Link to the forums thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/473632-Endgame-gearing-in-FFXIV
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Maybe reduce the cost of slots you have already purchased. You buy a chest for your main job, and for each alt job it has a reduced cost.
"In general I like Sfia." I mean, the guy is a literal sexy librarian. How could you not like him?
With regard to the first point of one character to play all jobs, I honestly do think a reduction of cost or increase in combat currency rewards is going to be needed in some regard. Personally, I do not think that's inherently negative and is probably the most give and take type of change for max level content reward and engagement.
For the second point though, you will NEVER get away from this problem as long as unique and complex stats do not exist. Stats that will be so complicated for 70% of the player base that they won't like it. Stats that will cause complete imbalance between jobs and that will have to be an accepted fact for players.
This requires, without question, an acceptance for horizontal progression along with gear swapping mid-combat. A lot of players who are for it, don't understand what that actually means though. Horizontal progression does, factually, mean that when new gear is released, it will NOT often be an upgrade. It will mean the content you did for gear months ago, if not years possibly, will still be BiS for some, if not all, gear you got back then. That is how horizontal progression works and arguably the only way you can make substats "fun".
For reference, try out FFXI. It is the only game out there that has successfully done horizontal progression, but it is also a good example of seeing how that success has caused its own unique problems that only vertical progression can fix. A balance between the two is necessary while also accepting just how broken gear stats will be.
Some Job customization like that mastery stuff could be nice in FF
I wouldn't mind special weapon materia that can alter how some spells and weapon skills behave. Like for whm, have holy deal more damage, but remove the stun effect as an example
As somone who does Ex trials but doesn't raid, gear feels borderline meaningless.
Purely if you use chests, it'll take you at most, 11 weeks to get all the gear from raid but seeing you get 1 book per week that could be shortened down to 8 or 9 depending on what you use your books on. That's almost an entire patch cycle just to get BiS, and let's not even forget that during that time people are buying Tomestone gear that'll be augmented and match stats and Item Level of said raid gear you're trying to get. I don't do Savage but was willing to do the new dungeon with friends, until we see there's literally no reason to do ASS Savage. No gearset to help boost you up while still buying Tomestone gear and waiting for Alliance Raids, which is ANOTHER time sink of getting ONE coin for an augment per week. Whereas Eureka, Bozja, and Zadnor each had these. No extra means of getting augment materials aside spending 3,200 hunt currency which gives you ONE of said mat. Don't get me wrong Variant Dungeons were one hell of an experience and we've had fun. But the lack of gear that could relieve the feeling of being left behind by not doing Savage, something not just us, but many were hoping for Variant/Crtierion to fix and not doing so is… Disappointing. Hoping they do listen, because otherwise it'll be just be Deep Dungeons lite- Only do it when there's nothing else.
Maybe, they can reward a token for every piece of gear you purchase, which can be redeemed for another piece of gear for a different role.
on the tenacity front in shb as a meme i made a full tenacity/crit warrior and it felt just fine. tenacity isnt that much worse than det at 2/3 as effective on the damage front. it was hilarious having 10%+ mit at all times. substats could literally be deleted from the game and there would be no impact at all
Tomestone gear costs should be tuned around being able to gear the trinity (tank,healer,dps) within one patch. Ideally every dps type as well, but at the very least 3 jobs.
tbh you should just get one piece of gear per slot on your character and the stats (and even the physical look) adaptively change depending on what job you're on. i'm not sure how the materia system would have to change to allow for this but it's not out of the realm of possibility
the only exception is weapons, maybe you still have to clear turn 4 of the tier every time you want a weapon for a different job
The comment @Dessern posted is exactly what I have been saying since Shadowbringers. We should not have to have crafted, or raid gear to do the next content at all. We should be able to earn it in the dungeons and supplemental what we miss with crafted. Too many times I get to the end with my various characters to be stuck and having to craft or buy gear to do the current one if its not my raiding class on my main. (My response for the rest is below) I also miss the original diadem fate events but not the gear XD.. I still got a few of those random rings.
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Personally, totally agree with lowering the cost of the gear. As for the 2nd part, I do feel sub-stats are an issue but I personally have no idea on what they could do to adjust that. It is noticeable on soloing a lot. Also the saying monk relies on it is not fully true cause I love blue mage and that is major on that too.
