Endgame gearing in FFXIV

[Welsper59]

Yeah, especially since we're likely to hit a level cap at some point. Even 11 had a somewhat vertical progression while you levelled up, with the horizontal system being adopted for its endgames.

Agreed. It's good that you brought up the leveling part being vertical progression, since with that in mind, the impact that formulaic stats had was almost unnoticeable in most regards lol. Not entirely unlike how it is while leveling in XIV, assuming you geared your job at least a little bit along the way for both games. Meanwhile, absolute values like with +MP did make a huge difference with how XI operated. Not a big deal in the leveling regards to not be noticeable, even here.

[vanaii]

This is a topic that I think a lot of people don't fully grasp unless you've played certain expansions of WoW or, FAR more relevant, FFXI. They can absolutely better adjust substats in this game currently to give it a kick to make it feel more impactful, but it'll ultimately result in similar complaints down the road. When we talk substats and wanting something truly noticeable and impacting, we're going to be discussing convoluted stats based on mathematical formulas and self adjustment (e.g. diminishing returns or even negative returns for overdoing a stat).

At some point, it'll be inevitable that we're going to be talking horizontal gear progression and possibly removing gear lock during combat, akin to how swapping gear works in FFXI. Those are two completely game altering functions tied to the purpose of stats for this game and I really doubt the XIV community is going to like what such drastic changes actually means. For example, I'd wager a ton of players will not like the fact that they won't find much reason to do Savage raids because the new gear lacks specific substats their BiS stat formulas require and they have to use gear from previous raids (e.g. current xpac or possibly even old ones). That is just how horizontal gear works.

That's assuming the stats are on gear in the first place. I don't think the armory chest would be able to handle multiple sets of gear for multiple jobs, so it may be necessary to move "progression" away from gear and levels and into an expansion-tied AA system of some sort. The upside is if your gear is flat at the new cap, we can have some sort of 75 era here where you can bounce between post-Endwalker expansions at will, almost like they're self-contained adventures. You might be level 10 in expansion 8, but only level 5 in expansion 7 -- this would translate to being able to farm savage in Expansion 8 but still be working your way through the MSQ in Expansion 7.

Similar to how a player that just unlocked Eureka nowadays is kind of weak in Eureka, even though they might have already cleared Endwalker.

Incentivizing this might be tricky, since the constant boom-bust crafting and raid cycle might freeze if things aren't handled carefully. I have no idea how it could be done, but it seems a heck of a lot more appealing to "get past the tutorial" of the MSQ, then go off on your own adventures in a post-expansion of your choice.

[giwaman]

Imagine if we still have belts!

[Shyron]

Definitely agree about substats. There's almost no choice with them. My BiS as a healer is almost solely determined by avoiding piety. It is the anti-stat and I want whatever piece doesn't have it. Should we perhaps have more and more varied substats, so that they can actually alter how we play and not just a few single ideal priorities?
The weekly Dun Scaith item was a really good alternate way to get gear. More stuff like that would be excellent. Something from variant or criterion dungeons would be a solid way to do that right now.
Another issue might be the fact that relic weapons are always behind the curve. That's another piece of gear that could be in the mix to make real choices about your gearing and stats that we aren't currently making.

[Lunar-Templar]

not a huge fan of Sfia's takes, as related to Dark Knight, and a few other things, BUT ....

1) I kinda agree to a point. it does feel, even at the lower level if endgame play i'm at, that it's 'pick one, MAYBE two jobs for the tier'. I mean sure, I enjoy being a tank, and that's not gonna change any time soon, BUT i like playing DPS to, and i would like to see being able to switch roles be a bit easier then it is, especially deeper into the expansion, cause, ya know. not all of us out here be sitting on hundreds of millions of gil to just buy all the crafted gear we want.

2) oh, right ... substats are a thing ... I kid of course, but it really does feel like a waste of time to meld materia what with how little it feels like it helping.

3) eh ... i kinda feel like this is MOSTLY fine as is, not a super huge fan of the idea of more sets, if anything i'd rather see the tomestone cap increased, or gear made cheaper, or, since there is really no point to them after week 7 if you've been keeping up, lock outs removed way sooner.

i don't do savage so 4 is moot for me.

[Arcflare]

I massively agree with this. I think substats are generally boring and i think the materia system as well really needs a hard look at. I think reworking materia and how its melded would be a huge start.

1: Remove materia slots from gear and move all the materria slots to the Job Stone. This will allow each job to be individually melded in any role that shares gear. Having to remelding gear just to fit each job constantly is such bad design.

2. Add materia melds that directly allow us to augment each jobs abilities. This would not be huge gamechanging materia but individual ability melds would see more noticable impact than substat melds (something like being able to meld 1 Finisher +5% dmg). Also instead of forcing things like Forced Crit on jobs through updates, allow the players to make that choice. Implement materia that allows you to force crit a Finisher with a trade off of crit power. Maybe a materia that increases resource gen for job gauges.

These changes i feel would go a long way in making melding feel way better than it currently does.

Also please remove this weird 2 minute burst window meta and rework speed stats to be more akin to haste to allow us to lower our Cooldown timers. Theyre so awful right now.

[Elizasylen]

I massively agree with this. I think substats are generally boring and i think the materia system as well really needs a hard look at. I think reworking materia and how its melded would be a huge start.

1: Remove materia slots from gear and move all the materria slots to the Job Stone. This will allow each job to be individually melded in any role that shares gear. Having to remelding gear just to fit each job constantly is such bad design.

2. Add materia melds that directly allow us to augment each jobs abilities. This would not be huge gamechanging materia but individual ability melds would see more noticable impact than substat melds (something like being able to meld 1 Finisher +5% dmg). Also instead of forcing things like Forced Crit on jobs through updates, allow the players to make that choice. Implement materia that allows you to force crit a Finisher with a trade off of crit power. Maybe a materia that increases resource gen for job gauges.

These changes i feel would go a long way in making melding feel way better than it currently does.

Also please remove this weird 2 minute burst window meta and rework speed stats to be more akin to haste to allow us to lower our Cooldown timers. Theyre so awful right now.

I think we can stand to gain to at least move some of the materia slots from gear to the Weapon. Which is job specific. But that would hurt the pentameld crafted weapons specifically. I don't know about melding job stones because it's just... weird. I think more weapon meld slots would be good though most jobs already meld for DH/CRIT/DET so if we have at least 5 meld slots on weapons we can help work out Skill Speed and Spell Speed stuff.

[Brill_]

100% agree.

Tome gear. The weekly tome grind is the most boring thing to do in this game. It's nothing but a weekly chore. If they want us to grind tomes, at least make it fun.

Weekly locks outs. Also agree. The game says you can do everything on one character. Time gated gear says you can't. Didn't Yoshi P say in a recent interview something along the lines of he didn't understand why people have alts? Then in the live letter when addressing the healer shortage, he told people to try playing healer. I can't try playing healer due to weekly gear lockouts.

I can understand keeping 630 gear tied to savage. I see no reason not to have alternate options for 620 gear. The current gearing formula is stale and needs new life put into it.

[ReynTime]

"People will come up with a META" never was and should never be an argument. Every game with any degree of player choice has a META. The industry would be a complete bore if every company had this fear the average XIV player has of flexible setups or character choice.

[vanaii]

"People will come up with a META" never was and should never be an argument. Every game with any degree of player choice has a META. The industry would be a complete bore if every company had this fear the average XIV player has of flexible setups or character choice.

True, but the other side of the coin is an entrenched meta needs to be broken. The old XIV meta was garbage for players that weren't running a meta job. See also: Machinist.