Should Alexander hard drop highest item level gear?

[kehn]

Well no, not entirely, as it was backed up with facts. You actually don't need gear if you aren't raiding, and there's nothing 'toxic' about that. I'm sorry you took it that way though.

Honestly if you consider that toxic, I don't know what to say, that was really tame lol.

i don't think your opinion was "toxic" but there was nothing factual about it other than that FFXIV caters to the lazy. many many many many MMOs let you get the best gear in the game a lot easier than this one. in TERA for example the best gear is crafted. and then must be upgraded also with money. you can legally make money in that game with RMT through the publishers. so yeah..... and that is but one example

[SDaemon]

snip

Where it should be? How so?

You are right, these are not the days of 11 or EQ, that it is 14 and in 14 this is the gearing paradigm and it works wonders for everyone. That includes those of us that raid and those that do not.

There is no reason expect glitter coated epeen to have the already present gap, wait time and then catch up replaced with an even further gap. When FCoB launched i130 was only attainable through Coil, including the i135 weapon. As the raid wore out its lifespan the Ironworks gear was slowly allowed to be upgraded to i130, starting with the accessories and now the body pieces through the weekly and hunts.

Also this:

FF 14 is more casual then any mmo ever has been in the history of online mmo gaming. is a hilariously gross exaggeration.

[Zumi]

Are you good at video games? Good raid awareness, reflexes, skill and know 7 other people who are as good as you then you basically finish all your content in about 1 hour. Meaning you can just play this game casually for 1 hour a week if you are skilled.

[ElieDavion]

Are you good at video games? Good raid awareness, reflexes, skill and know 7 other people who are as good as you then you basically finish all your content in about 1 hour. Meaning you can just play this game casually for 1 hour a week if you are skilled.

the problem is for most ppl that they dont have those 7 other ppl to raid with even if they would want to do the raids (ever tried df those raids ?)

[Azures]

It always puzzled me as to why SE allowed purchased gear to be the same item level as bahamut coils when considering risk vs reward that has always been a staple in MMO's. I understand that range is an issue in drops and sometimes people have very bad luck but I hope the new tomes do not let you buy the same item level gear that drops in Alexander raids. At minimum only let you aquire the new high end tomes from alexander hard mode only.

You should not be able to churn out easy 20 minute dungeons for tomes that let you purchase gear on par with a much harder raid requiring more time and energy. Even casual people I know always managed to get far into the bahamut coil runs.

I thought Yoshi-P already said Alex HM would drop the highest ILVL gear you could get in game when 3.0 Launches ?

[Gardes]

Alex HM gear should at least be 10 ilvls higher than the easy way of getting gear. It needs to have an incentive for people who wants that lvl of gear sooner than later. I've seen people not bothering with coil because they can get the same or better ilvl gear when the new tier of tome gets introduced. Additionally, if the tome gear is upgradable with materials (which i still think should still be lower in ilvl than the raid gear) should stay out of alex hm. They should another venue of acquiring it at medium level difficulty instead.

My personal preference would be, in 10ilvl jumps:

law < esoteric and alex nm < esoteric+ and hw 24 main raid < alex hm

I put alex nm at only esoteric lvl because it's supposed to be very easy even with the weekly lockout and once the 24 man raid comes out, players can still do it to gear alt classes. There will be 20+ ilvls gap between the player and the raid when it opens but I dont think that would be much of an issue considering we raided bcob early with a mish mash of dark light (20 ilvls lower) and a couple of myth (some ilvl boost) and even some ak drops. I don't think that too far off from what yoship wants (slow down the global first progression).

[Welsper59]

That formula you suggest, in particular about best currency being restricted to max content, is only really seen in games that solely focus on hardcore endgame. Fact is, we never see those anymore for a number of reasons.

A few reasons: 1) They're bad business practice in keeping the player base thriving, which explains why you never hear of them being around... or if they are, they've pretty much been kicked to the curb. 2) This game has never stated it will tailor exclusively to hardcore raiders. In fact, Yoshi-P repeatedly stressed since alpha how he wants to keep the game open to everyone to progress in some way. 3) The content they do create involves gearing up to beat. In many cases, the already low endgame percentage would drop to the low single digits if things were treated as a crawl to how games like vanilla WoW was. Days/weeks/months spent farming for gear just to beat one entry/mid-point boss, then another couple months to beat the last. With the content schedule and the goal of this game, such things are not a viable option.

The truth is, if that's the sort of game anyone is looking for here, you'll not find it. Elitism expressed through raid gear acquisition gets squashed in this game. That's something the larger populous actually appreciates these days. I'm not entirely sure if you saying "Even casual people I know always managed to get far into the bahamut coil runs." implies you think that's good or bad. I'm going to assume you think that's bad, given the subject lol. If you, for whatever reason, think that's good, then you kinda invalidate your entire argument simply because you're overlooking the fact that they get far because they have access to on-par gear elsewhere.

[Burningskull]

I think gear progression in the expansion will go like this. Tomestones of Law > Tomestones of Esoterics / Alexander NM Turns 1-4 / 24 man raid 1st dungeon > Alexander HM Turns 1-4 > Alexander NM Turns 5-8 (just guessing) / New Tomestones (again guessing) / 24 man raid 2nd dungeon > Alexander HM Turns 5-8, repeat as needed... They said they wanted to add different ways to gear for the HM if I remember right. So end the end Alexander HM probably will drop the highest Ilvl gear, it's just that you wont need that Ilvl to clear the content, just kill things faster.

But meh. What do I know. This is just a guess. I don't personally raid as I hear you can get brain damage from beating your head against a wall for to long. (Joking)

As long as tome gear and relic weapons allow me to do ex primals, dungeons, story content, and the 24 man raids I'll be happy.

[kirk]

Ugghhh how about no OP gear progression works fine as is and benefits both raiders and non raiders

[Tiggy]

Seems like we don't know what the balance is yet so this really seems premature. Any balance in the current incarnation likely is not going to change right now no matter what we say. They are polishing the expansion with a hard release date. What they have in mind will release as is no matter what.