Endgame gearing in FFXIV

[Derio]

Not everyone can clear P5-P8 week one. I am one of those. I didnt clear P7s until week 3 and gearing at this pace if I wanted to play melee dps or healer I would have to start from crafted gear which sucks considering criterion dungeons are out now and most people would run that on their most geared class.

When Yoshi says please go play healer its not so simple when you would be starting from 610 crafted gear that you would either have to purchase with gil or spend time getting the materials to make assuming you are a geared crafter.

[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.

[Absimiliard]

One of the major draws of gaming in general is the sense of progress you get as you continue to improve, whether it be gearing up or you as the player becoming more proficient at the game. The fact someone can clear in crafted gear is largely irrelevant to this fact. There's certainly a sense of accomplishment to be had from completing content, especially while not yet geared to the gills, but many people need more than just that.

While FFXIV's current gearing system does work, the reality is that an increasing number of people are dissatisfied with it in large part because it wasn't made with the current times in mind. Party Finder is how the bulk of players wishing to raid get their fix, but this unfortunately needlessly complicates the process of gearing up. Likewise, lack of content that falls somewhere between raiding and typical dungeons, such as WoW's M+, means those individuals that possess the necessary skill but lack the free time for the slog that is PF or connections necessary to form a static are just SOL. Criterion could have been that middle ground, but nope.

[Proxanna]

Endgame gearing is one of the worst aspects of FFXIV in my opinion. Substats are boring and almost always just come down to stacking as much crit as possible. There's nothing special or interesting about any piece of gear as it's just slightly higher numbers than what you already have. I understand it's easier to balance this way, and it's a lot harder to have job specific augmentations on gear with the job system, but having everything so homogenous is just so boring.

[TomsYoungerBro]

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

Well the fact that Ultimates are tied to Savage tiers is one. Ultimates require near top ilvl to clear current, and PFs usually require Highest ilvl - 1 or 2. You can't get those numbers on multiple jobs consistently even if you clear week 1.

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.

This is also just not true, at least for the savage version of criterion. People were hitting dungeon enrage on the savage version at the highest ilvl. And mind you, this content was practiceable through the hard mode, so the savage was not blind progged. Players were already somewhat optimal with damage. Hitting near the enrage 20 ilvls higher than minimum is doom and gloom for someone trying at min ilvl. This is content released merely 8 weeks after savage. You again need more gear to realistically do this content.

[Deveryn]

Well the fact that Ultimates are tied to Savage tiers is one. Ultimates require near top ilvl to clear current, and PFs usually require Highest ilvl - 1 or 2. You can't get those numbers on multiple jobs consistently even if you clear week 1.







This is also just not true, at least for the savage version of criterion. People were hitting dungeon enrage on the savage version at the highest ilvl. And mind you, this content was practiceable through the hard mode, so the savage was not blind progged. Players were already somewhat optimal with damage. Hitting near the enrage 20 ilvls higher than minimum is doom and gloom for someone trying at min ilvl. This is content released merely 8 weeks after savage. You again need more gear to realistically do this content.

And where is this Ultimate that people need to clear? Another 8 weeks away maybe?

Going back to my point about the rush: Everything is paced so that you can get what you need by the time the next content comes out. If you're not doing ultimate and just want to clear savage at some point or just have much better gear, maybe it's better to just wait til x.1 x.3 or x.5 when you can more easily grab those upgrade bits from nuts and alliance raids.

It's Day 3 of V&C. There's plenty of time to figure things out.

[TomsYoungerBro]

And where is this Ultimate that people need to clear? Another 8 weeks away maybe?

Going back to my point about the rush: Everything is paced so that you can get what you need by the time the next content comes out. If you're not doing ultimate and just want to clear savage at some point or just have much better gear, maybe it's better to just wait til x.1 x.3 or x.5 when you can more easily grab those upgrade bits from nuts and alliance raids.

It's Day 3 of V&C. There's plenty of time to figure things out.

Your point still falls short since crafted gear isn't going to get me into ultimate on an alt job XD. I'm not sure what your point is here. How will Yoshi P ask me to please play healer for the ultimate when I simply couldn't even if I wanted to?

[French_Overlord]

As a casual and average player I share the same sentiment about gearing speed. EW was my first time jumping in savage and i dont understand why the weekly drop is stretch out like it is. Now this might be an extreme or some may savage take but i think after 1 month or even at the patch X.Y5 the lock on weekly(for gear and tome) should be remove because after 4 week/2 month most hardcore player would've cleared and just do the grind to gear class and the average player/casual could grind the few savage they cleared to properly gear their main or an alt if they need to flex during their ongoing prog.

But being new to savage raiding might be skewing my view as it's the only content that put restraint on my character growth with weekly reward and i understand that what i propose can be scary as it might reduce the number of PF grinding the fight for reclear but i do believe that in the end it would respect the player time a lot more than what it is now. As for the lack of content i dont really have any proposition as i'm just a casual and I can alway find something to do that can entertain me or I jsut play other game instead of continuing the grind.

[angienessyo]

I get that it should probably be relatively slow to gear the first job to BiS, but I wish there was a system to quickly catch up alt jobs once you've hit BiS on one. I'm doing the savage dungeon with people from my static and 2 of the people that I'm doing with are our tanks. So one tank switched to his next most geared job, reaper. I can play RDM at a pretty high level but we're stuck with 2 melee in the dungeon as I'm our group's NIN and am BiS on the job and have like, 1 piece of savage gear for RDM. I can buy a few pieces for RDM this week with books, but because it's one of the few jobs that needs 3 left side tome pieces, it's going to be a long journey to actually get the job geared.

Even just making it to where I could modify a stat on a piece of raid gear would be a huge help, because so much of the raid gear is awful for RDM. Why can't I just get my BiS gear you know, FROM THE RAID? haha Why isn't the best gear I can get for my job from the end game content I'm doing? This far into the tier my group has started having drops that go in the trash because very few jobs use certain pieces. (looking at you, gloves) I get that the other casters benefit from sps so that's why some gear has it, but why does some of the SCOUTING gear have sks on it when NIN doesn't want it at all? You know, scouting, the gear that only one job in this entire game uses has a stat that NIN just doesn't use on it? Even just being able to modify raid gear to have actual useful stats on it would speed gearing alt jobs significantly as you wouldn't be locked behind tomestones or battling people to the death for twines/glazes. It would also make it less soul crushing when you run into what my group did where you have 3 straight weeks of double glove drops and 0 boot drops when the bulk of jobs this tier need boots instead of gloves.

[Naeno]

Couldn't agree more.