Should EW's way of obtaining AF gear be standardized to older and newer expansions?

[Momo_Kozuki]

tl;dr: Read the title.



How we get our AF gear at present:


1) ARR: free from job quests, both lv45-50 or lv50 advanced one (more details but undyeable).
-For default lv45-50, you can re-obtain them via a NPC with some gils. You can put them into Armoire too.

-For dyeable lv45-50, you need to trade them with currencies from crafters/market.

-For lv50 one in case of re-obtaining, you need to farm some lv50 dungeons to get corresponding antique currencies
Verdict: kinda a pain if you want to get dyeable lv45-50 or re-obtain the lv50 one.



2) HW: free dyeable lv60 AF from job quests.

-To re-obtain them, you have to collect Centurio seals from HW and SB hunts. They are harder to come by than Kupo nuts due to lack of organized hunt trains and you're pretty much on your own if you delete the gear. With two sets of daily and weekly hunts in HW and SB, it requires some patience.

Verdict: Kinda a pain to reobtain.



3) SB: free non-dyeable lv70 AF from job quests.
-To re-obtain, you trade for gil at NPC
-To get the dyeable version, you have to engage Eureka and have to do Notorious hunts to get the right currencies in the first two areas.

Verdict: Mega Pain cuz how the NM hunt works. If you play off prime time, it is kinda hard to progress, at least in Elemental.



4) ShB: free non-dyeable lv80 AF near the end of the 5.0 MSQ. Require role quest completed to unlock for all classes of the same role.
-To re-obtain, just talk to NPC. Zero gil asked.
-To get dyeable version, it requires to do an extreme raid lv80. You need to complete the lv70 24-man raid series to get to this raid. Now with EW you can do it unsync at lv90 gear to get currencies in combination with card/mount farming.
Verdict: Extreme Pain. I'm not sure why gating dyeable version of AF behind an extreme raid, which is gated in another raid series, was thought as a good idea and got implemented into the game.



5) EW: free non-dyeable lv89-90 AF near the end of 6.0 MSQ. Role quest unlocks dyeable version. Can re-obtain for zero gil

Verdict: I think this time SE has taken the right direction regarding AF gear. No more weird gating outside of just simple story progression and Role quests.



I think it would a nice quality of life if the EW's way getting non-dye and dyeable AF standardized to older expansions.
-It is free and much easier to re-obtain
-You only need one version of the gear, unlike SB ones with various +1 and +2, and ShB with non-Idealized and Idealized.

[Tlamila]

I totally agree.
Problem is, how do you implement this in expansions that have no role quests? I guess tying it to class quests instead? But you gotta do those regardless for skills, so it's kind of a non-achievement.

[Iscah]

I really want to see it happen, especially for the Eureka gear. Even if maybe you have to go through the fuss of upgrading one thing through Anemos and that unlocks a vendor, or have it dyeable after the first upgrade. Right now it's so much work to get a dyeable piece (plus masses of fiddling through the upgrade menus and crystal conversion) that they're super precious once finally done and can't afford to be cleared out of your inventory.

The other one that would be really simple to unlock is the level 80 gear. They just need to do what they already did with the weapons, and switch Grenoldt from selling the "weathered" items to new ones without a prefix. The Idealised versions can stay in Memoria for people who want the extra materia slots or can't be bothered clearing their role quests.

[Deceptus]

I think what they did in EW was great and I just wish they went ONE step further.

If you complete all the job quests for a role and level every job in that role to max, the role restriction is removed from AF gear inside the role (PLD's can wear DRK AF gear etc etc)

Would incentivize leveling multiple jobs.

[Hanayumi]

No! Slap that shit back onto an EX trial, all must suffer!

[Saraide]

No! Slap that shit back onto an EX trial, all must suffer!

No one I know has any memory of what even happens in that ex trial. Not soon after we did it and definitely not now. It's like it's a void of an encounter and we have all just been gaslit into believing it was real.

[Tlamila]

No one I know has any memory of what even happens in that ex trial. Not soon after we did it and definitely not now. It's like it's a void of an encounter and we have all just been gaslit into believing it was real.

I remember it well sadly, cause I made it an event for my fc while never having run it before, and I was the only one who bothered at all with guides. So I had to learn it well enough to do callouts and all and make the fight understandable to so many clueless people.
But it's not a good memory and I had no intention to run it again for glam, nor I do now.
Bit too much effort for a single class.

[Iscah]

But it's not a good memory and I had no intention to run it again for glam, nor I do now.
Bit too much effort for a single class.

It is, at least, getting much easier to run it unsynched. We were skipping *most* of the big party-killing explosions, so give it another few gear upgrades and the whole fight will probably boil down to punching him a few times to make him do his big flying cutscene attack, if he's not already dead by then.

[Espon]

It's probably better to compare how ARR and HW artifact gear was first introduced, since it used to be obtained differently.

For ARR, the ilvl 90 set was obtained from the first set of limited tomestones. It wasn't simply given to you or traded in from dungeon loot. The dyable ilvl 50 set was added later.

HW artifact gear was purchasable with limited tomestones and could be upgraded to have a higher ilvl and be dyable with raid items (similar to EW's Radiant gear).

[Deceptus]

No one I know has any memory of what even happens in that ex trial. Not soon after we did it and definitely not now. It's like it's a void of an encounter and we have all just been gaslit into believing it was real.

Meanwhile Triple Triad card hunters are like: PLEASE HELP ME GET THIS DAMN CARD