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

[Lorgana]

I'd just like to chime in here and say that getting to HOH floor 100 is nowhere near as difficult as it was getting a clear on guardian within the first couple of months of raid.

Also that's over 50 pages now of mostly " I don't want to raid but I want more gear". If you put as much effort into learning fights and your class as you have into this thread you'd all be BIS by now. That being said I do agree on the lashing point, the return of extremes rewarding accessories was a nice surprise as usually primal weapons are useless for raiders ( save the ones that come out on raid day)

[Lubu_Mykono]

I'd just like to chime in here and say that getting to HOH floor 100 is nowhere near as difficult as it was getting a clear on guardian within the first couple of months of raid.

Also that's over 50 pages now of mostly " I don't want to raid but I want more gear". If you put as much effort into learning fights and your class as you have into this thread you'd all be BIS by now. That being said I do agree on the lashing point, the return of extremes rewarding accessories was a nice surprise as usually primal weapons are useless for raiders ( save the ones that come out on raid day)

I don't want to raid but I want better gear tho.

[Riko_Futatabi]

The truth in your post is very gratifying. I can agree with everything you have said. The original post should have triple the amount of likes that it currently has.

That is all I wanted to say, I don't feel like I need to say much else. You have echoed my problems with this game almost perfectly.

[Arek]

The truth in your post is very gratifying. I can agree with everything you have said. The original post should have triple the amount of likes that it currently has.

That is all I wanted to say, I don't feel like I need to say much else. You have echoed my problems with this game almost perfectly.

I liked it at 1st, then I read it carefully. If OP didn't "blame" Raiders for the state of the game right now, I would like it. Unfortunately, it's not "raider's fault", it's designers fault, Vertical Progression + Lack of interesting Stats and Equipement personnalisation. (Aka Itemisation as a whole.)

Can't like the post if there is one thing I absolutely not agree with. Even if I agree with some or more of it.

So This post :

I've finally gotten myself caught up on each post in the thread since pages piled up extra fast within 2 days. So now I feel I can post about something for real...

There's been alot of talk gear and how raider gear should only be for raiders and what all that. It feels like it was mainly going in circles instead of discussing a solution? After reading the whole thing in full, I do have an idea of how that something could work similar to what I posted long ago but it was buried fairly quickly. Varied Gear Sets.My idea is this, I repeat with some modifications to it:
Raid Path: Stays the same as it always was. Raids offer raid gear that is ilvl cap. i340, i370, i400, whichever when completed. They have their own designs and whatever. No changes.

Tome Path: Stays the same. Although I wish they could remove the unique tag on gear so we could finally have duplicates. Not being able to have duplicates where we have multiple jobs using the same pieces of gear but wanting different melds is just horrible. Oh, and tome weapon upgrades really should to be made available much earlier than a month before next raid cycle. It's pretty pointless otherwise.

Crafter Path: I do believe there should be a path that crafters can take to get highest level gear. It would mix it up to see some new top ilvl pieces to choose from. We already have the crafted gear upgrade system, which was welcome. Why not come out with an i360 step and i370 step? With the i370 being untradable of course. Peak Crafted armor. Example:
1. Craft a HQ armor piece and hand it to the exchange to get the tokens
2. Aquire Thavnarian Rains to get the piece upgraded to i360 Augmented
3. Now you must repeat #1 and trade in the i360 piece however, the other trade-in item must be crafted. The craft should be difficult to create. Craft the mat and trade that with the new tokens to get the HQ i370 Peak piece. This process will need to be repeated for as many times you want an i370 Peak piece.

Also, having a 2nd crafting recipe to create the same trade-in item but with ingredients dropped from raids would be nice as well. On the even patch, Recipe A with raid mats would be available first. On the odd patch, recipe B without raid mats will be available. This would broaden out the horizontal progression and set building to have more gear pieces with different stat mixups available.

Primal Path: I was pleasantly surprised to see Lakshmi jewelry available during 4.0. That was an amazing addition! Why the heck was it discontinued? Having Primals drop jewelry would make them relevant to gear-building again. Even patch Primals can give jewelry the same ilvl as normal raids and default crafted jewelry while off patch Primals give jewelry with the same ilvl as upgraded tome jewelry, Peak Crafted jewelry, and Raid jewelry.

In other words... Byakko would give i350 jewelry along with the i350 weapons and Tsyukoyomi would give i370 jewelry along with her i365 weapon(although just making the weapon i370 would be better to be honest..) for example.

24-Man Raid Path: Need I even explain this? For goodness's sake devs allow us to upgrade gear gotten from 24-man raids. Make them require the same upgrade tokens as tome gear. Or if you must stretch the time, implement ways to upgrade 24-man Raid gear on the .5 patches that release content like Heaven-On-High. Make it so Heaven-On-High drops trade-in items needed to augment 24-man gear.



