Endgame gearing in FFXIV

[Miyuyu]

I also want to add that I think we really lack a good mid-tier set like what we got with Bozja & Eureka. I think variant \ criterion dungeons were a good opportunity to give us something like that and they whiffed it.

[XaiQ]

When we talk about the "speed" of gear acquisition, I think we need to think about the life-cycle of an ilvl tier. When we say that "getting alt gear is too slow" - who do we mean that it is too slow for. I think we have to be specific about this because realistically when you look at loot acquisition for BiS (for a single job), it's not really THAT slow relative to the content cycle. If we get 6.3 (and potentially the next ultimate) in December or January given a 4 month dev cycle, we likely will not see another raid tier until May at the latest. We got this raid tier on August 22nd, which meant that the gear cycle began on that day (tomestones) and savage loot unlocked the following week.

That comes out to about 9 months for a single ilvl lifespan. 630 ilvl will have been BiS for 9 months by the time we get new ilvl. Somewhere along the way, halfway through that, it will become farmable.

If you have eight to nine months to achieve BiS on multiple jobs, Square obviously is going to say that you have more than enough time to get the gear.

Could of points I want to address that aren't correct:

Gear does not become farmable in Savage until 2-4 weeks before the next tier comes. Asphodelos Savage unlocked its coffers in patch 6.18, just before 6.2 released.

Asphodelos Savage was added in Patch 6.05 on 4th of January 2022, and Unlock happed in 6.18 on 4th of July 2022. 181 days inbetween ( 6 months )
Ultimate was added 26th of April
6.2 was 23rd of August

This means that i600 was a weekly lockout of 181 days until Ultimate was released (what the gear is used for).
50 days later, 6.2 was released. This is far from half of the duration(1.5months of unlocked gear vs. 6 months of locked in a 7.5 month life span) This pattern exist also for other raid tiers within similarities. The only exception so far was Shadowbringers, with a much longer raid tier due to covid and they unlocked them in an earlier patch.

I agree that there is an argument for "who is it too slow" because ultimately, the savage bis is designed to be used in Ultimate content (and also why some people do not go for BiS after clearing because they have no use for it.)

But it's slow for those who wish to use the sets for Ultimate, locking themselves into specific roles and it assumes a world where you have only one group, one job you play on. It allows for very little flexibility.

Then we have to look at what an RPG is, and who plays it. This actually affects casual players more than raiders, because those who are casual(In this context, I refer to players not doing savage raids.) have it even worse: Tomestones. These take forever to get, 450 per week, and god forbid if the game we played were to have one of its main qualities about playing multiple jobs on one character it would be a huge slog to actually get gear on most jobs in a timely manner. Savage players aren't AS concerned about this because they DO have savage gear (bis isn't 100% necessary for ultimate, it just stacks all cards in your favor so running non-optimal pieces is still valid just not sought after or desired).

Now, one can make the argument:
"But Mia, they casuals don't need that higher item level gear. The content they do doesn't require it!" and while in essence, it would be true, who plays an RPG and wishes to live in a stalemate for for 7 months with gear? RPG's and especially games with items with increasingly higher stats, everyone aims to get stronger and stronger.

[Miyuyu]

Could of points I want to address that aren't correct:

Gear does not become farmable in Savage until 2-4 weeks before the next tier comes. Asphodelos Savage unlocked its coffers in patch 6.18, just before 6.2 released.

Asphodelos Savage was added in Patch 6.05 on 4th of January 2022, and Unlock happed in 6.18 on 4th of July 2022. 181 days inbetween ( 6 months )
Ultimate was added 26th of April
6.2 was 23rd of August

This means that i600 was a weekly lockout of 181 days until Ultimate was released (what the gear is used for).
50 days later, 6.2 was released. This is far from half of the duration(1.5months of unlocked gear vs. 6 months of locked in a 7.5 month life span) This pattern exist also for other raid tiers within similarities. The only exception so far was Shadowbringers, with a much longer raid tier due to covid and they unlocked them in an earlier patch.

I agree that there is an argument for "who is it too slow" because ultimately, the savage bis is designed to be used in Ultimate content (and also why some people do not go for BiS after clearing because they have no use for it.)

But it's slow for those who wish to use the sets for Ultimate, locking themselves into specific roles and it assumes a world where you have only one group, one job you play on. It allows for very little flexibility.

Good catch. I did note in my original post that I think that the unlock needs to happen much sooner. Either way, it's a really long loot life-span and generally at some point in the back half we get to farm it. But THAT point does not come soon enough imo. So for the AVERAGE player, the loot lifespan is MASSIVE but for those of us who are ult gremlins, it generally feels extremely slow u no.

It's just a rough situation because changing it for ultimate raiders means changing it for everyone else and that has ripple effects that we need to consider.

[Lionlicious]

Thanks for writing this, hopefully the developers get ahold of this feedback!

[Moebious]

Anything that gives players more means to acquire gear, and more glams, I would highly appreciate.

[JoseiToAoiTori]

Agree with everything. One idea I've had for a while is for savage raids to drop "tokens" that can be consumed to unlock gear on a vendor similar to how you can redeem artifact gear. Consuming a hand token should unlock hand gear for every job for instance. They can expand the system to tomestones too but I also agree that substats in their current form are restrictive at best and multiple builds should be viable. I shouldn't be screwed out of playing DRG well if I have pieces with skill speed on them.

[AurisNix]

So EW was for me the first time adventuring into savage content and i largely enjoy it but i definitely felt this lack of accessibility to 620 / 630 gear, its frustrating that i can only jump into savage content with my main job, and VC dungeons were a missing opportunity to at least have a 620 gear, they gave us good gear system in bozja/zadnor (late but good system) and it should have existed a similar system for VC as an alternative to the slow weekly cap on tomes and books, i do really hope they acknowledge this problem cuz it is a problem, playing criterion or savage goes against the philosophy of "play any job you want", my other jobs are a potato cuz i can't gear them SE.

[Deveryn]

OP has a well written post, but I can't say that I agree with any points, moreso those following in some sort of agreement. SE has a clear formula for gearing up and despite what some might think, it actually works. Those that only do dungeon content can work on their BiS every week. Likewise for savage. There doesn't need to be an alternate route that takes people out of the pool of players pursuing that level of gear.

What is the actual rush? That's a rhetorical question btw, as I know there's no good answer.

So EW was for me the first time adventuring into savage content and i largely enjoy it but i definitely felt this lack of accessibility to 620 / 630 gear, its frustrating that i can only jump into savage content with my main job, and VC dungeons were a missing opportunity to at least have a 620 gear, they gave us good gear system in bozja/zadnor (late but good system) and it should have existed a similar system for VC as an alternative to the slow weekly cap on tomes and books, i do really hope they acknowledge this problem cuz it is a problem cuz playing criterion or savage goes against the philosophy of "play any job you want", my other jobs are a potato cuz i can't gear them SE.

People have hopped into savage and cleared the full tier week 1 with just crafted and one tome accessory (two acc or one body piece with this new grace period). People have probably done the same with criterion, as entry is 610.

Bozja / Zadnor offered nothing that one would honestly use anywhere outside of those zones. That gear was specifically made for that content, as well as glam purposes. Calling it midtier is false and we don't need more. If you want 620 gear, you should've had a full set done by now.