XIV's loot system is so alt-unfriendly it's absurd.

[Remedi]

It's funny that in a thread about alt unfiendliness ppl are confused of what is even talking about since half ppl talk about alt jobs the other half talk about proper alt characters. I do wonder why some feedback is ignored.... probably the fact that the playerbase is so extreme, shortsigthed and in the end not even uniformed of what they want that what they say appears to the outside like a giant background buzz eh oh well

[Gordita]

They do it this way to keep people subbed, to be blunt. And you can still gear jobs easily, by using crafted gear to started, normal raid gear. Then augment the crafted gear. Eventually the tome cap increases and the savage loot restrictions are lifted so you can finish everything off. Savage can be cleared in pentamelded crafted gear.

Yeah it kinda sucks that it takes so long to get all the best gear, I get it. But you don't NEED all the best gear to do any content. Pick your job to start then work on a secondary after you've accomplished your goals , etc

[TheMightyMollusk]

First of all, I'd counter that housing is what keeps players subbed.

Only for people who actually managed to get a house. Doesn't apply to the rest of us.

[Gordita]

It's funny that in a thread about alt unfiendliness ppl are confused of what is even talking about since half ppl talk about alt jobs the other half talk about proper alt characters. I do wonder why some feedback is ignored.... probably the fact that the playerbase is so extreme, shortsigthed and in the end not even uniformed of what they want that what they say appears to the outside like a giant background buzz eh oh well

This is literally all I see in the forum on every thread in the English section. I wouldn't be surprised if the devs completely ignore this entire section, as it's just a dumpster fire most days. And the few good suggestions here quickly get derailed and flooded with people harassing and going off topic so fast that most people would just drop the topic because their fellow gamers chose baseless arguments over improvement for all. Says a lot about the community and the future of the game

[strawberrycake]

It's funny that in a thread about alt unfiendliness ppl are confused of what is even talking about since half ppl talk about alt jobs the other half talk about proper alt characters. I do wonder why some feedback is ignored.... probably the fact that the playerbase is so extreme, shortsigthed and in the end not even uniformed of what they want that what they say appears to the outside like a giant background buzz eh oh well

Both equally apply to this situation and a lot of people here like to hyper focus on semantics and drift away from the hard points of how the loot system doesn't support alt characters or people wanting to gear an alt role/job. Most of these people are here to argue a point over simply forcing the dev team to do better with loot design within content and be more considerate of people wanting versitility while progging the tier and the ability to help friends without harming their loot.

But if I were to make a hyperbolic statement, someone would then take the time to pick apart my statement, only being able to see the game from their very specific set of eyes and experience playing it. ANd you know the rest, thread turns into explinations, etc etc.

As far as the greater opinionated community, they don't do their homework, they'd like to be contrarian, they like to play devils advocate. Not realizing we need to be better about pushing the point. Like if ya'll wanna debate, you can do join debate clubs, they are STILL a thing.

[CelestiCer]

It's funny that in a thread about alt unfiendliness ppl are confused of what is even talking about since half ppl talk about alt jobs the other half talk about proper alt characters. I do wonder why some feedback is ignored.... probably the fact that the playerbase is so extreme, shortsigthed and in the end not even uniformed of what they want that what they say appears to the outside like a giant background buzz eh oh well

Alt-unfriendly regarding Raid Loot is but one symptom, where we can throw a plethora of other flaws to it such as time-gated features. While not Raid Loot related? it is regarding the subject of the game not being friendly or enjoyable to alts. This all ties back to what?

Yeah, that shows the games core is the problem and not the alt unfriendlyness lol. XIV at it's core is just not maintained well.

This. The games core is indeed the problem. Rather then actually updating it? Square decides to not really change this, continuing to encourage the purchase of boosts and MSQ skips at the benefit of the company over a better gameplay experience for players. We'll have this player issue next time we get new Raids and the cycle probably just repeats.

[sindriiisgaming]

Xiv never has and never will be alt friendly. This is because unlike wow where alts serve a legitimate purpose. On ffxiv they have no purpose other than boredom fillers for a lack of engaging game play. They simply won't cater much to this honestly.

