Endgame gearing in FFXIV

[KiyoMizuhiku]

I fully agree with most of these points. Gearing is simply too restrictive for the patch timeframe.

Personally, I'm indifferent to the fact that there are only two sets of max iLvl gear, the issue to me is the amount that you can earn on a weekly basis. The price of tomestone gear should be cut slightly in addition to the weekly cap being doubled. There needs to be more sources of upgrade materials, period. The two you're guaranteed from floors 2-3 aren't enough. I'd heard someone once mention that the door boss for every final fight should drop a guaranteed right/left side upgrade material and I think this is a good solution. Floors 1-3 in any given tier should drop a random extra item every week, and the final floor should drop an extra random chest piece, like it already does a random weapon. Book exchanges should be decreased by 2 for every piece across the board (except for Helm/Hands/Feet) which feel ok at the current 4. This means that upgrade mats/accessories should be 2 books, and chest/weapon should be 6. I'm not saying we should be able to gear every job in a patch cycle, but the way I'm proposing it should net players a very respectable amount of gear.

Regardless of the player base's differences on the minor points regarding gear, I think it's safe to say that most of us feel that something, anything, should be done about this at least for the first tier of 7.0.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Normally this wouldn’t really affect me because I am in a static even if I want to switch to alt job(s)… until yesterday. I saw a DPS created a PF for Criterion at iLv623 or higher, something that’s beyond me as a healer main who casually raids savage tier with very limited raiding hours weekly. Mainly because it’s more beneficial for our DPSes to get the upgrades first before the support roles. They all get the good stuffs first, ours will come later.

Now I’m not saying we have to gear up faster on main jobs (I mean I frankly would welcome the ease but Idk how it’ll affect the game so fingers crossed!), but if I were to try out alt job(s) in iLv610 in just about most current tier savage in PF right now… I don’t think folks want to deal with that. There has to be additional way to gear up the alt job(s).

Lovely take from OP.

[Elizasylen]

Normally this wouldn’t really affect me because I am in a static even if I want to switch to alt job(s)… until yesterday. I saw a DPS created a PF for Criterion at iLv623 or higher, something that’s beyond me as a healer main who casually raids savage tier with very limited raiding hours weekly. Mainly because it’s more beneficial for our DPSes to get the upgrades first before the support roles. They all get the good stuffs first, ours will come later.

Now I’m not saying we have to gear up faster on main jobs (I mean I frankly would welcome the ease but Idk how it’ll affect the game so fingers crossed!), but if I were to try out alt job(s) in iLv610 in just about most current tier savage in PF right now… I don’t think folks want to deal with that. There has to be additional way to gear up the alt job(s).

Lovely take from OP.

Personal anedcedote: Personally observed the general P5S group requests for iLvls no lower than 615. I believe Criterion's arrival has in fact worsened Demand for unreasonable iLvls. In fact Criterion being a no lock out system was one place where players were likely to play their off jobs. Which further brings the issue to the forefront.

I hope they find a resolution soon.

[EryxGG]

Snip

As someone who's been playing the game for a far less amount of time, but began taking savage raiding far more seriously in 6.0 -- these are some of the same exact thoughts I've been having, but put to words far better than I ever could, which makes sense given Sfia's wealth of experience in this game, in all aspects not just at the very top levels of raiders. Sincerely hope this feedback is taken into consideration and some changes begin to get made.

[Welsper59]

Just having the 24man pieces in the catch up patches being upgradeable with some Savage books or w/e to similar ilvl

This is a very underrated outlook, I think. The ability to upgrade gear outside of the hardest content, using items from the hardest/difficult content, to its relevant ilvl. Obviously it'd have to be restricted in minor some way, but would be an interesting experiment for at least one expansions lifespan. For better or worse.

[Welsper59]

Substats are a problem for balance and creativity.

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.

[Midareyukki]

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.

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.

[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.

[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.