How would you feel about end-game gear only being useful for 3 months?

[Ilean]

Final conclusion: Better, well formed alternative solutions would go a long way to making your arguments more valid. In their current form, you've come off as a broken record and a mere contrarian that has no interest in being happy with the game. I know this is not true about you from what I've seen so far in this thread.

Maybe this will provide some insight to others and restore a bit of peace to this thread.

On the other hand, the ad hominem attacks will flay me where I stand. Either way, it's just the internet, it's just a game, it probably wasn't worth the 20 minutes it took to write this whole post.

-- Krin

Side notes that didn't fit in anywhere:

* Game Design is a very weird field. They want to break stereotypes, but teach stereotypes. In the end though, creating stereotypes for highly represented play styles in the world at large makes for very good game designers. Game Design is still an art that requires raw talent, but tempering that talent with an understanding of how People Who Are Not You define the all powerful Fun in games is invaluable.

** RMTs in this context really don't matter, the true RMT issue is Gil for real money and items for real money. This is a game breaker. I've noticed myself that the in-game economy is completely decoupled from Gil inputs, but it appears that things are still balanced, at least on Karnak. An Optimal Rank 11 gladiator weapon sells for 30,000 Gil, which is about 15 rank 10 leve quests, which feels about the right pacing from other elements of the games. (2 days at full out do everything possible and a bit of grind.) However, the fanatical fight SE has against RMT's is another post entirely.

Good read.

[Pyrix]

That was beautiful Krin.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Krin's super awesome wall of text.

Ugh! Thank god you're here! ; ;

[Theonate]

Depending on what gear can be enhanced with materia, new content/gear ~every 3 months isn't bad.

[Jynx]

On the other hand, the ad hominem attacks will flay me where I stand. Either way, it's just the internet, it's just a game, it probably wasn't worth the 20 minutes it took to write this whole post.

I think this was well worth the read, thank you very much for your take on the situation. I do find complaining about a system without proposing a solution is not the right way to go about things.

While SE has taken a turn to be more pro-active with speaking with it's playerbase it's still as you said.

• Announce
• Feedback
• ???
• Changes happen or don't

But it's a far cry from how bad they used to be.

• Announce
• Deal with it

I think everyone should give your post a good once over, if anyone has the audacity glare over it and say "Wall of text". It's a downright shame for them. I may not really fall into the "EJ or Casual" crowd as you define them. I do enjoy my challenge and hard to get items.

I generally clasify myself as medium-core or something along those lines, I like playing my content with small tight knit groups or solo, but I love challenging content I can do with the little time I do get.

[Theonate]

Taking the 3 month content cycle that Yoshi-P stated he wanted to shoot for at face value WOULD make me pause and say to myself "Really? I'm gonna have to upgrade my gear that often!?" But the mistake everyone is making is looking at the statement alone, and not looking at the other changes already in/coming very soon.

First lets look at the dungeons we already have. Currently there is not a full matching set of gear in any of them. Yes there are 2-3 pieces that match each other that can be used by multiple classes. But there is no FULL sets. At this point in time it's safe to assume they will keep with that trend in future dungeons. It keeps players going and doing the various options available to them instead of everyone only going to one place because it has everything.

Next thing up is Jobs. At this point if you haven't seen the bad ass concept art for BLM and DRK armor, go hit google. Once SE has rolled out the jobs and we have started to learn them they will add this job specific gear in. More than likely these will require quite a few quests and some new dungeons per piece. Maybe they will be "relic" gear, maybe they won't. The point is the gear/looks are Iconic for FF and will be added in.

Now I know what the next line of thinking for most people is, "But if new content keeps coming out every 3 months that iconic gear will get outdated and replaced!"

That thought is most likely wrong, and here's why:

The Materia system. You have to wear gear to convert it into materia to be put into other gear. Because of the materia system I'm fairly confident the iconic job gear will be "relic" status. I doubt they will be as difficult to acquire as XI relic gear, but it will probably still be a pita. The point is the materia system + inevitable iconic job gear will give people a gear customization option potential that is insane.

