Only 2/5 Endgame content currently viable, why?

[Belial]

There are a lot of flaws with the logic here.

There is literally no reason for the strongholds and darkhold to be awarding such terrible loot at the moment. Ifrit/stronghold/darkhold are all more or less equivalent in difficulty, and given that Ifrit drops only weapons, stronghold/darkhold seems obviously intended to fill out the rest of our gear slots. Endgame content should not be obsolete the moment it's produced (stronghold) and it definitely should not be an utter waste of time (darkhold).

In other mmo's, there is incentive to get the "dated" or "obsolete" old gear from old dungeons because it is required/extremely helpful to gear up in order to improve your performance in the harder content (which, in turn, improves your chances of success). This is called linear gear progression, and it's good because it gives players goals to aim for and keeps content relevant for much longer. Imagine if darkhold/stronghold gear were significantly better and ifrit were a more difficult gear check - the end result would be that new players would hit 50, craft a set of entry-level gear to do darkhold/stronghold until they upgraded to rarer dropped equipment, and then after being battle-testing in raids, could take on Ifrit and earn their BiS weapons.

Would this kind of progression not be better for the game as a whole?

If you think all Stronghold item drops are useless, you're doing wrong.

[Ronik]

If you think all Stronghold item drops are useless, you're doing wrong.

It's not entirely useless, but it's 90% useless and the 10% that isn't useless is sidegrades/extremely minor upgrades from crafted sets.

Since stronghold gear is objectively rarer and harder to acquired than crafted gear, it should be proportionally better. Honestly, at the very least, every piece of stronghold gear should be materia meldable like sentinel. In my opinion, the gear should be strictly superior to crafted gear in most cases (the only crafted gear which should beat it should be stuff crafted from HNM drops or rare NM drops).

[Teuciont]

I would like to "enjoy" the content, but I would like there to be a purpose behind it. I would like a goal to shoot for, something to say "Hey, I did this really tough content." I.. I don't know how I'm supposed to put it? It's the point of a MMO. I can't put it into words, but why would I want to do content that gives me nothing in return for the difficulty?

[Isaveron]

I would like to "enjoy" the content, but I would like there to be a purpose behind it.

Yes, it's called FUN, which is suppose to be the purpose of video games in the first place.

I find the hypocrisy of the "DURR, STOP TURNING THIS INTO A WESTERN MMO" crowd delicious. Not only do they not know XI was influenced by western games, but they're falling into the same trap of loot obsessing they criticize western WoW players for.

[Teuciont]

Yes, it's called FUN, which is suppose to be the purpose of video games in the first place.

I find the hypocrisy of the "DURR, STOP TURNING THIS INTO A WESTERN MMO" crowd delicious. Not only do they not know XI was influenced by western games, but they're falling into the same trap of loot obsessing they criticize western WoW players for.

Uh? The only point I'm trying to get across is that they don't have enough content coming out soon enough to validate making the little content they have obsolete. What's your deal? I'm saying a temporary fix, nothing for when 2.0 goes live. I'm fine with what is now western style when 2.0 comes out. I'm saying old school style until then so people have more to do until then.