I do not have a "Main" I want to gear all jobs, change weekly gatings?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But XIV was in large part sold on the idea of "all classes on one character"... and yet they're less alt-friendly in that form than almost any competing MMO. That's what doesn't make sense to me.

Because you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. "All classes on one character" isn't the same as "all classes equally geared on one character." Note the distinction. You can do every piece of content without having a single piece of Creation gear. I main Samurai but could swap to Dragoon next week if I really wanted to. Most people do start rotating their alt jobs regardless of gear once they're a bit more aware of the fight and don't need extra benefits. People focus on one job first less due to gear but more so consistency. When learning Savage level fights, you want the job you have most practice with because it'll make that first clear easier. Back in Creator I rotated Dragoon, Ninja, White Mage and Warrior throughout the tier. I very briefly dabbled with Machinist too. The melee DPS were with my static while I pugged on White Mage and subbed for a friend on Warrior and Machinist. Some were fully geared, others weren't.

Don't think about the ilvl when switching to alts. If you want to play something else, go right ahead.

[Shurrikhan]

Why should it be alt friendly if you can do everything on 1 character and don't need alts?

Any roles/jobs/classes/gear types other than your primary... are alts. The term is not solely applied to separate characters. Yet by placing them on one character in this game, each is allotted fewer opportunities. In other words, the game forces you, if you want optimal gearing, to put each gear type on a separate character, despite holding the selling point of all in one.

The issue is you absolutely can't do everything on one character. To have the same freedom as in other MMOs, then like any other MMO, you must place every gear type on a separate character. It's counter-intuitive.

Because you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. "All classes on one character" isn't the same as "all classes equally geared on one character." Note the distinction.

Don't think about the ilvl when switching to alts. If you want to play something else, go right ahead.

But why have that disclamatory factor at all, when every other MMO allows you to equally gear every class so long as you have the time and interest. Even XIV allows it, as long as you do NOT do the one thing it uniquely offers—placing all alts on one character.

Let's compare this to virtually any other MMO then, where each class has its own character...

Let's say in WoW I raid on and gear up my Warrior with/for some friend's guild. However, I really enjoy healing and I have time and interest enough to want to raid as a healer as well. But because I've already raided on different class this week, I'm unable to receive loot for the healer from those raids, and likewise prevent half the loot of anyone I raid with. Similarly, if I wish to have any grindable loot on my healer, I must sacrifice it from what's available to my Warrior. How would that make sense?

And yet, that's FFXIV's 'all-in-one' in a nutshell. Placing one's alts on the same character as one's main class is inferior in every way except ease of farming non-capped gear, generally just by being better able to meet inflated ilvl requirements (e.g. i315+ required for Lakshimi).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The issue is you absolutely can't do everything on one character. To have the same freedom as in other MMOs, then like any other MMO, you must place every gear type on a separate character. It's counter-intuitive.

But you can. Nothing stopped me from queuing into Experts all throughout Creator on Warrior and White Mage. I even brought them into Savage before either was BiS. In fact, my first A9S on WHM, I didn't have any accuracy melds. You can play every job. They just aren't geared as quickly as your main(s) will be.

But why have that disclamatory factor at all, when every other MMO allows you to equally gear every class so long as you have the time and interest. Even XIV allows it, as long as you do NOT do the one thing it uniquely offers—placing all alts on one character.

Let's compare this to virtually any other MMO then, where each class has its own character...

Let's say in WoW I raid on and gear up my Warrior with/for some friend's guild. However, I really enjoy healing and I have time and interest enough to want to raid as a healer as well. But because I've already raided on different class this week, I'm unable to receive loot for the healer from those raids, and likewise prevent half the loot of anyone I raid with. Similarly, if I wish to have any grindable loot on my healer, I must sacrifice it from what's available to my Warrior. How would that make sense?

And yet, that's FFXIV's 'all-in-one' in a nutshell. Placing one's alts on the same character as one's main class is inferior in every way except ease of farming non-capped gear, generally just by being better able to meet inflated ilvl requirements (e.g. i315+ required for Lakshimi).

