Quote Originally Posted by Floortank View Post
The maze of tomestone vendors, wondrous sundries, and upgrade items is unreasonably complex for people trying to rush to end game.
Ehhh. This kinda mostly applies to players already at level cap, and therefore thread topic doesn't really apply. Preeetttyyy sure new players can stroll right into Mor Dhona at any time and get their Ironworks. Augmenting it may be a confusing step, but i120 isn't too hard to stumble upon. Kinda the same with Idyllshire. Once you get there, the big obvious prominent main building (conveniently named/run by someone players should be familiar with from previous) isn't too hard to navigate for their Shire gear. Again, augmenting might take some hunting down, but it's a good start.

SB is the first instance of those end game shops not even being available until you've finished the base story quests. And sure, all the various types of gear all scattered 'round will likely be confusing, where to start, where to start. But, again, that's kinda beyond the scope of the thread. By the time the player has reached that point, they've already passed all the content that needed the minimum ilvl.

Quote Originally Posted by linay View Post
There just seems to be a lack of accessories at certain levels unless you go the crafted route or you get lucky with dungeon drops. That said, the situation is much better with Stormblood (and maybe Heavensward?) dungeons, since you get guaranteed drops, including accessories. So maybe just for ARR at least.
ARR is just really awkward pacing for gear in general prolly. Especially with optional dungeons often having the best you'll find. I don't even think it's limited to accessories. There's just weird gaps when bits of gear just don't have a new upgrade with each dungeon. Which isn't too unreasonable. It's one thing to have gear sets for the small handful of dungeons each expansion/patch. Full sets for every ARR dungeon is asking a lot. Added bonus of aetherial gear which may or may not be any better than others. Also, ARR has GC gear, which, to the previous point, may not be somewhere players initially expect/think to check for upgrades, and they are, again, not really full sets with awkward leveling.