Why are elite hunts so valuable? What are the devs thoughts?

[kyuven]

One other thing: New players. The game has quite a large discrepancy between someone who is a fresh level 50 (who usually has an iLvl of around 48) and someone whose been in the endgame for quite a while (iLvl probably twice that).
This creates a rather irritating catch 22 for the new player that is STRONGLY alleviated by hunts: They need gear to qualify for dungeons, but for a time they're dead weight to any team they join. This is ESPECIALLY awful for healers and tanks, which are higher gear dependent. Can you imagine doing Brayflox HM with a "fresh" healer/tank and having the same expectations you would have for an experienced one?
And this is a problem that will only get worse as the game goes forward. Having a means to alleviate the process now makes it easier to deal with further down the line. It still takes time to earn the soldiery gear, it just takes LESS time to upgrade it.

[kyuven]

if they want more people geared and it's not broken, why is Sands of Time not already an ST drop? why is there a 1 item lockout for ST and why is the armor i100? why are Ramuh EX items i100?

shouldn't there be no lockout in ST if the armor is i100 anyway? shouldn't you get i110 rings from the "hardest" trial in the game?

why aren't there better Frontline rewards?

i100 items still take actual time to get. The weathered gear takes between 1 and 2 weeks worth of soldiery tomes, and ST only allows one piece of loot. If you get maybe 2-3 pieces of loot a week, it'll still take you months to get "maxed." And not everyone has that kind of patience. Especially those who play multiple jobs. The only thing making oils and sands easier to get does is alleviate the time commitment required.

[LydallMomoda]

I think it's more that they want more people geared for when they introduce the next wave of content. Apparently they had an issue with not enough people being geared for certain levels of content, so now they're giving the community a "push" to be able to reach that level in anticipation of the next "wave."

People have good gears but no skills, still useless....

[SendohJin]

i100 items still take actual time to get. The weathered gear takes between 1 and 2 weeks worth of soldiery tomes, and ST only allows one piece of loot. If you get maybe 2-3 pieces of loot a week, it'll still take you months to get "maxed." And not everyone has that kind of patience. Especially those who play multiple jobs. The only thing making oils and sands easier to get does is alleviate the time commitment required.

so do "they want more people geared for when they introduce the next wave of content" or not? seems like now you're saying they don't.

[ChiefCurrahee]

I think it's more that they want more people geared for when they introduce the next wave of content. Apparently they had an issue with not enough people being geared for certain levels of content, so now they're giving the community a "push" to be able to reach that level in anticipation of the next "wave."

This would make more sense in patch 2.4 when there is that new level of gear to get. So for the next 70-90 days until 2.4 drops hunts will continue to devalue other forms of content. My misunderstanding isn't with the idea behind hunts. It's just that they reward all forms of progress in the game which is unbalanced when compared to other forms of content reward.

[kyuven]

so do "they want more people geared for when they introduce the next wave of content" or not? seems like now you're saying they don't.

Yes, because the pace I mentioned is ONLY to get ilevel 100 gear. Allied Seals can be notably used to purchase i90 gear as well as sands/oil of time and alexandrite. It doesn't trivialize the acquisition of the i100 gear because that's still bottlenecked the exact same way it was before, but it DOES allow people to more easily upgrade that gear to the next stage in preparation for what they have planned coming down the pipes. It fills the gap between "fresh 50" and i90 gear, and the gap between i100 gear and i110, as well as a more convenient and less RNG dependent source of Alexandrite.

[Dude]

Lets remember CT2 also gives Ilvl 100 gear. So hunts aren't the only easy way to gear up. This whole patch is about catching people up, which i guess upsets some people.

[Roris]

All the other content is still there, people who avoided Coil or can't get into a static and don't like PFing still won't go into Coil, if you're already doing Coil you can beat it in less than an hour or two and potentially get sands and oils faster than running around maps. If you're already doing Coil you either already have all the best things from there or if you're unlucky and haven't gotten anything in weeks then Hunts can complement your weekly Coil loot. People are still doing ST, other dungeons, primals, Frontlines and what not, I really see no issue. In 3 months none of this gear will be relevant anymore anyway, if anything all this just shows the flaws of vertical progression, relying too much on instanced content and the best gear being found only in dungeons.

[ChiefCurrahee]

Lets remember CT2 also gives Ilvl 100 gear. So hunts aren't the only easy way to gear up. This whole patch is about catching people up, which i guess upsets some people.

Why do CT when hunts gives soldiery to buy iLvl 100, then directly upgrade it to iLvl 110. Plus there is a weekly lock out 1 piece of iLvl 100 from CT which by comparison doesn't make sense with the free for all that is Hunts.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to progress by doing hunts, I'm saying that the rewards from hunts should be balanced around other existing content in the game. Which it presently is not.

I'm genuinely interested in a dev response to explain how they feel it's balanced in the grand aspect of the game in it's current form.

[Roris]

Why do CT when hunts gives soldiery to buy iLvl 100, then directly upgrade it to iLvl 110. Plus there is a weekly lock out 1 piece of iLvl 100 from CT which by comparison doesn't make sense with the free for all that is Hunts

Welcome to the CT conundrum that has existed since the very first CT, mostly due to the fact that it was promised to be at launch then got delayed 4 months. By the time it was finally implemented a lot of people already had mostly full i90 on their main and even secondaries thus no real reason to get its inferior i80 gear, that's why it was advertised as "vanity" or a way to gear up other classes. The same exact thing applies to ST and doesn't really have anything to do with Hunts themselves, it's an issue with the entire game's itemization and design really.