A lockout in Final Fantasy XIV is a system that prevents certain content or items from being accessed (or farmed) repeatedly, and will last until a certain amount of time has passed before you can access that content again.
This might sound frustrating.
But before getting too upset, you should look at it from the developer’s point of view. MMO players are known to be pretty hardcore.
Left to their own devices, they’d do everything there is to do in a matter of days, then complain there’s nothing to do!
But jokes aside, I can see it from both sides. Lockouts keep you engaged & playing longer. And that’s likely what Square Enix is looking for.
Raids and tomestones are the main sources of locked content in Final Fantasy XIV.
Let’s start with raids since those are the most hardcore content in the entire game.
FFXIV Raid Lockouts
In raids, both eight-man and twenty-four-man, you’re limited to one item per fight per week.
This is to stop hardcore raiders from grinding the best current gear available at any one time in a single afternoon. Because let’s face it, that’s what they would do.
Eight-Man raid tiers usually have four fights when they release.
So you can earn one item per boss, essentially.
The best strategy is usually to discuss loot beforehand, to decide who gets what. That way you’ll avoid a whole lot of arguing, provided you actually kill the baddie.
The idea behind the lockout is for parties to discuss what each member will get, and rotate week-to-week.
Granted, this is all dependent on RNG as well. Sometimes you’re just unlucky.
Twenty-four man raids work in essentially the same way. The only difference is that there are three bosses.
If my math is right, each boss drops two items, so you actually see more gear get dropped in these twenty-four man raids.
Still, you have to bear in mind you are contained to one item for a Twenty-Four man raid. You’ll have to pick wisely because of that pesky RNG.
Do you grab the gloves that just dropped? Or do you pass on them and try to get the chest-piece later, which may not even drop?
The game also has lockouts on earning tomestones every week.
You see, the tomestones are the casual player’s source of powerful gear. So most players use these whenever new tomestones come out to get new gear.
It’s the easiest but most time-consuming way to get higher ilvl gear to wear.
You earn tomestones from running dungeons, raids, trials, and even PvP. And you can earn up to 450 a week.
Most pieces of gear can be earned with less than 450 tomestones. The exception to this is the chest piece and the pants. Those will cost you just a little under two weeks’ worth of tomestones.
So the point is that you can’t get them in just one week, since they’re the ones that increase your stats the most.
Purpose Of Lockouts
Locking people out from repeating both of these pieces of content is to stop players from hitting the newest Ilvl cap in one day.
It’s Square-Enix’s way of keeping things fair for casuals and hardcore players alike.
There are other kinds of lockouts in the game, but those aren’t as important. They’re usually for smaller things.
But just to give you an idea here, there are also lockouts on Mini-Cactpot tickets at the Gold Saucer, Beast Tribe Quests, Retainer Ventures, Grand Company turn-ins, The Adventurer Squadron, and Treasure Hunts.
These all operate on daily timers. So you can do them for a set amount of time every day.
Or in some cases, like roulettes, you can do them as many times as you like – but you won’t earn the full rewards for them every time.
Then there’s content you can only do every week, or earn rewards from once a week. The raids and tomestones fall into this category.
Then there’s Custom Deliveries, the Challenge Log, Wondrous Tails, Faux Hollow, the Jumbo Cactpot, the Fashion Report, Hunts, and the Masked Carnivale…
There’s a lot of stuff to do in FFXIV, so even with a lockout, you’re not likely to get bored very often.
