Pink aetherial items were good, actually

[Hallarem]

WoW vanilla is and always will be GAMEPLAY-wise and GAMEPLAY-socialwise the best MMO. The gameplay drives into grouping up in the world. Gearing is best, gameplay is simple but challenging, classes are unique with their own quirks

[ReynTime]

In a game where gear progression is entirely vertical I do wish they added 1 or 2 other tiers of dungeons for uncapped characters that dropped gear that lasted longer but was also more challenging to complete.
For example in parallel to the Lv71, 73, 75, 77 and 79 MSQ duties have a Lv72 and a Lv76, duties that were tuned significantly harder than the MSQ ones but the gear from the Lv72 outlasted the 73 and 75, and the 76 duty outlasting 75~79. Then do something equivalent every 2 major patches in relation to every 2 added MSQ dungeons.

Or it could not even be dungeons necessarily. As long as it's not "boss arena" kind of shit, of which there already exists too many series of content.

[Alice_Rivers]

I would like to see a return of aetherial gear, I think it would give some replayability to dungeons that really desperately need it and at endgame something on par with tome/savage gear, you could even have a function for crafters to adjust the stats.

[Valence]

People are so formated in the XIV endgame community that they think this is about BiS. There is no BiS in such a system. There is no best. That's the whole point.

I also mentioned the possibility to disable the system in the high end duty finder if it comes to that. There is many things they could do if there are worries about high end duties. They could even just start as a system purely confined with the exploratory zone at least at first. They don't need to make things super duper rare either because it's going to end up an exercise in frustration like Coven weapons were. Everybody should have regular drops by playing the content.

[Voidmage]

I would like to see a return of aetherial gear, I think it would give some replayability to dungeons that really desperately need it and at endgame something on par with tome/savage gear, you could even have a function for crafters to adjust the stats.

Man I really want something like that.
Actually paying attention to dungeon gear outside of glamour.
Working on that gear as a crafter even if only to make it dyable.
It could be a form of a mini relic with gear to work on over the expansion (with different paths or templates for the looks you can work on) or just alternate gear with different stat distributions.

I really want dungeon gear to matter again instead of tomestone farm simulator 7.0.

[CaptainLagbeard]

The ARR Aetherial Items were just HQ Crafted Items with randomized 1 to 3 secondary stats, usually between a few points higher or lower than what you'd find on the crafted items... You could find an absolutely amazing random drop occasionally as you could have 3 useful stats on it.

While it is a low level item, I found a good example of what kind of item you could get with Aetherial items



I wouldn't be upset if non-raid loot became like it again, it's mostly going to get relegated to Glam gear anyways after a patch or two.

[VeyaAkemi]

People are so formated in the XIV endgame community that they think this is about BiS. There is no BiS in such a system. There is no best. That's the whole point.

Can you explain to me how there is no BiS in such system? there is always going to be a specific stat combination that is mathematically optimal for any given thing you are trying to accomplish, and there will always be a specific possible outcome in randomized system where that combination, or at least the closest within its allowed rules, will happen, making that outcome the BiS, all this would do is to make it harder in a frustrating way to get such item, as you would be put in a position where you have no control over its outcome, unless I am missing something by what you mean?

[Valence]

Best in Slot implies that there is a best for a specific gear slot. If your gear has randomized substats, then there is no single best piece that can be identified for any slot. The fact that some substats are favored over others is beyond the scope of that thread and I'd love for SE to flesh out the battle system and bring back something meaningful, but even with what we have today certain jobs will favor certain substats over others, and that's part of the game.

If the worry is that the rng formula can be identified in order to find the total stat cap and then the "best item wit the correct combination of substats" that could be generated, then I think that's fair, but on the other hand, if the chances of seeing it drop is one out of millions, then it's as if there was no best. It's a mathematical asymptote: for a single gear slot, the better the gear you find for it, probably after many successive replacements, then the less likely you're to find a better, suitable replacement. To top it of, the way substat tiering works in XIV means that some stats are wasted if not reaching the next threshold, so your very best, unicorn item, may not prove better than something still exceptional, but a bit more likely. And if some people really feel like they do need an unrealistic unicorn in every slot that will give them a 0.01% edge or whatever, and burn their lives into playing the lottery, then they can be my guest if that's what floats their boat. If I get something good in most slots I'd be happy already. Do you think people never stop playing games like borderlands until the mathematically perfect weapon finally drops? Even though they'll have already probably seen a hundred outstanding weapons they could be happy with already? The big idea is that if people feel like they want to see if they can get something better, they can and play the game to their fill, and if they decide that they're happy with what they have, they can also stop. That's what happened with Pyros weapon rng substats (not saying that pyros system was great though). Do you know anyone that got the mathematical best out of this? People are ultimately happy when they get a great result.

And then if we get more exotic effects on some items additionally, then it makes substats even more of an afterthought as long as the base amount is decent/solid. You could even get items with crazy spicy effects, but poor substats.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Best in Slot implies that there is a best for a specific gear slot. If your gear has randomized substats, then there is no single best piece that can be identified for any slot. The fact that some substats are favored over others is beyond the scope of that thread and I'd love for SE to flesh out the battle system and bring back something meaningful, but even with what we have today certain jobs will favor certain substats over others, and that's part of the game. .

The thing is, because of how the devs design classes and fights, BiS gear generally is Crit and Direct Hit.
Speed maybe with enough of it can also be beneficial, if you can fit an extra combo in a burst window...
Det kinda just being too weak, they would need to buff it for it to give the same level of boost as Crit and DH do.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Do you think people never stop playing games like borderlands until the mathematically perfect weapon finally drops? Even though they'll have already probably seen a hundred outstanding weapons they could be happy with already?

While I agree people by far and large wouldn't go that deep into the lottery burn, You've honestly picked the worst choice here for example. Speaking as someone very deep in the online Borderlands community through the years, someone who plays BL beyond just the story/fun with friends will almost certainly be the type to hardcore grind for "mathematically perfect" weapons. I still remember BL2 topics of people making journal updates of their journeys farming the perfect Norfleet of each element.