A case of chronic gear imbalance

[Spayd]

I don't know for lurkers, but to me this thread is infuriating to read because of OP's close-minded ''I'm right, you're wrong no matter what argument you say'' mindset. 8 Pages of multiple players, raiders and non-raiders, desperately trying to explain op, and no progress has been made. Unless people want to argue for the sake of arguing, I feel like this thread is getting to Troll lvl, and I suggest we abandon this thread and just let OP deal with it. The game has been like that since 2.2, and no changes has been made, and I'm pretty sure it'll stay the same for the future. So either accept a new point of view and live happily, or keep it to yourself and stop leading the thread nowhere op.

#LetThisThreadDieAlreadyPlz

EDIT: I figured that some people wouldn't like my post saying it doesn't contribute or anything, so I decided to do some number crunching and all to try to prove the point that Raiders deserves a higher ilvl gear and that they actually grind more than non-raiders, so here it goes. Most of the Data such as Expert dungeon average clear time, Alexander savage cleartime/turns and such are data taken from FFlogs and have been set to represent the majority of players. The only data not from this site is from my own raid group that's been compiling data for our progression that I will use to represent raiders that are a bit better than average raiders to make sure it isn't cherry picking the worst case scenarios.

Expert dungeon average clear time: 14:50.
Weekly cap: 450
1 Expert roulette/day(90 script): 5 needed to get capped weekly.
14:50 X5 = 1 hours 14 minutes and 50 seconds ish (Round up to 1h15m)
Spamming Expert dungeon on reset day(90 for roulette, 50 for regular): 8 needed to get capped weekly
14:50 X8 = 1 hour 58 minutes and 40 seconds ish (Round up to 2h)

Amount of Scripture required to fully gear a job with it: 5010 (Excluding Weapon)
Amount of time to get that amount: 5010 divided by 450 = 11.13 (round up to 12)

1 Expert roulette/day method: 1h15 X 12 = 15 hours until 5010 scriptures is reached
Spamming expert dungeon until Cap method: 2h X 12 = 24 hours until 5010 scriptures is reached

Consensus: To gear up a character with scripture only, doing the average time on each dungeon run
it will take a minimum of 15 hours of dungeon and a maximum of 24 hours of dungeon until you hit
the ceiling for that actual job.

Total amount of dungeons for 1 expert a day: 60
Total amount of dungeons for spamming method: 96

Comparison with raiders
For this section I will use my raid group progression for number crunching. My raid group isn't the worst out there, but definitely is not the best one. We are a little bit above average.

For my raid group to clear Alexander: The Creator it took us 47 hours of progression. I'm going to break this 47 hours
into turns:
A9S took us 3 hours 25 minutes
A10S took us 5 hours
A11S took us 17 hours 45 minutes
A12S took us 20 hours 50 minutes
We started raiding this raid tier around September 27th and we cleared A12S November 8th. That's 7 weeks of progression.
Now if we compare that to the amount of time it takes someone to get geared up exclusively from scripture, that's ALMOST twice the amount of time invested in half the amount given at the maximum window given for the spamming method (47 hours in 7 weeks VS 24 hours in 12 weeks).

Now that I have proven that we spent actual more time to progression then your "grinding" for scripture, Alexander Gear Drops is absolutely random. While you can guarantee some pieces with your Scriptures and plan it several week at once, Alexander Gear being random means that raiders need to constantly rework their buying order to maintain stat balance to keep the job playable in raid content.

But that amount of time isn't the only amount of time raiders spends into this game. Most Raiders strives for BiS which is a mix of Raid gear and
Currency Gear, which means that raiders also have to "grind" expert dungeons. For the sake of numbers, lets say we cleared A12S at the beginning of the week,
clearing Alexander for the week gives you 120 Scriptures.

Lets see at the average clear time for all fight and add up to see what is the average time to clear alexander creator ASSUMING every single turn doesn't wipe.
A9S (Including Faust Z): 5:43
A10S: 7:32
A11S: 10:00
A12S: 10:35
Total time: 34 minutes for 120 scriptures.
Lets get back at the weekly cap now. 450-120= 330 Scriptures left until weekly cap. For the rest we can go back to the methods I mentionned earlier to cap;
1 Expert roulette/day method or the Spamming expert dungeon method. We just need to adjust the amount of runs needed and fix the amount of time a raider that cleared A12s spends
to cap.

