This is a short one - it would probably be better handled as a toot or a skeet, but I need writing practice and I want to write more about MMOs.

In the JP Keynote from just yesterday, Yoshi P and Kojifox together presented a lot of cool things. Some of it was stuff we knew, and some of it wasn't. Within the updates we got about stuff previously announced was a mostly finalized version of the Seasonal system, including UI and also rewards.

Now, the raid gear is something I want to talk about, but we should start with some context for what I think these systems are replacing or augmenting.

You Hit Me In The Nuts, Kupo!

Hunts have had a unified currency since Shadowbringers - Sacks of Nuts. These are, ironically, not the same as the Kupo Nuts specific to the FFXIV Companion App. You gain a certain number of sacks per hunt bill, and also when you complete one of the high rank hunts (with a bonus if you have a bill for it that week).

These nuts are used for ancillary rewards from the Hunt vendors in the first city of each expansion (and the second for ShB and EW). Honestly, if you play XIV and haven't checked them out, you should! There's always a mount each expansion, some minions, music, and more.

They also wind up being where gear previously acquired by time-limited tomestones go to 'die'. A lot of them look fairly good, so it's still worth farming nuts for them - especially the Dawntrail gear! Quetzalli tank set, my beloved~

Time-Limited Tomestones

The aforementioned type of tomestones are capped on a weekly basis by a certain amount so that you can't simply grind out raiding-ready gear week one. You can sometimes go into Savage with less, but this gear is often requested or even required for entry.

This specific type of tomestone is only used to acquire the best possible pre-savage gear available. Which means...

Seasonal Gear Replaces Time-Limited Tomestones.

Under the new model, you will earn tokens which you will trade directly - seemingly 1 for 1, unconfirmed but I have reasons to believe it is so - into a new UI to get your Seasonal Gear. By the appearance we were shown for Season 1 it looks to be the visual equivalent of Time-Limited Tomestone gear. This makes sense.

"But what about FOMO?"

Time-limited gear has always (within recent history) been relegated to hunts after their currency is deprecated. This means that even after the season has ended and we've moved on to the next even-odd patch cycle, you will still be able to acquire it via Sacks of Nuts.

This puts everyone on roughly the same playing field, which I very much like.

Raid Gear!

The more exciting change for me was seeing that raid gear is still being given love and attention alongside seasonal gear. This is something I'm sure people were worried about, among many other things, in this transition to an even-odd season system. With raid gear getting selectable substats that are automatically capped to ilvl max, and upgrades allowing us not only to add Advanced Melding slots but slots that can use the most powerful Even Tier materia, there's plenty of reason for bloody casuals like me to get into Savage more often.

And when the tier is done and we're onto the next season? It'll just make it easier for us to get stat select gear that we can then scale into the next ilvl bracket.

I can't not love it.

Takeaways

  • Seasonal gear replaces having to earn time-limited tomestones, as gear is all those tomestones were good for.

  • Hunts will (likely) remain the method for obtaining seasonal gear you missed

  • Raid gear is amazing.

That's all for now~