Because the system's core intent is to keep incentivizing content. Allowing infinite progression means you will inevitably reach the point where you'll have obtained everything you fancy, thus have no further reason to queue. This is made significantly easier without restrictions and runs the risk players will spam content early on only to abandon it that much faster. To use myself as an example as I regularly play all roles. Say I wished to gear Samurai, Warrior and White Mage with only tomestone gear. The combined cost would be approximately 18,030. Doing absolute nothing but daily roulettes means I'll have all three more or less geared within the 4.0 patch cycle. Therefore, when 4.1 releases, I have no reason to bother with Ivalice outside a handful of times because I might find it fun. Likewise, I wouldn't run the new dungeon or any roulette nearly as often-- if at all. Basically, the devs have lost someone actively queuing. Considering the grind nature of many players, observed through Light farming, Verity and etc, I wouldn't be alone in abandoning queues.

Once you factor in Savage drops and the abundance of ways to acquire tomes outside roulettes, it only hastens the process. This doesn't even cover content which drops lower ilvl gear. Think about it. How many people do you see wearing the 300 dungeon gear over Verity? I see very few despite being on Balmung. I don't think it's much of a reach to argue people aren't going to spam Omega normal for a lesser reward.

Of course, you can dodge these restrictions by having multiple characters, but Square assumes very few players will bother. And most don't. Even if they did overhaul things, you will still be gated by some other means, be it RNG or some other timed progression because there is only so much the devs can develop over a three month span. WoW may allow you to farm at your leisure but the process is extremely RNG dependent. Somewhat ironically, WoW's systems are praised more here than on their reddit sub-forum. That certainly isn't to say FFXIV is better or couldn't borrow ideas, but does hint people may be looking at greener fields, so to speak.

I think a better solution is adding more content in general or possibly allowing us to customize set bonuses based on content we do. Eureka could be promising in that respect since they have hinted at possible relic armours. Yoshida also seemed to like the idea of achievements based on completing fights in certain ways or without xyz. I believe WoW does it. Have to dig for the interview MrHappy did with him, but it sounded interesting.

On the subject on Savage loot. I, actually, dislike how it's handled. The weekly restriction is fine, however losing out on a chest because you needed to sub someone plan sucks. It also enforces players to stick with their static. I'd prefer allowing up to say, two players who have cleaned to not affect loot drops. They can't roll, of course, but everyone else can. From three or more, you go to one chest and etc.

[Remedi]

I think a better solution is adding more content in general or possibly allowing us to customize set bonuses based on content we do. Eureka could be promising in that respect since they have hinted at possible relic armours. Yoshida also seemed to like the idea of achievements based on completing fights in certain ways or without xyz. I believe WoW does it. Have to dig for the interview MrHappy did with him, but it sounded interesting.

I think he said that they needed the tech to detect what you have and If I'm not wrong they should have it now

edit: (I always thought that the T2 savage titles should've been locked behind either synched or min ilvl synched)

[technole]

I think he said that they needed the tech to detect what you have and If I'm not wrong they should have it now

edit: (I always thought that the T2 savage titles should've been locked behind either synched or min ilvl synched)

I was proud of my savage titles even if we did some of them at i130 instead of i110 at the time. But like any MMO, achievements have a shelf-life and after awhile you just have to move on. At the end of Creator Savage we had nothing to do as a static so we went back to do some of them at min ilvl for the fun of it and was succesful, and to prepare us for Deltascape. The mechanics practice was indeed worth it.

You have people today that have Gobwalker mounts that couldn't even handle Gordias Savage in the day. But that was over two years ago, and the rare hip mount now is Alte Roite from O4S. So we just keep up.

[Shurrikhan]

But you can. Nothing stopped me from queuing into Experts all throughout Creator on Warrior and White Mage. I even brought them into Savage before either was BiS. In fact, my first A9S on WHM, I didn't have any accuracy melds. You can play every job. They just aren't geared as quickly as your main(s) will be.

What does Expert roulette possibly have to do with Savage raiding? What? How? What?

