Suggestion: replace weekly caps with weekly increases to lifetime caps.

[Telsia]

Currently, players are capped at obtaining 300 Allagan Tomestones of Mythology per week. The rationale behind capping any kind of end-game currency is to ensure a smooth transition of players into end-game and provide some delay such that players have a continuing reason to play for many weeks. No doubt, in the future, there will be new similar currencies introduced, so addressing the following issue earlier rather than later would be preferable.

This deficit is inherently bad because it fragments players who would otherwise be playing together. It makes it impossible for players to catch up and join their friends, especially if they make new friends who are further in. It also makes it impossible for advanced players to establish friendships with newer players and bring them up to speed. As cooperation and collaboration are cornerstones of a PvE-centric game like FFXIV, the core game philosophy should be designed around supporting these goals.

Problem: Although the rationale itself is sound, the current implementation of a weekly limit creates a permanent deficit between players. A player who begins collecting tomestomes a week later or a player who is unable to play for a week will never make up that lost week's worth of stones. This creates a gear-gap that, so long as new gear being acquired, can never close.

Solution: Rather than a weekly limit, tomestones should have a lifetime limit that increases weekly. For example, on week 1 everyone can only obtain 300 tomestones of mythology. On week 2, everyone can now obtain 600 total, including the ones acquired in week 1. This allows players to catch up when they begin collecting at a later date or miss a collection period.

The result is the same controlled progress gate: The developers retain control over the rate at which the lifetime cap increases so they can ensure players do not obtain too much gear ahead of schedule. This can then be achieved without fragmenting players into those that have obtained the cap each period and those that have not.

[Luda]

you don't need af2 for any content in the game yet. so no rush, don't worry if your friends are ahead of you.

[Ryios]

you don't need af2 for any content in the game yet. so no rush, don't worry if your friends are ahead of you.

Every tried being a WAR (like the OP) in BCB? AF2 is practically required, at least chest and helm. That or a Really Really Good healer.

[Jamesruglia]

This deficit is inherently bad because it fragments players who would otherwise be playing together. It makes it impossible for players to catch up and join their friends, especially if they make new friends who are further in. It also makes it impossible for advanced players to establish friendships with newer players and bring them up to speed.

The very opposite is in fact what these kind of caps are good for; my friends play more than I do, so stuff like this has helped us be able to continue playing together, instead of letting them shoot farther and farther ahead of me.

[Telsia]

I think people fail to see that, for those people that have gathered the maximum number of currency tokens each week since they were available, my proposal changes nothing. In the case of myth tomes in particular, they will continue to be able to gather no more than 300 more tokens each week. The proposed change is designed to eliminate the gap between those who have gathered all possible tokens and those who have not, allowing everyone, no matter when they join the game (especially players that join in the future) to put in the same amount of effort to be in the same state of progression.

you don't need af2 for any content in the game yet. so no rush, don't worry if your friends are ahead of you.

This is a short-sighted reply, foremost because it fails to address every player other than me (and it makes a presupposition that I am behind my friends when it could also be the case that my friends are behind me), but more importantly because it limits its scope to one set of items (af2) purchased with one set of tokens (myth) in one time frame of content (currently).

The problem I identify is more wide-spread: what happens when there is new content that does require af2 and new players buy the game? What happens when a new set of currency tokens are introduced while players are not playing and then return to the game several months later?

The very opposite is in fact what these kind of caps are good for; my friends play more than I do, so stuff like this has helped us be able to continue playing together, instead of letting them shoot farther and farther ahead of me.

This is true if and only if you and your friends and anyone else whom you may befriend in the future all acquire tokens at the same rate. I can only infer that you and your friends have all obtained the same amount of myth tomes each week for the same number of weeks. So long as you and your friends continue to all gather the same number each week, then the current weekly system seems fine.

But what happens when you introduce a new friend to the game and they only start gathering myth tomes at some point in the future? There will be a permanent deficit between the number of tomes you and your friends have gathered in your lifetime and the possible number of tomes the new friend can ever gather.

[Roaran]

Every tried being a WAR (like the OP) in BCB? AF2 is practically required, at least chest and helm. That or a Really Really Good healer.

I'm a WAR in BC, and it's not required in the slightest. Being bad certainly requires you to compensate with better gear though.

[Ryios]

I'm a WAR in BC, and it's not required in the slightest. Being bad certainly requires you to compensate with better gear though.

You might be, but you probably have healers talking crap about you behind your back going "Wish we had a paladin, it's harder to heal this guy". Where as my healers go "He's a war, but he's in AF2 so this isn't as bad as it could be". Besides my PLD is leveled and I can switch, I put the effort in to level both for switch scenarios. So I hardly believe that I am "Bad" as you say just because I think a war should get some AF2 before going into BCB.

[Estellios]

You need it in Coil because that is balanced to be done with level 80 gear which isn't in-game yet.

Also they are going to alleviate or eliminate stone caps as we get higher tier gear and more tiers of stones.

[Telsia]

Also they are going to alleviate or eliminate stone caps as we get higher tier gear and more tiers of stones.

While it's good that they're looking towards the future, I am too; I don't think weekly caps will be any better in the future than they are now, so the devs should be looking ahead and implementing lifetime caps for future stones, not merely correcting current stone caps.

[Lisotte]

I suspect that whenever they introduce a new type of tomestones they'll get rid of the cap on myth. So at that point myth will be the new philo, and everyone will cap the new type of tome every week.

This doesn't fix the problem though that if someone starts collecting tomes later than a friend then he will be permanently weaker than his friend, gear-wise. Case in point: I've been collecting myth for several weeks now, enough to start buying things. My friend is leveling slower and hasn't started collecting them yet. Whenever he hits 50, he will be far weaker than myself, even after he gets full DL. He'll never have the same amount of relic armour that I have, unless they change the current cap.