More item drops in low-level dungeons

[Gunspec]

I've recently been helping a friend level some classes from scratch, and noticed something surprising. The speed at which players level-up these days far outpaces the rate at which they can naturally access decent gear. While leveling a tank from level 20-30, we only saw one piece of tanking gear drop. I've been supplementing my friend with crafted gear, but a single dungeon provides 2 or 3 level-ups, so she's burning through it about as fast as I can craft.

Now I'm thinking back to all the terrible tanks and healers I've encountered in leveling roulettes, and I understand why they were always wearing level 15 gear in a level 28 dungeon (and eating dirt on every pull).

It's natural for MMOs to speed up the leveling process as the game expands, but the experience shouldn't feel broken or inadequate, I should hope.

A solution I thought of would be to expand the gear rewards for class and job quests before level 50. Perhaps they could reward a chest with a full set of recommended gear, rather than the option of only one piece.

Has anyone else been leveling a fresh class recently with some suggestions?

[MistakeNot]

If you level up two (or even three if Road to 60 buff is active) classes at once (thus spreading the XP between them) and do all the sidequests that award gear in addition to the MSQ, you should be decently geared for instances

[Bacent]

Honestly for people now days it might just be easier to take what they get in a dungeon (Maybe more if they get someone to unsync them through it quickly), or just buy a couple items from vendors now and then when things start to fall behind. You get some gear at level 45/50 from your class quests, as well as a plethora of gear from quests as the 50 MSQ moves on.

[Ameela]

Well on your first job you don't have double exp gains so you'll be spending more time in dungeons getting gear, but to be honest below 50 there's like 0 excuse to not just go to a vendor and buy a set of NQ gear every 5 levels or so.

[Hasrat]

It feels even worse if you're doing more than just dungeon runs for exp. Every bit of quest exp, hunts, beast tribes, FATEs, challenge log, roulettes, means getting closer to outleveling the dungeon where you might get current gear.

Part of why I've barely even touched PotD. More exp when I could be running dungeons to gear up a little better? Ehhh.

The flip side of that argument is leveling gear doesn't even matter. Rush to 50 and get your Ironworks. Rush to 60 and get your Shire. Why waste time on anything else?

Idk. It would be nice to have gear be more abundant for anyone that feels like they need it. But it is also fair to say there's enough vendor gear available that is sufficient enough that they shouldn't change anything. After all, dungeon gear is typically more desirable than crafted/bought. Gotta hold down that supply to keep the demand up.

[Buzzwords]

quest hand out free gear though?

like granted dungeon gear is BETTER but you can keep current off basic free stuff that is peppered around everywhere, you just gotta look for it.

not to mention a lot of that bonus XP is not available for an actual new player. no armory, too late to get a mhigan earring, so they might get a friendship circlet, and hopefully they'll do hall of novice and get the ring.

so an actual new player will not have this "problem" as bad as a veteran would, and they'll have a bunch of free solutions all over the place anyway?

and then any veteran player should be able to dress themselves?

it seems like the issue here isn't "not enough gear" so much as it's "some people will always try to get away with the barest minimum"

if you find a way to patch human nature, lemme know.

[Gunspec]

so an actual new player will not have this "problem" as bad as a veteran would, and they'll have a bunch of free solutions all over the place anyway?

and then any veteran player should be able to dress themselves?

Ah, I suppose you're right there. Perhaps I've just been playing other games which tend to fling leveling sets of gear at newbies so liberally that it's felt out of place not having it in ffxiv. I haven't needed to gear a class lower than lv 30 since 2.5, so it's been strange to watch a friend deal with it.

For those recommending buying the NQ gear from vendor, do you think the gil earned is currently enough to support that type of expenditure? I remember when 2.0 launched that money always felt so tight, and those vendor items were always overpriced, but I realized the economy has changed since then.

[Ilan]

I mean SE could change the lower dungeons like they did later on, that you get a piece of gear for the class you play when the dungeon is finished. Otherwhise there is probably no need because a new player won't level as fast as someone that has already a max level character.

[sciondar]

I recently created a new character on a different server and just went to the vendor or market board for gear for my level as I was somehow outpacing the content for the most part. If I did manage to get a dungeon item I'd hang on to it for a similar class if I was already past its usefulness. They don't need to change anything further in my opinion from how it is now. There are plenty of ways to earn gil to afford the vendor gear and you can also get good gear from levequests. Again, just my opinion on this.

[Iscah]

I recently created a new character on a different server and just went to the vendor or market board for gear for my level as I was somehow outpacing the content for the most part.

The funny thing with "outpacing content" is that you don't actually have to keep yourself geared for your current level, just for the quests you're currently undertaking. If you're not pushing ahead with job quests or optional dungeons that can be unlocked according to your character level (eg. Qarn, Cutter's Cry, Darkhold, Aurum Vale) then you're going to be synched back down to story level for dungeons anyway.

Though some items can be very cheap on the marketboard if everyone gets them as job quest rewards, as you usually want to be equipped with that gear when you're doing the quest to begin with! In which case I tend to buy the cheap marketboard gear, do the quest, then sell the copy that I got as a reward.

Dungeon gear is nice because it tends to have better stats - eg. the Lv15 gear from the first dungeons or Hall of the Novice have the same stats as Lv23 vendor gear, and I think the Brayflox Lv32 gear lasts into the low 40s.



EDIT re. next post (so I don't hit my limit): I did forget about GC gear. Those are definitely good, although they can be a bit patchy as to whether they have all the gear pieces you need at a particular level.