Believe me, I know that you can get into most pieces of content, until a certain level of progression. I was a sub raider throughout HW, and as such I kept Bard, Ninja, Monk, and Dragoon all just high enough to be accepted into sub positions for Savage. But that is a far cry from the item levels available to somehow who can play a single job alone, and comes at far greater cost in materia. And it frequently forced me to bankrupt myself on crafter gear for an extra couple ilvl.

The point is if you place those jobs on separate characters, then they ARE gearable just as quickly as your main. If you place them, however, on the same character as the game suggests, then you cannot—you are shooting yourself in the foot. Great if it only took off your pinky toe; you still shot yourself.

So why would you make something like the ability to play all jobs on one character a selling point of a game wherein you are actually going to disadvantage exactly that?

Because the system's core intent is to keep incentivizing content. Allowing infinite progression means you will inevitably reach the point where you'll have obtained everything you fancy, thus have no further reason to queue. This is made significantly easier without restrictions and runs the risk players will spam content early on only to abandon it that much faster. To use myself as an example as I regularly play all roles.

I have NEVER said to remove gating. I said it's gating the wrong thing. The only way what you're saying would at all apply is if every savage raider felt the need to get BiS for all his jobs, thereby staying subbed longer because he can only gear one at a time.

If the goal is to prevent someone from having enough ilvl on ANY given job (meaning that one must assume he is spending everything on the same job for maximum vertical gains) to blow through content, "finish" the game, and unsub, then you need only... gate the ilvl of ANY given job, not to gate all, haphazardly, through the same shared resource pool. Allowing, say, every single gear type to take its own 450 Creator's worth of gear-exchange loot and its two raid drops per week would not make any difference whatsoever to how quickly people can gear their way through content, "finish" the game, and unsub. None. It would simply give the exact same freedom that one has if they'd put every gear type on a separate character (e.g. did this for 7 in total).

Now, I'm not saying we need to be able to clear each Savage 7 times and harvest 3150 Creator tomestones per week. I'm just saying that playing on separate characters shouldn't be so advantaged compared to playing with all jobs on one character. It makes no sense to do so.

[Snow_Princess]

What does Expert roulette possibly have to do with Savage raiding? What? How? What?

Believe me, I know that you can get into most pieces of content, until a certain level of progression. I was a sub raider throughout HW, and as such I kept Bard, Ninja, Monk, andDragoon all just high enough to be accepted into sub positions for Savage. But that is a far cry from the item levels available to somehow who can play a single job alone, and comes at far greater cost in materia. And it frequently forced me to bankrupt myself on crafter gear for an extra couple ilvl.

The point is if you place those jobs on separate characters, then they ARE gearable just as quickly as your main. If you place them, however, on the same character as the game suggests, then you cannot—you are shooting yourself in the foot. Great if it only took off your pinky toe; you still shot yourself.

So why would you make something like the ability to play all jobs on one character a selling point of a game wherein you are actually going to disadvantage exactly that?



I have NEVER said to remove gating. I said it's gating the wrong thing. The only way what you're saying would at all apply is if every savage raider felt the need to get BiS for all his jobs, thereby staying subbed longer because he can only gear one at a time.

If the goal is to prevent someone from having enough ilvl on ANY given job (meaning that one must assume he is spending everything on the same job for maximum vertical gains) to blow through content, "finish" the game, and unsub, then you need only... gate the ilvl of ANY given job, not to gate all, haphazardly, through the same shared resource pool. Allowing, say, every single gear type to take its own 450 Creator's worth of gear-exchange loot and its two raid drops per week would not make any difference whatsoever to how quickly people can gear their way through content, "finish" the game, and unsub. None. It would simply give the exact same freedom that one has if they'd put every gear type on a separate character (e.g. did this for 7 in total).

Now, I'm not saying we need to be able to clear each Savage 7 times and harvest 3150 Creator tomestones per week. I'm just saying that playing on separate characters shouldn't be so advantaged compared to playing with all jobs on one character. It makes no sense to do so.

I'm thinking of working on a gear progression model and just showing that to people, since it seems people are simply not understanding what the main point is from not liking change. Need some ideas though, you got any?

[Shurrikhan]

I'm thinking of working on a gear progression model and just showing that to people, since it seems people are simply not understanding what the main point is from not liking change. Need some ideas though, you got any?

