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

[Hamada]

Calling "losing less than 5% of your personal DPS" gimping is still the same overreaction everybody has. Basically, if you don't have a parser, you won't even notice...

Funny how you should say that. I do runs with my GF and the last expert we did she was left confused. The bard appeared doing good rotations (rare) but the expert was flowing slower then it should of been with someone playing like that. She checked the gear and that is exactly what the issue was, a bit lower ilevel then you typically see now a days in expert + wrong melds. So you are wrong on that front, people can notice without parsers.

So try again? Also take a look what bourne and hyo are saying. If you are going to meld at all why not do it correctly in the scope of best? Not doing so is simply doing this:

[Lorgana]

>complains about raiders getting gear
> doesn't even understand how gear stats actually work


What a time we live in.

[Reynhart]

I assume you've never wiped to a low % enrage? Or, inversely, killed something as it's enrage was casting?

Sure, it happens sometimes in Savage...so now, we're talking about occasionnal occurences in content that an extreme minority of people are actually interested in...

Sure, let's deny the option for the whole playerbase because of that...fun be damned !

Why not removing ex primals then ? After all, their reward are always lower than savage, thus, not BiS, and thus totally gimping your character, right ?

She checked the gear and that is exactly what the issue was, a bit lower ilevel then you typically see now a days in expert + wrong melds.

Having a lower ilvl means having lower main stats. And whatever meld you use will never make up for it, especially if your weapon is low. Again, with the proper ilvl, she wouldn't have noticed.

Oh, by the way...according to this calculation, my 5% example was if I took my lvl 70 DRG in full Anemos set, and meld every left slot to Det VI going from 1200 to 2400 (Which is impossible). So, we're really far from the "tank pentameld acc or gtfo". So, in your picture, you're kicking the rightmost fork cause one of its teeth is one millimeter shorter...

[HyoMinPark]

Sure, it happens sometimes in Savage...so now, we're talking about occasionnal occurences in content that an extreme minority of people are actually interested in...

Sure, let's deny the option for the whole playerbase because of that...fun be damned !

Why not removing ex primals then ? After all, their reward are always lower than savage, thus, not BiS, and thus totally gimping your character, right ?

More strawmans.

The primal weapons exist to give alternatives to Tomestone and Savage weapons, or to act as progression weapons until you get the one you’re after—Suzaku’s weapons will likely be i385, putting them above the i380 weapons simply due to weapon damage alone, and will serve as good progression weapons for raiders that aren’t aiming to clear the tier within a month until they can get something better (an Augmented Tomestone weapon, for example) or their Savage weapon.

They will also serve as good interim weapons for people who can’t/don’t want to buy a crafted weapon from the market board (or who can’t craft one themselves) until 7 weeks pass and they get the Alphascape Crystalliods and 1,000 Genesis tomestones for the i390 Tomestone weapon.

[MoroMurasaki]

Sure, it happens sometimes in Savage...so now, we're talking about occasionnal occurences in content that an extreme minority of people are actually interested in...

Sure, let's deny the option for the whole playerbase because of that...fun be damned !

Why not removing ex primals then ? After all, their reward are always lower than savage, thus, not BiS, and thus totally gimping your character, right ?

As a heads up getting sarcastic and condescending when you are also demonstrating a truly hopeless lack of understanding and information only serves to make you look really, really ignorant.

As far as I'm concerned many people have much larger hurdles to overcome to put out respectable dps in any content (Savage or otherwise) than poor gearing or materia choices. If you aren't performing something akin to the correct rotation or prioritization for your class that should be your primary concern, though extreme examples like a 3k sks build on a MCH (where you are actually hurting your damage instead of just not helping it) may deserve special consideration.

If you think only Savage has enrages you are very, very wrong on that front as well. We see enrage mechanics as early as Ifrit's nail and throughout content as we progress through the game. There are dps checks to save specific party members (Gaols on Titan and Susano, healer chains in Gilgamesh and Baelsar's Wall) and ones that require group dps to be high enough to avoid ultimate attacks which have only become more and more common throughout Stormblood like most 24man add phases and even dungeon boss mechanics like the end of Ala Mhigo. The end result is the same - do the required damage in the predetermined amount of time (so Damage Per Second) or you die.

