Endgame gearing in FFXIV

[vanaii]

Well, you could encourage job diversity while still retaining the LB penalty for doubling up on jobs. They ain't mutually exclusive.

True. What I'm saying is if a meta forms, break it before it lasts multiple expansions. Stormblood was dumb.

[Elizasylen]

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.

I hope 6.28 will help remedy this issue

[Lordwhizzkid]

So I've searched through the thread to see if anyone has mentioned it, and I'm surprised no-one has. Eurekan Armor & Resistance Armor. These tend to get added in the .35 patch of an expansion, and are uncapped pieces of gear that are Max iLvl -10. (Tomestone level gear effectively). These are the EXACT kind of things that I believe is very relevant when talking about catchup gear, and they already exist in the game! The problem is that they are added in that .35 patch. Because Alliance Raid gear is also the same iLvl, they have to delay these uncapped versions to make Alliance Raid gear enticing, which it still may not be if you've spent enough time in game as you may already have full tomestone. This means right at the end of our patch cycle we then have 3 sets of gear that are all Max iLvl - 10, one of which is uncapped, and the other allows for the collection of an upgrade for a piece of the 3rd set. It's incredibly backloaded, and makes the current section we're in rather boring. I'd note this is the exact same moment of the cycle that Shadowbringers got stuck on due to COVID delays, of which I remember many people felt very pained during that time because there was not a lot to do.

How to fix this? Both OP and many replies in this thread have the right idea. Move the first stage of "Relic" gear to 5.25. In this example the best place to have it would've been Criterion dungeons, and this would be uncapped 520 iLvl gear you could obtain. This would then require the Alliance Raid gear to be upped to 525 iLvl gear. That way AR gear is still better, so you're not just grinding it out for the weekly coin, and the weekly piece cap actually still feels reasonable. This then means that you have a very solid foundation gear to work off of for every class, while still making the future gear sets appealing.

I think this is where you can fit in a tomestone replacement as well, without upping the rate of tomestone acquisition. Make the .35 patch instead give gear at the same iLvl as upgraded tomestone, so any alt job has an easy way to get gear.

TL-DR of my suggestion, patch cycle should be as follows:
.01 - Savage 1-4 drops
.1 - Alliance raid 1 drops
.15 - Left alone (Could have raid gear added, but most players may not have every job fully levelled by here).
.2 - Savage 5-8 drops
.25 - Relic Weapons & Uncapped tome level gear
6.3 - Alliance raid 2 drops ( 5 iLvl higher than tome)
6.35 - Relic Weapon upgrade & uncapped savage level gear

Situation repeats for future patches, with of course the final patch being doubled in tome acquisition to allow full BiS to be obtained before the new expansion.

[qjustcallmeq]

Agreed with OP's points.

Related ideas I've had for making it easier to gear alt jobs:

- After you spend XXX tomes on a piece of gear for a particular job, buying the same piece of gear for any other job should be cheaper. For example, if you buy the Lunar Envoy's Ring of Aiming for 375 tomes, it should not cost you 375 tomes to buy the Lunar Envoy's Ring of [Other Jobs]. How much cheaper is up for discussion, but giving a price break for alt gear would 100% make this process easier.

- Same with spending 4-8 books on a piece of raid gear. If you buy the Abyssos Ring of Aiming for 4 books, it should not cost you 4 books for the Abyssos Ring of [Other Jobs]. This is especially true for the weapon/chest - IMO if they kept the initial price at 8 books, but reduced the price of buying further weapons/chests to 2 books/piece, it would really incentivize continuing to do weekly reclears, even as a PF-er.

- If they are going to continue releasing Criterion Dungeons 8 weeks after Savage (which I think is perfect timing), they could give a weekly reward for doing them, which earns you tome gear upgrades. The exact reward would be up for discussion but I'd suggest something like "3 weeks of criterion normal = 1 upgrade, or 1 week of criterion savage = 1 upgrade".