My thoughts on it are still rather up in the air. To be honest, when I start into a large design idea, it rarely tries to achieve just the one thing I originally intended—a bad habit. For instance, what I have so far, something of a "Prestige" system, not only includes categorical allocations to gate the "any given" repository of gear while allowing equitable (not just equal or shared) gating for any other repository, but it also adjusts how gear is rewarded and what all awards progress towards it (e.g. achievements, challenge modes, and with adjustments for various forms of scaling, and so forth to spice up what essentially amounts to tome-grinding, in order to make the increased hours of grinding possible feel less grindy).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

What does Expert roulette possibly have to do with Savage raiding? What? How? What?

You said:

The issue is you absolutely can't do everything on one character. To have the same freedom as in other MMOs, then like any other MMO, you must place every gear type on a separate character. It's counter-intuitive.

You never specifically mentioned Savage, thus I answered both it and regular content can be done on any job.

The point is if you place those jobs on separate characters, then they ARE gearable just as quickly as your main. If you place them, however, on the same character as the game suggests, then you cannot—you are shooting yourself in the foot. Great if it only took off your pinky toe; you still shot yourself.

So why would you make something like the ability to play all jobs on one character a selling point of a game wherein you are actually going to disadvantage exactly that?

Because they know very few people will level a second character, let alone multiple. The devs look at Savage and see you clearing it as successful. The community looks at their FFlogs. That is the disconnect here. For the dev team, if you clear content at ilvl 315, they couldn't give a damn about how well you did. The game doesn't suggest anything more than you can play every job. Nowhere does it say they all can be geared simultaneously.

snip

And by doing that, who is queuing into the 24 Man raid come 4.1? I'd argue most raiders gear at least two jobs fully. Say you have someone who tanks and alts Dragoon. With the system you purpose, they are finished gearing well before Ivalice drops. Therefore, you now have someone with no incentive to run Ivalice more than once. A separate currency for each role also benefits tanks and healers significantly more as they share gear whereas DPS are split into four categories. Furthermore, how wouldn't this speed up the process substantially? I cap without even intending to on Wednesday because of raid. That means I have five days to cap on tanks, heals and whatever else I fancy-- roles that normally only receive tomestone gear later are now apart of my weekly (bi-weekly) ritual. Adding to the fact I would also be guaranteed loot from Savage each week, plus the additional pages and possibly upgrade items and I can assure you I won't only have my tanks and heals at max ilvl, they'll be full BiS in three months.

Now 4.1 rolls around and I have seven jobs fully geared; they are the only jobs I care to play. That means I have no incentive to run roulettes anymore, no incentive to keep killing Omega barring speed kills and the like and no incentive to run Ivalice. In other words, the gate is removed in all but name alone. Now imagine the queues with a system where every single player could gear their tanks, heals and at least two DPS concurrently.

The fact you can get around these limitations on a separate character is irrelevant when only hardcore raiders do it. Put simply, the devs don't care because the amount of people willing to exploit that loophole are so few, it doesn't upset their system.

[Shurrikhan]

You never specifically mentioned Savage, thus I answered both it and regular content can be done on any job.

I specified Savage because you wrote it there. And your assertion is as much a half-truth now as then. Behind after a certain point into the tier the community WILL come to leave you unless you focus your gear into a specific gear type. Yes, you can raid as whatever you like when gear is barely raised from the uncapped tome's level of gear. But that gap will increase, and item levels will become unreachable without dedicating a higher and higher cumulative portion of gear to a single gear type. You do NOT have indefinite access to Savage as an alt (unless running with friends who will accept below average ilvls). That is simple fact. Look at the item levels near the end of any given tier. They are often high enough for even mostly main-only characters to be unable to continue waiting on BiS raid drops, forcing them to spend currency to meet the requests of a PF rather than saving it for a secondary's BiS currency gear, to continue to join PFs. Without any raid drops, many PFs will assume the ilvl of all crafted slots + the entirety of your weekly-capped currency (assuming weapon or chest/legs first) have been spent on a single gear type just to join. This makes it difficult to maintain permissible gear levels for those who are taken as one type one week and another the next (i.e. static-less players who have time enough to grind for gear, but not time enough in exact consistent overlap with a specific 7 other players).