With all of this in mind, we end up with Augmented Tome Gear, Raid Gear, and Peak Crafted Gear released on even patches with raids without devaluing the raids themselves while adding more incentive to crafting + raid AND adding more options to creating the perfect BiS, along with primal jewelry for the beginning raiders. Then comes the odd patch with Primal jewelry and weapons at ilvl cap for incentive and gear-building while allowing non-raiders to get Augmented Crafted gear and Peak Crafted Gear. Shortly after, the mid X.X5 patch releases with 24-man Raid Gear Augmentation.

By the X.X5 odd patch we have 4 different armor options of equal ilvl, 3 different weapon options(not including raid as that's always 5 ilvls above) of equal ilvl and 4 different jewelry options of equal ilvl. All having different stats from each other which would bring incentive to do ALL content to reach absolute BiS. Not just for casual players but raiders as well. As that undoubtedly includes the completion raids for perfection. The horizontal progression we could definitely use.. Sounds like a dream right? I know. I just woke up myself.

is MUCH more pertinent to me.

*thumbs up*

[Magic-Mal]

I'd just like to chime in here and say that getting to HOH floor 100 is nowhere near as difficult as it was getting a clear on guardian within the first couple of months of raid.

Also that's over 50 pages now of mostly " I don't want to raid but I want more gear". If you put as much effort into learning fights and your class as you have into this thread you'd all be BIS by now. That being said I do agree on the lashing point, the return of extremes rewarding accessories was a nice surprise as usually primal weapons are useless for raiders ( save the ones that come out on raid day)

You can keep repeating "I don't want to raid but I want more gear" but the fact is no one ever had to. Players can get your sacred raid gear through expert roulettes. Except, you need to understand that i370 tome gear isn't raid gear. Diamond gear is raid gear. And nobody wants to have your raid gear. The point is asking for more options that are the same ilvl but with different stat mix-ups.

Do you have any ideas yourself?

[Theodric]

Reaching the top floor in Heaven on High is still a considerable accomplishment. Simply finding three other competent players who can either do the whole thing in one whole block or align their schedules is a feat in itself. Then, of course, there's the RNG elements to consider - and the fact that it requires quite a bit of focus on the higher floors. I'd be completely fine with such a form of content being more rewarding. Even if it's simply in the form of more minions and glamour options.

[Magic-Mal]

Reaching the top floor in Heaven on High is still a considerable accomplishment. Simply finding three other competent players who can either do the whole thing in one whole block or align their schedules is a feat in itself. Then, of course, there's the RNG elements to consider - and the fact that it requires quite a bit of focus on the higher floors. I'd be completely fine with such a form of content being more rewarding. Even if it's simply in the form of more minions and glamour options.

And considering it was released mid-catch-up patch, I can't see why it wouldn't be okay to just make an i370 weapon reward. Especially if there's a second HoH coming, IF.

[Miste]

I like it at 1st, then I read it carefully. If OP didn't "blame" Raiders for the state of the game right now, I would like it.

^This.

It seems we can't have any kind of content or rewards worth something "because raids".
-We can't have relics worth getting "because raids"
-We can't have trial rewards worth getting "because raids"
-We can't have side content with rewards worth trying it for "because raids"
-We can't have tome gear worth working for "because raids"
-We can't have difficult-to-make but powerful crafted gear "because raids"
-24 mans are a waste of time "because raids"
-We can't have good open world gear drops "because raids"
-We can't have overpowered current gear "because future raids"
-We can't have powerful PvP gear "because raids"
-We can't even have materia slots now "because raids"

This section in Mal's OP called "Gear Rewards, Progression, and Raiders" is just full of nonsense and misinformation.

-Relics are worth getting, even raiders make them, just because some people think they aren't worth it doesn't make it the raid or raider's fault

-Trial rewards are worth getting, even raiders get them

-We can have side content with rewards worth trying it for, go ask SE for more

-Tome gear is worth working for, it upgrades to max item level for the tier, even raiders get tome gear, what game are you playing? It doesn't sound like it is this one?

-24 mans are not a waste of time, it is the some of the most fun experiences I've had in this game besides raiding, fun is the best reward and the gear can be used to gear alt jobs or even main if it has better substats or you are missing some pieces

-We can have good open world gear drops, go ask SE for it

-We can't have overpowered current gear.....because overpowered is broken and balance is a thing people appreciate....? If you want to game shark play a solo game

-We can have powerful PvP gear if people want it, it can just be for PVP only and glams, how is this raid or raider fault?? Go ask SE for it

-We have usable materia slots in our gear, seriously are we talking about the same game here?