Speaking of PF players though:

I 100% agree with anyone who complains about the difficulty of gearing alt jobs in this game, but it should really be kept in mind that the situation is far worse for people who do their raiding in PF, rather than in statics. Sure static players might be frustrated with the situation too, but at least you are getting some fairly equitable amount of gear. The amount of time and effort PF players need to go through to get any gear at all is already ridiculous, even without considering alt jobs. The gearing system should be somehow tweaked so that people on PF can't get so lucky/unlucky depending on loot rolls. I have no idea what this solution would be, though.

[dspguy]

Personally, the system they have now is too rewarding given the effort necessary. However, given that the times have changed from 2013, I'd just say the loot system for savage is "about right." Consider the following:

If you are clearing P6S, it means you are seeing 7 pieces of loot per week (3 accessory, 2 of head/hand/feet and 1 tomestone weapon and 1 accessory upgrade). That's nearly 1 upgrade per week even if we discard the weapon tomestone (6 pieces, 8 players). Let's say a player clears those 2 turns for 4 weeks. They've also earned an accessory and head/hand/feet piece of their choice. So, in 4 weeks that player has seen:
- 12 accessory drops
- 8 head/hand/feet coffers
- 4 accessory upgrades (as good as a drop)
- 4 weapon upgrades (which by week 7 has less value since they are obtainable by way of normal abyssos)
- and 8 manifestos

With average luck rolling on those drops (or a static evenly distributing gear), that's 1.5 accessories, 1 head/hand/feet, 0.5 accessory upgrades and a guaranteed accessory and head/hand/feet of their choice. Or to put it another way, 4 weeks into clearing just those 2 turns a player has:

- 3 i630 accessories
- 2 i630 head/hand/feet

That's over 1 piece per week.

Now, let's think about the barrier to entry to run this content. There is no doubt you have to be skilled to clear this content. That goes without saying. Consider the following:

- About 1/3 of the playerbase has opened up this raid (as per achievement trackers)
- Players can pick when they want to fight these enemies on their own schedule
- You can try as many times as you want
- There is 0 exp loss
- There is negligible gil loss
- There is no travel time to raid
- There is no competition

Compare this to the games of the 00s where:
- a tiny fraction of the playerbase could get to the raid zones since they were locked behind difficult missions
- Banding together with dozens of other players to take down these enemies took a lot of organizing
- You had to compete to claim these enemies (or to get the items to pop these enemies)
- If you failed, the enemy either despawned or was claimed by another raid group
- Exp loss
- Travel time
- Very little loot per kill, if any
- Loot spread among dozens of players present

Personally, the system they have in place is very reasonable. However, we are over a decade removed from MMOs with systems like what I described above. So, it could just be that we have a generation of players that isn't accustomed to that sort of adversity.

[luizog110]

do this in real life

[Sighearth]

Why cant we have a tome cap for role, I mean you cap it once (450) then you can spend, 450 on casters, healers, tanks and P ranged. Since they do not share gear anyway

[MagiusNecros]

Takes too long to gear a single job, the gear is boring and lacks gearset bonuses or unique effects. ilvl seems to be the only thing that matters longterm.

Game is pidgeonholing most jobs to stack crit and either DH or Det. Some cases spellspeed but that's rare. Jobs like SMN or RPR feel pain if their Mega Flare/Communio doesn't crit and then their next auto attack does.

Hitting for 25k-30k instead of anywhere between 40k-60k+ feels bad.

I think devs are gonna screw players and shove auto crit down everyone's throats.

So basically every class runs the same build and does the most DPS by following a rigid 2 minute burst. Leaves little room for optimization and improvement and no build variety.

Underwhelming IMO.

I agree with the OP's post. I think Sfia puts the thoughts of players at all skill levels in a cohesive way.

[MiraAlora]

It would be nice to have more avenues of gearing even from my super casual perspective.

[ArbsDW]

I feel come the odd number patch is when Savage should be unlocked not the .8 patch. Most groups have cleared the new tier before the odd number patch drops and having it unlocked will help with gearing alt jobs for those intersted.