And by doing that, who is queuing into the 24 Man raid come 4.1?

(24-man raids) This is not a new issue, nor would separate caps extend it if the 24-mans actually provided benefits to everyone in the first place. Consider who among single-job players are going to do 4.1 at all when they offer inferior—not even alternatives but outright ilvl-inferior—loot to what they'd already gained last tier? They'll grab whatever twine/coats they still need and then they're done.

That issue's already come up in plenty of threads since Syrcus Tower, and the leading suggestion's been the same: give it the same ilvl as the latest weekly gear and make it upgradeable (which would affect ilvl growth rates), or make it upgradeable via capped currency in a way that essentially absorbs the difference in cost over ilvl growth (which would not).

A separate currency for each role also benefits tanks and healers significantly more as they share gear whereas DPS are split into four categories. Furthermore, how wouldn't this speed up the process substantially? I cap without even intending to on Wednesday because of raid.

Which is all the more crucial when you only have the one pool of currency and raid loot to split among all of them. Damn right you're going to prefer what gives you multiple jobs in one. How, how is this possibly a unique or novel concern? That IS XIV in a nutshell. That is gear types. They are not equal to the number of roles except in "AF" weekly cap tiers. I think this has been the case long enough to recognize this fact as less than a Doomsday event. If you believe there are improvements possible to it to bring it more in line with the number of roles, I'm all ears, but this concern is entirely tangential.

Furthermore, how wouldn't this speed up the process substantially? I cap without even intending to on Wednesday because of raid. That means I have five days to cap on tanks, heals and whatever else I fancy-- roles that normally only receive tomestone gear later are now apart of my weekly (bi-weekly) ritual. Adding to the fact I would also be guaranteed loot from Savage each week, plus the additional pages and possibly upgrade items and I can assure you I won't only have my tanks and heals at max ilvl, they'll be full BiS in three months.

I never said it wouldn't speed up the process of gearing alts substantially. I relish the idea. I said it wouldn't speed up the process of gearing your MAIN. What you could do for your main now, with n (number of gear types you care to gear) multiples of time you could do for the rest. Is this complicated? The basic idea is that if you could have a BiS main in 3 weeks before, with 4x the total time spent you could have 4 BiS gear types under what I'm proposing.... Assuming no additional changes, if you overcap by more over a given week than n times your daily roulette bonuses, it will be faster than that basic n multiplier. If not, then then time required would be greater than given by a simple multiplier.

Now 4.1 rolls around and I have seven jobs fully geared; they are the only jobs I care to play. That means I have no incentive to run roulettes anymore, no incentive to keep killing Omega barring speed kills and the like and no incentive to run Ivalice.

And in the meantime, you actually didn't quit after gearing a single job, waiting until post-tier farm groups to bother with alts, you participated in far more raids, and ran far, far more dungeons, while Ivalice gives later-upgradable gear alternatives to your rollover savage gear so that if you're truly fanatical about BiS across all those alts you'll be running that for n pieces of loot per week... Admittedly, perhaps I'm not thinking vividly about the queues yet, but I fail to see how that broad picture has lost anything. What fixes 24-mans for BiS single-job players also fixes it for separately capped alts.

:: My only fear in this would be that the ability to grind out so much gear would inflate gear requirements to a point where casual players would be left behind. But the thing is we're already on the brink of that even when gearing just 1-2 jobs, and that same system punishes spreading that gear around. No other MMO does that. Anywhere else, what you play (and how much thereof) is what you get. What would be so wrong with that being the case for XIV?

The fact you can get around these limitations on a separate character is irrelevant when only hardcore raiders do it. Put simply, the devs don't care because the amount of people willing to exploit that loophole are so few, it doesn't upset their system.

If the amount of people willing to take advantage of their full gearing opportunities are too few to be concerned with them, why would it suddenly be a new and rampant concern that... a few people are willing to take advantage of their full gearing opportunities, minus the 1000-character edit, so to speak? The two situations are identical, save that it's costing less data on SE's end and more convenient on our end (unless needing that extra inventory space).