My Opinion on XIV's Gear Progression

[Sciwolf]

my favorite gear progression was GW2. endgame is mainly a test of your skill and gear is more or less cosmetic.

[AppleJinx]

Well from what yoshi P had been saying, this was a conscious decision on his part to keep the game as casual as possible

[Aniond]

FFXI wasn't this type of game. FFXI made the leveling process important as end game. You hand to work to obtain airship passes, boat rides and stuff like that. FFXIV is a much different beast., You can't compare them.

[Demafogotto]

I guess it's an unpopular opinion, but why people take getting gear as absolute endgame goal?

I mean, most of the time it sounds like people don't like the game at all, but still play it because there is a carrot on a stick, and every single activity that doesn't help with that is pointless and outdated, ending up pigeonholing themselves into doing same grind over and over again because it's most optimal, but then complain they "have" to do it and how the game has "no content" as the result.

Personally i really like that all old content is still available instead of being completely phased out. Yes, it can be hard to get a party doing it, especially if you insist on min ilvl synch, but a possibility itself is welcome. And also, i play the game because i like playing the game itself, not because i want better and better ilvl, even with savage raiding i do it not to be a top dog for the rest of the 2-patch cycle, but because fights themselves are interesting to me, gear is just a bonus.

A bit of anecdotal evidence, but i also personally had an experience when my friend went from "the game is full of content" to "the game has no content" in span of two months. How? She discarded every single activity the game has to offer but expert roulette, because for her everything else might as well not exist at all if it doesn't give max tomes/minute ratio, so her days went from trying out everything the game has to offer into a boring slog of endlessly grinding same 2 dungeons every day because it's "optimal".

Also it still seems astonishing to me how "this online game adds new content way too fast" is considered a valid argument and people actually want to have true content droughts like WoW had at the end of MoP/almost entirely of WoD simply because they want lasting gear. And how the game has nothing to do regardless.

tl;dr - i'm baffled at the whole concept of people playing the game they clearly hate, locking themselves out of all but most optimal content, but then proceeding to complain there is "nothing but same 2 dungeons every day".

[loreleidiangelo]

I don't mind the speed of gear acquisition or anything like that - full horizontal prog will probably never happen in this game, so best come to terms with that and look for reasonable compromises. I personally would like to see secondary stats made more meaningful, so that pieces of gear with the same item level can still produce a meaningful upgrade to throughput if they have better secondaries, and I'd love to see some extra effects on gear added, even if the devs start out with small, somewhat lackluster effects to test the waters.

[Aronys]

my favorite gear progression was GW2. endgame is mainly a test of your skill and gear is more or less cosmetic.

Same. I geared up back in 2012 and even still my gear is still relevant and I can try to do everything, the game tests your actual skills instead of relying on your gear numbers.

[Altena]

I actually had this conversation with someone in NN yesterday.. And you even used a similar point that was brought up. We are also on the same server.. Hmm not sure if related but anyways, thought it was worth mentioning.


However I absolutely disagree with you, and I am not "white knighting". I am saying this from the perspective of highlighting why the XI system was inherently bad, especially for games that aren't XI. Was the game fun in its day? Sure.. However I think people look at that game with rose tinted glasses.

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1. There should be no game (other than XI), where you can obtain a piece of gear all the way back in 2008, and it still be best in slot for doing "X" thing in 2018. Why? Because what happens when you get to the point where everything is best in slot for that job.. And there is nothing better in those slots for 5-10 years.. What do you work toward?

XI was a special snowflake in the fact that you could swap gear using macros between every action. This actually allowed for the customization of complete min maxing every ability just by getting situational gear pieces. What does this mean? Well it means that you have a much bigger list of situational gear that you can work towards.. And that those pieces of gear that "lasted for 10 years as best in slot for doing X weaponskill".

In a game like XIV? Yeah nah, wouldn't work. You shouldn't be able to equip something in a slot and forget about upgrading it for 5-10 years..

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2. Another issue was that when that piece of gear was finally replaced by something after years of holding BiS position, it similarly caused people to rage out because said item was easily replaced by some new item "after they worked so hard for so many years to obtain item X".

Salvage gear was one example of that, when they released Abyssea and stuff like Perle or Aurora gear was released.
Due to the level cap being at 75 for so long, people started stockpiling all of this amazing gear that took ages to farm.. Then once the level cap rose to 80, a bunch of it was inevitably replaced and people were furious.

An example of my point with this is at the start of every expansion so far, have you not felt a little heartbroken that your BiS raid gear from the previous tier will only last you 4 or 5 levels before being replaced? Well of course, as it's one of the comments in your OP.
Now multiply that by something that's been around for 5 years as your BiS..

The alternative to this is to have an item that continuously upgrades throughout the patch (like what we have with Relics). This causes an illusion (despite it just being an illusion) that our "hard work of obtaining item X" isn't going to waste.. And instead of replacing it we are "upgrading" it.. Blade & Soul did this fairly well in the sense that your starting level 1 gear was actually kind of like "relic" gear.. You continuously upgraded it throughout the game, while you still had the option to "replace" it with normal quality stuff if you couldn't afford to upgrade it for whatever reason.

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3. Your point regarding gear being pointless.. (no pun intended)

I mean at the end of the day, isn't that every MMO ever?
Why do you get gear?
To kill harder stuff..
Why do you kill harder stuff?
To get more gear..

Really.. Like is there any other reason to get gear from the hardest content in the game? You're already beating that fight.. So why do you need more gear? To beat that fight even harder?
Look at Ultimate.. Why do people actually do Ultimate? The weapons aren't any better than Savage. It's purely the achievment of it.

At the end of the day, people see gear as the "goal" and "purpose". They are quickly missing the fact that the gear should actually be the tool to the goal, and that goal is the achievment of beating a challenging fight, and having fun while doing it.

However removing any form of reward feels a little empty doesn't it? That's why cosmetic items exist. While I don't mean to highlight specifics - this is loosely what GW2 did.. (Despite it not being my cuppa tea.. I preferred some form of progression).

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Thanks for reading.

[Cidel]

...at the start of every expansion so far, have you not felt a little heartbroken that your BiS raid gear from the previous tier will only last you 4 or 5 levels before being replaced?

No, not really.

Because at this point mostly everyone knows nearly anything at max ilvl will be immediately replaced in a few months anyway even if there wasn't an expansion.



It's why glamour is the real endgame. It's not really as much of a joke phrase as some people think it is.

[Altena]

No, not really.

Because at this point mostly everyone knows nearly anything at max ilvl will be immediately replaced in a few months anyway even if there wasn't an expansion.

It's why glamour is the real endgame. It's not really as much of a joke phrase as some people think it is.

Taking my quote out of context.

Reread the OP's post, followed by mine.

[KDSilver]

I don't particulary like this gear progression we have.
But even so, I don't really mind.

No, what I would like to see is more option, especially because of the "you can play every class, but not gearing up everything as you like.

I'll take the current numbers.

Savage and Tomestone are 375-370
Crafted are 350
Dungeon is 325
24-man raid will be 360.

For example, it could nice to have a way to upgrade dungeons and 24-man raid to 345 and 365 by participating at some other weekly activites (clearing old extreme primal ? palace of the dead ? diadem ? Whatever).

Adding another set you can get by exchanging totem from current extreme (they could recycle old glamour, that's not the primary problem)

For example, I liked that Lakshmi gave accessories and Susano the weapon.
They could go further in that.