Poor Savage reward system

[VerdeLuck]

If you already are clearing P8S, what are the drops in P8S going to do for you at this point?

The ultimate (6.3 planned?) and the criterion savage dungeon in 6.25 will both be gear gated and require savage BiS to attempt. With bad rolls, you aren't going to even have half the gear to do criterion savage by the time it drops if you have to rely on books to gear up.

[Ransu]

"Other MMOs are worse, so this barely passable system is perfectly fine."

I don't think other MMO's are worse for having a lockout system. I'm perfectly ok with either lockout system. FFXIV is simply the better compromise, but lockouts are a necessary thing.

[Stasya]

The system isn't too bad if you have Static, but definately atrocious if you do stuff via PF. I guess if you want to play multiple Jobs it does take too long to get them geared.

This system and 450 tomestone lock is bad even if you have static.

[Packetdancer]

Why can't I join P5S PF parties for practice without sabotaging their loot because I've already cleared this week with my static? I'm not looking for an extra book or more loot, I just wanna practice in PF.

If the ability to roll on loot was not impacted by the other people in the party -- even if you yourself are limited to rolling only on your first clear -- you can still immediately cheese it.

Say everyone in the static has two characters, their main and an alt. You're off to do your reclears for the week; you can have one person run as their real 'main' character, and everyone else runs their alts. You clear the fight, and the person on their main rolls on (and gets) all the loot. Now the next person logs out their alt and logs in their real/main character, and you run again; the first person having gotten their loot has no impact on the loot that drops, so now static member #2 rolls on (and gets) everything. Now static member #3 logs out their alt and logs in their main, and...

Yes, it seems ludicrously high-effort to run a fight eight times in a week just to funnel the maximum amount of gear to your group, but:

1. If it were possible, people would do it -- whether or not it's healthy/sane.
2. If people were doing it, other people would potentially end up pressured to do it just so their static can be 'optimal'.

That said, as I've noted in other threads, I do still think it'd be reasonable to allow one person in the party to have cleared already before deducting chests. Allowing just one does not open the door to that sort of absurd gear-cheesing, but it makes it easier for a static to find a sub when someone's missing, or for someone who already cleared to pop in and help a clear party.

The ultimate (6.3 planned?) and the criterion savage dungeon in 6.25 will both be gear gated and require savage BiS to attempt. With bad rolls, you aren't going to even have half the gear to do criterion savage by the time it drops if you have to rely on books to gear up.

I seem to recall reading that the Criterion dungeon savage mode will require i620, though I cannot find a source anywhere for any ilevel requirement for Criterion to sanity-check myself there. (If anyone else has an actual source on the ilevel requirement, please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)

In which case, you could meet that ilevel requirement solely with a set of unaugmented Lunar Envoy gear, no need for savage stuff (much less savage BiS). Which is still potentially annoying, I grant, but it's also perfectly achievable.

Edit: As for ultimate, I may be wrong on this (I have a migraine, so frankly, take anything I say today with a grain of salt), but I could swear it actually just force-syncs you to a specific ilevel. For instance, Dragonsong's Reprise syncs you to ilevel 605, but the savage BiS last tier -- even with the i605 Asphodelos weapon -- still averages out to i600 (as that was the max for every other piece of gear). Yes, substats matter -- hence specific ultimates still having calculated BiS sets to maximize the benefits -- but I don't think you actually strictly speaking have to be in savage BiS for a given tier to queue in.

(I mean, you have to clear the tier to queue in, so chances are you're in BiS at some point there regardless, but still.)

I did just log in and checked my saved DSR gearset (e.g. last tier's BiS) and confirmed it's only i600, not i605.

[Jaquan]

The ultimate (6.3 planned?) and the criterion savage dungeon in 6.25 will both be gear gated and require savage BiS to attempt. With bad rolls, you aren't going to even have half the gear to do criterion savage by the time it drops if you have to rely on books to gear up.

