An end to the gear treadmill

[Koros]

I like the general concept, can't say I agree with all of the details(Battle Leves? Really?). I will always have to disagree though with keeping crafted gear in a position where it both completely resets gear progression AND makes normal raid gear obsolete on day one. It just doesn't seem logical to do Savage in that system unless you plan to do Ultimate, or it is the final tier and you'll be taking the gear into the new expansion. And, it's just bad allocation of development resources to release normal raid gear with a lockout and then have the same ilvl gear from crafting with no lockout. Why make normal raid gear at all if you're not even going to make it worthwhile to go after?

Yeah, I just put battle leves in there since it's something that exists, but you can easily remove it.

As for crafted gear vs normal raid gear, I honestly don't know. There is a problem as you say but I can't think of a good solution.

[Koros]

TBH coming from WoW this game already has an amazing form of gearing up. Unless you meant to catch up to people who do all their weekly stuff every week and a new player comes in like 2 months later than I can understand the frustration there but... i'm pretty happy. Unless we wanna fix how we can gear our alt jobs since i find it impossible to casually gear more than 3 jobs at a time within a single patch. Not saying i'm disagreeing with OP or anything but like gearing in my opinion is very easy and i'm happy for it. But I do agree that materia grinding is a bit of a annoyance.

They should honestly raise the weekly tome cap to 600 or something, or nerf the prices of tome gear.

[ForteNightshade]

I like the general concept, can't say I agree with all of the details(Battle Leves? Really?). I will always have to disagree though with keeping crafted gear in a position where it both completely resets gear progression AND makes normal raid gear obsolete on day one. It just doesn't seem logical to do Savage in that system unless you plan to do Ultimate, or it is the final tier and you'll be taking the gear into the new expansion. And, it's just bad allocation of development resources to release normal raid gear with a lockout and then have the same ilvl gear from crafting with no lockout. Why make normal raid gear at all if you're not even going to make it worthwhile to go after?

The original idea is the crafted gear comes at a cost. Taking a look at the market board right now, it would several me 4-5 million gil to full gear a tank. For a more casual player who really only does roulettes, normal mode is a free alternative. Yes, there's a weekly cap limit but that's the balance. Do you want to pay for immediacy or opt for the longer but entirely free alternative.

Doing Savage is largely for its own sake. I do Savage because I enjoy a challenge. Which is also why I like logging on a certain website. It offers me built in replayability by essentially trying to beat my "best score". It's no different than say, the Pokemon Nuzlocke I'm doing at the moment. There's no inherent benefit to making a Pokemon game harder but the enjoyment of overcoming a much harder challenge. Especially on the significantly harder roms available. As for resources. Normal mode gear is literally the Savage set but undyeable. There are zero additional resources being put into that gear. Making the whole system quite cost efficient, actually.

TBH coming from WoW this game already has an amazing form of gearing up. Unless you meant to catch up to people who do all their weekly stuff every week and a new player comes in like 2 months later than I can understand the frustration there but... i'm pretty happy. Unless we wanna fix how we can gear our alt jobs since i find it impossible to casually gear more than 3 jobs at a time within a single patch. Not saying i'm disagreeing with OP or anything but like gearing in my opinion is very easy and i'm happy for it. But I do agree that materia grinding is a bit of a annoyance.

Coming from WoW, I can imagine this gearing system is quite a bit of fresh air. Alas, for those of us playing the game for several years now, it's become a long and stale system due to it literally being the exact same system for more or less a decade. While I wouldn't want them to delve into WoW's constant reinviting of the wheel, I will commend WoW for at least trying new ideas. Gearing in FFXIV is ultimately quite boring, especially if you raid. Case in point, Healers basically look at gear, see if it has Piety and avoid it like the plague. This makes your BiS entirely predictable. From that point on, it's kill x Savage boss y number of times while waiting 4-6 weeks to buy tome gear. It's certainly an effective system but hardly an interesting one.

[Rufalus]

Bah can't edit my earlier post on this mobile view. Too tired atm to make my own big ideas post but I will say my favorite thing from the OP is the labyrinthine deep dungeon design with in-duty story events. The materia to reduce vulnerability or weakness duration is also an interesting consideration.

