Would you run daily challenge dungeons?

[Eli85]

Higher item level gear as a reward would probably not disrupt game balance if we assume that a lot of players don't want to or aren't able to complete challenging 4 mans. The materia slots were a way to offer more horizontal progression but maybe there are other ways to achieve that. Superior materia VII drops? Everyone from the casual player to the savage raider could use them or make a profit of them on the MB, but I'm not sure if people would like the idea of having hard dungeons be the only source for the best materia.

Assuming that challenging 4-mans is wipeable content for PUGs, there would be no disruption of game balance if the iLevel was set between normal and savage raids. I mean, outside of the first week, wipes are rare on normal mode anyway, and it's essentially a shut your brain off farm.

The problem with your proposed horizontal progression alternative, is that you're offering horizontal progression on incredibly disposable gear. It's a complete waste of time, because outside of fresh capped characters, very few players even equip latest dungeon gear. Alternatively, if the rewards were equivalent in iLevel to normal mode raids, then that is something to talk about (and, given my previous point, if you can wipe in this challenging 4-man content, balance is fine). As for superior materia VII drops, it would really depend on what the +stat number is. This game does a really bad job of making materia worthwhile. Of course you equip it because it's better than 0, but your materia choices—barring going all VIT to survive savage mechanics at low gear levels—are largely irrelevant to your performance. So the number for the superior materia would have to be quite large for it to be a consideration for me.

My basic point, however, is this: if challenging 4-man content can be wiped on, then the gear needs to be above content that is very hard to wipe on (normal mode raids, 24-player raids). Otherwise, what's the point? May as well save yourself a headache and do the content that is difficult to wipe on, past the first week.