Can we please

[Ephremjlm]

If you - and your friends - want to exclude an entire progression pillar from your game-play, that's entirely valid. It is however disingenuous to imply it isn't a 'major part' of the experience simply because you choose not to engage with it. It's how these systems are designed.

The system expects; some level of time investment, gil/material investment or community investment.

I understand, fully, that you just want the easiest possible path of least resistance short-cut so you and your friends can tackle the most recent content - and leave again - but that's not how this game works by design. And it shouldn't do so. Because that's not how the participation loop for the game is intended.

The reasons why you can't trade for dungeon gear would, off the top of my head, revolve around... RMT abuse, keeping personal engagement with the content, ensures that there's some tangible value to participating in dungeon content, etc.

Free gear distribution without participation is a horrendous idea.

I actually don't know what to say and part of me thinks you're trolling. You are factually wrong.

1. Crafting and gathering is not an essential progression pillar. I've played FFXIV since the beginning of Stormblood, crafting/gathering has NEVER been a requirement.

2. I'm fine with MMO's requiring time investment. This isn't the one that usually does though. In fact it's literally in their marketing. Don't believe me?
"Experience a new generation of MMORPG where grinding is kept to a minimum so you can enjoy more immediate results!" - https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.co...id=22365075108

3. Yes in that specific moment we wanted a short path to get to the minimum item level for a run so that EVERYONE could play together.....like you normally would in an MMO. Whether or not we leave afterwards should have nothing to do with anything. Yoshi P. specifically tells us to leave when we have nothing that we want to do. And again, you are FACTUALLY wrong. The game DOES work that way. And it DID work. YOU people wanted all the QOL and so the expectation when playing the game is that we don't have weird arbitrary barriers like this one.

4. My man trading dungeon gear that almost no one uses would not affect RMT at all. It also wouldn't affect ANYTHING as far as engagement. You still have your little tombstone hamster wheel that ends up being BIS in most instances.

It's funny, for someone who wants so much player participation and engagement, i'm shocked FFXIV is your go to game. I'd like to see how you fare logging into classic FFXI, or Everquest, because your answers make it sound like you have some weird idea of how you think the game should operate vs how it does and you want to verbally shoot down anyone who disagrees with you. But again, I'd say you should take it up with Yoshi P. not me. I'm just playing the game the way it works and is currently intended.

[Haru304]

I actually don't know what to say and part of me thinks you're trolling. You are factually wrong.

1. Crafting and gathering is not an essential progression pillar. I've played FFXIV since the beginning of Stormblood, crafting/gathering has NEVER been a requirement.

2. I'm fine with MMO's requiring time investment. This isn't the one that usually does though. In fact it's literally in their marketing. Don't believe me?
"Experience a new generation of MMORPG where grinding is kept to a minimum so you can enjoy more immediate results!" - https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.co...id=22365075108

3. Yes in that specific moment we wanted a short path to get to the minimum item level for a run so that EVERYONE could play together.....like you normally would in an MMO. Whether or not we leave afterwards should have nothing to do with anything. Yoshi P. specifically tells us to leave when we have nothing that we want to do. And again, you are FACTUALLY wrong. The game DOES work that way. And it DID work. YOU people wanted all the QOL and so the expectation when playing the game is that we don't have weird arbitrary barriers like this one.

4. My man trading dungeon gear that almost no one uses would not affect RMT at all. It also wouldn't affect ANYTHING as far as engagement. You still have your little tombstone hamster wheel that ends up being BIS in most instances.

It's funny, for someone who wants so much player participation and engagement, i'm shocked FFXIV is your go to game. I'd like to see how you fare logging into classic FFXI, or Everquest, because your answers make it sound like you have some weird idea of how you think the game should operate vs how it does and you want to verbally shoot down anyone who disagrees with you. But again, I'd say you should take it up with Yoshi P. not me. I'm just playing the game the way it works and is currently intended.

