for the CHANCE at getting your RNG-based gear. I don't see how it is much different, or even better???

Basically this would happen when you get rid of points and then throw in RNG you on average will probably end up running a dungeon way more times then you would of with the tome system. It is possible you can get super lucky get your wanted drop the first time but most wouldn't be that lucky probably have countless runs under their belt before they got a drop.

[Dualgunner]

I like the idea of dungeon level items matching up with uncapped tome level gear.

[Zumi]

If anything they should add challenge modes to dungeons that lets you scale up the difficulity, mobs have more HP do more damage, gain more mechanics. If you beat a dungeon on a higher level then you get higher ilvl drops.

[Jeykama]

World quests are easy and the rewards feel substantial from them, they're the equivalent of a quick daily.

World Quests were fine until you realized that the only way to get an upgrade from them was if it was maximum Titanforged. That and you needed to grind 25+ a day if keeping up with reputations. I appreciate the variety but the reputation made it maximum grind. That and I've never gotten a maximum titanforged anything. Ever.

It would be nice, though, if more FATEs were in line with the Vidrolfnir(sic) chain in Churning Mists that drops the randomized belt for helping people gear up to early dungeon levels. I remember what a pain in the butt it was to qualify for Alwaysreap and Fractal on HW launch. Or maybe world bosses ala Odin/Behemoth/Coeurlregina that dropped actually useful gear.

Removing weekly currency gear entirely though, no thanks. Being hostage entirely to sub-par crafted gear and lock-out RNG is not fun at all.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

World quests are easy and the rewards feel substantial from them, they're the equivalent of a quick daily.

Soooo spend some time fighting a pointless monster for the chance to get theoretically useful loot for my main?

Eugh... No thanks, Monster Hunter is over there. The Desire Sensor can die in a fire. >< Having some form of guaranteed useful loot is always better.

[Duelle]

What could be interesting in Stormblood is to lessen the ilvl gap between tomes and dungeon gear to cater to two types of players at the same time. You don't mind doing the same roulette over and over for a 100% reward ? Tome gear is for you.

You like going into a specific instance to gain one particular piece of gear at random ? Dungeons are the way to go.

Everybody wins.

The only risk I see here is that people with too much free time get geared up twice as fast, which depending on how quickly the devs want content cleared would be a good or a bad thing.

[Derio]

RNG is a terrible idea

[Shurrikhan]

I honestly think there's a fair bit of benefit to time-gating, in that it allows easier content tuning and doesn't further force absurd hours of grinding upon any would-be raider. That said, it'd be nice if Stormblood at least found more ways to accomplish that than the exact same tomestone system we'll have seen for 5 years. If the weekly farm seemed a slogging grind, imagine if there were uncapped non-raid sources of gear that you'd need to farm for ilvl (or item weight) before you're even allowed entry into the 'up and coming' raid groups.

More importantly than that for me though, I'd like to see some real alt support. The whole "all classes on one character" aspect does little when only one job can realistically be maxed at a time during progression. In my opinion, gearing alternates during progression should not be gated any more than catch-up would be a patch later, if even that. I really don't care if another player with more time can bring every one of his jobs from 240 to 243 in the first week of a new tier while I can only move one job to that point. It's his time, and it's not forcing any extra grinding out of me just to be invited to a raid.

As for your exact suggestion, the main issue I see with this is that where in a tombstone system, you could feasibly make a far larger range of (up-scaled) dungeons relevant for meeting your quota, making the dungeon gear relevant in and of itself would make those runs last only as long as RNG requires, and it again comes with all the annoyances that RNG usually carries. Granted, you could have two modes for dungeons, and maybe even add on scaled difficulty settings, so on and so forth to give you seemingly less grindy options for getting gear, means that require less time but more skill, etc., which would certainly be a benefit. How much of one, I'm not certain.

[Synestra]

You already can. It's called raiding, and to an extent, crafting. I think you forgot about crafted gear in your OP, because even half a set of crafted gear would set you way above the requirement for midas.

Sure, you need tomestones to be best in slot, but only hardcore players will fault you for skipping it entirely.

But still having a dungeon drops as valid alternative would be awesome option, i personally loved to run hm dungeons years ago just to get pre-raid gear. But if they add this option then we might need to have silghtly harder dungeons so it doesnt make normal raid and crafted gear obsolate or the drop-rates should be very low if they stay as easy as they are now.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

EDIT : Since some people seems to have trouble grasping exactly what tome gear I refer too, I'll clarify it here. The idea is that EX dungeons would drop gear the same ilvl as uncapped tome gear. i.e Neverreap/Fractal would have dropped i170, Antitower/City, i200, Xelphatol/Gubal, i230. The goal is not to easily gain more powerful items, but just having another way of unlocking normal raid (So, i170 for Gordias, 200 for Midas, etc...), without having to farm tomestones, which can be boring. And, of course, the tome system would remain, so that you're not forced to rely on RNG drop. I don't really know where to put odd-patches EX dungeons, though...

I presume you meant 250/260 for Xelphatol, otherwise why would I brother spamming the new dungeons and praying to RNGesus when I could just run ARF ten times and pick up almost an entire set of lore gear guaranteed? If you did mean the higher ilvl, people would simply farm dungeons within the first few weeks then never touch them again. Tomestones and weekly caps exist to prevent spamming. Crafted gear is meant to be that bridge. If people aren't willing to wait, they can use gil to skip some of the grind. Sure, scripture gear is better, but you can do all of The Creator in just ilvl 250 if you really wanted to push it.