A case of chronic gear imbalance

[AmeliaVerves]

I am still confused about the fact that you want more things to grind and get a better reward for it, but (and maaaany others mentioned that before...) you WILL get a new content to grind and gear up with in the next patch. o.O
Which is new 24 raid and i believe (no, I am 100% sure) you will get another weekly token out of it and with that one and the two others of Mhach raids you will be able to get the upgrade material for your 260 gear. (And again: maaaaany others mentioned that before...) In the meantime: why don't you just go and gear up your other classes? Or, if you have none, why don't you go level those to 60 and then gear them up with 260.

[Chocolys]

<snip>

An informative post. I can't say if it's correct or not but I will assume it is.

I think there is something maybe missing however in it: The fun factor.

Is it more enjoyable to obtain gear from Raid, or is it more fun to farm tomes for them. That's a psychologic difficulty where time does not feel the same.
Time spent in repetitive boring content feels longer than time spent in engaging situations.

Should that be taken into account? (honest question)
I don't raid and I would not regardless of the reward. Does the people who raid really have an issue with the rewards, or the most important is they enjoy raiding in the first place? (again honest question)

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Did I say raiders aren't crippled before their first loot drops? Check for logical validity before posting pls.

Ok ...

3rd time I see the same mistake: Creator Savage does not need i270 gear either. Even among casual raiders all their clears were inevitably done with lesser gear.

So .. yes, you did, in this very thread, say that those challenging the hardest content in the game, raiders, do not need i270. Still waiting to see how its not needed for raids but the lack cripples your ability to do some piece of content in the game.

[Spayd]

An informative post. I can't say if it's correct or not but I will assume it is.

I think there is something maybe missing however in it: The fun factor.

Is it more enjoyable to obtain gear from Raid, or is it more fun to farm tomes for them. That's a psychologic difficulty where time does not feel the same.
Time spent in repetitive boring content feels longer than time spent in engaging situations.

Should that be taken into account? (honest question)
I don't raid and I would not regardless of the reward. Does the people who raid really have an issue with the rewards, or the most important is they enjoy raiding in the first place? (again honest question)

I do think that fun should be taken into account, considering this is a game, but that's something kinda touchy because fun can be subjective. Some people absolutely doesn't mind grinding stuff over and over again because it's better than just hanging around in Idle-shire and not actually playing the game. Some people are fine with just occasional dungeon to gear up over time with the same results as the people grinding stuff in a short amount of time. The fun factor depends on the point of view of the player, and the way those player approach the grinding. The examples I gave were mostly the most efficient way to cap currency tome for the best gear available as raiding is also the best way to get up for raiders, even tho it's more rng than currency. After, I believe it's up to the player to decide which method they want to use to cap weekly (WT, Bird farm, PoTD, etc), and I can see why some people might think they are grinding a lot more if they decide to cap by these other ways that takes more time investment. But again, it is a personal choice to cap that way, and if you find that choice fun, then good thing, you are succeeding at playing this game for it's real purpose, but that doesn't mind that you actually didn't have any other options to grind your stuff either, and shouldn't make other people feel bad cuz they choose an option faster that fit their definition of fun. I believe it's all a matter of subjectivity.

Most Raiders doesn't have an issue with the rewards as long as they have one that is worth their effort. I think most raiders continue to raid after each new raid tier because of the excitement of the novelty of raid. Seeing how theses fights will be handled, how badass it'll be (Bahamut was amazing yo), and all. So to answer your second question, I think it's a mix of both. Players want to have the reward that raids offer while experimenting the raiding itself. As a Raider myself since 2.0, I can tell you that raiding offers you more than just new gear and challenging fight. It also offers you the opportunity to meet up with 7 other people and tackling challenging content and making yourself a very tight-knit circle of friends, but I'm drifting away from your question. Yah, I'd say a mix of both. Rewards are important to raiders to make sure they continue raiding, while also enjoying the content.

[Cordie]

Yeah I noticed you edited[…]

Yep! Saw that one too.
Well, technically, savage and ex trials (to a lesser extent, for their weapons..meh) are instant gratification content – i.e. your next run may give you X equipment item, which is the primary incentive to do them. If they were any different (for example, only giving tokens) hardly anyone would bother.
On raids’ difficulty, I think it can be broken down to memorizing the phases of the fight, communicating with your group, getting adequate/updated info on what’s happening on server side for mechanics, having adequate resources (vitality, MP) and throughput (dps, healing). Of these, the 1st one must be the most difficult part since you have to do through trial-and-error or get some guide and be able to learn from it, communication shouldn’t be an issue if you’re going in with a static,
[cont. in next post]

[Cordie]

the 3rd one would be an oversight on devs’ side (think it was the case with A3s) or connection problems, and the last one would be the effect of choosing to go in unprepared. So, with the exception of having a programming blunder or connection issues hinder you, you are only limited by your group’s speed of learning the phases and the choreography, and by your willingness to go in relatively undergeared. Assuming everyone knows their jobs etc, I think it’s fair enough (unless ofc it’s something on the programing or connection side messing you up).
About the time/effort balance, I think adding to what we have now the equivalent of about a relic step’s work on a weekly basis would be enough for anyone wanting more of a grind, and enough to compensate for the initial effort you put into the raid (and enough to deter casual players :O).

[Cordie]

I am still confused about the fact that you want more things to grind and get a better reward for it, but (and maaaany others mentioned that before...) you WILL get a new content to grind and gear up with in the next patch. o.O
Which is new 24 raid and i believe (no, I am 100% sure) you will get another weekly token out of it and with that one and the two others of Mhach raids you will be able to get the upgrade material for your 260 gear. (And again: maaaaany others mentioned that before...) In the meantime: why don't you just go and gear up your other classes? Or, if you have none, why don't you go level those to 60 and then gear them up with 260.

Amelia, please check out our last exchanges with Spayd, I think they'll help you see what I mean about the upgrading path.

[Llus]

One small oversight here, since current status is "you can grind tomes all you want, you are stuck at i260".

With the caveat that a week of grinding affords you a fraction of a -10 ilevels piece , on average, instead of practically 4 pieces guaranteed/week through the raid. And I won't even discuss the weapon.

Again, the point of higher item level for Savage? Did I miss something?

I'm afraid balance only implies equivalence of quantities; here, time and gear item-level.
The imbalance lies in the skewed relation between the two in the two ways of acquiring gear.

If you want the i270 gear, then jump into Alex savage. You don't need i270 to clear 90% of the current content on the game.

[Cordie]

So .. yes, you did, in this very thread, say that those challenging the hardest content in the game, raiders, do not need i270. Still waiting to see how its not needed for raids but the lack cripples your ability to do some piece of content in the game.

Interestingly:
1. "raiders do not need i270" is not equivalent to "raiders must get <i270".
2. "A does not require B" does not reduce to "nothing requires B".

You might wish to add some ideas of your own to my posts as an addendum for interpretation. It might help to post them in a verbose manner because in trying to infer/deduce them from my comments the logic does not follow.

[Cordie]

If you want the i270 gear, then jump into Alex savage. You don't need i270 to clear 90% of the current content on the game.

FYI there are 2 i270 sets: the Alex Savage gear and the Augmented Shire set. I'm talking about the latter.