Since there is a higher and higher chance for materia attachment to fail causing the player to have to re-acquire 5 materia per piece of armor as well as new armor the Hardcore will keep running the dungeons for more materia(and back up gear in case of materia failure). Remember better gear drops= better materia to put in your gear. While the casual/player who can't devote himself as much will be more likely to wear one of the new drops while working on whatever the requirements are for his chosen relic/iconic job armor.

This will also cause players to pause and decide if adding more than 2-3 materia is worth the risk compared to just wearing a new piece of gear that has similar stats(maybe slightly higher). The most hardcore/min-maxers will always look at what gear turns into what materia and determine best in slot based on base item stats+stats obtainable with 5 materia. This in turn will keep the average player appearance varied based on play style and personal risk/value assessment of adding more materia.

Now it is also known that not all gear can be converted into materia/enhanced with materia. So ultimately there will be more options for equal level gear and diversity. I'm willing to bet job specific gear will either no be enhanced by materi(if that's the case it will probably be really good to off set this). Ideally I'd like to see them let it be enhanced and if you fail the materia and need to re-acquire it just hand over some items and a pile of gil to specific npc to get the base version again. But it would have to be a large sum of gil and/or quest drops.

Overall the point is, with the materia system in place I don't see 3 month content cycles being a bad thing. They will add things to do and new options for the players gear choices instead of other MMO's extremely linear "everything from there gets upgraded in here now" content updates.

[Murugan]

Taking the 3 month content cycle that Yoshi-P stated he wanted to shoot for at face value WOULD make me pause and say to myself "Really? I'm gonna have to upgrade my gear that often!?" But the mistake everyone is making is looking at the statement alone, and not looking at the other changes already in/coming very soon.

First lets look at the dungeons we already have. Currently there is not a full matching set of gear in any of them. Yes there are 2-3 pieces that match each other that can be used by multiple classes. But there is no FULL sets. At this point in time it's safe to assume they will keep with that trend in future dungeons. It keeps players going and doing the various options available to them instead of everyone only going to one place because it has everything.

Next thing up is Jobs. At this point if you haven't seen the bad ass concept art for BLM and DRK armor, go hit google. Once SE has rolled out the jobs and we have started to learn them they will add this job specific gear in. More than likely these will require quite a few quests and some new dungeons per piece. Maybe they will be "relic" gear, maybe they won't. The point is the gear/looks are Iconic for FF and will be added in.

Now I know what the next line of thinking for most people is, "But if new content keeps coming out every 3 months that iconic gear will get outdated and replaced!"

That thought is most likely wrong, and here's why:

The Materia system. The longer you wear the gear the more it becomes attuned to you and the more materia you can attach to it(up to 5). Because of the materia system I'm fairly confident the iconic job gear will be "relic" status. I doubt they will be as difficult to acquire as XI relic gear, but it will probably still be a pita. The point is the materia system + inevitable iconic job gear will give people a gear customization option potential that is insane.

Since there is a higher and higher chance for materia attachment to fail causing the player to have to re-acquire 5 materia per piece of armor as well as new armor the Hardcore will keep running the dungeons for more materia(and back up gear in case of materia failure). Remember better gear drops= better materia to put in your gear. While the casual/player who can't devote himself as much will be more likely to wear one of the new drops while working on whatever the requirements are for his chosen relic/iconic job armor.

This will also cause players to pause and decide if adding more than 2-3 materia is worth the risk compared to just wearing a new piece of gear that has similar stats(maybe slightly higher). The most hardcore/min-maxers will always look at what gear turns into what materia and determine best in slot based on base item stats+stats obtainable with 5 materia. This in turn will keep the average player appearance varied based on play style and personal risk/value assessment of adding more materia.

Now it is also known that not all gear can be converted into materia/enhanced with materia. So ultimately there will be more options for equal level gear and diversity. I'm willing to bet job specific gear will either no be enhanced by materi(if that's the case it will probably be really good to off set this). Ideally I'd like to see them let it be enhanced and if you fail the materia and need to re-acquire it just hand over some items and a pile of gil to specific npc to get the base version again. But it would have to be a large sum of gil and/or quest drops.