The third part about lack of varied methods I totally agree on. Literally miss being able to do side quests and side content to access really good pieces than always having to focus on raids specially since I do not raid in a static anymore and its mostly Crafted, some tome and then Savage is the BiS most of the time from what I noticed.
The 4th literally I can not comment on since I have not experienced Criterion Dungeons, I am still working on my varied.
The big reason I care bout the top two so much is due to the fact that I am disabled and am playing this game a lot to socialize. I have two characters at end end game which I am doing omni on one and semi omni on the other. (One is almost all jobs 90, my other most played is 90s on Tank, healer, melee, Ranged, and magic dps along with all her crafts and gatherers. It is a lot but I am more focused now vs my previous characters having over 30 on crystal and some on aether as well.
Isn't a fresh 90 with crafted 610 gear a good start? I haven't finished Endwalker yet but have at least one level 90 action job and working on others. At the same time of leveling those jobs I'm working on profession jobs specifically to craft that gear (armorer, leather worker and weaver).
The race to BiS is a race to finish all the hardest content currently. BiS is just a trophy, it has no practical reason to exist. After you have the trophy that's dead content, why do people want content to die even faster?
this issue with the rewards really feels like it revolves around the "we cant put meaningfull rewards in this because most of the people that play the game will complain that they are gated out of them" lets be honest most of the content in the game can be cleared in your sleep and god forbid some people actually having to actually pay attention and press their buttons correctly for once i saw a video where someone said "why cant you do the content just because its fun ?" well im sorry if i want that carrot on a stick in an MMO game where people love to show off the stuff they got after doing a dungeon or a raid or an ultimate im sorry for actually wanting something out of the time i spent doing said content this take is just 1 of many that sometimes imo plague this game where everything just feels hyper trivialised and thats how you get to moments where you have the 2 button rotation per summon summoner where there is no need for you to even try to optimise your gameplay the game already does it for you
Since Guild Wars 2 was brought up, here's how it works. The level cap is 80. This never goes up. The highest gear is capped at pink/purple. Purple you can change the stats of. What makes expansions over there change things is how classes get new subclasses. The guild wars 2 system can't work here except if they allowed you to change gear stats would be amazing.
Maybe trade in your Pentameld I for less tombstone cost on certain roles.
Can these guys stop trying to make ffxiv more like wow please ?
If you want a number going up that much why not play WoW ?
They need to make spell speed stack up better there's definitely a lack of variance in play.
I think Raids and lockout should allow Need 1 item per class/job type or make specific Coffins for just Roles that always drop, so the left over can be claimed by their back up jobs
Just make Equivelent gear (Not the same ilvl, but similar) from other options.
Raid gear should always be the highest tier gear, no need to even discuss that.
If 630 is the current gear BiS, then have Extreme trials drop a currency for 625 gear, this way Extremes stay relevant for non-high end raiders.
I kind of just wish that if you won a coffer in savage, you could reopen the coffer more than one time in order gear multiple classe. since coffers aren't tradeable, I cannot really see a reason for having to get a chestpiece on every single class over and over and over again when there is realistically only time to gear 1-2 alts before an ultimate comes out requiring max ilvl
I'm reading a bit of Sfia's post here, they sound completely insufferable. For example "there is a social expectation to bring the job with the highest gear". No there isn't. There is a social expectation to meet the DPS check, which relies on your skill with the job, with your ability to do fight mechanics and then having the minimum level of gear. For example my main is MNK and I join a PF with another MNK already in the group. Rather than have the disadvantage of having 2 same jobs, I change to SAM even though it has a weapon 1 tier down and I'm not as good playing SAM as MNK. This is fine.
This player throws around their Ultimate raider clout like it means something more than the thousands of regular players. Pure elitism.
Ive actually recently gotten back i to ff14 and found that since i took such a long break and i wanna raid with friends that gearing for each class is super time consuming so i just do monk my main, healers and tank gear every other class ive just stopped touching honestly and i hate this fact i hope something comes up for this sooner then later
As a certified Wow Andy who is up to date with ffxiv also. I find the gearing ffxiv incredibly boring, with only one path to bis. Rng can be frustrating but if it's balanced out with some deterministic systems, as has been done in the most recent patch of retail Wow, it feels fine.
Unique stats will never happen ffxiv because they could not balance it, and they do not want a game with massive variation from class to class.
