Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Cakekizyy]

The commonly-argued point is usually that you don't "need" top-end gear to do anything at the casual level.

If raiders can clear raid, then they don't need the gear either.

[Kallera]

...
I want better raid incentives so I don't have to constantly keep motivating people. I want better incentives so people actually want to raid in this game rather than waiting for catch up patches. I am at my brink with raiding in this game and honestly think it's just better to sub for the last few months of an xpac when you can just DF +40% echo all of the content. I really think this game is going to end up such that people sub for a month for the story and unsub for two months until the next patch drops.

making whole sections of the game only approachable for the top 1% is part of the problem here. The devs came to this conclusion when people just ignored even trying the content altogether.

Due to what happened at gordias, the devs need to tap into the crowd that hasn't, or has only limited success with, getting to and clearing the raid tier. this doesn't mean make the tier like mhach is, but without some changes it won't be worth pushing on a crowd looking for newer activities for they and their friends to get into.

[Granyala]

Where is my new savage gear since my old savage gear is invalidated now? Your argument has holes in it. Mythic raiders always have new mythic gear to chase down once their old gear has been trivialized. We don't have that fair exchange in this game.

Interesting point.
So your issue would be more about the awkward split patch release cadence? (Probably done to speed things up instead of waiting for everything to be ready at once)
Would it be better if the release of a new void ark wing were to coincide with the release of a new savage tier?

Oh boy, oh boy I could post another one.

Lunch time over, o/

Have fun.

making whole sections of the game only approachable for the top 1% is part of the problem here. The devs came to this conclusion when people just ignored even trying the content altogether.
Due to what happened at gordias, the devs need to tap into the crowd that hasn't, or has only limited success with, getting to and clearing the raid tier..

You can't have it both ways.
Either you want super hard exclusive content (then you have to live with recruiting difficulties, low participation etc) or you lower the difficulty so more people can participate but give up the "special status" along the way.

If raiders can clear raid, then they don't need the gear either.

Typically you need the gear to be ready for the next Boss and Raid.

I wish that was the case for this game..but nope lol the raid gear is not required for any other fights..its mostly used to do your dailies or stand in town with. awesome >.>

Hmm?
Won't you need 240s for the next (probably last) Alexander wing? That was what I was referring to.

[Iromi]

Typically you need the gear to be ready for the next Boss and Raid.

I wish that was the case for this game..but nope lol the raid gear is not required for any other fights..its mostly used to do your dailies or stand in town with. awesome >.>

[Seraphix2407]

I wish that was the case for this game..but nope lol the raid gear is not required for any other fights..its mostly used to do your dailies or stand in town with. awesome >.>

^ And while I agree, making raid gear somewhat unique compare to tomestone gear or dungeon gear would make raid maybe more appealing as well? Dunno. They should make more raid tiers as well so we can gear up different with different bonus stats or whatever as well.

If raiders can clear raid, then they don't need the gear either.

If a person with ilvl 240 gear cant do more than 1k dps in primal fights or dungeons, they don't need the gear either. It's just status for them, might as well be glamour. Just proves even higher gear wont even save their soul for being bad right?

Also we all know there will mostlikely be some new crafter gear in next patch, so maybe 250 or something and raid will be 270? I dunno. Maybe 240 crafter gear then new cap is 260 at max. Then again crafter gear will be bis until they clear the content. Most raiders usually go for the gear that gives them most benefit than anything.

So again. I'm going to blame the playerbase but also the fact SE is being ''greedy'' on battle content. We all know, well most here knows that money from sub and mogstation goes to other projects, but why? Why not put more investments into this game and make it better. 2 years worth of same pattern of gear and raiding isn't going to make the game better. Yeah sure you have glamour and stuff, but how is that going to make the game better. More subs doesnt mean the game is better, just means more people like that this game is close to sim city or some sort of ''waifu simulator'' that some one act is is. Many FF games and I'm a true hardcore fan one, is ff games had amazing story on top of epic fights and battles. This game leans towards more dress up simulator than anything.

