This game is in desperate need of persistent progression content for main jobs...

[Kraniel]

snip

I don't disagree with you specifically, but i've seen many people giving the same argument in the previous pages, so allow me to use your post as reference.

First of all, i think you're right, but off the point.
Why i think you're right : As you said, there is enough stuff to keep you busy for a long time in the game. Just leveling up and gearing all the classes takes an unrealistic amount of time, and then there are plenty of side activities (Gold Saucer, Eureka, ... other people already mentioned everything).

But, this is not what OP is talking about. They were specifically referring to the fact that, once you're done gearing up your main class, there is no more incentive to continue playing it. And on that point, they are right as well.
Sure, you can do a lot of things after the end game, but none of them require you to specifically play on your main class anymore.

And i totally agree with this point, which is the reason why i keep taking long breaks from FFXIV (not saying it's bad thing to get back to the real world, but that's another debate ...).
I am not interested in leveling up all the classes. I plan on getting a couple more to 80 out of curiosity and stop there because that is not where i get my enjoyment from the game.
Sure, i can do other activities, but what i really want to do is to keep getting better at WHM, and once i'm done getting the Eden Savage gear, this becomes basically impossible (albeit i will keep helping my friends to get through content).

I think the underlying issue is that SE doesn't want to create a too big divide between casual and hardcore players, which is the general trend in recent MMOs anyway. They want people who put a couple dozen hours in to be able to get the same gear as someone who's ready to put more than that.

In my opinion this is nothing more than a political stance to please a part of the player base, and i think if they got rid of it, they would lose most of their player base (although some would argue they might get a more loyal player base ?), but it would also get rid of many limitations that they are giving themselves.

So yeah, basically as long as their target audience remains the same, i don't think they will be able to add "meaningful" content for hardcore players who want to progress even further with their main class.

[linay]

once you're done gearing up your main class, there is no more incentive to continue playing it.

That will always be true as long as people want the hardest content to drop gear upgrade. Imagine if Ultimate/Savage doesn't drop gear but drop cosmetics (whether title, mount, minion, glamour, etc.), but you need to gear up first in order to beat that fight. That would be the only scenario where there is incentive to do something after you gear up your main.

But I assume people don't want to do hard content without being rewarded with actual upgrade to their character, whether in terms of gear or added abilities/traits.

Since that is the case, the incentive then is on your own to make, whether you like clearing the fights again with different people in the party finder or you gear up your alts to clear the fight on your alts or you do other things in the game or unsubscribe for a while until new content arrives.

[Kalise]

That will always be true as long as people want the hardest content to drop gear upgrade. Imagine if Ultimate/Savage doesn't drop gear but drop cosmetics (whether title, mount, minion, glamour, etc.), but you need to gear up first in order to beat that fight. That would be the only scenario where there is incentive to do something after you gear up your main.

Not really.

There exists more to the game than purely Savage/Ultimate content. There exists even more potential content that could be added to the game.

Like, if we just look at things that have already existed within the game itself, they could add:

- New Zones that have minimum item level requirement to access, which contains new FATEs and a new Shared FATE vendor as well as a Raid FATE or several.

- New Deep Dungeons/Floors that are designed around being max level with gear as opposed to being designed to be spammed by DPS jobs to level up.

- New Eureka style content, with an independent progression system but with item level requirements to enter.

If we look at things they potentially could add as brand new content, they could add:

- Something like FFVII's Gold Saucer Arena. Or the Colliseum from Kingdom Hearts.

- Something like Crafting Scrips system, but for combat classes. So people can farm various enemies for scrips to get gear for alt jobs or for glam.

- Battlecraft Leves designed for max level and geared players.

- A prestige system that can reward vanity items.

- A system whereby experience gained on max level jobs can be converted into rested experience to help level alt jobs so you can actually work on leveling alt jobs by playing your main job.

- BLU Log, but for max level normal jobs.

There's much and more they can add beyond this, that would allow for people to gear up their main and then still continue to play them while doing something relevant.

The game doesn't need to be only focused on Raids > Savage > Ultimate as the ONLY thing to do at max level...

[linay]

The game doesn't need to be only focused on Raids > Savage > Ultimate as the ONLY thing to do at max level...

It doesn't, but the other contents don't need the gears that hardcore players would have, and SE probably will never make as many varied content for geared hardcore players as you're suggesting.

[Kraniel]

That will always be true as long as people want the hardest content to drop gear upgrade. Imagine if Ultimate/Savage doesn't drop gear but drop cosmetics (whether title, mount, minion, glamour, etc.), but you need to gear up first in order to beat that fight. That would be the only scenario where there is incentive to do something after you gear up your main.

But I assume people don't want to do hard content without being rewarded with actual upgrade to their character, whether in terms of gear or added abilities/traits.

Since that is the case, the incentive then is on your own to make, whether you like clearing the fights again with different people in the party finder or you gear up your alts to clear the fight on your alts or you do other things in the game or unsubscribe for a while until new content arrives.

Again, you're right, but that is not what i was talking about.
I agree with everyone saying that there is/could be more stuff to do after you have geared your main class.

However what i was specifically referring to (and where i agree with OP), was the fact that once you have geared your main class, you don't need to use it anymore for any activity.
Sure, SE can add more mounts/cosmetics in Savage (it's already the case with Extreme primals), but still none of this is tied to your main class' progress. You can farm those any way you like.
For people like myself (and OP, i assume), this is a bit frustrating since we want to put in more hours in our main class, to optimize it as much as possible.

For example, i could totally see some kind of special materia that enhances one of your existing skills when melded on your weapon. A WHM could give Assize an additional HoT effect, for example.
Even crazier, you could get access to a weaker version of a skill from another job.
These are just examples that just came out like this, we don't need to debate if they're a good or bad idea, but my point is : SE has plenty of areas to explore to make the end-game of a specific class longer if they wanted to.

The reason i think they don't want to, is that if they do this, people who play the game more casually will complain that they can not get the same stuff as others, and they don't want to take the risk of losing that part of the player base, which i completely understand.

[linay]

once you have geared your main class, you don't need to use it anymore for any activity.
Sure, there could be mounts/cosmetics in Savage (it's already the case with Extreme primals), but still none of this is tied to your main class' progress.

How is that not related to your main class's progress? You need to be geared to do Savage. So if Savage itself doesn't give gear, but requires gear to complete, then you need to gear up your main to use it to do Savage.

[kaynide]

Snip!

I can agree with all that. I don’t really have a main class as my focus is straight leveling everything...so aside from FC events, MSQ and new raids/dungeons, I rarely break out my “main”.

For others who feel similar to OP, how was Eureka for something to do? I never did it past level...10? Something like that seemed to take a lot of time.