We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[Vaer]

Logically, I do not need better gear. At the same time, having the same armor rating for months has been a bit boring since I essentially have to play a long waiting game until I can progress my character again. I can improve my armor with tomes, but I can't buy tomes, and so much of my time is already spent crafting, gathering, gardening and sending retainers out.

A way they could fix this is if they made a decent separate progression set of gear craftable in addition to the stuff they have now BUT it would bind to the character and be unsellable/untradeable. It would have to be timegated and have the same secondaries as the sellable stuff to not devalue running duties and not make it mandatory for world first raiding. Maybe make some crafting mats drop out of said dungeons that you can buy off the MH.

So crafters could progress their characters at a decent rate, but it wouldn't ruin others' progression since you couldn't just buy it off the MH. The person crafting it could use it. Obviously it wouldn't hit raid level but would follow the other slowdrip progression paths to not devalue running duties and other content.

Not sure they want to do something like that though.

[HyoMinPark]

So much of my time is already spent crafting, gathering, gardening and sending retainers out. You are wrong though, the game did not need to force me to find alternate means of improving my armor. The crafting system could have been just as robust during this current patch to be a match to anything you just mentioned. Creation tomes are not tied to the crafting or market system, so I shouldn't have to go out of my way to get better armor during this patch cycle if the crafting system competed. This didn't have to be so. There's no reason that crafting, tomes and raiding couldn't be on equal terms. If people won't raid because equivalent gear could be crafted, then there's something wrong with the raiding system.

Read my edit. Expert Roulette takes an hour a day tops (DPS queue + dungeon duration); Ridorana about the same. The time investments to get tomestones are miniscule. I'm sorry, I don't see "having no time between crafting, etc." as a valid excuse not to progress.

Again, if you aren't putting the gear to use, you don't really need it.

And Dualgunner made a good point: raiders sitting at cap have stagnated as well. The only difference between you and them is that they put more into hitting the level cap at an earlier time. Before I even cleared God Kefka, I was at i369. Then I cleared, and now I'm actually at i368 because BRD has strange BiS. And I've been there for months.

EDIT because daily post limit:

You've missed my point entire. It's not an issue with time. The reason I'm busy with such things is because I'm enjoying such things. Fitting unenjoyable grinds into the schedule is not my main issue otherwise I'd might as well be raiding.

And you completely ignored both mine and Dualgunner's when we pointed out that even raiders have stagnanted in terms of item level.

Not to sound rude, but 3 out of 4 of your activities you listed could be done while waiting in a queue to get Tomestones to upgrade your gear: gathering, gardening, and sending out retainers. Even crafting if it's something that doesn't require food that you wouldn't want to waste can be done while waiting in a queue - I would know, I've done them all.

An hour a day to get Tomestones for i360 Augmented gear is hardly a grind equivalent to raiding. No offense, but you have no idea what you're talking about when you make a statement like that. And I'm sorry if it's not enjoyable, but if you want something you need to put in the time and effort for it. That's just how it is. And while I have no qualms with a system like Vaer suggested, it is not currently present in this game, so you need to make do with what you have available to you.

If you want better gear with a higher item level, put forth the effort like everyone else has to do. Otherwise, make do with what you have. If you aren't running content, what you have is plenty enough anyways.

[Edax]

A way they could fix this is if they made a decent separate progression set of gear craftable in addition to the stuff they have now BUT it would bind to the character and be unsellable/untradeable. It would have to be timegated and have the same secondaries as the sellable stuff to not devalue running duties and not make it mandatory for world first raiding. Maybe make some crafting mats drop out of said dungeons that you can buy off the MH.

So crafters could progress their characters at a decent rate, but it wouldn't ruin others' progression since you couldn't just buy it off the MH. The person crafting it could use it. Obviously it wouldn't hit raid level but would follow the other slowdrip progression paths to not devalue running duties and other content.

Not sure they want to do something like that though.

This would be a fine system. I wouldn't even mind if the materials involved were very rare or hard to get. This system would give players more options on how to progress allow the players to play the game in the ways they most find fun.

[Edax]

Read my edit. Expert Roulette takes an hour a day tops (DPS queue + dungeon duration); Ridorana about the same. The time investments to get tomestones are miniscule. I'm sorry, I don't see "having no time between crafting, etc." as a valid excuse not to progress.

Again, if you aren't putting the gear to use, you don't really need it.