6.3 is about 4 months away so by thay time you shouldn't have issues with gearing up. Criterion savage won't have the ilv requirement since you can only attempt those as full party which ignores ilv requirement anyway. It's very unlikely that it will require BiS anyway since it's meant to be comparable to existing savage which requires 610 for last room.

[ForteNightshade]

Its the way it is solely to keep you subbed, and nothing else.

Its not designed for you to get the items in a timely manner, its designed to keep you playing on the same content, over and over.

While I don't disagree that may be the intent. Just how effective is it, I wonder. Most people raid in statics largely due to the loot system and generally inconsistencies of randoms. In a static setting, you gear exponentially faster than a pug. One would think if this was solely implemented to keep people subbed, they'd also take measures to slow down static gear distribution. Furthermore, the fact it takes so long to gear a second or third job is often a huge motivator as to why people won't continue with Savage. They don't want to wait months to play another job. So they just don't bother whatsoever. In fact, one of the reasons for Ultimate is due to the sheer number of raiders who quit in odd patches. Several of which have cited the precise reasons I've said as to why. Since they can't flex jobs or roles without taking a pretty sizable gear hit, it's less fun.

[Nezerius]

Edit: As for ultimate, I may be wrong on this (I have a migraine, so frankly, take anything I say today with a grain of salt), but I could swear it actually just force-syncs you to a specific ilevel. For instance, Dragonsong's Reprise syncs you to ilevel 605, but the savage BiS last tier -- even with the i605 Asphodelos weapon -- still averages out to i600 (as that was the max for every other piece of gear). Yes, substats matter -- hence specific ultimates still having calculated BiS sets to maximize the benefits -- but I don't think you actually strictly speaking have to be in savage BiS for a given tier to queue in.

(I mean, you have to clear the tier to queue in, so chances are you're in BiS at some point there regardless, but still.)

I did just log in and checked my saved DSR gearset (e.g. last tier's BiS) and confirmed it's only i600, not i605.

Ultimate only ever syncs you down to the duty's average iLvl, it doesn't force any gear up to the average iLvl.
The reason why DSR is set to iLvl 605 is to avoid Asphodelos weapons from getting synced down, as a synced down item doesn't take any materia into account.

[VerdeLuck]

6.3 is about 4 months away

That's the problem though isn't it? if you are unlucky on rolls and rely on book drops as is suggested in this thread, you will get BiS at 16 weeks. Chest and Weapon are 8 each. So if you were to clear every single week including week 1, you would get BiS just before 6.3.
That seems pretty unforgiving.

[Packetdancer]

Ultimate only ever syncs you down to the duty's average iLvl, it doesn't force any gear up to the average iLvl.
The reason why DSR is set to iLvl 605 is to avoid Asphodelos weapons from getting synced down, as a synced down item doesn't take any materia into account.

Sorry, yeah, I didn't really explain what I was thinking there clearly. (Honestly, I'm not sure I'm explaining anything well here today; migraine has scrambled all thoughts.)

What I was trying to say is that I do not think that you are locked specifically to needing to queue in with savage BiS.

[dspguy]

To be perfectly fair they do make clearing P8S or whatever tier easier on subsequent attempts (although subsequent stacks of Echo we'll get overtime will also help) although i agree with the sentiment. Even more so since by the time next tier rolls out the crafted gear will once again catch up in terms of stats required for the final tier.

Of course BiS "helps" but helps what exactly? Either you can clear it or you cannot clear it. My earlier comment is mostly borne out of the silly notion of BiS. It is an unpopular opinion, but people should care about "Better In Slot" instead. If chest is "BiS" does that mean don't upgrade your chest until you get the BiS? What if the non-upgraded tomestone chest is better than what you current have? Should you stick with the i610 crafted piece? Or the i600 raid piece?

It should be about "what is the best DPS I can put on the floor right now" as opposed to "what is the best DPS I can put on the floor in the future."