There is a simple solution to all this 'alt gearing'.

[DixieBellOCE]

Remove the lockouts on raids 8 weeks after release.

8 weeks of competitive raiding, then its FFA go crazy, farm what you want.

What reason is there to keep the lockouts on raids after this time?

Anyone who seriously cared about raiding would have cleared, and shouldn't care that people are able to farm it after 8 weeks.

[Jeeqbit]

People who take more than a week to clear them, obviously, because then they have to fit in not just reclears to their static schedule but farms.

[SeiyaSoiya]

People who take more than a week to clear them, obviously, because then they have to fit in not just reclears to their static schedule but farms.

yeah but those people are not competing

[Ravor]

The raid gear drop design from the beginning is for time gating so there is reason to stay subs and doing the raid until next patch

[Jojoya]

Remove the lockouts on raids 8 weeks after release.

8 weeks of competitive raiding, then its FFA go crazy, farm what you want.

What reason is there to keep the lockouts on raids after this time?

Anyone who seriously cared about raiding would have cleared, and shouldn't care that people are able to farm it after 8 weeks.

The lockouts have nothing to do with competition, which is usually over week one.

The lockouts are to keep players raiding so when those who weren't able to raid at the start are ready to raid, they'll be able to find groups without problem.

The real solution to alt gearing is for players to accept that players aren't intended to have BiS gear for every job and BIS gear isn't needed to clear Savage.

Having a hard time finding healers for your PF? Try setting your ilvl requirement to 610 instead of 625. If healers tend to be the last on the priority list for static loot distribution, it stands to reason that they should be able to get their job done just fine at the lower ilvl.

[Shurrikhan]

The raid gear drop design from the beginning is for time gating so there is reason to stay subs and doing the raid until next patch

For which this has zero impact unless they were building the game solely around those wanting raid BiS on multiple/all jobs instead of the sole one they tend to actually use for prog...

[Krotoan]

"Competing"?

What do you win?

[SeiyaSoiya]

"Competing"?

What do you win?

once again the ffxiv playerbase who need a reward just to do any activity
this is why criterion and variant dungeons fails with this playerbase
players just don't know how to do things just for fun

[Krotoan]

once again the ffxiv playerbase who need a reward just to do any activity
this is why criterion and variant dungeons fails with this playerbase
players just don't know how to do things just for fun

In-game competitions usually have some sort of indicator or prize for "winning". I am asking what that is. If you're making up competitions and who qualifies for these arbitrary non-intended races, what responsibility does the company have to accommodate them?

[LianaThorne]

In-game competitions usually have some sort of indicator or prize for "winning". I am asking what that is. If you're making up competitions and who qualifies for these arbitrary non-intended races, what responsibility does the company have to accommodate them?

If we're talking about savage raiding, world first is a big deal to the point that the devs got involved in the last one to remove someone cheating with plugins. Before they added the wait period between crafted gear dropping & savage starting, teams used to drop tens to hundreds of millions of gil for pre-orders so they could be the first team to actually get in there. There's no "reward" other than fame amongst the playerbase for finishing first or in the top 3/personal achievement/early mount flexing and that's enough for the hardcore scene.