The current formula of gear progression NEED CHANGE

[JunseiKei]

Ya know what I hear when people in this game want their gear to last longer, I hear this: Yay for 1 year Content Droughts! I think the current model is good enough at doing what it does. Sure I'm not a savage, extreme, ultimate player, but for what I do the pace is good enough.

Having gear last an entire year does not mean the XIV wouldn't push out content. It would just be content that doesn't include gear acquisition, but may just be story or activities. Not agreeing with armor lasting that long, just pointing out simply acquiring gear isn't content. Otherwise, you could log in, be rewarded gear for logging in and that's legitimately being labeled as content.

All what i am asking for is to give us an option to obtain bis gear by doing something else than savage raiding.

That's honestly what I was hoping relic weapons and artifact armor would turn out to be. However, instead we got them tied to Eureka and no story that was previously tied to A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. It's also why I don't think relic and artifact armor should be so far behind savage raid gear, it should be released at the same time, or very close to. Worse yet, they made the customize-able stats completely RNG instead of picking and choosing as it were in ARR and HW. For those that don't want to do that grind, there's still the tomestone gear that will have its upgrades unlocked eventually from hunts and the 24-man raids. People will always do EX primals for the mounts and they could offer alternative drops, like accessories, that they once did in the past, since there are no artifact accessories. Just don't lock relics and artifacts behind things like Eureka.

[Zumi]

Item level cap increases only happen on even patches. Lets look at Stormblood.
4.0 - 6/15/17 to 4.2 - 1/29/18 about 7 months
4.2 - 1/29/18 to 4.4 - 9/17/18 about 8 months
4.4 - 9/17/18 to 5.0 - 7/2/19 about 10.5 months

So gear lasts between 7-10 months before it is replaced that is a lot of time for you to use your gear you get.

[Sunako]

I think gearing system is betterin ffxiv, than any other mmo. It is still not perfect. I especially hate how big advantage players can get during first weeks only by grinding gil for crafted gear, but I guess that is the way how crafters can make their billions.

Some gear are also relevant whole expansion, if you run ultimate, because that content have level sync and it is still fun content.

[linay]

Such an arbitrary and forced point.

How so?

If gear is no content and not important at all,

Gear is a tool that helps you do content, so it's important in that regard.

why not just auto sync to everything and getting all the necessary stats through leveling?

For the sake of game progression. It allows each expansion to pause leveling while still allowing your character to continue to increase in power to be able to do newer content.

Why is there gear if its neither content nor should be something we should care?

Gear is a tool that helps you do content, so you should care about it in that regard.

[Barraind]

I think gearing system is betterin ffxiv, than any other mmo.

I much prefer having tangible options where spreadsheeting gear options and upgrade paths leads to a rewarding result.

I look at EQ's gearing from Planes of Power until they consolidated secondary stats as the absolute best for how gearing (stats, not acquisition) should work.

You had, at any given time, 4-5 different possible best in slot items per slot, where the newest, shiniest one might not actually be better for everyone, and having to figure out which piece(s) you would use to get which secondary stats or mods. As a Paladin, I had to have 2 tank secondary stats (with different caps), 1 or 2 melee secondaries (was almost impossible to get all 4 of them, as they were the lowest priority), 4 or 5 casting focuses, mana regen, 2 weapons and 2 ranged slot items, and there were 2-3 different builds each endgame zone that I had to pick between and figure out upgrade paths, so I didnt magically lose 10% mitigation by gaining 30 hp.

I dont think any game has better managed player preferences in how they want to gear up and in what order they want to gear up.

Heck, Tank accessories BiS are crafted gear if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, accessories fall on a strange point in the stats/ilvl curve. They provide no armor and are weighted with tanks primary stat as its second primary slot, so overmelding fully can win out over the raid drops. If they had armor, or if str was prioritized over vit on tank accessories, you would use the savage or tome (or both for rings).

What's interesting about WoW gear stats?

I enjoyed once upon a time trying to figure out the best balances of defense, block, block value, raw HP and other defensive stats as a tank.

[Noodle_Trinidad]

Err, dunno where u take that info, but FFXIV number are actually increasing over the last few months. A lot of players coming from other games, and most of FFXIV players are still playing even in the end of STORMBLOOD

Source on that? The highest sub count that we know of was the Stormblood launch thanks to Yoshi-P and as far as the Census goes we only see active characters. This doesnt take into account alternate characters meaning part of that playerbase count are the same person counted twice. So my guess would be we at least have 400k active subs and maybe 500-520k if we want to be generous.

As for growth there has been almost none since the launch of SB, if you keep up with the B.Census you’ll notice a trend of numbers going between 550k-620k with a rare drop/increase every now and then. All this can imply is the population stabilizing itself, hell the latest Census itself only has NA gaining (~1100) members while EU lost around 300 and JP lost 12k but it hasnt fallen under the 550k count. I do think if ShadowBringers does nothing to bring value to gear and keeps to the same old formula then we might see the average drop due to burn out.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Source on that? The highest sub count that we know of was the Stormblood launch thanks to Yoshi-P and as far as the Census goes we only see active characters. This doesnt take into account alternate characters meaning part of that playerbase count are the same person counted twice. So my guess would be we at least have 400k active subs and maybe 500-520k if we want to be generous.

As for growth there has been almost none since the launch of SB, if you keep up with the B.Census you’ll notice a trend of numbers going between 550k-620k with a rare drop/increase every now and then. All this can imply is the population stabilizing itself, hell the latest Census itself only has NA gaining (~1100) members while EU lost around 300 and JP lost 12k but it hasnt fallen under the 550k count. I do think if ShadowBringers does nothing to bring value to gear and keeps to the same old formula then we might see the average drop due to burn out.

If we go by the same census data from 3.0, the average player counts are much higher per patch cycle.

Not that I believe they are accurate. I also doubt that how interesting the stats are on the gear is tied to how many people are playing. The game could have the most interesting gear options ever, but if the game itself sucked no one would play.

[Noodle_Trinidad]

If we go by the same census data from 3.0, the average player counts are much higher per patch cycle.

Not that I believe they are accurate. I also doubt that how interesting the stats are on the gear is tied to how many people are playing. The game could have the most interesting gear options ever, but if the game itself sucked no one would play.

They are hence the growth was seen in Stormblood. Anything after 4.0 has been mostly stabilization at least going off the numbers but youre right as a Census they should be taken with a grain of salt even if theyre the closest we’ll have to a safe guesstimate.

While I do believe interesting stats can convince people to play more my point is more around the lines of players finally tiring of the same old grind for what is essentially a +1 and that if ShadowBringer does nothing to alleviate this then we’ll probably see a drop off instead of an increase like Stormblood had. If you experience one full raid tier then you’ve essentially experienced them all in terms of gear progression and you will get to understand why many people don’t think the game respect’s your time grinding in the long run.

[Driven]

The description for horizontal gear is pretty accurate in this thread. However on a positive side, take note that As the way this game allows, there would be a lot more farming parties for that gear, Which would give you more to do in the game and eventually you would have a better chance to obtain it also. Horizontal gear in this game I would imagine would have a similar drop rate as the mounts in extreme trails.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The description for horizontal gear is pretty accurate in this thread. However on a positive side, take note that As the way this game allows, there would be a lot more farming parties for that gear, Which would give you more to do in the game and eventually you would have a better chance to obtain it also. Horizontal gear in this game I would imagine would have a similar drop rate as the mounts in extreme trails.

The problem with that, is that then you have to hope it's for your job, and then that it's a piece you want.

Layers of rng on top of layers.

Imagine the alliance raids, but with extreme mount drop rates on the gear...

No thanks...