Idea on changing how substats work with gear

[xvshanevx]

Not including any kind of "server limitations", I had a simple idea on how substats could work with gear.

Okay, first, what gear do we get through our normal cycles? Looking back at 4.0 and looking forward to 4.1 this seems like the current gear progression (not including leveling, job gear, or Relic Weapons):

What we have now:
Savage Raid: i345 Weapon and i340 Armor/accs
Mid Tier Tome: Creation: i330 - i340 weapons and armor/accs
Normal Raid: i320 armor and accs
Intro Primals: i320 Weapons and Accs
Crafted: i320 weapons and armor/accs
Low Tier Tome: Verity: i310 weapons and armor/accs
Intro Dungeon: i300 weapons and armor/accs

What may come in 4.1:
Mid tier Primal: i335 Weapon
24-man Raid: i330 armor
Mid tier Dungeon: i315 armor and accs

So, one of the things that bothers me about gearing in FFXIV is the utter lack of customization raiders have with their gear. The actual gear that drops from Savage raids is entirely hit or miss when it comes to our best substats. What is even more aggravating, is that the most customization gear obtainable is crafted gear.

It has always been my belief that raiders should undoubtingly have the best possible gear in the game. Why? Because they are the ones that will actually use the gear. Many casual players, mainly ones who don't raid, will not use the gear to the best of its ability.

So, I have to ask, why is raid gear so unaccommodating to our substats?

I've thought up a solution that I feel is fair and balanced. Only savage raid gear and crafted gear are fully customization. Mid tier gear is semi customization, and all other gear is non-customization.

My proposed change to substats on gear:
Savage Raid: i345 weapons and i345 armor. All sub stats customization. Will have 1 major and 1 minor of your choice.
Mid tier Tomes: Creation: i340 weapons and i340 armor. One minor substat customization.
Intro Primals: i330 wepaons and i330 accs. One minor substat customization.
Crafted Gear: i320 weapon and i320 armor/acc. All sub stats customization. Will have 1 major and 1 minor of your choice.
Normal Raid: i320 weapons and i320 armor/acc. No customization.
Low tier Tomes: Verity: i310 weapons and i310 armor/acc. No customization.
Intro Dungeons: i300 weapons and i300 armor/acc. One minor substat customization.

Mid tier Primal: i340 weapon. One Major substat customization.
24-man Raid: i335 armor and i335 accessories. No customization.
Mid tier Dungeons: i315 weapons and i315 armor/acc. One minor substat customization.

If progression in future patches (or expacs) follows the continuing trend as 2.x, 3.x and now 4.x, I would like to see changes similar to this. I believe this would lead to ALL raid gear being useful and far more sought after than, say, pentamelded crafted gear (which should NEVER be BiS). And, for those that don't like Savage raiding, you still get some pretty damn good gear, just not as good as raiders.

I really like raiding in this game, and I seriously would like to see better rewards come out of it. The fact that the only decent item, right now, for my main job, is just the i345 weapons, is really silly.

[kikix12]

I may be unpopular in that...but I actually like drops with some randomness to them. If not having specific gears have variable stats, then at least have the same boss drop from a list of pieces with predefined but differently allocated stats.

The problem?! The weekly attempts at obtaining the gear would be made even more excruciating if you had to look for the exact set that you want. The upside?! Once you're geared up already, there is still some incentive to do it. And the randomness doesn't need to be that big. There are only limited few sub stats. Have it be fixed at critical or spell/skill speed, which I guess are welcome by everyone, and the other be randomly chosen from the other stats.

Or...add a new ability to craftsmen that allows changing stats of gear if some materials that would need to be farmed are used.

Really, I just want to get rid of all that useless Piety on my healer gears...

[Kaizencorr]

Being completely honest, I'd prefer they bring back Set Bonuses. I thought that was a very interesting mechanic for this game and it essentially gave more customization options depending on the bonus. It also would help to flesh out materia melding. Though I could see some gear getting undesirable stats. So as a fail safe, they could add a means to randomly change your set bonus with currency, crafters or even gil. Possibly a low success rate for the crafters to change it, or manuals through your grand company.

[basketofseals]

Being completely honest, I'd prefer they bring back Set Bonuses. I thought that was a very interesting mechanic for this game and it essentially gave more customization options depending on the bonus. It also would help to flesh out materia melding. Though I could see some gear getting undesirable stats. So as a fail safe, they could add a means to randomly change your set bonus with currency, crafters or even gil. Possibly a low success rate for the crafters to change it, or manuals through your grand company.

Don't set bonuses do the exact opposite of customization? You either run it because the set bonus is good, or you don't because it's not.

[Kaizencorr]

Don't set bonuses do the exact opposite of customization? You either run it because the set bonus is good, or you don't because it's not.