You are making all of those things harder on yourself (and your parties) by deliberately going against the best choices for your class. This is bad. It should not be seen as equal to striving for BiS. It isn't.

As for EX primals you show your ignorance again - EX primals released on raid patches like Byakko and Suzaku will have weapons that are generally BiS to enter the new raid tier with and in many cases will remain BiS as a group progresses for quite some time. Even if a static clears turn 2 during week 1 and every week thereafter it will still be 7 weeks for everyone to receive the new tomestone weapon key (for 4.2 was Prototype Tomestone) or save up the requisite turn 4 normal raid drop item (so Sigmascape Crystalloid) to get the new tome weapon. Depending on substats that new weapon may not even be an upgrade on the EX primal drop.

Is there anything else you want to be wrong about?

[Sylvina]

I stopped reading at "Flying ruined things"

[CaptnYesterday]

I agree with far too much of your OP. Especially about

8 man raids
Lazy 'trial' design and too easy on normal. The 8 man raids becoming trials. I noticed that right away. Was sorely disappointed and feel it really took away the identity. They were also too easy right out of the gate for anyone that was not a hardcore savage runner. So unless you joined a savage party, there is no medium difficulty 8-man content anymore. Cleared all 8-man raids on day one. With only 1 or 2 wipes per all 4 floors on day 1 and that was with PUGS! At least with Alexander, even normal was difficult for casuals and unless you were good, you were highly incentivised to get some new tomestone gear as it made Alexander runs progress-able. Gave people a REASON to get the gear. Bunch of folks I know do NOT play savage so after easily facerolling the first 4 8man raid 'trials', they quit. This shit is not my opinion to be agreed with or not. It is a fact. More people left than they did with HW simply because they lacked incentive and got bored. FYI, I have been told the savage content was really great! Very cool for those that run savage, but most do not and so this is relevant to the health of the game.

Gear design
Saved almost NO gear from SB. So many re-skins. I don't mind gear that I find ugly. Hell, SOMEONE likes it, right? But this stuff is all the same. MOBs out in the word and in many of the dungeons shared the same fate of re-skinning. It was obvious and stuck out badly. We all noticed it.

Predicable gear progression
You nailed it. Predictable and thus boring. Its getting harder to get folks to come back because they are bored unless they savage but even then, as you made very clear, much other content is ignored.

The new relic kills old content. Its been stated before but Many of us liked how were were given so many ways of grinding for the relic in HW. Now there is Eureka and there is ONLY Eureka for relic grinding. Its cool that it is new content, but many hate it and it is a singular thing rather than the many varied paths of content presented before.


New Characters
I have a bunch of experience with this. You are right that this MUST be fixed. They don't need to skip most things, but they should cut out all filler and even start combining quests and story. Basically have 1 quest that combines the story event from the next 10 artificially bloated sub quests. There is just no reason for these anymore. They are killing new players. Period. Not an opinion. I have struggled to get people through it. Look, I loved the 2.0 story, but it can be drastically cut down without actually cutting any main story.



Summary of the state of 4.x
1 of these alone is not damaging to the health of the game, but all of these together is killing it. I miss playing with my friends and adding new ones. The above reasons combined are why.





You have some really interesting ideas for fixing progression and I hope the Devs shake it up or at least realize that they need to.

[Sigma-Astra]

The only people where those stats matter are the world-first contenders, because any advantage they can have is worth it. The game itself doesn't require this kind of min-maxing to beat.
So, denying character builds because 0.00000001% of the population would actually kick you for not being optimal is a very weak excuse...

....It's this kind of mentality that gives me low level tanks with accessories that have spell speed and mind in them in level roulette because they wanted to play a "mage tank".

Christ....