Overall the point is, with the materia system in place I don't see 3 month content cycles being a bad thing. They will add things to do and new options for the players gear choices instead of other MMO's extremely linear "everything from there gets upgraded in here now" content updates.

Your first point is spot on, gear won't be added every 3 months for every slot of every class. The rest however I don't think is very accurate/relevant especially your point on Materia since attuning has to do with turning gear into Materia and not attaching Materia to it (though that would be a better system I think), and also rare/ex gear (assuming we are getting more of those in future raids) will not be able to have Materia attached to it.

Also the main point that Visch is trying to make is about Yoshi saying that gear will be easier to get after 3 months and thus be devalued (which isn't really on the topic of this thread, but was the topic of his previous thread which was closed). The problem with this is that gear is always easier to get at this point and scarcity can only be injected superficially by rare drop rates and long timers on content. He is also responding to a translated quote talking about how content will be easier primarily because hardcores will outline an efficient (easy) strategy for the content by then which casuals can then use.

He does mention possible adjustments to difficulty as well, but this can mean a lot of things and doesn't necessarily mean what Visch is taking it to mean. Visch is simply taking this one quote out of context of everything else they have said on endgame to make it sound like the dev's plan on nerfing content after a short time so that anyone can simply walk in and get the items like in WoW.

Others demonstrate how out of context their criticisms are by saying Darkhold is already "easy and takes no effort". Assuming that they have to expend no effort to get 5 chests at a time with any DD setup, no BR's, no additional skills from other classes above level 20 (or at all really: but notably no quickstride, no " " II abilities/buffs), not rely on skilled players just players who "pay attention" and can easily take any random person who can "listen" and inject them into the group while still accomplishing this. Surely this is their context of easy since they are comparing the game to other MMO's out there like Aion, WAR, WoW where such a scenario is possible/common.

Visch might not see it this way, he might be worried that Darkhold (as an example) and future instances will after 3 months be places where you can simply walk in and be handed even the most difficult drops. He is basing this off of one sentence from the Yoshi quote, I don't think that is likely however if it were I would be upset too.


In the context of Yoshi's other posts I believe their plan once the battle system is finalized is to make very challenging goals in endgame content which will be inaccessible to all but those who do a great deal of work to unlock it, and then with the help of player guides (or possibly some small adjustments if those are not enough) hope that after the next content comes out it will be accessible to a wider audience of people (but still not a walk in the park). It sounds like good/sound endgame design to me personally, and I've been enjoying endgame in MMO's for a long time (since the first NA endgame shells in XI). I want challenge and long term goals, it sounds (hopefully) like we will be getting challenge, and if the (likely rare/ex) drops from "dungeons" alone were representative of endgame's "long term goals" I'd be pretty disappointed anyways. So as a true hardcore MMO design supporter/endgame enthusiast I'm not that worried.

[Cichy]

I cannot believe how many people answered "hate it." People really want to stick that new version of Dalmatica into 90% of the populations face I guess.

[Theonate]

Your first point is spot on, gear won't be added every 3 months for every slot of every class. The rest however I don't think is very accurate/relevant especially your point on Materia since attuning has to do with turning gear into Materia and not attaching Materia to it (though that would be a better system I think), and also rare/ex gear (assuming we are getting more of those in future raids) will not be able to have Materia attached to it.

Yea I flubbed and crossed lines from a post I was working on regarding what would make materia better. Corrected it.

But I still think the materia factor will be fairly large player in future gear drops. They want the crafter gear to stay in line with everything thing so being able to take that dungeon gear and materialize it to throw into other gear would be great for progression while increasing gear diversity.

But really the point of this thread is how do you feel about the ideal 3 month window that was used as an example. I don't think it's a bad thing. I also don't see things getting to the extreme easy level. Yea over time dungeons will always get easier, that's because information on how to do them gets spread around and more people successfully complete them. If DH ever gets to the point that the hardest rewards are stupidly easy to get it will be because the population as a whole significantly out levels the zone.

[Corrderio]

I cannot believe how many people answered "hate it." People really want to stick that new version of Dalmatica into 90% of the populations face I guess.

XI programmed them good, nuff said.