They are progressive aren't they? So if you have pieces that offer a certain amount of crit, it might be worth it to wear 2 or 3 of the set as opposed to the whole thing. I didn't mean for the whole set to be worn.... that would not be customization like you said.

[JunseiKei]

It has always been my belief that raiders should undoubtingly have the best possible gear in the game. Why? Because they are the ones that will actually use the gear. Many casual players, mainly ones who don't raid, will not use the gear to the best of its ability.

• Raiders are the only ones with access to the best weapons
• Left side armor upgrades
• Accessory upgrades
• Tomestone weapon upgrades

These are the things only available to people willing to raid. Until the catch-up patch, where some of those items are then placed in hunt rewards and/or 24-man raids. These are patches specifically designed to let more casual players not be left completely behind come the next tier patch.

Until then, raiders have the best gear possible.

So, I have to ask, why is raid gear so unaccommodating to our substats?

Passive job balancing. Just because you have armor that can be used for three jobs doesn't mean it's the best armor for all three jobs.

Example: The Augmented Allagan Casting Coat has spell speed, which is completely not beneficial to a red mage. The Genji Coat is the better upgrade between the two final coats. Even giving the crafted gear preferred melds, it still isn't as good to a red mage as the Genji coat (because the substats can't make up the difference of main stat loss and be more than the secondary stats combined).

pentamelded crafted gear (which should NEVER be BiS).

You have to take into consideration the weight of your main stat (this is always 1), the differences in the substats (this changes per job and the benefits it reaps). Using red mage as an example again, just because a stat isn't as useful as another doesn't make its value 0. Spell speed isn't that useful to a red mage, but if a piece of gear were to come down to just the choice of 50 Crit or 200 Spell Speed, that 200 Spell Speed is worth more than the 50 Crit. Generally, when people say 'worthless,' they are really saying worst choice, even if they don't understand that. Actual worthless are things like piety on any job other than healer.

This flows back into the above response as passive job balancing.

There have been instances of 24 man raid gear being BiS, too.

I really like raiding in this game, and I seriously would like to see better rewards come out of it. The fact that the only decent item, right now, for my main job, is just the i345 weapons, is really silly.

We're already being rewarded plenty over non-raiders.

[xvshanevx]

snip

I am not making the argument that raiders DON'T have the best gear, what I am stating is that Raiders deserve better customization from their raid gear, so that ALL the raid gear from a raid is BiS, not 1 or maybe 2 pieces but ALL the pieces.

I understand that we get twines and dips to upgrade the tome gear, but I want to see the raid gear, ya know, the gear that drops from the raid, not from tomes, to be the best.

Every single drop from any Savage raid boss should be the best piece of gear you can get during a current patch cycle (even + odd), PERIOD.

[JunseiKei]

I am not making the argument that raiders DON'T have the best gear, what I am stating is that Raiders deserve better customization from their raid gear, so that ALL the raid gear from a raid is BiS, not 1 or maybe 2 pieces but ALL the pieces.

I understand that we get twines and dips to upgrade the tome gear, but I want to see the raid gear, ya know, the gear that drops from the raid, not from tomes, to be the best.

Every single drop from any Savage raid boss should be the best piece of gear you can get during a current patch cycle (even + odd), PERIOD.

Why?

Also, it's not just one or two pieces. Looking at my gear, it's seven.

EDIT:
Allowing custom stats to the gear would mean SE would scale the fights accordingly. It would be harder to balance entry raiding versus mid-geared raiding and fully geared raiding. You're not thinking long term; right now we have v1s to v4s. For v5s to v9s, they'd have to balance the fight in mind that there will be players with no raid gear and players with full raid gear. That would be incredibly hard to balance, if not impossible. It'd end up being too hard for new raiders or stupidly easy for returning raiders.

In the end, they would probably limit what stats you can put where. IE: Your chest you can put in all of the crit or dh to your heart's content. Then jump down to your shoes; now you can only put in skillspeed, determination and tenacity. Making the change questionable at best.

[Reynhart]

It has always been my belief that raiders should undoubtingly have the best possible gear in the game.

Raiders should have the best gear, but not all best gear should come from raids. The reason is that it automatically negates any meaningful progression every odd patch.

For exemple, Primals should drop the best accessories, "additional content" (Deep Dungeon, Relics, etc...) should drop the best weapons, and raids should drop the best armor.

As for the customization, it's a good idea, but you'd still end with one absolute best build that everybody will share (As long as they can earn the gear), so it's not that meaningful in the end. And it's because every stat do basically the same, even when their description would make you think that they have a different effect. (Looking at you, Skillspeed)

[Mycow8me]

I would like to see ffxi's synergy system brought to this game for unique stats like +2% jump damage for a drg etc... that could be applied to any gear at any time with randomized values and bonuses.