Gearing Systems need a revamp.

[Anonicat]

Exactly, you know the bean counters above YoshiP would totally be woken up if he removed time-gating when it's this early in the expansion.

You can get one role to best-in-slot within two months, that's how they want it. Anything more is up to luck and how early you clear the tier.

People got used to 900 tomes when there was no content for almost a year, but that's what they always do at the end.

This is a not so great argument. At that point. You know what they should do? Find a way to keep story players subbed. That might add a great deal of revenue. Considering the queue times are in double digits and not the thousands. Why can they time gate raiders, but not story players, all for the reason of money? Seems a bit far fetched.

[Anonicat]

In that case, unless you reduce the value of each drop, such as by turning it from a direct/whole piece of loot to a mere partial piece (i.e., via currency), see the comment below.


Design decisions for separate entries under a parent company are made according to the revenue model of the company itself, not the parent company as a whole.

My point, moreover, was simply that it's not worth hoping that they will design out any and all time-gating, a backbone of subscription-based MMOs. That they have plenty of whales on the side does little to change that.

[/QUOTE]

Right but do you not see how counter intuitive that is. They are timegating a smaller percentage of players (Raiders), and not the majority of players. If i was a business and wanted to keep most of the players subbed... Timegating Raiders would not be the way to go about it, while i lose a majority of players that play for story/rp.

And to counter forseeable argument. "They do timegate story in patches." Fam. I can unsub wait til end of expansion. Resub, clear the story content. Pay 15 dollars instead of the (5 x $15) story updates.

[Shurrikhan]

Right but do you not see how counter intuitive that is. They are timegating a smaller percentage of players (Raiders), and not the majority of players. If i was a business and wanted to keep most of the players subbed... Timegating Raiders would not be the way to go about it, while i lose a majority of players that play for story/rp.

How is it counterintuitive, in the interest of maintaining subscriptions, to time-gate elements which will affect at equivalent proportion those for whom, by typically having narrower interests, make use of proportionately less other content?

Such is simply a matter of maintaining with X resource both those with a broader span of interests, and who therefore make greater use of resources spent, and those who have narrower interests, and would therefore otherwise be less efficient to design for or would force development towards similarly narrow paths.

[Duskane]

I feel weekly cap should be 500-600(900 is excessive early on) instead of 450
450 is just this awkward spot 500/600 would be a little more comfier to gear up and would be less dead weeks when you gotta save.

[Havenchild]

BiS means nothing because the developers have made it mean nothing with how quickly it is invalidated. Please re-read the post. I said i like to play the game at a high level. Push numbers to the absolute max on any job. Which includes BIS Gear. If it's confusing please give it another read. And not once in my post did i say, I needed BIS gear to get into savage. Re-read the post. Re-read the post. I've cleared the tier. In less than a month. I find the game extremely punishing to play for how I want to play. If i leave now. They aren't getting the 2 months of subscription that people say it takes to get bis on a character. Those points are mute.

BIS Gear is obtained.. but literally invalidated the second the next tier comes out. They could easily balance crafted gear to be equal in ILVL. Don't tell me they can't. Cause tbh as soon as BIS is invalidated its practically a waste of time. Especially if there isnt content requiring BIS to do like Ultimates.

Crafted gear can give set of stats allowing people to min max, and change gear on a whim for themselves.

Again the post never said. I NEED BIS BEFORE ENTERING SAVAGE. I DONT. . I've cleared the tier.

Just make the crafted gear equal to the BIS gear. What is so hard to understand. Who cares if I achieve BIS too quickly. Again. Do you know how fast someone can gear a main character if they do split raids, and have set statics.

Incorrect. In the current system, technically BIS is meant to be used for something like the next Extreme encounter which will require players to push their DPS to the absolute to clear (when initially introduced). More of this content perhaps could be introduced but that is largely unfair comparatively to the playerbase as a whole which rarely profits from this. Balancing crafted to current ilvl is a TERRIBLE idea and literally invalidates the gearing aspect and the simplest parts of progression gearing FFXIV even has atm. 580 Crafted Pentamelded is objectively better than almost ANY single piece of 580 Limbo gear that's not literally destroyed by a terrible substat combo. Doing this kills the raiding scene because it robs it of the one element it encompasses outside of "challenging content". Understand however, I am NOT against another "gearing" divergence. Something outside of raiding maybe or perhaps just another 4 tiers that offer different raids to provide some cross layer substat optimization but thats technically what places like Zadnor/Bozja/Eureka should be and these should arrive with the raid IMO. Crafting should NOT afford us these top end maximizations.

Now could they update the gearing system overall? Perhaps. They can definitely DO more things, adding certain set bonuses for example could definitely add a flavor to gearing that adds a new layer to the current system. However, whatever they do implement, needs to be carefully evaluated because this game and community can definitely be antagonistic especially when it comes to DPS. Meaning individuals will absolutely be judged by the "types" of gearing they have.

