The future of gear

[DeeJayImut]

right now you just farming myth gear for months

later they will add myth gear +2 that requires you to farm again for months

and so on

and so on

you know... just to keep subs

[ShinigamiB06]

Wow what an insane number of dicks with condescending answers. not to mention the fact that those of you with the rude answers missed my point. I literally wrote that i thought it was a mistake for the developers to make the armor so tedious to acquire only to have it replaced later by a new set that will more than likely require an ever worse grind.

And to those of you with the smart ass answers I will say this: No, I am not new to MMOs. And just because MMOs have had a tendency to be grindfests, that does not mean that is mandatory for newer mmos. ARR has been innovative in many areas in the game, and I would expect it to innovate in terms of acquiring gear by replacing the caveman mindset that MMOs have to be a grind fest. And lastly, dont be patronizing just because someone doesn't want to grind. This is a game, not a chore. Its fine if you people dont have lives and are willing to spend 30 hours a week grinding for one piece of gear. But that doesn't mean people like me who don't want to grind dont have the right to enjoy the game to its fullest extent, specially when we pay the say amount of money for this game. Casuals sustain this game just as much as you elitists jerks.

[Dano]

the game is progressive in nature, when new content comes out, your best gear from last content won't be enough to clear them, that's where the new entry gear comes in, they would be better and easier to get, this is done so to allow new players an even playin field when they join. It's like a soft reset, just like how this game transitioned from 1.0 to ARR. You can also look at WoW on how this works.

[Pellegri]

This is a game, not a chore. Its fine if you people dont have lives and are willing to spend 30 hours a week grinding for one piece of gear. But that doesn't mean people like me who don't want to grind dont have the right to enjoy the game to its fullest extent, specially when we pay the say amount of money for this game. Casuals sustain this game just as much as you elitists jerks.

So in other words you want handouts because you don't want to put in the effort other players do to obtain rewards but because you pay the same amount as everyone else you are entitled to everything even the hardcore of hardcore are. That right there screams you are actually really new to mmos or you should not be playing them in the first place because you don't have the time to put into them.

Your money entitles you to be able to play the game with or without maintenance, that is it in all non ftp mmos. What you do with your time is entirely up to you, but never come here again saying you are entitled to the best of the best items just because you pay a sub. If you do not put in the effort other players do then you do not deserve the rewards they receive simple as that. Your money means nothing when it comes to what you do inside the game itself, only that it allows you to play the game in the first place.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

the game is progressive in nature, when new content comes out, your best gear from last content won't be enough to clear them, that's where the new entry gear comes in, they would be better and easier to get, this is done so to allow new players an even playin field when they join. It's like a soft reset, just like how this game transitioned from 1.0 to ARR. You can also look at WoW on how this works.

Since you bring up WoW, the devs have really tried to alleviate most of the grind when it comes to gear. Basically, if you want to enjoy the whole game (current content) as a casual player, there's enough variety (points, reputations, raids at several difficulty levels, and some other perks…) that it doesn't really feel like a mindless grind forcing you to run the same dungeon over and over again. It only becomes "grindy" for hardcore players who wish to down the latest raid in Heroic mode (or clear the normal difficulty raids as fast as possible, which is also a hardcore mindset). But from my experience, it's a general trend in MMO's: most asian titles are grindy, most western titles tend to alleviate the grind as much as possible, at least for casual players. Essentially, you don't feel the "soft reset", it just flows naturally.

It doesn't change the fact that all theme parks follow the vertical progression scheme, only in a sandbox can you find several viable alternatives at endgame; but still some are much more grindy and repetitive than others. Not grinding in WoW for instance —just playing casually, weekly, doing "stuff"— won't stop you from enjoying all the endgame content; you just won't get to down raids in the hardest difficulty mode (you would clear an equivalent of Bahamut Coil, or Crystal Tower, in "Flexible" mode for instance, with anything from 10 to 25 players, without any pre-required grind whatsoever; should you wish to down it in "Normal" mode you'd have to form a static of either precisely 10 or 25 players, you wouldn't be able to run it with 12 players one week and then 17 the next week, and this normal mode would indeed require a bit more organisation and a bit of grind to make your progression easier).

This is content that they create at each expansion as well, it doesn't rely at all on previous expansions, so it's perfectly imaginable to make such content within a 2 years timeframe (with patches every n months until the cycle is repeated for new expack), so I suppose ARR could do the same eventually —even that sweet flexible mode making it possible to run a raid with the amount of friends you want, not forcing you into a static with a pre-defined number of attendants such as 8, 10, 24 or 25. I know I'd like to be able to run Coil with anything from 6 to 12 players depending on the week

However, ARR is quite new, so I guess we can cut it some slack while more content is added, to make the grind less tedious; but if this early build (2.x) is any indication, it will probably remain a grindy, repetitive game at endgame, since that seems to cater to asian —including japanese— players, and fit the development choices made here.

[Xeno_La]

I'm sure any further upgrades from ToM gear, won't be done by farming more ToM.
We know that the current ToM gear won't always be the best in the game, and will soon be over taken by iLVL 100+ armour.
This doesn't mean that the ToM gear will become obsolete, its just becomes a necessary step in gear progression in order to more comfortably farm whatever new "best" gear comes out.

[Terri]

The Myth points arent all Best in slot, and some jobs don't get much of it at all. For a decked out character you need to get stuff from Coil too. It's not really meant for a person to get ALL the myth pieces for each job. Sure some jobs need more than others but... it's not all you want to get. :< Also with lack of content they had to do something to keep people subbing every week lol it's the only reason it is how it is.

[Sirfoxeh]

[QUOTE=ShinigamiB06;1544506]I'm curious about the future (past 2.1) and the armor and weapons that will be added to the game. Correct me if i am wrong, but as it stands the best weapon and armor in the game are those bought with Tomes of Mythology....QUOTE]

They plan on implementing new gear in dungeons/instances, the catch is that you will need to be geared enough IE full mythology to meet the gear check on said dungeons to progress... You can see a early example of this in the Binding Coil of Bahamut.

[Livi]

I think the higher tier gear will appear in patch 2.2 when they update coil of Bahamut.

[WellFooled]

I literally wrote that i thought it was a mistake for the developers to make the armor so tedious to acquire only to have it replaced later by a new set that will more than likely require an ever worse grind.

I think the most powerful gear will always be difficult to acquire, because it gives those that want to put forth more effort something to shoot for. Those that don't want to put forth the same effort (or can't) also have gear to get that is less difficult and time consuming, it just isn't the best in the game. So no matter how much energy you want to devote to the game, there will be something for you.

Even with the current system there are multiple ways to get great gear. Both mythology and coil gear are on par with each other, but one requires you to raid with a group and the other can be gotten on your own time--which allows more freedom for everyone whether they're playing casually or more seriously.

Also, what makes you say that the new best gear added later will "more than likely require an even worse grind"? Since we don't have any history to go off of in ARR, we don't yet know how they'll handle this. But in my past MMO experience, it seems like the difficulty didn't so much escalate, instead it changed shape.