Allagan Tomestone of Astronomy should have a seasonal cap, not a weekly cap

[Kyrj]

Actually caps like this first started in WoW back in late Burning Crusade when they started seeing people stay logged in AND active for days at a time - playing until they passed out or (as in the case of one couple playing in an internet cafe - which I think was from EQ before WoW came out) the police showed up because their kids had died of starvation back at the house and somebody called in the smell...

Thus we have limits on dailies, weeklies, and so on, to get people to log out...

The tomestome cap may limit some casuals like me that aren't logging in a lot, but it ALSO keeps the super hardcores from pushing so hard that everyone else feels pressure to keep up or get left behind.

And anyone can just buy the crafted gear instead anyway...

Lol it's not because kids were dying, SE is a business and they understand what it takes to get people logging back in to keep playing. Sure Yoshi P may say "Take breaks, play other games" But you and I both know that's not how people play MMORPGs and SE knows it as well. lezard was right, it's because they need to pad out their content. FF14 launched with hardly anything to do at max level, we got two EX bosses that were some of the easiest fights in this games history, and now a raid where again the bosses are insanely easy and dumbed down.

[Skivvy]

I think just tweaking it so the cap period is two weeks while keeping tomes at 900 would be a decent enough change. That way the pacing is still the same (still able to get 900 tomes every two weeks as it is now..), but it gives more flexibility to the player.

If for some reason someone can't play as much during the first week, they could then push a little harder and still get the max tomes during the 2nd week. Or they can farm up their tomes right away, buy that left-side item in a single-cap period, and focus on other things for the remainder of the time. But again, the pacing would still be the same as the amount of tomes/gear you can get in two weeks would remain the same...just with extra freedom added.

[Ririta]

Honestly, the caps just contribute to why I unsub after story complete and would come back at the end of an expansion... I could get all the goodies... do all the things, and then move on to the next expansion. Totally bypass the farming/gating mechanics.

I see you're a gentleman of culture.

This also helps with the story too... having a lot to do at once makes it much more fun than being drip fed little by little.

[Derio]

The caps are there for a reason so players dont burn themselves out. It is also there as a balance pace for savage. Can you imagine if there was no cap. People would just dungeon spam the first day and then jump in savage in full 590 gear.

You have to consider the cap from all aspects of the game not just from a casual perspective.

[linayar]

It is a FOMO mechanic because if you miss the weekly cap once then you have never the chance to catch up the missing tomstones in the future again. It is mathematically impossible to get the missing tombstones because the next cap will stop you. And that is the reason why i strongly dislike those artifical caps. They do add nothing positive to the game.

Cheers

In that sense, it's not FOMO because tomestones are fungible. Those missing tomestones are no different than the tomestones you can still get.

[Michieltjuhh]

This is such a laughably bad take.

If you don't like the content, then you don't like the content. Do you and by all means have an opinion, but to suggest that running expert 5 times a week to the accumulation of at most 2 maybe 2 and half hours of dungeon content a week is some how disrespectful to a players time, falls a little short of it being a joke.

Try playing WoW in it's era of Warforging and Titanforging; basically a High Quality drop and Higher Quality drop that exists for ALL gear including highest end raid gear that have nightmarishly low drop rates. Two hours a week is nothing in comparison to that type of torture.

Speaking of bad takes, acting like it's not disrespectful to the player's time to make them do the same 3 dungeons they've already been doing for weeks on the same incredibly low difficulty for a new reward that isn't as efficient to farm if you want to get it all over with in one session so you have to spread it out across multiple days, is definitely up there.

As for warforging and titanforging - you entirely miss the point as to WHY it was unhealthy. For people that enjoyed the game - no matter what type of content - this was probably the best time they ever had. The problem was that it turned the game more into an Eastern grindfest, since no matter what you did, your time would be spent gaining more power, but in no way shape or form were you forced to do content you did not enjoy - unless you did not enjoy anything at all, because everything was rewarding. Since when is playing what you want to in the game and actually getting rewarded for it torture?

[GrizzlyTank]

Support op, no reason the cap can't increase over time.

[linayar]

Speaking of bad takes, acting like it's not disrespectful to the player's time to make them do the same 3 dungeons they've already been doing for weeks on the same incredibly low difficulty for a new reward that isn't as efficient to farm if you want to get it all over with in one session so you have to spread it out across multiple days, is definitely up there.

You can do more than the same 3 dungeons. The entire roulette system as well as possibly other contents like hunts can give tomestones.

[Zfz]

It's probably hard to imagine for people who can play consistently every week. But there are people who can't. When I was in the military, for example, I was often unable to come home for 10-15 days at a time, but when I get to go home I would get 3-5 days off at a time.

What I adovate for, though, is to abolish the currency cap concept and use an allowance instead.

Each week we are given 450 tomestones allowance (if we have an active subscription), and as we earn tomestones, the allowance is reduced. Yes, like how Leve allowances are handled. If you must, cap the allowances at 2000; it will still be worlds better than the hard 450 per week disappearing if you don't clock-in consistently.

This would mean that we can catch up even after a week or two away from the game, but our progression is still capped just like it is now.

[Michieltjuhh]

You can do more than the same 3 dungeons. The entire roulette system as well as possibly other contents like hunts can give tomestones.

Yes, you can do Main Scenario Roulette where you get 50/450 per day, which is basically a 30 minute to 1 hour long forced low quality commercial break from playing the game where you occasionally have to try solo mobs as downscaled level 50 with 3 abilities while the rest of your party is afk. Or you can do Alliance Raids Roulette for 50/450 which will also take 30 minutes to 1 hour, full of people who consistently die to mechanics that the boss doesn't even have, or are afk in the back, or both, while you are again downscaled to a level where many of your abilities are unlikely to be accessible. Of course, you can use the Trial Roulette or the Normal Raids Roulette which consist of the same aforementioned problems but are generally faster. They, however, only give 15/450 and 20/450 respectively.

And god forbid you'd do it on a low level job so you still get experience - nope, have to do it on a level 90. And lets not forget that unlike those 3 dungeons, this is way older, more worn out content, too.

Or you do zergfest hunt bosses with 2 mechanics that you have to fail to understand then never fail again, that are basically just there to remind you that this game is an MMORPG and not a queueing simulator (even if half the time spent on those is teleporting from zone to zone), but offer no actual substance otherwise. And in order to even participate you need to go out of your way to find a method of getting invited - generally Discord, which is third party software and therefore, technically forbidden.

Yep, that's respecting the player's time!