You are just scapegoating raids and raiders for stuff that isn't their fault. The reason MMOs piece meal you gear is because they are trying to make the content last as long as possible. They know that players can eat through content in a few days or weeks that took them up to 6 months to create, so they have weekly and/or difficult restraints in place so that people cannot clear stuff or gear up too fast.

SE needs the content to last 6 months or as close to 6 months as possible since it takes them that long to create more content to keep the player base subbed and playing.

If they deleted savage next patch you really think the formula will change? Not likely. You will have the same setup of slow relic progression, weekly tome gear, trial gear, and 24 man gear.

People seem to illogically think raids are stopping SE from giving them more gear, but SE is simply not giving you more gear because they are trying to stretch the content to last longer.

More gear options from more avenues = gearing up to max quicker = clearing content easier = less need to do content to get clears or geared up = less people actively playing since they have nothing left to do = less people subbing longer = SE losing money.

It is not in SE's best interest to let you gear up quicker by giving you multiple avenues to get the best gear of the current tier.

This is not the raids or raider's fault. You simply don't like how the game is designed and are trying to find something else to blame besides the creator of said design which makes zero sense.

This ends up with us getting content that will always reward something lower than whatever the raid stuff is, meaning that none of it is ever going to be any good or worth the work. Know what that means? It means we end up with rewards that aren't good enough to give incentives for casual players with marginally weaker gear to actually play it to get it and rewards that are absolutely dead on arrival to raiders. Raiders have no point in playing anything after a raid besides Ultimate which is stopping.

This paragraph doesn't make any sense. If you progged savage yourself I think you would realize why this doesn't make any sense.

As a raider myself:
-I buy some crafted gear at the beginning of a tier
-I try to get the new trial primal weapon at beginning of tier and even midtier (Shinryu weapons and Tsukiyomi weapons helped people clear O4S and O8S)
-I work for my raid gear
-I work for my tome gear
-I use 24 man gear to close gaps in my gear
-I use the catch up patch upgrade items from the 24 man to close gaps in my gear

None of these things were dead on arrival for me even though I raid.

If all of this content is incentive for even someone like me who raids savage and has access to savage gear then how is it possible that casual players have no incentive to run the same content????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? The logic is non-existent.

[Dualgunner]

I'd just like to chime in here and say that getting to HOH floor 100 is nowhere near as difficult as it was getting a clear on guardian within the first couple of months of raid.

I cleared Guardian week 3. The only major variance in total difficulty is that you have 8 cats to herd instead of 4, in my opinion.

[SaitoHikari]

This paragraph doesn't make any sense. If you progged savage yourself I think you would realize why this doesn't make any sense.

As a raider myself:
-I buy some crafted gear at the beginning of a tier
-I try to get the new trial primal weapon at beginning of tier and even midtier (Shinryu weapons and Tsukiyomi weapons helped people clear O4S and O8S)
-I work for my raid gear
-I work for my tome gear
-I use 24 man gear to close gaps in my gear
-I use the catch up patch upgrade items from the 24 man to close gaps in my gear

None of these things were dead on arrival for me even though I raid.

If all of this content is incentive for even someone like me who raids savage and has access to savage gear then how is it possible that casual players have no incentive to run the same content????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? The logic is non-existent.

Actually this. I think the person you're replying to either doesn't actually play the game enough to know how gearing actually works, or is being willfully obtuse.

As a Bard personally who had to wait until 4.3 before I was able to clear O8S, I went through the same phase you did, except I got my upgraded ilvl 370 tome weapon fairly early and thus had no reason to do Tsukiyomi EX (not to mention Tsuki EX bow doesn't have crit IIRC), and I skipped over the 24-man raid in terms of gearing since the chest piece from Ridorana didn't have crit on it (unlike Rabanastre). Meaning that Bards have to go from ilvl 350 (which became 360, see below) crafted chest piece to ilvl 370 diamond shirt if they wanted to maintain their critical hit rate.

At the very least, SE did introduce -upgraded- crafted armor that lets us upgrade said armor from 350 to 360 (at the cost of making them untradeable, which is going to happen anyway if you intend to actually use them), which is a plus and actually a very good idea.

The people in this thread acting like raiders don't do other content is actually pretty hilarious. This is especially considering that a good population of the raiders actively raid precisely because there's not much else to do in this game otherwise. This was one of only two reasons I decided to raid myself come Alexander Creator after not having the confidence to raid during the year prior (the other being some friends dragging me into it because they had trouble finding decent Bards in HW).

(I still run Ridorana frequently, probably more than the 'self-proclaimed casuals', just because I find 24-mans fun and hilarious. I usually run it about 3-4 times a week, and I ran Rabanastre about 10 times one week because I was literally that bored.)