TBF Blizzard is bad at balancing BUT balancing 36 specs across 3 game modes, AOE vs ST, etc, It is almost impossible. To a certain extent, it's the price you pay for variation, and dare I say it fun!?
as of next week I will have my full 610 set and will be just back on when the next story part of the raids drops though I do still need to do brand quests, other than that I'm able to focus on other games, I'm not personally interested in doing expert, ultimate or savage content.
Is there really so little content in-game that Zepla has to resort to forum thread ‘reactions’ for views? Keep in mind that a new patch came out earlier this week.
Simple solution, remove the cap, if people want to burn out, let them, yoshi p said is good to take breaks, unless you have a house, so take breaks but keep paying your sub… Sorry, I went too passive aggressive there.
I like your idea of simply reducing the cost with each piece purchased.
What if like you could get say 1/8 of a twine or something from a lvl 90 map randomly. Untradable but you could get something to upgrade tomestones gear through maps. Maybe this is a terrible idea I'm just trying of thinking of other ways to give loot but nothing too good or grindy. Hmmm.
I would love a mastery or talent tree form of progression naturally throughout the newest expansion and ONLY made for that newest set of levels.
This way, it:
-Combats the idea of button bloat (rather than getting MORE actions every expansion)
-Doesn't affect earlier expansion content
-Gives players new and engaging ways to play their EXISTING job
-Allows a breath of fresh air for RPG experimentation
-Develops another layer to fine tune balancing
(In the case of where one job talent might make them underperform, but another talent can keep them lifted up, then tuned between them)
The only thing I would NEVER want is gear that gives you a new ability or DRASTICALLY affects the way your job is played. Power through gearing in that way is impossible to balance since it requires you to consider how someone will perform both with and without it. A mastery system instead, allows players to naturally obtain abilities as they progress and balance for it is normalized.
I do wish it was faster to get BiS without Savage. I don’t have a FC/static and PF can be so iffy. I’d love to find a reliable FC to make friends so Savage can be more fun. It just sucks in PF with new groups over and over and not knowing who you’re talking to should they want to use Discord.
If I had to have one major complaint, it's that with how substats are distributed between raid and augmented tome gear, pretty much all classes need 2-3 twines for left side and at least 2 moonshine shines for the right side. Now in a vacuum that sounds not that terrible, but with pretty much every class in the same boat you're fighting for a 1 time chance to get one of these per week between 7 other people who also need multiple of them. I don't understand why the raid gear is not the best by default with augmented tome gear being used for supplemental gear or catch up gear? It would make gearing in raids way less obnoxious. The other problem it creates is as soon as alliance raid comes out, everyone is going to abandon the third floor because for the most part the only reason why anyone runs it is twines.
I understand Sfia's points, truly I do. But it is a MMO we are talking about. As soon as you start to increase build variety, some deplorable behavior will appear. "Oh, you are playing Direct Hit Ninja? You silly goose, Det Ninja is the meta, now switch your gear/skills or find another party."
There is already so, so much salt online due to job balance, if you add a layer of each job having a preferred build, online discourse is going to become nonstop vitriol.
Here's how I think the system should play out.
Coffers stay the same, but Books instead are spent to unlock a gear piece. From there, you're allowed to have that slot of gear on any class that has cleared it's respective turn of the raid.
So for P4S, you could get the chest coffer your first run, or you could spend the 8 books to unlock chest, and get it for free on every class you've cleared it on.
Maybe if not free, then just one book instead of the full price.
Also, MeldPlates
not a huge fan of Sfia's takes, as related to Dark Knight, and a few other things, BUT ….
1) I kinda agree to a point. it does feel, even at the lower level if endgame play i'm at, that it's 'pick one, MAYBE two jobs for the tier'. i mean sure, I enjoy being a tank, and that's not gonna change any time soon, BUT i like playing DPS to, and i would like to see being able to switch roles be a bit easier then it is, cause, ya know. not all of us out here be sitting on hundreds of millions of gil to just buy all the crafted gear we want.
2) oh, right … substats are a thing … I kid of course, but it really does feel like a waste of time to meld materia what with how little it feels like it helping.
3) eh … i kinda feel like this is MOST fine as is, not a super huge fan of the idea of more sets, if anything i'm rather see the tomestone cap increased, or gear made cheaper, or, since there is really no point to them after week 7 if you've been keeping up, lock outs removed way sooner.
i don't do savage so 4 is moot for me.