Yo, can we make desynth less useless? They haven't added new types of demimateria since ARR. Give me a battle demi IV, master demi II, etc. Require those demis in useful crafting recipes. Could also bring back the convert option, but instead of converting gear into materia it will convert in something like an enhancement item for micro upgrades... +1, +2 your gear, can be sold on marketboard.

Weapons, it would be nice to customize glow color and effect type. I don't think 'relic' quests should be repeated for every job in the game. I would like to forge just one legendary weapon but it's an adaptable form-changing weapon suitable for all jobs. May require a cost to transform. May have special properties such as triggering certain enemies to drop some rare item when slain using a relic.

[kcj]

While it's both a well thought out and presented idea...You really need to remember that gear grind IS endgame.

[TheOperator3712]

The original idea is the crafted gear comes at a cost. Taking a look at the market board right now, it would several me 4-5 million gil to full gear a tank. For a more casual player who really only does roulettes, normal mode is a free alternative. Yes, there's a weekly cap limit but that's the balance. Do you want to pay for immediacy or opt for the longer but entirely free alternative.

Doing Savage is largely for its own sake. I do Savage because I enjoy a challenge. Which is also why I like logging on a certain website. It offers me built in replayability by essentially trying to beat my "best score". It's no different than say, the Pokemon Nuzlocke I'm doing at the moment. There's no inherent benefit to making a Pokemon game harder but the enjoyment of overcoming a much harder challenge. Especially on the significantly harder roms available. As for resources. Normal mode gear is literally the Savage set but undyeable. There are zero additional resources being put into that gear. Making the whole system quite cost efficient, actually.

The problem with the cost/time ratio angle is that it doesn't work if you're going into savage week 1, because the crafted gear is mandatory at that point(and even more expensive). It also makes the difficulty of getting crafted vary wildly depending on how long you've been playing and how much you spend. Which fair enough, if someone manages to stockpile gil that's not a problem. It just doesn't really seem to me that crafted is the equal playing field I hear people make it out to be.

As for doing savage for the sake of difficulty... all I've got to say about that is Criterions are dead because they don't reward gear. Take the gear out of savage and the only people left running after a few weeks are the people who enjoy chasing their numbers on websites. A lot of us just seem need to get something to justify doing something, especially when it's hard.

[Zachia]

The original idea is the crafted gear comes at a cost. Taking a look at the market board right now, it would several me 4-5 million gil to full gear a tank. For a more casual player who really only does roulettes, normal mode is a free alternative. Yes, there's a weekly cap limit but that's the balance. Do you want to pay for immediacy or opt for the longer but entirely free alternative.

Doing Savage is largely for its own sake. I do Savage because I enjoy a challenge. Which is also why I like logging on a certain website. It offers me built in replayability by essentially trying to beat my "best score". It's no different than say, the Pokemon Nuzlocke I'm doing at the moment. There's no inherent benefit to making a Pokemon game harder but the enjoyment of overcoming a much harder challenge. Especially on the significantly harder roms available. As for resources. Normal mode gear is literally the Savage set but undyeable. There are zero additional resources being put into that gear. Making the whole system quite cost efficient, actually.



Coming from WoW, I can imagine this gearing system is quite a bit of fresh air. Alas, for those of us playing the game for several years now, it's become a long and stale system due to it literally being the exact same system for more or less a decade. While I wouldn't want them to delve into WoW's constant reinviting of the wheel, I will commend WoW for at least trying new ideas. Gearing in FFXIV is ultimately quite boring, especially if you raid. Case in point, Healers basically look at gear, see if it has Piety and avoid it like the plague. This makes your BiS entirely predictable. From that point on, it's kill x Savage boss y number of times while waiting 4-6 weeks to buy tome gear. It's certainly an effective system but hardly an interesting one.

