Weekly Gear Lockouts Kill Gameplay

[CaedemSanguis]

I find the current savage gearing "okay"

a lot of jobs shares a set/access + you dont need bis except for ultimate/criterion savage

with a static you can get 2 sets during the on patch raid, with an alt it's 4 sets

so you can potentially have for example : all 4 tanks + all 4 heals + DRG/RPR + VIP/NIN bis or nearly bis by the release of ultimate

Yet you need to have an alt + a static + dont buy any non bis tomestone gear

If something needs to change I think it's maybe the tomestone cap (at least 900), the number of tomes in exchange of savage gear (1/access, 2/minor armor, 4/major armor, 6/weapon) and eventually make criterion drop gear/tome gear upgrades

[Chiru_Kai]

I didn't read all of this thread.
However, I would like to chime in with saying that I think weekly lockouts in the way they are now are fine if you play 1 single role.

However, if you play multiple classes, you have to choose which one you are gearing up for savage content.
I think for a game that prizes itself on the ability to play any class... this restriction for high end players is bad and contradictory to the rest of the game's philosophy for "play anything".
Heck, if you play MELEE classes, but you happen to switch between NIN and SAM (cuz you're a weeb) you have two different gearsets, even if you play the exact same role and positions in a group, but just two different classes.


I feel that, with the technology they have for Azeyma's earrings as well as Relics that you can re-spec the stats for, they can easily just give 1 single set of gear for savage that automatically applies the right stats for your job, with potential respec and upgrade options later on in the raid tier. Relic weapons would still retain their unique ability to have 3 substats and the highest ilvl possible, and possibly also make them have 5 materia slots by default... but this is then not locked behind a weekly lockout and it's just a minor stat buff to people who want to no-life grind out such relics.

It saves everyone on inventory space as well.
Instead, they can give additional rewards that unlock glamourer items only from savage.
But don't make us grind for stats, it feels absolutely awful if you want to play multiple classes.

[ovIm]

1) SE want to milk your sub.
2) join book run
3) no one forced you to play all classes.

1. if they wanted to do that they could put insane grinds into the game. This is more of an issue of FF14's "Respect the time of the player" mentality, where even small playsessions should feel like you can achieve something. Which is good, but makes longer playsessions unsatisfying for those wanting that.
2. fair, really.
3. true, but what about people that want to play multiple roles?

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Generally I think the lockout method is a good base principle to make sure you can't go ahead too far. But sadly there is very little to do once you have reached the small lockout gates.

[Stasya]

1. if they wanted to do that they could put insane grinds into the game. This is more of an issue of FF14's "Respect the time of the player" mentality, where even small playsessions should feel like you can achieve something. Which is good, but makes longer playsessions unsatisfying for those wanting that.
2. fair, really.
3. true, but what about people that want to play multiple roles?

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Generally I think the lockout method is a good base principle to make sure you can't go ahead too far. But sadly there is very little to do once you have reached the small lockout gates.

Book runs to practice other roles? You are joking? I mean if you put pf just to get it done, would you accept a tank showing up and saying "hey im from start as tank, but i did it as dps, are you fine with me trolling and potentially make people angry and leave?"

[LilaIronman]

OP has poorly written message but let me rewrite it (minus gibberish about crafted gear) for you casual player to understand:

1) Gearing is trash, can't gear support and dps class at same time etc (dont get me started with melees split into dex and str, casters having different sps setups etc ...) (and also also something something 450 tomes in patch with number SEVEN at start)

2) After you get raid id lock in savage you can't do anything, you can't join any other groups on floor to practice fight more or other role (what if dps wants to try out prog as tank?). I want to play the game yet I can't, it feels way worse than WoW because there is only 4 bosses.... At least WoW has m+.

3) Essentially having all classes on one character is pointless, go level/waste time on msq on more characters if you want to play geared tank and healer and dps before savage hype dies.

Following carrot on stick (gear) in this game is a hollow experience and SE does not want casual players to realise that.

You are comparing wow dungeon m+ with ff raiding, if you start to compare the two, compare ff14 raiding with wow raiding, M+ and FF14 Raiding are nowhere near alike tho

[Colt47]

Thats why its called END GAME RAIDING not Casual Game Raiding

After doing FFXIV end game all the way through savage for an entire expansion, the game has a lot of problems it needs to get addressed with it and a lot of them are from how they have basically engineered everything to work. Unfortunately, I doubt they are going to change it.