1 Expert roulette/day(90 script): 3.6 -> 4 runs needed to get capped weekly.
Spamming Expert dungeon on reset day(90 for roulette, 50 for regular): 4.8 -> 5 runs needed to get capped weekly

14:50 X 4 = 59 minute and 20 second ish -> 1 hours
14:50 X 5 = 1 hours 14 minutes and 50 seconds -> 1h15m

1h+34m= 1h34 minutes for 1 expert a day til cap
1h15m+34m= 1h49 minutes for spamming method til cap

So depending on the method we use to cap, Raiders can be putting more time to cap weekly, or less. But again, that was assuming clearing Alexander went without any trouble, which is, by experience, something that doesn't happen that often. Yes one shot will happens sometime, but it is not something constent unless you are a top player, or a machine. Most of the time, it takes around between 2 and 4 tries to clear the later fights such as 11s and 12s. So I think it's safe to say that per week if both the raider and the non-raider decides to go for the shorter method (1 expert a day), the former spends more time at capping than the latter.

So does a non-raider grinds more than a raider, from what I've seen, no. A Raider spends more time progressing through alexander savage than it takes a non-raider to fully gear up to the best gear available to them. I think it's safe to say that raiders deserve and should have better gear than non-raiders, if only for the fact that they invest more actual play time and are tackling the most challenging fights available in the game up to date.

Also please mind that the progression numbers I gave for raiders is based on my raid group, which is not the just an average group, but not the best either. The majority of raid groups out there haven't cleared Alexander savage yet I believe so the disparity between the amount of time a raider and a non-raider increases as time goes on, the raider continuously putting more effort into clearing Alexander savage than the non-raider takes gearing up a class.

If this doesn't convince you, then please by all mean try to prove me wrong with some actual numbers, or if someone notice an error in my calculations, please feel free to point them out!

On this, I hope it changed your point of view on the matter, if not, I highly suggest this thread dies for real.

[Cordie]

… close-minded ''I'm right, you're wrong no matter what argument you say'' mindset. […]

Asking to put or keep others at a disadvantage because they are others is not much of an argument, much less is it fit for a thread prompting for a rectification of the current model.
I would, naturally, not expect any feedback from raiders, yet all I got was a nonsensical “grinding for-10ilvls is so freaking better than our i270” and the like. If anything, their RNG for loot could be improved in one way or another, but instead of asking for that in an appropriate thread they chose to “crash” another one, completely irrelevant to their own problem.

The game has been like that since 2.2 […]

Thus, it must stay like this, because.
And feedback must not be given, because.

EDIT: saw your update; you mention gearing up with tomes, but it is to a low ilvl, and through a casual grind, at most, as you pointed out. What I'm proposing is for more, on both counts.
For instance, mixing the tomestones with some weekly ex primals or PotD tokens, would be very close to an "enhanced" grindy part I'd like to see lead to i270 instead of i260.
Hope this clarifies my thoughts a bit.

[Spayd]

I would, naturally, not expect any feedback from raiders, yet all I got was a nonsensical “grinding for-10ilvls is so freaking better than our i270” and the like. If anything, their RNG for loot could be improved in one way or another, but instead of asking for that in an appropriate thread they chose to “crash” another one, completely irrelevant to their own problem.

Thus, it must stay like this, because.
And feedback must not be given, because.

I edited my last post I think at the same time you posted yours, I invite you to read it, I decided to give a bit more objective point of view to it and hopefully this can answer first question. As for the second question, it is not the fact that feedback must not be given, it's the fact that a feedback can, in my opinion, be wrong, and people must accept that sometime it's wrong. I can understand not seeing why we're being wrong, but we must be able to question our own point of view on things, even more when there's a high quantity of people trying to explain something as to why things are like that. This thread has been leading nowhere since page 1 I feel, hence why I believe theres some close mindedness going on. A Stalling thread should just disappear if theres not any evolution to the conversation after a couple of pages imo.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Alright, so let's say everyone could get 270 right away. Even non raiders by just bringing tomes.

What's the incentive to raid anymore? Why would someone bother forming or finding a static, setting times to get 7 other people together and raid for 3-4 hours?
It would kill raiding. No one would bother running it.
I sure as heck wouldn't bother running savage. I'd stop at normal and go grind for gear and savage would have been created for nothing. There would be nothing for endgame raider to do.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Asking to put or keep others at a disadvantage

What, exactly, content do you see the i10 ilevel disparity crippling you in?

For that matter, what part of "its a reward for tackling the hardest content in the game" do you find disagreeable? As I've pointed out, the reward is only time-limited, as well, because the second part of the cycle is providing access to the upgrade items for non-savage raiders.

Grinding takes more effort. Though Spayd's post puts that in doubt. Raiding takes a combination of two things : more luck, and more skill. Why shouldn't they reward those things with better gear than what is otherwise available, if only for a limited period of time? As you've pointed out, they don't need i270 to tackle savage - which means, by the way, you do not need it either.. So, why should SE change their established formula, one that everyone knows and expects, to suit your whim?

