Progression feels frustratingly broken at the moment.

[Amayasu]

Hey,

I'm a level 50 PLD. I hit level 50 several days ago. I've tanked ifrit HM, i've done everything for my Relic questline pre-AK, i've tanked every other instance apart from AK.

I want to tank AK. I've still not been able to run it.

I'm in the EU. My play time is evening until the early hours of the morning. I have friends and people around me to run AK with... and we can't. We sit in a 2 hour queue, waiting to run an instance. I'm slowly collecting Tomes through alternative sources (Wanderer's, Ifrit, etc), but the reality is that I feel entirely gear locked and limited in what I can do. I can't progress my Relic quest line without AK. I have Ifrit's sword, heh, but I still haven't managed an AK run. That boggles my mind; i've completed a "Hard Mode" mini-raid, but I haven't managed to run the only real level 50 dungeon.

The entire system of gear progression between a fresh level 50 and harder primals is AK farming. This is, genuinely, the worst i've seen in an MMO; I can't progress because I don't have the gear, and I can't gear because the only instance to provide gearing is locked in server limitations. AK is the only instance with drops that are actual upgrades.

Could we get a real answer to what is being done about this? Will we see more instance servers added? Changes to other dungeons to provide alternatives? HM Primals getting a Tome buff? There are players running around our servers geared through exploiting threat mechanics and speed running AK over and over. You patch that to stop it. These players are passed that grind, and are free to enjoy higher tier content. Patching the speed runs had a negative effect on everyone else; the instance takes longer, meaning longer queues, and the rate of acquiring Tomes is scaled up too.

Having one instance to farm is painful... but not actually being able to farm is just embarrassing. I don't want it to be easy; I want it to be varied and I want it to be available.

It's doubly crap for DPS players. You're queuing twice; first to get a tank and healer, and then to be allowed to see the instance.

I'm sure the usual "lol dis is not problem I has full Darklight lolol nub" crowd will be along, but keep in mind that because EU and the US share servers EU suffers two prime-times; I get two hour queues at 2am.

Thanks.

[ispano]

The other problem you will run into is that you're about 3 weeks behind due to the weekly cap, and 4 weeks behind people who benefited from one of the Server maintenances resetting their weekly cap. They really need to change from a weekly cap to a semi lifetime cap that scales up each week. Would prevent people from getting permanently ahead, and also allow others to catch up.

[Zfz]

They really need to change from a weekly cap to a semi lifetime cap that scales up each week.

They're ahead mostly because they rushed and started early. But yes the unintentional reset is sad, but it doesn't happen all the time so I can live with it.

I certainly won't mind if that weekly cap is changed to a lifetime cap based on the date when the player earned his first Mythology tomestone. Have the cap increased like the way Leve Allowances increase. This way I'm don't feel pressured to farm a fixed number of runs each week. I can take a weekend off and slowly catch up in the next two or three weeks, and end up in the same situation as if there was a weekly cap and I cap it each week. Once I earned enough tomes to drop that cap to 0, I have to wait for the next increase to earn more.

The leve allowance technology is there already, so this is entirely possible. IMO that will be a great quality of life improvement.

[ispano]

They're ahead mostly because they rushed and started early. But yes the unintentional reset is sad, but it doesn't happen all the time so I can live with it.

I certainly won't mind if that weekly cap is changed to a lifetime cap based on the date when the player earned his first Mythology tomestone. Have the cap increased like the way Leve Allowances increase. This way I'm don't feel pressured to farm a fixed number of runs each week. I can take a weekend off and slowly catch up in the next two or three weeks, and end up in the same situation as if there was a weekly cap and I cap it each week. Once I earned enough tomes to drop that cap to 0, I have to wait for the next increase to earn more.

The level allowance technology is there already, so this is entirely possible. IMO that will be a great quality of life improvement.

That still causes issues with people not being able to catch up, my idea is to start it from when the cap started.

[Payadopa]

Maybe the game shouldn't have been designed in a way that you can reach cap within a few weeks. ^^'

[Furious]

The underlying issue that has caused all of this angst is that for whatever reason, they decided it would be a good idea to release BC without releasing the raid that is meant to be the gap in between. This leaves players in a position of either holding back on doing content that is available waiting for content that should be but isn't, or leaves them farming extremely repetative content to "gear up" with gear that was really only meant to be a stop-gap rather than the go-to.

In an ideal world, people would be running the raid that drops ilvl 80 gear while geared with mostly ilvl 55, a spattering of darklight, and a primal weapon here and there. This raid would probably not be locked by completing primal fights either, allowing those that do struggle with titan or even garuda to gear up just that little bit more. The end result would be that the people who are pushing through coil now would still be pushing through coil, mostly in the same way they are no but augmented probably with a bit more ilvl 80 gear, while those stuck behind the roadblock that is titan for most would have content they felt appropriate for them that wasn't so repetatively grinding as ak/cm runs are, with the prospect that gear will actually drop that might actually be useful.

TLR; the majority of problems people are having now with the "progression style" would likely have been averted atleast somewhat if the game came out with the content it should have. Personally, I really don't understand the logic of balancing BC before the raid that's meant to go before it anyway.

[Amayasu]

TLR; the majority of problems people are having now with the "progression style" would likely have been averted atleast somewhat if the game came out with the content it should have. Personally, I really don't understand the logic of balancing BC before the raid that's meant to go before it anyway.

So I guess when 2.1 lands Bahamut is still going to be the actual end-game boss, and The Crystal Tower is a post-ifrit, pre Bahamut kind of place? That would be neat if true.

I understand that 2.1 is also supposed to bring some new instances at 50...

... but...

... this should have been launch content. Thanks for the heads up, i'm not one to demand new content, or push for new content weeks after release, but in this MMO I feel it's needed badly.

[Trikki]

In an ideal world, people would be running the raid that drops ilvl 80 gear while geared with mostly ilvl 55, a spattering of darklight, and a primal weapon here and there.

This makes absolutely no sense at all. Skipping a tier and a half of content is not what should be done.

[NefarioCall]

I've noticed a lot of people not giving any mention to the Vanya iLvL70 gear sets... is there something i should know about obtaining that or...

[ispano]

I've noticed a lot of people not giving any mention to the Vanya iLvL70 gear sets... is there something i should know about obtaining that or...

Expensive as hell, unless you have a stock of Potash and/or the other items from 1.0, you're going to be needing 9-27 of those crafting mats per gear piece, and they are 125 tomestones each. It used to be 1 Potash/Coke/etc per part, but SE increased it to increase the longevity of the content, all it really did was make it a long grind for people without the mats from 1.0.