Endgame Content, Competitive Atmosphere

[MeowyWowie]

I support this thread.

What I’m worried about though, is the motivation to go through this much content.

If I break down MeowyWowie’s post and add other current and future content with possible gear rewards:
NM’s
Strongholds
Hamlet Defense
Caravan Security
Quests (artifact armor)
Company Quests
Company Leves
Faction Leves
Treasure Maps
Instanced raids (current x2 + x2 in 1.21)
New dungeons for all disciplines (taken from 2.0 outlines)
Large-scale PvE (Battles againt dragons to defend Ishgard)
Mounted Content
Instanced fights (Ifrit, Moogle, Garuda, Garlean Empire Legatus)
Crystal Tower
Labyrinth
Wandering Odin
Items from achievements
Crafting and Materia

That makes a lot of content to gear 6 slots + weapon + accessories per class/job.

They either need to link multiple content to the same gear reward system, and/or find a way to make multiple gear sets useful since SE, and a good share of the community (as seen in previous threads), doesn’t want gear swap.

That’s even more problematic since everything is set to be achievable by playing casually, making each best in slot gear easy to get, eliminating “second best” gear.

There’s also the fact that leveling up a class to 50 is so quick and easy that mid-level content and gear is almost useless too, eliminating another opportunity for meaningful rewards.

I don’t think SE can afford to create inefficient content. And personally, I’m not really interested to invest my time on gear that will go to waste every 3 months. There’s almost no point in min-maxing with this kind of thinking, which is sad because it’s one of the best part of playing a MMO (for me at least). I’d rather work toward long term rewards that will last.

That’s why I think they have to link multiple content to the same gear systems. Company seals rewards can be an interesting avenue they can continue to develop on (it can be Hamlet Defenses rewards for example).

Make materials drop instead of gear from upper tier of NMs is another interesting concept to make them last, useful and more numerous (which would also bring competitiveness).

Finally, it’s even more complicated to make multiple gear sets useful without gear swapping, so they’ll have to get creative there.

I can understand where you're coming from. But for every problem there is a solution. It all depends on how the content and rewards are implemented. All of this can be solved without the need of a gear swap system.

Let's start with taking into account that level cap raises will only come every ~2 years, as previously stated by SE. By the release of 2.0 I would expect the level cap to be at least 60, maybe even 65, but let's just say 60 for the sake of argument. This will likely remain the cap until the next expansion (1-2 years). This is of course assuming 2.0 will be an expansion itself.

Overall, the majority of the long term content will likely come from the initial release of 2.0 (hopefully), while the patches between expansions will likely just add smaller scale content along with UI, balance and system adjustments. In order to keep all of the current content relevant to the current level cap no content should overshadow another type of content of the same caliber. Instead, they should be made to compliment each other. There are a number of ways to do this, all of which could be done simultaneously.

First, each form of content should contain rewards exclusive to that content alone. These should not be plentiful, a few unique pieces is enough. Certain forms of content may be more beneficial to certain classes instead of offering BiS rewards for all classes. However, the majority of the rewards should have an alternative form of content where they can be acquired if one is not able to participate in one type of content regularly for whatever reason.

Second, each class/job should be open to various gear builds. Some PLDs may prefer enmity and defense sets over Defense and HP sets, while some MRDs/WARs might favor a critical rate/damage+ set over an ATT+ set. Each set should be as equal as possible to each other in overall effectiveness and should be the sole decision of a person's playstyle. It should be balanced so that a player can choose to go for only one type of build and be effective in all circumstances compared to players using a different build. I understand that balancing this can be difficult, but it's not impossible.

Third, different content should be made to compliment each other by offering rewards that enhance the rewards from another type of content. An example of this could be seen in FFXI's AF quests and Limbus's AF-1 items. Doing this can drastically lessen the actual amount of gear available from all of the content as a whole, but still keep all of the content worthwhile.

Overall, their goal should be to allow any type of player to get very good rewards by doing only the content they enjoy. But, if a player wishes to have the best of the best for 1 specific class, they would need to do multiple forms of content to obtain it all. And lastly, if someone wishes to get the best possible rewards for all classes, they would have to do all forms of content.

This works out well for all types of players. Casuals that prefer to use pick up groups to complete content, be it through shouting or using the auto-group feature slated for future release, are free to do only the content they wish and be rewarded for it. Dedicated endgame Linkshells on the other hand will have a reason to do all forms of content to make their Linkshell grow as a whole.

In the end, all forms of content made for a specific level cap should remain worthwhile until that level cap changes. If new content is added before the cap is raised, it is important that it does not completely overshadow another form of content designed for the same level cap. If anything, it should compliment it.