changes to the game that would go hard

[Collin_Sky]

I'm on the same wavelengths on most things.
I'd add that savage gear shouldn't be the only gear giving people cool tools to strive for. Casual players also deserve to have fun and goals to reach. The ilvl difference between the two is already an incentive to go for savage. I also do think that bringing back a system like Diadem 1.0 for gear would generate an endless threadmill about running fun content, and could also make gear from dungeons less useless as well. This game really does struggle with the fundamentals of any RPG which is based on gear progression, finding newfangled stuff, replacing an old piece with something unique, etc. Being happy or proud of one's gear and not just a carbon copy of the BiS that everybody else also uses to a T.

Tbh Savage and Tome gear straight shouldn't be the only max ilvl gear, it's sad and pathetic. The Chaotic gear is a great start, but there needs to be more. I've been saying pretty much since ARR that Alliance Raid gear should be max ilvl, simply to add variety to gearing/optimising, but also just as another way to gear up. SE did it for accessories via EX in ARR too, which were also max ilvl. I have no idea why they regressed on that outside of the first EX of the expansion.

The fact dungeon gear is useless the moment it releases is also awful.

[BigCheez]

I think having tome/savage gear be the only BiS gear is an intentional decision to avoid players having a laundry list of hoops to jump through to get their gear. IDK what the best solution is but gearing in FFXIV is so boring that removing stats from gear entirely would be preferable over the current system.

[Collin_Sky]

I think having tome/savage gear be the only BiS gear is an intentional decision to avoid players having a laundry list of hoops to jump through to get their gear. IDK what the best solution is but gearing in FFXIV is so boring that removing stats from gear entirely would be preferable over the current system.

Pretty sure it's to deliberately slow gear progression and optimise subscription retention for as long as possible.

[BigCheez]

Pretty sure it's to deliberately slow gear progression and optimise subscription retention for as long as possible.

IDK, do you think gear progression is slow? I think it's fast compared to other MMOs that I've played.

It's also largely irrelevant. The crafted gear that you can buy within 10 minutes of a raid patch going live is enough to clear the hardest content that the majority of the playerbase even play. You don't even need tome/savage gear unless you're logging or running ultimate on release, which the majority aren't.

I think what makes gear progression feel the most hollow and pointless to me is the fact that the only real progression is savage > ultimate, with there being no real reward in terms of power progression for clearing ultimate. Maybe it would feel better if we needed gear from extreme to clear savage and then took our savage/tome gear to ultimate, for example?

I think I would prefer if crafted gear was the same ilvl as the previous BiS set, so it could be used to catch up when a new patch released if someone had taken a break and needed to get up to speed, then you had to farm extreme for a few pieces to be ready for savage, then you farm savage/tomes to gear up for ultimate. Some unique effects like WoW's tier bonuses would also make things a bit more interesting.

[Collin_Sky]

IDK, do you think gear progression is slow? I think it's fast compared to other MMOs that I've played.

It's incredibly slow if you play more than one role and don't week 1 clear, yes.
Even more so if you PF and have to rely on book pity timers.

Tome gear in particular is the worst. It's pretty much impossible for a static to get all the upgrade mats for a single job in a reasonable time without spending books, and if you do that, you sacrifice being able to buy actual savage gear. It's a really dumb system.

It's also largely irrelevant. The crafted gear that you can buy within 10 minutes of a raid patch going live is enough to clear the hardest content that the majority of the playerbase even play. You don't even need tome/savage gear unless you're logging or running ultimate on release, which the majority aren't.

Not irrelevant. Why should I grief a group by using a 710 job when I could use a 730 instead? Why settle for lower performance if my goal is to enjoy playing at my peak? I want to push myself, and restrictive gear prevents me from doing that.

[BigCheez]

It's incredibly slow if you play more than one role and don't week 1 clear, yes.
Even more so if you PF and have to rely on book pity timers.

Tome gear in particular is the worst. It's pretty much impossible for a static to get all the upgrade mats for a single job in a reasonable time without spending books, and if you do that, you sacrifice being able to buy actual savage gear. It's a really dumb system.

I feel like needing BiS for multiple roles is a fairly minor complaint? A set of crafted gear would surely suffice, no? There's enough time to gear 3-4 roles between savage and ultimate release. Surely anyone who feels that they need multiple roles geared immediately is playing with multiple groups and already needs an alt to circumvent lockouts anyway.

I agree that the distribution of loot is a mess though. Due to so much of the gear and also tome mats dropping from the 2nd fights, you need to reclear it so much more than the others to get your loot.

[Collin_Sky]

Literally my point. Gearing in FFXIV is pointless and boring and I would rather it was removed than endure the current state of it.

They're never going to get rid of gear treadmill.

