Hyrist wrote:
Well, if it's for raid gear, why not keep it there? And when you're done you get to take out the nice shiny glamour. The idea of independent progression really rubs me the right way.
Largely because with Deep Dungeon for example, stats has no purpose in there and ilvl235 isn't really much in the grand scheme of things at this point in time raid wise. (that extra little boost in stats over a lore weapon will do nothing unless your lore weapon was trash lol.) But since it came at a time when a lot of people had nothing left to do since they staggered deep dungeon, it's definitely a good system for that purpose since it helps people level in the mean time.
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Also, the definition of Endgame seems to be highly subjective among people.
It's kind of subjective and kind of not, it depends on your personal interpretation. Per game design, end-game (especially in both FF MMOs) is content that happens at max level that's progression based. Every 50/60 trial/primal (HM/Extreme)/coil/savage is end-game content since at one point in time they were part of your progression and they were 1 step to the next before they absolutely destroyed that setup (Tomestone/CT/Primals worked together with gearing you for Coil and Coil was the ultimate goal for gear rather than everything being weird alternates of each other.)
So it really depends, since end-game in terms of MMOs have always been a set definition of content you do beyond the basics once you're at max level and tend to be event related. These days where MMOs are less structured and honestly not really caring about the game design much (let's be honest) the definition is blurred. Your example of XIs ilvl145+ content is true, because that's the only end-game for players who've been playing awhile. Someone ilvl119 with full JP and Superior 2 gear will not be spamming Sky or Sea for example in 2016's FFXI, though you COULD argue doing the high tier versions of Ark Angels, Avatars, Escha Sky, Vagary and the Dragons as some of it is still used heavily for catching up, but most of XI's 75 era end-game content is dust in the wind, you only really do it for nostalgia sake or if working on an RME.
So as I've always said, XIV's biggest weakness, is they don't care much about current players and rather focusing on potential players or players who cycle in and out which leads to the weird content imbalance we do got, which is fine but I don't think they'd get a 2x success following the same pattern as 2.x > 3.x like he hopes for 4.x (his whole "we won't change the formula" at E3.) This is why they need to go back to Coil being the standard, Savage being the alternate and Alliance based content/primals not being absolutely "optional" content since they tend to come at a time in 3.x where everyone's had ample time to get Eso gear (all you need if you're not doing savage) and Lore gear (you'll get this regardless.) That's why everyone liked Thordan/Sephirot/Nidhogg for progression because it was a halfstep that actually benefited everyone that actually bothered to learn it/spam it.
Honestly, that's why I said when they announced the "Story Mode/Savage Mode" I said it would be a waste, since the "Savage" mode is the version that comes first then they create the Story Mode around it. Instead, they should just go back to Coil difficulty and have it work as both Story and "difficult" content. I know most people here only have played on NA servers so they have the "must have static" ingrained into their minds, but honestly, you've heard very little if at all any complaints about being rewarded gear and story for their hard work (in a Final Fantasy game at that...) compared to the people who complained about wanting to experience the story without going through the content basically.
That's why everyone was cheering on Midas (Savage) being far better design, aside A6S, it was a lot closer to coil but still fairly ridiculous.