The only thing I personally believe needs to be changed, that would be easier to implement, are Tomes. I do agree that 450 tomes is very limiting considering how many classes exist and the mindset of the PC being able to be "all on one". I would be in favor of an additional tome, splitting into three categories of Tank, Healer, DPS, which is accumulated on the side as you "play" those particular roles that can be exchanged for the same level gear at a higher cost.

For example, a ring costs 375 Astronomy right now, but with this secondary tome, for an amount of 750 role specific tomes, you could also buy a ring. This secondary tome does not need to capped or it could be capped at 2k weekly. Whichever balances better.

It would speed up gearing, while also encouraging players to play other roles.

[Nezerius]

BiS means nothing because the developers have made it mean nothing with how quickly it is invalidated. Please re-read the post. I said i like to play the game at a high level. Push numbers to the absolute max on any job. Which includes BIS Gear. If it's confusing please give it another read. And not once in my post did i say, I needed BIS gear to get into savage. Re-read the post. Re-read the post. I've cleared the tier. In less than a month. I find the game extremely punishing to play for how I want to play. If i leave now. They aren't getting the 2 months of subscription that people say it takes to get bis on a character. Those points are mute.

It'd help to structure your post in such a way that makes it clear what you're trying to say, instead of jumping from "The progress is rewarding in itself" to "I want BiS on my alts" to "Books being invalidated too fast" to "Gear gets invalidated too fast" to "Let me get tomes faster because I want BiS faster" (that you wouldn't even be able to augment anyway, because you need coatings/twines/roborants).

Again the post never said. I NEED BIS BEFORE ENTERING SAVAGE. I DONT. . I've cleared the tier.

Exactly. You don't need BiS before entering Savage. Yet you're making it sound like the game is "punishing" you by making gearing "abysmally slow", despite the fact that you're clearly capable of clearing savage wearing a full crafted set. So what's stopping you from learning the fights on other roles using that?

Just make the crafted gear equal to the BIS gear. What is so hard to understand. Who cares if I achieve BIS too quickly. Again. Do you know how fast someone can gear a main character if they do split raids, and have set statics.

So you basically have no solution to make crafted gear not be completely pointless for most players.
I agree that something should be done about making BiS gear meaningful, but all of your solutions range from "Pointless" to "Might work with some adjustments".

[Wolwosh]

I actually like how the gearing works in 14.
I feel like Savage and 14 in general is meant to be approached casually, so I really don't get why so many people in this game feel the need to clear the tier in 2 days and rush through everything else in this game, and then complain about it the day after.
I think even if they would improve on some things you mentioned, you would still get burned out of 14 incredibly quick if you approach things with a hardcore I want everything immediatly mentality in this game.

[Slayer25c]

U don't need to be fully gear do anything in this game so no they don't need to make it easier for u gear up

[Kolsykol]

So you basically have no solution to make crafted gear not be completely pointless for most players.
I agree that something should be done about making BiS gear meaningful, but all of your solutions range from "Pointless" to "Might work with some adjustments".

Crafted gear wouldn't be useless even if you geared faster.
It's still pre-Savage BiS.
I don't really think there's necessarily '' alts '', one of the core features of this game is supposed to be that you can play all Jobs on one character and the way gearing works does contradict that.

U don't need to be fully gear do anything in this game so no they don't need to make it easier for u gear up

Trying to make it about '' oh well you don't NEED the gear to do the content '' is a bit silly too imo, very few things enter the territory of '' NEED ''.
You don't NEED food buffs either but most people still expect you to have it because whether something is '' NEEDED '' isn't how we actually judge these things in reality.

Edit: Also no one is really asking for it to be easier what people are asking for is for it to be less tedious and to be able to gear up and play different Jobs.
You still have to clear the content so how exactly is it easier?
If you've cleared all four floors then you've cleared them and you still need to clear them for the gear.
Something being tedious doesn't mean it's difficult.

[Thoosa]

Yes they should increase the cap, but I’d argue it’s a bigger issue - there’s very little motivation to get tomes gear:

99% of content can be cleared with crafted gear, even savage, with the exception of Ultimate. The only reason to have crafted gear for savage is to kill the boss faster/possibly skip some mechs and when PF uses ilevel as a filter later in the tier’s cycle. Once you clear a savage fight you get a chance to win savage gear and this is heavy rng, so you could not get anything you need for weeks.

If you’re the majority of the player base who just does casual battle content, there is literally no reason to even bother with tome gear, it is just a grind to keep roulettes populated - there’s no sense of power progression - especially since when the next major release comes out, all the tomes and savage gear previously earned is obsolete and becomes glamour as a result of the new crafted gear superseding it.

Imo 14 really needs some kind of content that gives you an incentive to get better gear, that is accessible, that can be done without lots of coordination and can be run quickly (like M+) and is another avenue for better gear (other than savage) so there’s a sense of achievement and character progression.

It’s lucky that this game is held together by the Mogstationers, the people who like to glam, the housing owners, the (e)rp’ers, the afk’ers and the crafters, because otherwise I think it would have gone long ago - I doubt the 10% who do savage and ultimate would have justified the servers running if it were them alone.