[Magic-Mal]

....It's this kind of mentality that gives me low level tanks with accessories that have spell speed and mind in them in level roulette because they wanted to play a "mage tank".

Christ....

Easy way to fix that is to make it so certain job types can't meld materia they can't use. Like prevent physical melee DPS from being able to meld Spell Speed, Intelligence, and Mind since those are stats incompatible with their job. Especially since melding the materia actually can't affect them. Tenacity and Piety also shouldn't be able to be melded onto anything but healer and tank gear because the description specifically says they're only applicable on those roles so the fact that they can be melded on anything seems like an oversight. If the devs are worried about true mechanical(and player error), preventing them from melding those things entirely is the first step to fixing that issue as well as more freedom with role-specific stats and materia.

All Gear accepts:
-Critical Hit/Critical Aim
-Direct Hit/Heavens' Eye

Physical DPS gear accepts:
-Skill Speed/Quickarm

Caster DPS gear accepts:
-Spell Speed

Healer gear accepts:
-Spell Speed
-Piety

Tank gear accepts:
-Skill Speed
-Tenacity

I'm on the fence about the STR/DEX/INT/MND/VIT materia since STR and VIT are currently used for tanks and HP optimization in high level content like Ultimate or progression through survival but.. even those two stats are extremely limited to just jewelry. Outside of tank jewelry, STR is a pointless materia and DEX/INT/MND see absolutely no use at any point in the game. Getting rid of the "STR Tank" was a poor decision imo because it was yet another choice/advantage players lost. One of many. But I'm not sure how to replace it..

EDIT: With Tenacity and Piety existing it's possible the devs might get rid of main stat materia and start making more Role Stats with materia. But the thought doesn't excite me because I know whatever stat it would be, it just wouldn't change gameplay all that much. FFXIV stat system is truly in a tough spot

But anyway point is that we won't be seeing BLMs with Quickarm V and DRGs with Craftman's Command VI if the devs simply nipped the issue in the bud by preventing it from happening at all, and lock materias to certain compatible roles/jobs. A change that doesn't affect gameplay in the slightest but does prevent melding that has no effect.

[Sigma-Astra]

Easy way to fix that is to make it so certain job types can't meld materia they can't use. Like prevent physical melee DPS from being able to meld Spell Speed, Intelligence, and Mind since those are stats incompatible with their job. Especially since melding the materia actually can't affect them. Tenacity and Piety also shouldn't be able to be melded onto anything but healer and tank gear because the description specifically says they're only applicable on those roles so the fact that they can be melded on anything seems like an oversight. If the devs are worried about true mechanical(and player error), preventing them from melding those things entirely is the first step to fixing that issue as well as more freedom with role-specific stats and materia.

All Gear accepts:
-Critical Hit/Critical Aim
-Direct Hit/Heavens' Eye

Physical DPS gear accepts:
-Skill Speed/Quickarm

Caster DPS gear accepts:
-Spell Speed

Healer gear accepts:
-Spell Speed
-Piety

Tank gear accepts:
-Skill Speed
-Tenacity

I'm on the fence about the STR/DEX/INT/MND/VIT materia since STR and VIT are currently used for tanks and HP optimization in high level content like Ultimate or progression through survival but.. even those two stats are extremely limited to just jewelry. outside of tanks STR is a pointless materia and DEX/INT/MND see absolutely no use at any point in the game. Getting rid of the "STR Tank" was a poor decision imo because it was yet another choice/advantage players lost. One of many. But I'm not sure how to replace it..

But anyway point is that we won't be seeing BLMs with Quickarm V and DRGs with Craftman's Command VI if the devs simply nipped the issue in the bud by preventing it from happening at all, and lock materias to certain compatible roles/jobs. A change that doesn't affect gameplay in the slightest but does prevent melding that has no effect.

This isn't about materia though. Low level tanks can equip those low level gemstone accessories because they're for "All Classes".

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...m/2c7ec61c874/ This is a problem in leveling roulette.