That's a lot of reasonably cherry picked nonsense right there. Won't lie. I'll keep things short and sweet, and assume that you're arguing in good faith. I'll not sink to accusing someone of trolling based on the premise of disagreement - that's pretty damned lazy.

1. You're confusing requirement with relevance. You're choosing to ignore an entire gear progression system, on the basis that you don't like it and seem to believe it's irrelevant. Here, let's examine why. First.

It's a common, well utilised progression pillar and is arguably the fastest way to get back into raiding upon rejoining the game. Crafted gear is -consistently- BIS on release. It drives the player economy. It isn't fluff. It's a core system. Money made via crafted gear is pumped back into food, potions, housing, PENTAMELDING, etcetera. There are ENTIRE content systems built specifically around it; Ishgard Restoration, Custom Deliveries, Collectibles, etcetera. Essential? No. One of the core systems of progression used by the community? Absolutely yes.

[Ephremjlm]

That's a lot of reasonably cherry picked nonsense right there. Won't lie. I'll keep things short and sweet, and assume that you're arguing in good faith. I'll not sink to accusing someone of trolling based on the premise of disagreement - that's pretty damned lazy.

1. You're confusing requirement with relevance. You're choosing to ignore an entire gear progression system, on the basis that you don't like it and seem to believe it's irrelevant. Here, let's examine why. First.

It's a common, well utilised progression pillar and is arguably the fastest way to get back into raiding upon rejoining the game. Crafted gear is -consistently- BIS on release. It drives the player economy. It isn't fluff. It's a core system. Money made via crafted gear is pumped back into food, potions, housing, PENTAMELDING, etcetera. There are ENTIRE content systems built specifically around it; Ishgard Restoration, Custom Deliveries, Collectibles, etcetera. Essential? No. One of the core systems of progression used by the community? Absolutely yes.

I guess I'll just address this point by point, and if you're being good faith as well then I'll dial it back.

1. I understand the role crafted gear plays in the game, you don't have to explain that to me. The fact is that it is still arbitrary. You don't have to engage with it AT ALL. Ever. The system in itself doesn't discredit at all why we should be able to trade simple dungeon gear, especially if the crafted gear is ALWAYS better. Gear for combat's sake isn't even a true endgame for like 90% of players. Most players care about cosmetics, mounts, and minions. Again this is all off topic but for the claim it needs to be said as a supporting point.

2. You're wrong. The simple fact that you can go to the market board and buy catch up gear completely invalidates the "grind" argument. And it did. Being that we didn't want a single person to blow all of their gil, we banded together and spent accordingly. We did the run that night, got the clear, geared the people. So unless you tell me that you don't think people should be able to do that the argument about needing to grind every so many months is inconsistent.

3. Lol okay hold on, we talk about cherry picked information, and this is what you're doing with this argument. I told you I played older MMO's prior including FFXI. I'm all for ACTUALLY making gearing a worthwhile and fun endeavor, and removing unnecessary QOL that takes away player engagement. But you aren't arguing that at all. You're saying that because others don't like the system that is currently there, they're wrong and you're trying to use a macro argument in multiple things that aren't actually related like player retention, in place of a micro arguement. Again, being able to trade dungeon gear, DOESN'T break anything here. It actually makes the gear much less useless, and gives specific dungeons AT YOUR LEVEL more replayability, as opposed to dailies that make you use lesser kits at lower levels. Or does player retention only matter in its current form with arbitrary tokens and forced grinds down a certain path? How about MORE options, that in turn gives people more things to do. More dots on the line to hit on their climb of the vertical progression.

4. I'm sorry for being dismissive, but if you really think about it for more than 5 seconds, you would realize that it's ignorant to argue the point that dungeon gear specifically breaks anything.

"In your mind, would we all just walk around in a lobby and insta-queue into every new piece of content, all at the same ilevel? These systems are designed promote engagement."
- Where did I say that at all? If im advocating for more ways to get gear, doesn't that insinuate that there is actually more to do? What do you even define as promoting engagement? Dailies? Making people buy gear off the market board? These aren't even mobile game levels of engagement and for someone who played those other cited MMO's (im guessing in their heyday) then you should clearly understand this.