You do bring a valid point. Gearing is so simple I can see why many would think it as boring. And as i only started legit gearing this expansion tbh this patch cycle. If I had to imagine myself doing this over and over for years to come, i would find it quite tedious I guess. I guess OP's idea's are not as harmful as I thought. Since he doesn't seem to want to remove what we have but allow additional ways. Well as long as it remains as easy as it is it will only benefit the community adding new ways. Perhaps with enough support the Forum mods will notify the devs of this. I find adding a suggestion inside the game to be very helpful. As many personal desires I had to better this game (in minor ways of course) have been actually added into the game. From having glasses with helm as long as it is compatible to a few other things i can't immediately recall and seeing them added into the game later. I feel optimistic adding suggestions as well as bringing it to the forums will be a great way for the devs to know what the community desires.

[Koros]

I would like to forge just one legendary weapon but it's an adaptable form-changing weapon suitable for all jobs. May require a cost to transform. May have special properties such as triggering certain enemies to drop some rare item when slain using a relic.

I don't know about form-changing, but having relics contain special properties would be awesome, even if it's something that isn't very powerful like a 5% chance to randomly Imp a trash mob.

You do bring a valid point. Gearing is so simple I can see why many would think it as boring. And as i only started legit gearing this expansion tbh this patch cycle. If I had to imagine myself doing this over and over for years to come, i would find it quite tedious I guess. I guess OP's idea's are not as harmful as I thought. Since he doesn't seem to want to remove what we have but allow additional ways.

I think the biggest problem is that ultimately, power level/power progression is still the great motivator for a lot of people. The fact that content like Deep Dungeons, Criterion Dungeons etc. do not have power progression attached to them is a major reason why not many people do them. Square Enix is afraid of having too many sources of power progression because people might perceive it as a chore, but I think if raiders do not need to the extra stuff to compete on even footing in Savage and Ultimate, most people would actually be fine with this.

[fulminating]

They should honestly raise the weekly tome cap to 600 or something, or nerf the prices of tome gear.

Since it’s balanced around gearing one job, having an internal flag trip when you buy e.g. an earring that steeply discounts the cost of further earrings could be a way to approach it. 375 > 40-80 or something of that order.

Re: normal raid gear, maybe if the materia slots were the main difference? Crafted reduced to one, but overmeldable still and normal raid increased to 3. Both should let you add 108 substats with the current system, but crafted is less convenient but faster to obtain. Another option would be a minor set bonus on the normal raid set (2/3/4 pieces give x) similar to the elite’s grand company gear, but it might be quite annoying to strike a good balance there.

I would also like to suggest some kind of superior crafted gear made from rare and expensive drops. Native 5 meld slots and 10ilvl? Might seem a bit redundant with the augmented so perhaps that would need shelved. Essentially it is the elemental+ gear, so might need a touch more to make it competitive given the ilvl deficiency.

It might be a good opportunity to reevaluate yellow materia & stats too. Currently they’re not overwhelmingly popular, and it would be nice if they weren’t so disappointing to see on items.

[Koros]

Since it’s balanced around gearing one job, having an internal flag trip when you buy e.g. an earring that steeply discounts the cost of further earrings could be a way to approach it. 375 > 40-80 or something of that order.

Re: normal raid gear, maybe if the materia slots were the main difference? Crafted reduced to one, but overmeldable still and normal raid increased to 3. Both should let you add 108 substats with the current system, but crafted is less convenient but faster to obtain. Another option would be a minor set bonus on the normal raid set (2/3/4 pieces give x) similar to the elite’s grand company gear, but it might be quite annoying to strike a good balance there.

I would also like to suggest some kind of superior crafted gear made from rare and expensive drops. Native 5 meld slots and 10ilvl? Might seem a bit redundant with the augmented so perhaps that would need shelved. Essentially it is the elemental+ gear, so might need a touch more to make it competitive given the ilvl deficiency.

It might be a good opportunity to reevaluate yellow materia & stats too. Currently they’re not overwhelmingly popular, and it would be nice if they weren’t so disappointing to see on items.

The internal flag is a good idea but I'd also probably make the reduction lower something like 375 -> 150.

The superior crafted gear is a good idea too, especially if it's expert recipes. I think making it ilvl 15 should be fine frankly.

Hard to tell what to do with yellow materias. Piety used to be important because MP was actually a resource to manage. It seems yellow materias can only be made relevant with gameplay/encounter-side changes.