How to make sub-stats more interesting: Design jobs around them and have stats change how jobs play. Which is something FFXIV has been actively getting away from. :/
How is increasing the tomestone cap a fear of "taking way to long to cap weekly". Would it not be the same effect if the gear was "cheaper" with a smaller cap? It's all the same to me. I actually agree with the increase. The 450 cap should go away and all new tomestones should start with the already established 2k cap and that can be limited weekly for the newest tome. This will let us achieve a faster BiS with our main and continue to more aggressively gear our alt jobs.
I would also agree at least for the 4th fight in a tier that book prices need to be reduced. If you are a pug raider (like myself) you are looking at 16 WEEKS of reclearing for body and weapon alone if you do not get lucky on rolling for a direct drop. Not to mention the mount depending on your rng.
If they had disciple of war, magic and tank gear it would give us 3 sets to grind (minus weapons). That would be a fair adjustment on my eyes.
I think materia needs a large rework in general. In both what it does and how its melded. I think all materia slots should be removed from gear (except maybe the weapon) and all of those materia slots should be moved to the Job Stones that way people can customize each jobs melds how they want without having to get another set of gear or having to remeld their current set for just wanting to play another job in the same role.
I also think materia should be reworked to be job and ability specific (allow single melds like <Finisher Here> Damage +5% to have a more noticable impact). Something that always annoyed me too was them changing abilities to be auto crit with no say from the player base. Just introduce a materia to allow players to make that choice. If a player wants to make a finisher auto crit with a loss of crit potency then let them do that.
Also speed stats are horrendous and need a hard rework. Change them to haste and let them directly reduce cooldown timers. Also remove this weird 2 minute burst window meta and let each individual player dictate their own performance in a fight.
Giving more freedom to the players with how they play their job wouldnt be a bad thing and would make combat overall significantly more fun.
I comletely agree with this. Many times I want to change between caster vs phys ranged cause I like to ply both in high end, but if I gear one, I will lock out the other for some time, especially at the last raids in the tier, where i get bored the most as it takes usually the longest to get through in PF.
i'm a tank main, and i'm lucky that i can easely go between tank jobs, if i want to have bis on both is' a matter of obtaining savage gloves and it's done(yes there's melding too, but if you have Materia on hand, it's ok. even better if you can meld it by yourself. Messy, but effective). And i want to try out healing, because it's interesting from the side of tanking, to look on my job from another perspective. And it's a support role besides. But to every tier you condemn yourself to 1 class, and that's all. Melee's the worst in it, since there's 3 types of sets for Melee's and monk can play sam, that's it, you're done. Nin still selfish with the gear, but atleast he uses Ranged Jewelry. The only way to try out healing and don't miss out on gear that much is to make and Alt. It's has it's Ups and Downs, but like, not everyone that crazy to make an Alt.
Just make the Tomestone-cap per role … problem solved. … You cap your Tomes for Casters, then for Tanks, and so on. … easy.
While i understand the perspective of more competitive players.
I don't think developers really care for "poopsock players".
This is an issue that really affects maybe 200 players, and what really happens means is " ah yeah i wanna play optimal faster"
Not really sure if you can even say it's an issue, it's just a preference. As you said you can clear the Savage with crafted gear you don't need to have optimal gear.
This is just for people that wanna do logs and hyper-analyze everything easier, and it happens only to people that play in hardcore level of commitment.
(as this has been the eternal issue, people having to maintain alt chars in order to play more than 1 class).
Looking over the philosophy of the game regarding loot, i don't think this has a place. If anything getting more armor faster will just end up creating this feeling of the player that have in WoW (to an extend). That feeling of you have to rush and do more, if you wanna be optimal at your gear farming, which i don't think this game is made for this.
There is a chance that you could potentially maybe able to change the stats of the armor to your will (unlimited times) for a fee to an NPC. That would be a better option in my opinion.
plz no flam this is just the lowly opinion of a melee dps / healer that clears Savage with friends and pugs.
Predictable is good. Unpredictable is shit.
I have wasted way too much time RNG farming bis in wow.
And then one tier, I got basically BIS from a random cache vault. I got orange parses and ABSOLUTE RANK 1 PARSE on a boss shortly after. Did I earn it? No. Did it feel good? for like 5 minutes. Then I realized I was just a lucky bitch.
Don't give them RNG gear ideas.
Zepla really getting into GW2 now
In my four P8S clears to date, I have won nothing while the same person won both the weapon and body coffer twice. Great system!