"The only lee-way in this instance, is that, at the moment, prices"
- other people have already answered this. At this point you're just arguing just to argue. You're expecting people who have a two hour timeslot to play together to jump through a million hoops to do a simple run on that specific night. We had our reasons for going the route we did. We accomplished what we set out to do and NONE of that discredits why dungeon gear should be tradable.

"And replying to a few of the things you said to Kaurhz…"
1. You misunderstand. My point is that they said we would have to have some level of investment to come back and play. But with an insanely vertical gearing system, and the combat being as easy as it is with no real variables for gearing, then why? Your rotation not changing is just another aspect of that, in that the reason isn't investment for skill reasons.
2.idk how you extrapolated my answer to this with the response you gave. If you can buy gear off the market board, you obviously don't care about the players time investment when they come back. So why gate keep LESSER dungeon gear. Simple.
3. You just gave a text book non answer to this. And that's my exact point. If we could trade dungeon gear to get the person over the hump, then who gives a damn. It would be so much easier to argue that you simply like the game the way it is and you want no changes to happen at all. I would even respect that opinion. Maybe this is the specific flavor combination you most enjoy. That's actually a solid answer lol.

I appreciate that last comment. It took us about 30 minutes to gear two different people to 725. It was long and hard work, but someone had to do it.

[Haru304]

I'll try and keep this one a bit briefer because I respect the effort you're putting into responding to so many people.

1. I'd argue that it isn't arbitrary because it would directly impact sale of crafted gear, in some way, shape or form.

2. You still need to spend gil that you've accumulated to buy gear, which then goes directly into another player's pocket. On a positive note - glad to hear you all put some team-work in. I admire that. You could've also all just run content together to gear up.

3. Being able to trade dungeon gear would likely undermine current systems of progression and player interaction. It would certainly effect the market board, considerably. Grind is not arbitrary.

The rest of my post got swallowed. I hate this forum.

4. It promotes engagement because the aquicisition of gil, and communication with crafters and other players -is- engagement. I don't know how much gil you are personally able to earn on a two hour time-slot, but I have a bare minimum approach which nets millions if not tens of millions, with very little time investment. Failing that - I'm generally ready and prepped for content I'm interested in tackling. It promotes player engagement when I ask my friends weeks prior if they want to run roulettes, or help me out with some crafting or gathering.

If we opt your mentality, that you're expressing, why should we stop at -just- dungeon gear? Why not make it so that one active player can just tomestone farm for their entire FC and friendlist? Why not just make it so that soul-binding is obsolete? I mean heck. If gear level is so arbitrary, then why don't we just remove stats entirely and make it so that level is the only requirement?

[Ephremjlm]

I'll try and keep this one a bit briefer because I respect the effort you're putting into responding to so many people.

1. I'd argue that it isn't arbitrary because it would directly impact sale of crafted gear, in some way, shape or form.

2. You still need to spend gil that you've accumulated to buy gear, which then goes directly into another player's pocket. On a positive note - glad to hear you all put some team-work in. I admire that. You could've also all just run content together to gear up.

3. Being able to trade dungeon gear would likely undermine current systems of progression and player interaction. It would certainly effect the market board, considerably.

I appreciate you words, I totally didn't think this would turn into what it did when I initially posted this but here we are lol.

1. I mean I can't in good faith argue that it wouldn't affect sales "at all" I just think that making something that is currently useless, worthwhile makes more sense. And another dot on the line in their vertical progression if anything just keeps players engaged and chasing those higher numbers. Also idk man they didn't seem to care at all about the market when OC released lmao (not trying to argue that, I just thought it was funny)

2. The problem that I keep mentioning is that we didn't all have the time available to play together and we wanted to make it happen. We did so mission accomplished.

3. I mean I already answered this in point 1, but yeah I think it would add not take away.