And Dualgunner made a good point: raiders sitting at cap have stagnated as well. The only difference between you and them is that they put more into hitting the level cap at an earlier time. Before I even cleared God Kefka, I was at i369. Then I cleared, and now I'm actually at i368 because BRD has strange BiS. And I've been there for months.

You've missed my point entirely. It's not an issue with time. The reason I'm busy with such things is because I'm enjoying such things. Fitting unenjoyable grinds into the schedule is not my main issue otherwise I'd might as well be raiding.

[Dualgunner]

Hyo edited her post to say this but I'll just say again:

Let's assume you can craft your way to i370. Congratulations, you're now i370. For the next six months. How does this solve your issue regarding gear stagnation in any way, shape, or form? You're not going to run duties at all at this point, because you hate running duties as far as I'm aware. So getting the gear to make running duties faster is also a moot point. If all you like doing in this game is crafting and gaming the marketboard, then better gear obviously doesn't help with that.

EDIT: Better battlecraft gear, I should say.

You have a whole other branch of progression wholly unique to crafters and gatherers as well. If your stances are as you say they are, then DoL/DoH progression should matter much more to you than DoW/DoM.

[Edax]

Hyo edited her post to say this but I'll just say again:

Let's assume you can craft your way to i370. Congratulations, you're now i370. For the next six months. How does this solve your issue regarding gear stagnation in any way, shape, or form? You're not going to run duties at all at this point, because you hate running duties as far as I'm aware. So getting the gear to make running duties faster is also a moot point. If all you like doing in this game is crafting and gaming the marketboard, then better gear obviously doesn't help with that.

EDIT: Better battlecraft gear, I should say.

You have a whole other branch of progression wholly unique to crafters and gatherers as well. If your stances are as you say they are, then DoL/DoH progression should matter much more to you than DoW/DoM.

Too much of this game's content is tied to combat to go down that road. MSQ, new duties and new raids, I need decent gear if I'm going to experience them. Since I don't endlessly repeat duties and raids, I don't really benefit from those reward systems and my less experience with those raids and duties require me to go in with better gear so as to not be that much of a burden to the team.

[Lorgana]

I'm pretty sure we've got to the point where its become clear again that the dude just wants the gear but doesn't want to do any of the work outside their niche. If it was really about just ilevel you'd have done any of the suggestions that have already been put on offer, hell people who don't care about BIS have a higher ilevel than me and I'm a BIS tank and I've been stuck there for months.

Just like in life the rewards you get in this game are directly proportional to the effort that you put in. Considering all the excuses I'm seeing here you aren't willing to put in any effort that takes you out of your comfort zone, so that's where you'll be stuck.

[Dualgunner]

Too much of this game's content is tied to combat to go down that road. MSQ, new duties and new raids, I need decent gear if I'm going to experience them. Since I don't endlessly repeat duties and raids, I don't really benefit from those reward systems and my less experience with those raids and duties require me to go in with better gear so as to not be that much of a burden to the team.

Crafted gear is the best you need regarding MSQ and new trials. Raids are wholly unrelated to the main story and unnecessary, and if you hate duties as much as you claim, why do you run even NM raids? Which, btw, crafted gear is still OP for since it rewards the same level gear as one can craft.

[Edax]

Crafted gear is the best you need regarding MSQ and new trials. Raids are wholly unrelated to the main story and unnecessary, and if you hate duties as much as you claim, why do you run even NM raids? Which, btw, crafted gear is still OP for since it rewards the same level gear as one can craft.

It's new content to experience. I don't hate raids and duties when I'm first experiencing them, I'm seeing new sights and seeing new content. But the cycle of repetition, of repeating duties and raids is that I don't find fun. You really have to commit to the repetition to see the rewards. I've killed Ex-Death like 30 times to get a certain set of Samurai gear for the glamour, but it was an aggravating experience. It was fun learning the fights of Deltascape at first, the requirements to actually get armor out of the fights is just something that kills the fun of it for me.

[Dualgunner]

That's fair enough. But you don't need top of the line i370 gear to not be a burden in Sigmascape NM; you can easily be a great contributor in i350. Since you wouldn't repeat it aside for glamour, we're still left with: why be so focused on battlecraft progression, when being progressed in crafting already lands you at a battlecraft progression of two steps below maximum, which is easily enough gear to handle the next two to three major patches?