changes to the game that would go hard

[Collin_Sky]

Nah, it isn't what happens now. What happens now is that an expansion releases, you 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. 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 savage 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 tomes for that uncapped gear come from dungeons, which also drop the accessories you need before you can even get the uncapped tome gear. It’s essentially the same process.

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.1

Even if it were the same ilvl, it would still be stronger because 5 materia slots > 2. Granted, some pieces have less desirable substats like SKS or TEN, but in general, more slots still provides a clear advantage.

Yes, I'm looking at gearing from the perspective of it being functionally beneficial in-game, rather than tangentially beneficial in the FFLogs metagame.
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.

But wanting to improve my performance isn’t only about parsing. I’d still strive for better gear even if logs didn’t exist. Saying the only reason to gear up is for FFLogs is incredibly reductive.

I’ve offered plenty of reasons why gearing multiple jobs at a decent pace is reasonable, yet the only response you've provided is "lol it doesn't matter you don't really need the gear just stop caring about your parse". I actually enjoy the content we have, I’d just like to play it on other jobs without feeling like I’m griefing the party because I want to play something that isn't my main.

[Purrnauskis]

All of this will cook the brain of the average "casual" who struggles with expert therefore we will never have any of these. Sorry.

[Collin_Sky]

All of this will cook the brain of the average "casual" who struggles with expert therefore we will never have any of these. Sorry.

If you still struggle with expert after 100 levels, I worry.
But also the rest of the playerbase shouldn't have to suffer such a stale game just because you're unwilling to improve after 300+ hours in a game.

[Purrnauskis]

If you still struggle with expert after 100 levels, I worry.
But also the rest of the playerbase shouldn't have to suffer such a stale game just because you're unwilling to improve after 300+ hours in a game.

Say that to the people who were posting here at the start of DT because Alexandria was impossible.

[Kaurhz]

Generally a pretty good list.

But IMO above anything I would just take an open world that is actually alive and matters versus something like scaled 4-man instanced dungeons, which is, at best disappointing with the amount of over-reliance on instanced content to have a remotely engaging experience. I agree with the sentiment, of having repeatable content, but in 4-man content.. I already feel like I am not playing an MMO.

Dungeons and other side content used to actually be tied in really well with crafted content, if you look at some of the material requirements from HW, people were driven all over the place for getting materials, e.g., Grand Company... That was an amazing time for crafted, so anything that creates a stronger connection with battle content and crafted again has my thumbs up. This disappointing "Go cap your old tomestones", just ain't hitting it.

Alliance Raid gear should be equivalent to BiS, it releases an entire patch cycle later, and is still weekly capped. It's beyond a disappointment.

I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of nerfing crafted gear, crafting is in a really bad spot, IMO, and that 1 week every 9 months is one of the few good things about it. Not speaking monetary/Gil-wise, but the amount of collaboration and prep that people put into that is one of the few good things. Although, I understand and appreciate the perspective or reasoning behind it to a degree for some people (e.g., the savage gear feeling like it matters long-term).

[Akonyl]

2. this also makes questing/overworld combat less cringe, because it won't feel wasteful to pop giant cds for a mob that will die in five hits, run 20 yards to the next mob, and then not have any cds for the rest of the quest

You know you don't have to do your 2 min burst on a random mob, right? You can use some of your cooldowns on one mob and then your other CDs on another.

Not to mention, staggering CD timers won't actually help this at all, because if you're of the mindset of "I gotta pop all my CDs!" then with the spacing of fights in MSQ, most likely when you get to the next group of mobs all your CDs will be ready despite differing CD timers, you'll press them, and then you'll still have the same issue even though some of your timers (for example) are 90, some are 120, etc. This sounds like an issue you're making yourself.

Then the others:

II: These suggestions are terrible and would either be extra dev for nothing, or a balancing headache. The last thing this game's encounter design needs is less balance, just because WoW does something doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing to take.

III: Yeah, I think dungeons could do with more mechanics, but considering how some people handled DT's launch, we might need to wait a bit more if we're gonna introduce more of a bump there. I don't agree with having M+ type mats be required for savage gear progression, but some kind of sellable item from dungeons would be cool (and Criterion basically does that to an extent already, mounts are decent money).

IV: Nah. As someone who gets BIS every tier, and then has it all invalidated by the introduction of crafted the next tier, I prefer how it is now. If new crafted was only equal to savage, then with substats/etc there would inevitably be savage pieces that are better than the equivalent crafted, and I'm not a fan of prog from the previous tier bleeding into the current tier.

V: Yeah this gets suggested often enough, it'd be a good idea but I assume at this point SE has some kind of backend issue with it that makes them not want to implement it. Oh well.

VI: "Just make trusts not do mechanics to not have to do extra programming" shows how little this was thought about, considering how many mechs there are that'll kill someone (the player) for someone else's mistake (the NPC). This would be a substantial amount of work regardless of how they choose to implement it. It could be neat though.

VII: Complaining about SE making combat boring in point 1 and then going "yeah take away positionals except from one melee" is quite the take.

[Collin_Sky]

Say that to the people who were posting here at the start of DT because Alexandria was impossible.

Happily. If you're still struggling, you're holding the game back for everyone else.

[Kaurhz]

I think struggling with content, any content is fine... But I think if a player sees it as a game design issue, then I think it's 'holding back', but if they can at least acknowledge that they aren't as good as they should be, then it's fine.

The reality is to a degree is that 'skilled' players hold the game back, just as much as what 'bad' players do.