Pink aetherial items were good, actually

[Valence]

The thing is, because of how the devs design classes and fights, BiS gear generally is Crit and Direct Hit.
Speed maybe with enough of it can also be beneficial, if you can fit an extra combo in a burst window...
Det kinda just being too weak, they would need to buff it for it to give the same level of boost as Crit and DH do.

Determination has been marginally better than DH since the release of Endwalker. It's the go-to choice for most jobs in a vacuum unless you already have too much of it with lesser gains than DH.

But it doesn't matter ultimately, that's the beauty of rng loot. If you have bad stats on a thing, you're gonna try and replace it by something better. You're not stuck with a subpar piece of garbage like casuals are with tomestone gear as the unique option for their best gear, but instead you technically have an infinite amount of options. If anything it drives players to continue playing if they want. And the whole point of the thread was hidden between the lines, as this whole discussion and ideas are totally pointless and moot if the content being played is a tedious, boring grind, period.

While I agree people by far and large wouldn't go that deep into the lottery burn, You've honestly picked the worst choice here for example. Speaking as someone very deep in the online Borderlands community through the years, someone who plays BL beyond just the story/fun with friends will almost certainly be the type to hardcore grind for "mathematically perfect" weapons. I still remember BL2 topics of people making journal updates of their journeys farming the perfect Norfleet of each element.

And you didn't like doing it in BLs? Was it bad? Did it make any other great Norfleet feel useless in comparison? I'd love a system where both hardcore farmers and more regular players to find their niche with the latter not being completely outclassed by the former.

[Dorito_Burrito]

You have no power in this house, skill speed/tenacity gear.

[Syln]

I don't know about that, randomized boring stats are still boring :/

Now i give you that it would be a slight enhancement from what we currently have but it's like saying that a well polished stone is more interesting than a regular one.

Gearing/looting in this game is and has always been the most bland experience i ever had in a mmorpg, it's so bare-bone anyone could come up with a few ideas to spice it up :

Adding perks (double cast/ignore armor/multi strike etc ...) when you reach a certain threshold with a stat now that would make gearing/melding more interesting and maybe add a NPC that allow you to partially reallocate stats from any gears as you can already do when you reach a certain stage for your artifact weapon.

Adding new materia that don't do anything on their own but create some kind of unique effect when they are melded together like Rune words in Diablo 2.

So many things they could do but won't for the sake of easier balancing.

[Valence]

I'd like them to rework the whole battle system and make stats more relevant and meaningful, but that's beyond the scope of what I wanted to cover. Still, I gave some better, more exotic examples in the second post. I'm all for yours too.

[Vyrerus]

- They didn't make high end raid gear obsolete since the item level was equivalent, and since Diadem came out in 3.1, casuals just gained a slow access to augmented tome (i210) with Alliance raids augments, and Gordias was already 4 months old and raiders were already on their BiS for a while.

Incorrect.

Gordias and Midas both were insanely difficult for their time period, such that even by this point in that particular raid tier, not many serious raiding teams had even beaten Arm of the Father Savage (A3s). Many raiders did not and could not earn their Savage tier gear, and part of the irritation with the Diadem gear was that it made the already unstable raiding scene at the time seem even less worthwhile, causing yet more raiders to give up on raiding entirely.

I don't disagree with the premise of the thread, as I did enjoy pink gear and having alternative gearing methods, but part of the reason they shied away from it is because of the backlash they received due to adding it in a time like that. Trust and believe, when they overtune a raid tier even slightly the complaints become infantile and ceaseless. And Gordias was overtuned to a degree that it felt oppressive. But also believe that more people got i210 bodies from Diadem than they ever did from Gordias.

I mean, I don't know how to make it more plain, but even once they moved onto the next big patch, the last two Gordias Savage fights became unclearable by groups that COULD clear them due to the way their nerfed tank DPS in early-mid HW. Game was a mess back then. A fun mess imo, but a mess nonetheless.

[Kaliesto]

idk if stats matter all that much anymore considering how bosses these days can just one-two shot punish you.