1. Every major patch the gear level is raised / reset.
2. Optimal stats are only available from savage loot and as people have pointed out, there is no point to having optimal stats unless someone is doing end game content.
3. The lockout is personal for normal raids, but group based for savage. (And the main reason they made the lockout for savage group based to begin with was because of people selling runs of the hard content back during ARR days... GL selling runs with how fights are designed now)
4. Tomestone cap is insanely low except on the final patch of the expansion and the launch of the new expansion.

What happened in FFXIV is what happens when you got a person copying someone elses homework and not understanding why they did things the way they did them to begin with. I mean, actually doing savage for three tiers plus doing all the extreme mount farms kind of made me question the entire thing after looking at how much time was needed, the social problems someone has to deal with because of the lockout system, and the opposing goals that different people have for doing the content.

Person A does X content because they want to clear it and have proof they cleared it.

Person B does X content because he wants to gear his jobs faster.

Person C does X content because he wants to be able to dye the gear from it.

Person A and person B are going to get into arguments later on skipping fights because person A only wants to gear their main job for the sake of that goal. Person B doesn't care and just wants a faster gearing route. Person C isn't going to want to stop running the content until he at least has a full set of dyable gear, even if the tomestone gear is superior for some slots.

Meanwhile, in normal mode content people hop in on tuesday, clear everything, and then have to wait until next week to do anything. They might do a few runs to cap tomestones but that is it.

So we have this MMO where the culture paradoxically goes between everyone just zoning out, vs everyone trying to do the harder content and getting into fire fights with one another in statics or going the no-life PF route of grinding like it's their overtime job and praying they don't burn out before the end.

[Granyala]

3. The lockout is personal for normal raids, but group based for savage. (And the main reason they made the lockout for savage group based to begin with was because of people selling runs of the hard content back during ARR days...

The reason was less people "selling" runs. People can and do that now: see mount selling runs.

The main reason was that raid groups did "split runs" and funneled all the gear to one character, then reran the raid again for the next etc, etc, greatly increasing the item level progression speed at the cost of real life play time. With items being in neutral coffers nowadays, that would be a huge problem. IIRC, back then items still dropped directly and were job specific.

This behavior promoted burn out and gave groups willing to do it an unfair advantage, especially during early progression.

With the current system, you'd need multiple alt characters to do this (I am sure there are super tryhards insane enough to do that but the number is infinitely smaller).

[Colt47]

The reason was less people "selling" runs. People can and do that now: see mount selling runs.

The main reason was that raid groups did "split runs" and funneled all the gear to one character, then reran the raid again for the next etc, etc, greatly increasing the item level progression speed at the cost of real life play time. With items being in neutral coffers nowadays, that would be a huge problem. IIRC, back then items still dropped directly and were job specific.

This behavior promoted burn out and gave groups willing to do it an unfair advantage, especially during early progression.

With the current system, you'd need multiple alt characters to do this (I am sure there are super tryhards insane enough to do that but the number is infinitely smaller).

Ah right, they had that going on as well back then. Either way they should revert the lockout to personal loot but they wont because no one in JP is complaining. That and unfortunately, those who do try out savage are the minority in this game.

[NekiUno]

You have a system that encourages playing every job but you are only allowed to gear one character unless you wanna spend millions of gil on crafted gear. What if someone doesn't want to craft? Yoshi's view on the game is someone shouldn't have to do certain content to get certain gear yet if you DON'T have penta melded crafting gear you are griefing.

You make an expansion that promotes playing continually then turn your savage content into a once per week event and do not allow people to go back and play them again without griefing other people's rewards. This system is fundamentally counter to the nature of this game, it needs improved because it's not fun it doesn't make any logical sense.

It seems you're suggesting that weekly gear lockouts are not desirable, even though such lockouts typically get removed after a patch or two.

I understand that some players have been inquiring about this since the release of Gordias. In my opinion—and I apologize in advance if this offends anyone—I believe that if Gordias were released today in its original form, the current player base might not engage with it, potentially leading to a stagnant raid scene......again.

Regarding your question, I must respectfully disagree. The desire is for players to continue running the raid even after obtaining their desired items. If players were given everything on the first day, there would be no incentive to run it again.

[Lusarae]

Regarding your question, I must respectfully disagree. The desire is for players to continue running the raid even after obtaining their desired items. If players were given everything on the first day, there would be no incentive to run it again.

Strong disagree. This is why the pets and mounts exist. They could also just create a new type of currency for cosmetic only rewards that you can only get from the current raid tier raids. Like an upgraded version of the moogle tomestone event, but its always active. With an ever increasing pool of items to get again. Like all the stuff that was taken out of the game that they said they'd put back in, like the old pvp series rewards... that would be the first thing I'd put in there.