[BigCheez]

They're never going to get rid of gear treadmill.

The gear treadmill isn't the problem. I'm fine with ilvl increasing over time. The main problem is that there isn't anything to do with gear once you have it. It's just gearing for the sake of gearing.

A new patch releases. You buy/craft crafted gear, which completely invalidates all of your previous progression in a matter of seconds. You meld it. Done. Go do savage. Anything beyond that just makes the content trivial and doesn't serve any purpose other than parsing for the next 4 months.

In other MMOs, like FFXI or WoW, getting gear upgrades means that you're able to push into new content, which means you can get better gear, which means you can push into new content, which means you can get new gear, repeat. Progression actually exists. Gear has a purpose.

I think gearing in FFXIV would be much more interesting if, for example, when a new expansion releases, the best gear that we have access to immediately is dungeon gear from the highest level dungeons, then we use that to get the extreme weapon and accessories, then we use that ex gear to do savage, then we use savage/tome gear to do ultimate. It would be nice if we had something (like criterion/chaotic) in the 4 months between savage and ultimate, where we could take our savage/tome gear to get a few more pieces that we would need in order to do ultimate too.

When the next tier is released, crafted gear should not be better than previous BiS. Where other games have catch up gear, FFXIV has gear that fast tracks you to the end of the process.

If people are worried about crafting becoming useless, they could do something similar to what FFXI does and add some expert level crafts that are BiS items. The recipes for those could be added fairly late in the progression cycle. Your BiS for ultimate could be savage/tome/criterion/chaotic gear with a couple of crafted pieces that are very hard to craft, and the current crafted gear could still exist as catch-up gear.

[Collin_Sky]

I think gearing in FFXIV would be much more interesting if, for example, when a new expansion releases, the best gear that we have access to immediately is dungeon gear from the highest level dungeons, then we use that to get the extreme weapon and accessories, then we use that ex gear to do savage, then we use savage/tome gear to do ultimate.

This is exactly what happens now except we have crafted gear on Savage patch as well. Crafted gear exists to serve as a reset. To allow people who only care about progression or are behind for whatever reason to still be able to enjoy the content as it releases.
You are looking at gearing singularly from the perspective "I get my gear to do the next content with the gear" and not "I get my gear to push myself as high as possible in content that is already out" or "I get my gear to help out my friends who are struggling" or "I get my gear to play other jobs without griefing everyone else in the party"

The majority of the playerbase doesn't give a shit about Ultimates, so what are they even doing Savage each week for?

The answer is because fundamentally, gearing up and doing more damage is fun. Being able to do that on more than one class is even more fun. Gearing up multiple jobs should be faster. Idk why this is such a controversial thing.

[BigCheez]

This is exactly what happens now except we have crafted gear on Savage patch as well. Crafted gear exists to serve as a reset. To allow people who only care about progression or are behind for whatever reason to still be able to enjoy the content as it releases.

Nah, it isn't what happens now. What happens now is that an expansion releases, you turn your brain off for 3 hunt trains and buy the uncapped tome gear to do extreme, then you get extreme gear which serves no purpose other than parsing. Then you buy a set of crafted gear to do savage, which rewards you with savage and tome gear which serves no purpose other than parsing. Most people stop here and don't do ultimate on content. They might do it later but we'll have access to higher ilvl gear and you won't need savage gear by then. For the people who do prog ultimate on content, you do actually get some mileage out of your tome/savage gear but the 4 month delay between savage and ultimate completely removes any feeling of progression.

The problem is that there is no progression from content to content. The progression is "buy easily accessible gear for content > do content". Progging ultimate on content is the only exception to this.

I'm fine with crafted gear allowing people to catch up but it shouldn't be mandatory and should not replace your previous BiS. It should be the same ilvl as previous BiS.

You are looking at gearing singularly from the perspective "I get my gear to do the next content with the gear" and not "I get my gear to push myself as high as possible in content that is already out" or "I get my gear to help out my friends who are struggling" or "I get my gear to play other jobs without griefing"

Yes, I'm looking at gearing from the perspective of it being functionally beneficial in-game, rather than tangentially beneficial in the FFLogs metagame. Pushing damage in content by being better at the game is inherently more interesting than pushing damage by getting gear that makes the content easier.

The majority of the playerbase doesn't give a shit about Ultimates, so what are they even doing Savage each week for?

The answer is because fundamentally, gearing up and doing more damage is fun. Being able to do that on more than one class is even more fun. Gearing up multiple jobs should be faster. Idk why this is such a controversial thing.

Because, as garbage as it is, the illusion of progression is the only progression that the game affords them. There's nothing else to do. Reclearing for gear so you can play content without grey parsing is better than clearing once and coming back in 8 months.