I've had a similar idea to your tomestone gear suggestion but never posted it. Low expectations, I suppose. The general idea is to add a new currency to the challenge log tasks, call them wolf medallions or whatever, and use them as an alternative currency for the weekly capped tomestone gear. However, only allow this in the odd numbered catch up patches. For even numbered patches, add the tomestone upgrade items for the previous tier. This gives alternative ways to catch up to the base line or another way to gear up alt jobs after the current raid progression tier has started to cool off. And hopefully avoids stepping on the toes of PVE purists or pressuring them into PVP.

As an example, lets say 4.2 added the upgrade items from Deltascape & Rabanastre. While 4.3 would allow you to purchase tomestone gear for mendacity equipment. 4.4 would then allow you to purchase the upgrade items from Sigmascape & Ridoran.

I'll try to clearly lay out my thoughts on this system.

Benefits
  • No or minimal new art assets required.
  • Encourages participation in frontlines, astralagos & the feast.
  • Incentivizes actually trying to win, but also gives a few rewards just for participating.
  • Maintains a weekly limit due to the challenge log so people can't, or won't, excessively grind.
  • Focuses on helping people catch up instead of replacing the current progression method, something this game leans heavily on already.
  • May potentially help revitalize interest in other content due to people using this method to gear up alternate jobs.


Drawbacks
  • A cycling of the currency type every 2 patches, similar to tomestones, would be required so people don't stockpile resources for the next item tier.
  • Tomestone gear can be upgraded, unlike 24man raid or crafted gear traditionally used in catch up patches. You'll still be running those alliance raids for upgrade tokens and even more gear though.
  • Some people may feel pressured into doing PVP so they can gear up faster.
  • Some people might get frustrated trying to chase challenge log wins, but keep losing and potentially missing out on a reward.
  • Doesn't really address feast reward issues other than potentially increasing the amount of low ranked players participating.
  • S-E probably sees this as double dipping on tomestone gear and acquiring it too quickly, which may be some kind of game design heresy to them.

I know a lot of people got into PVP as an alternative way to get tomestones because they were so sick of the constant expert roulette routine. My hope is a system like this could make PVP more worthwhile and also increase interest in it.