[Cordie]

What, exactly, content do you see the i10 ilevel disparity crippling you in?

All content after 3.1, except PotD.

For that matter, what part of "its a reward for tackling the hardest content in the game" do you find disagreeable?[...]

Did I even suggest reducing the reward? *facepalm*

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Relatively speaking, YES YOU DID. Or did you ignore Exiled_Tonberry's post?

And how do you go from "i270 is not needed for raiding" to "not having i270 is crippling my ability to do the content"?

[Spayd]

EDIT: saw your update; you mention gearing up with tomes, but it is to a low ilvl, and through a casual grind, at most, as you pointed out. What I'm proposing is for more, on both counts.
For instance, mixing the tomestones with some weekly ex primals or PotD tokens, would be very close to an "enhanced" grindy part I'd like to see lead to i270 instead of i260.
Hope this clarifies my thoughts a bit.

Took me a while to notice your edit also oopsie ahah. From the reading I've been doing in the previous pages, the way I've seen your point was that raiders and non-raiders should have the highest ilvl without changing anything, as in currency tome would give you max ilvl gear right off the bat and that's what was bothering me the most really. If what you suggest is an alternative way to get i270 gear through effort equivalent, and only equivalent or more to raiding, than I guess I'm open to the idea. If it is not as time consuming and effort equivalent as raiding, then it could destroy the raiding scene easily as a lot of people mentioned earlier, completely rendering said raid useless. If anything, I believe that that option getting 270 gear outside of raid should be more time consuming than raiding because the degree of difficulty won't be the same, as Raid is designed to be the hardest difficulty, and time-consuming content is not even near the degree of difficulty of right. The hardest thing is finding balance between the way of acquiring the same rank of gear and not making one or the other completely obsolete to even try. I think it would be as hard as tuning fights in a raid tier to have a certain difficulty because it's not something that is easily observable.

I believe the easy way out is the system that is currently in place, as the non-raiders get eventually their 270 on odd numbered patches. While on the even numbered patches raiders are required skills and hardship to win their gear and clear the content, before and during the odd numbered patches it is required from non-raiders to have patience.

I just think that one shouldn't underestimate the hard times raiders go through trying to clear content and call it just instant gratification reward as if it wasn't really something they deserved. For having experienced all the raid tiers in this game, I can say that I've seen raid groups be destroyed by said content (best example is a3s before it was nerfed/echoed. Fight was literally called the Static Killer because of it's difficulty). If you can keep that in mind, you can understand why so many people are arguing against you, and why most people do think that raiders deserves higher ilvl gear for at least a patch than those who doesn't raid. Raiders puts mind and body to get that gear, and saying that they shouldn't be rewarded for it is spitting on their passion I believe.

And I think I'm speaking for all raiders when saying that we don't mind non-raiders having same ilvl gear as we do, but I think all we are asking for is letting us having that small moment of glory where its impressive to be fully geared and showing off all the raid gear we got through hours of grinding and wiping on fights. All raiders are asking of non-raider is patience I believe! But that's just my opinion, and I can also understand yours.

[Cordie]

@Cordie[...]

I didnt miss it! edited my reply, right after it! BTW, you neednt have gone into all this... I feel bad :/ Just about a methodology thingy: from fflogs, I'm getting a median of 14:45 for Library, 15:57 for Xelphatol.

[...]

Sorry Exiled_Tonberry, didnt see your post. The raid gear would still be there, and they are different items, both in looks and stats. + mount

Relatively speaking, YES YOU DID. Or did you ignore Exiled_Tonberry's post?

Didnt see it - addressed that.

And how do you go from "i270 is not needed for raiding" to "not having i270 is crippling my ability to do the content"?

Did I say raiders aren't crippled before their first loot drops? Check for logical validity before posting pls.

[Spayd]

I didnt miss it! edited my reply, right after it! BTW, you neednt have gone into all this... I feel bad :/ Just about a methodology thingy: from fflogs, I'm getting a median of 14:45 for Library, 15:57 for Xelphatol.

Yeah I noticed you edited, so i deleted my previous post saying you didnt answer and did another one hehe. As for dungeons, i used the 60th percentile, which is I believe the most accurate timing for both of them, but using your numbers would just raise the average timing around 15.5 so 15 minutes 30 seconds, not too far from my results if you dont mind being not being pinpoint accurate, but roughly in the same area. I guess it could adds up giving a couple more minutes, but nothing too big to actually make a huge difference. It'd end up changing the end result by adding maybe 30 minutes or so.

And don't feel bad about it, I had some fun doing it too, would just have been sad if it was completely ignored. If it can make the discussion progress through, it's nothing to feel bad about! I also hope you noticed the post I sent after realizing you edited your post too in time! I'm curious to see your point of view on it too! Thank you!