[Iscah]

Both equally apply to this situation and a lot of people here like to hyper focus on semantics and drift away from the hard points of how the loot system doesn't support alt characters or people wanting to gear an alt role/job. Most of these people are here to argue a point over simply forcing the dev team to do better with loot design within content and be more considerate of people wanting versitility while progging the tier and the ability to help friends without harming their loot.

They don't "equally apply", they apply in very different ways unless you're generalising so much that there's no hard statements about what is wrong or what you think should be done about it.

Secondary jobs and alt characters might both feel "unsupported by the job system" but in utterly different ways. Secondary jobs have a funding issue due to caps on how much loot and currency you can earn in a week; alt characters are a way around that issue but are faced with the somewhat opposite problem of not being able to share gear with the other character.

If one person thinks you're talking about gearing additional jobs and the other thinks you're talking about alternate characters, you're talking past each other and may be making points that don't apply to the situation.

[strawberrycake]

They don't "equally apply", they apply in very different ways unless you're generalising so much that there's no hard statements about what is wrong or what you think should be done about it.

Secondary jobs and alt characters might both feel "unsupported by the job system" but in utterly different ways. Secondary jobs have a funding issue due to caps on how much loot and currency you can earn in a week; alt characters are a way around that issue but are faced with the somewhat opposite problem of not being able to share gear with the other character.

If one person thinks you're talking about gearing additional jobs and the other thinks you're talking about alternate characters, you're talking past each other and may be making points that don't apply to the situation.

I think they both apply and I'm talking about both because having the time to gear an alt character isn't a norm for a lot of people, just as spending the time and want to run for several or more weeks to earn the gear for multiple roles on one character isn't something a lot of people are willing to do.

You have to look at it from the fact that the system, while being homogenized for accessibility , lacks accessibility in so many ways. With MMOs you can't target the symptom in a singular manner, you'll never fix the issue before a new one comes up making it worse and the band-aid feel useless. You have to target the lack of accessibility for both alt jobs and alt characters and making the system fair yet balanced for all players, from high end to midcore to low-end.

So yes these are different, but they stem from the same place within the system, in a sense it's like being sick and getting boils and a rash, two totally different things but its stemming from the same sickness. You can treat each separately, or you can just target the root of the cause. And frankly I'm tired of fixing the symptoms of XIVs issue. We need to fix things at the core of the game.

[Lieri]

If you think of the weekly loot system then XIV being alt unfriendly only holds true at the beginning, with more alts you can gear up more jobs quicker because differenr characters mean different lockout.

So there are two things they must consider
1. Give priority to alts. Which means let people have alts without having to do msqs, make the furthest msq account wide. This also helps the game when it has content drought such as now. I dont know why theyre so adverse in making the game more alt friendly. Having 1 character with multiple jobs is not the same as having multiple characters. They want us to keep paying for msq potions but the altoholics would rather do msq, so its just a mind numbing experience they give to players. By making the game more alt friendly they can retain active subbed players more because they always have new alts to play on, without making the players suffer that theyd rather stop subbing than redo msqs

2. Give priority to loots. Maybe make the lockout based on role, if you play as a tank you can get coffers for the tank for that week. Then if you switch it DPS you can get it again, it wont make the raid "faster" because players will be working on bis gears for multiple role than one role, every week

I would rather option number 1. What kind of old game wont let its players make alt, or that they have to spend 200 hrs+ on an alt to get where their main characters at? I dont know the statistics but Im sure by making the game alt friendly they would gain more from active sub than they would from people buying msq potions for alts.

The game had a system that workes but games have changed over the years and their practices are still old.

Its the same tying emotes to subpar statues. Okay you releases how many statues in total? few hundreds? If you make the emote cheaper but available for everyone without the statue (that is bad in quality and people will resell it anyway), if the emote is so good that more than half active players want it, the money geberated can be more than just those few hundreds purchases.

They like to make things in the game look way more valuable than they actually are, like housing, gears, emotes, etc. But that is such a 2000 approach for an MMO living in 2024.