Before anyone gonna judge me because I'm a raider, I look at the way you play as ''casual''. I was more than happy you guys get more glamour and stuff, but how is the game going to be any game changer if they add more gear setups and things?`It wont hurt you, unless you gonna cry about they actually adding more content thats valid than you getting fancy stuff that everyone is going to wear the first 2-3 weeks then change to the next set of bandewagon glamour setup.

Wish people could actually see that this won't make the game any different, it will only make it more exiciting. Just because you get less 1 glamour, doesn't mean the game is less appealing to you, because if it is, then this game was never for you in the first place.

[RobbieH]

If raiders can clear raid, then they don't need the gear either.

The only raiders that can clear raids with crafted gear or the tier bellow are the pros, semi-core will have trouble, mid-cores would need the gear to clear it so yes raiders need the gear, and since SE decided to go with DPS checks more than ever with Alex instead of punishing mechanics like A8S it's another plus for needing gear.

EDIT: SE should add challenges to raids (similar to what FFLogs is doing here), and with it achievements which would award thing such as mounts and glamours, as an incentive to do those challenges.

[zosia]

Interesting point.
So your issue would be more about the awkward split patch release cadence? (Probably done to speed things up instead of waiting for everything to be ready at once)
Would it be better if the release of a new void ark wing were to coincide with the release of a new savage tier?

Yeah, That is definitely the core of the problem for me. I feel like the 24 man rewards/release has been mishandled since 2.3. I don't even mind proliferation of raid gear. I thought the EX primals were so much better when they dropped raid ilvl gear. I don't have a good answer to how SE can fix this problem.


Character progression has been tied to this three month patch cycle. Every patch, that vast majority of endgame non raiding players have grown accustom to gaining 10 ilvl every patch. That is a hard cycle to break without upsetting a majority of the player base. The only solution I can think of that make raiders happy without hurting what non raiders are accustomed to would be to make all raid gear 145 and make each raid set perfectly itemized so every class could be full 145. It's a terrible solution imo because it makes gear very uninteresting, but it would at least give something to raiders while having no impact on non-raiders.

BTW, I loved the coil model way more. More people were raiding on the coil model. I was able to survive the higher demands of savage, but I certainly never wanted this type of difficulty step up for so little step up in rewards.

[Kallera]

what good is making "exciting content" if its content you cannot experience? this is why crafting certain glamours was eased a bit, to provide a smooth method of progression. This is lacking in battle content. you could make an entire game past a savage tier, but it won't make it a good raiding design, as people will get resentful or lose interest as they get stuck with the same old formula, with the occasional jerk from the heavens griping in their df parties.

Don't get me wrong, I think raiding is improving from what its been. Its now easier for people to get in and we are seeing more interest. I am wondering about the next step though, instead of backtracking to something more innaccessible.

[Mycow8me]

I would go out on a limb and say the itemization is hurting player skill instead.

In ffxi you could literally go out and kill higher level mobs and even notorious monsters in average gear because stats on your gear did not determine what you were capable of. Instead they just enhanced or augmented your performance. You could easily find very skilled players using what they had available to them to fight hard bosses.

I remember when the cap was 75 and people were downing big bosses in their artifact armor which had meager stat bonuses at best.

In my opinion gear plays too much a role in your stats in this game. Leveling up should have played a much larger role. Ilvl disparity would have been alot less of a problem. You would not see someone at ilvl 230 while only being lvl 60 for example but even if that was still the case... If the level determined 70% of your stats and gear 30%... an ilvl 200 person would not be so drastically different from an ilvl230 in terms of capability towards a boss.

[RobbieH]

Don't get me wrong, I think raiding is improving from what its been. Its now easier for people to get in and we are seeing more interest.

You must not be talking about end-game raiding, because if you are you have no clue what's going on.

The raiding scene is smaller than it was during coil, the amounts of clears T13 vs A4S in the same amount of time is abysmal, Midas clears are better but still far from as much as coil, did people get bored of raiding or did they simply quit, or was it because it's harder than coil? All of them.

If you want i can provide numbers of end-game raiding clears.