Importance of Gear

[Colt47]

You can clear the normal content by rolling your forehead over your keyboard.
No, it doesn't matter. Gear only matters in the content you actually get it from (Savage and extremes) Which usually boils down to the current 4 savage fights and an extreme.
You just have to roll your forehead over your keyboard a bit less in normal content once you get better gear.
FF's endgame is very shallow compared to that of some other MMO's unfortunately, and a lot more niche than in, say, World of Warcraft. Where the endgame is the main appeal, and where the game begins.

It is probably a good thing end-game in FFXIV is niche because it has all the elitism of MMOs like World of Warcraft, but likes to keep it bottled up instead of having it explode all over the place.

[GoatOfWar]

It is probably a good thing end-game in FFXIV is niche because it has all the elitism of MMOs like World of Warcraft, but likes to keep it bottled up instead of having it explode all over the place.

On the flip side, it also means there's very little to do for people who aren't into social or hypercasual faceroll content. There isn't even any midcore content in this game, and it's helping nobody.
There isn't really any reason to not be supportive of a healthy endgame environment.

[Colt47]

On the flip side, it also means there's very little to do for people who aren't into social or hypercasual faceroll content. There isn't even any midcore content in this game, and it's helping nobody.
There isn't really any reason to not be supportive of a healthy endgame environment.

That's been an ongoing thing since late ARR after they introduced coil. Originally, they had the EX fights as a continuation of the main story rather than a sideline activity, since they had the ascians force the beast tribes to use more crystals or what not to make a stronger eikon. Coil was the first raid content and due to the difficulty, people complained about not getting to see the story of coil, so they broke it down into normal coil and savage coil. Then they continued that through heavensward with normal Alex and savage Alex. The big difference between heavensward and now, is that peoples skill on jobs was no where near where it is now and the skill floor and ceiling are far closer together post shadowbringers. So in truth, it shouldn't be hard for the team to implement mid core level content.

Technically, they need to have a mid-core version of savage that is like the savage mode, but has the markers on the floor and maybe rewards half the loot. The big problem savage has is it hides mechanics from players far too much and therefore forces everyone who has an actual job in real life to use guides. Then it turns into people with different commitments all stacking into the same content and we got the social nightmare that is current savage. WoW fixed this by having multiple tiers and ultimately giving everyone access to the same cosmetics. The only piece that changes beyond that is the gear score.

[kaynide]

….

I would actually love more midcore stuff myself. I don’t enjoy the raid scene, but I really did like the Hardmode dungeons and enjoy doing older Savage content low-man/unsync’d.