AF gearFollow

I have a bit of downtime here at work and decided to make a thread about AF gear, specifically the differences of obtaining them between FFXI and FFXIV.

I don't want this to be too "dead-horsey" but I think getting AF (at least the first 4 pieces) in FFXIV was a bit too easy. And I don't want to seem manic, because I do think FFXIV is it's own game and shouldn't be FFXI, but I think the AF quest deserves at least a bit more challenge for how iconic the armor is. I was a bit let down when it was basically one (easy) quest, and not a series of quests.

For MNK, (and I'm assuming it's like this for other classes), it was literally sneak behind some tents and recover the gear. There was a fight or two near the end, but for the most part it took me less than 30mins to get 4 pieces of gear... and I even caught a couple of FATES along the way.

Now I'm not saying we should go back to waiting for key drops, fighting ridiculous NMs with a group or even jumping through crazy hoops like this, for example...but as I've mentioned in another thread the Duty Finder makes finding groups a bit more tolerable and that was more than half the battle. Heck SE could make a random item drop from FATES or from dungeons 40+, that you would then turn in to the AF quest giver.

The irony here is that I'm not totally a fan of the MNK AF (looks-wise) and also most people seem to graduate pretty quick from it once they're in their 50's for a bit.

Anyway, in the end, FFXI had more than a few things going against it in quests like these: low drop rates for things like keys, forced grouping with no incentives for other players, long travel times, and little to no direction without a walkthrough/guide; these are things FFXIV fixes and does right. However I just think they took it a bit too far on the easy side when creating the AF quests.

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So I don't want FFXI levels of crazy but I would have like to at least seen separate quests for each of the gear, a bit more of story, and maybe a bit of hoop jumping, and maybe a bit less hand holding, especially if it's all able to be completed solo.

What do you guys think?

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:49pm by Kierk

I agree. I got to 48 Warrior forgetting all about job quests until, as a miner, I saw the Warrior job-quest-giver with a sad red exclamation point and I remembered I hadn't done a job quest since becoming Warrior at lvl 30 or so. So I did all the job quests, one after the other, in about an hour or so. I was amazed that none of them were as ball-busting (can you say ball-busting?) as the job flag quest, and even more amazed when the guy started handing out blue relic items with 25% more stats than what I was wearing, for virtually no effort at all.

I remember ffxi's unbelievably hard system for AF gear and even though I played off and on for 10 years I never had a complete set for DRK, the only job I even tried on. The whole AF gear ordeal for every piece was ridiculous and I don't even know what it took to the ffxi relic gear but after Art Etegun and the fancy new sets everyone had, I just gave up completely. I also never beat Maat and only tried once, being utterly intimidated by the cost and probability of defeat, and being able to farm a testimony only with lucky help from a stranger.

I think somewhere in the middle would be best - a fun quest for each piece that takes a party or at least a partner, like the airship key quests in ffxi that dropped from sort-of-hard-for-your-level mobs that you could possibly solo carefully, but who could be rounded up and splattered by a hi-lvl that was helping you. He's like showing off his prowess, you's get your key. But killing one mob 15 lvls below you after teleporting here and there is just kind of boring.

I like that the AF quests (I've only done SMN and SCH) are soloable, but a tad bit more difficulty would not be amiss. Doesn't need to be anywhere near the difficulty of FFXI AF, though, given that you can wear far better gear just 5 levels later. The quests aren't exactly even in my mind, either.

For SMN AF, I fought a single Mirrorknight that popped when I talked to the correct NPC after flagging the quest. One not particulary difficult mob later, talk to the NPC and they just handed me the AF piece. Did that 3 times, returned to the NPC for the last piece (all NPCs fairly close to each other in Mor Dhona), then finished up back in Gridania.

SCH AF, on the other hand, required me to fight 3 mobs at once in Mor Dhona, then go to Ul'dah for one piece from Redolent Rose and one from the goldsmithing guildmaster, then to Gridania for 2 pieces from Geva and another leatherworker NPC, and finally back to Limsa Limonsa to finish the quest and get my spell. I will say the SCH AF fight (a Morbol and 2 Morbol seedlings at the far end of The Tangle) was a bit more of a challenge than expected when a FATE popped on top of me during the fight.

Could be possible that the ease of the SMN AF quest is due to the fact that you have the Garuda-egi fight as the follow-up job quest at 45. That's just a guess, though.

Given that AF as it is, will be as it is, at least by the reasons of the other posters here, I'd hope that there is a middle ground for solo difficulty in future AF, or other quests.

I really don't want to have the option of grinding dungeons or an easy quest; I'd like some challenge while soloing and "earning" items through skill (not time sinks although if used sparingly they can work).

I don't want to say the quest as it stands was boring; because like all quests (except for the /beckon levequests) so far they have been fine. But it certainly was too much like a regular quest, and my expectations got the better of me.