Suggestion: NPCs providing dungeon gear from old expansions

[Ikelu]

The addition of a guaranteed gear drop for your class to leveling dungeons has been a boon for gathering gear for glamour purposes, but the same cannot be said for end-expansion dungeons.

Having run Matoya's Relict via the Duty Support system a painful amount in the last few days in pursuit of the chestpiece of Maiming, and having had similar experiences in the past with other non-leveling dungeons, I would like to suggest the following:

• Upon the end of an expansion (as in the next expansion is released), an NPC should be added to the primary city of the now-old expansion who offers dungeon gear from that expansion in exchange for Tomestones of Poetics.
• The gear offered should be only that which drops from end-expansion dungeons rather than leveling dungeons.
• In order to purchase gear from a specific dungeon, a player should have to complete that dungeon at least once to unlock the dungeon in the NPC's shop inventory. This will limit new players so they cannot purchase gear for a dungeon that they have not completed and prevent spoilers.
• The shop's inventory should be segregated by dungeon in order to prevent the item list from being too long.

For example:
Upon the release of Endwalker, an NPC is added to Eulmore. Players who have only just finished Amaurot for the ShB story will be unable to purchase gear from the NPC. Sections of the shop's inventory should unlock as they complete MSQ dungeons.

Players who have completed the ShB story and are ready to enter the Endwalker story should be able to access the NPC's shop inventory in its entirety and purchase dungeon-dropped gear from Matoya's Relict and other MSQ dungeons by default in exchange for Poetics as well as gear from optional dungeons if they've completed the relevant optional dungeon.

An alternative is to add the guaranteed-drop-for-class mechanic to non-leveling dungeons following the 'end' of an expansion and the release of the next expansion.

My reasons:

• Players who desire a piece of gear from a non-leveling dungeon are more likely to grind the dungeon via Duty Support than via the party finder, especially if the player is DPS or desires a DPS item, which means the current system does not reduce queue times for those dungeons by a substantial amount.
• Much of the gear available via non-leveling dungeons is exclusive in appearance or dye pattern, and cannot be obtained without being lucky or grinding the dungeon repeatedly.
• Adding this gear via poetics will not make gearing through an old expansion superficial for new players, as the end-expansion gear is already available via poetics.
• The glamour gear grind does not increase the current lifespan of a player's interest in the game. In fact, poor RNG experiences in the process can reduce a player's enthusiasm for the game via disappointment and the low but very real chance of never seeing the item drop.

[Iscah]

I have also considered a similar system.

An alternative to poetics could be making it a gil sink, pricing the gear fairly high compared to normal NPC shop prices for levelling gear.

Or to keep people running the dungeons, make a token system with a specific token type per expansion, perhaps locked to only being received if you run the dungeon synched. (This would also create some additional motivation for people to do the 50/60/etc roulette.)

[Ikelu]

The housing market is an incredibly effective gil sink, and most players have under 2m to their name, in my experience. There are a select minority who are filthy rich, but they're rare and would be virtually unaffected by the addition of a glamour gil sink.

Meanwhile, if I'm not picking up a new class to level, I'm generally sitting on 2k poetics.

There are a lot of tokens already in the game and we get a few new ones every expansion. It's begun to really add up. A single new token for this purpose per expansion could work, but I don't think it's the ideal solution.

[Kes13a]

wouldnt that basically remove any replayability from those dungeons?

[Ikelu]

Not necessarily. Most people, when aiming for glamour, are running dungeons via the Duty Support system anyway, so they don't influence the queue times. The dungeons are also available via the 50/60/70/80 roulette.
This is also an unpleasant means of replayability.

[Kes13a]

never run any dungeon via the duty support system for any glam I wanted or needed. so your assessment of "most people" may be inaccurate, since most people I know, just queue for the dungeon until they get it.

not saying its a good or bad idea, but it could have a mass negative effect on roulettes.

[Arzalis]

They really should add the guaranteed role armor drops from dungeons for dungeons that aren't max level. It seems strange to me they don't have them for 50/60/70/80.

I understand the logic for current max level, but old max level dungeons are now technically leveling dungeons too.

[Xirean]

I'd be down for a form of this system. Obviously there are ways to tweak it but the general concept I like. +1

[Ikelu]

never run any dungeon via the duty support system for any glam I wanted or needed. so your assessment of "most people" may be inaccurate, since most people I know, just queue for the dungeon until they get it.

not saying its a good or bad idea, but it could have a mass negative effect on roulettes.

That's fair! I don't think it would have any big negative effect on roulettes in either case, but it's something worth considering.

As mentioned in my original post, the option of simply adding the guaranteed drop for your class to old end-expansion dungeons is a great alternative.