This post will be about how I currently view the gear progression and how I think it can be improved, in my opinion. I'm writing this very quickly with a decent amount of thought put in, but if anyone sees any flaws or has any ideas, please comment and suggest anything you'd like.
The Problem
First, how does current gear progression work and flow and why isn't it that great? Here it is:
get Sweetwater gear
That's it, currently crafting Reverse equips is completely useless, along with almost all pieces of Timeless, excluding TL Gloves & Overall because they can end up better than their SW counterparts with good Crafting & Leveling RNG.
So, once you're able to boss daily, you can instantly go solo Papulatus and get the BIS SW Cape, reach level 150 and get the BIS SW Monocle, and quickly earn enough Spirit Points to craft your BIS SW Weapon. Now you already have 3 BIS Items including your Weapon. Being this strong now you can continue on and run Von Leon for your BIS SW Earring.
The issues here are that you become "strong" so quickly, and completely skip over other alternative equips that exist leaving them useless. All Reverse gear is irrelevant and almost all TL gear is not worth crafting, and now that you're getting so strong so quickly, you can move on to the harder bosses and continue your run in getting your BIS Shoes and Helmet from CZak, BIS Face and Pendant from CHT, and go spam some dojo for your BIS Belt.
Alternative Gear Progression
So instead of this, I can see gear progression being much less flat and becoming more rewarding with a few changes: (Let's call these "TIER 1, 2, 3, 4")
TIER 1 - First let's completely disregard SW Gear, imagine it doesn't exist in Maker skill, and doesn't drop from bosses. Now your options are Reverse and Timeless equips. Well, everyone will choose to craft Timeless, so let's make TL gear more expensive to craft by changing the recipe from requiring Piece of Times, to Rock of Times which drop from Pink Bean. Along with that let's add Reverse gear to Maker and let that be craftable with Piece of Times.
So now progression is looking like this - Reach level 120: While grinding your way towards level 140, craft your Reverse weapon and any other equips you want, get a ZHelm, some Facestompers, a Pink Adventurer Cape or BFC, and now you're a pretty geared "Tier 1 Player" who can run easy low-tier bosses like zakum, krex, etc. and start building your spirit points and upgrading your new gear.
TIER 2 - Now that you're stronger you can consider doing some Chaos Bosses like CZakum, CHorntail, and Von Leon. (which isn't a chaos boss but is similarly difficult) Now we can add Sweetwater Gear into these bosses loot pools. Still though lets exclude SW Gloves, Overall, and Weapons. So we're left with SW Tattoo, Earring, Shoes, Cape, and Monocle. (Belt can stay in dojo, and more info on Helmet at end of post) So now add these items into the loot pools of these bosses.
Von Leon - SW Earring | SW Monocle
Chaos Zakum - Chaos ZHelm | Enraged Belt | SW Shoes
Chaos Horntail - CHTP | SW Tattoo | SW Cape
Now after running these mid-late game bosses you can upgrade some of your gear like your Maple Leaf, Spirit Earrings / Rex Earrings, PAC/BFC, FS, White/Yellow Belt, Raccoon Mask/Spectrum Goggles, which have all become useful items because Sweetwater is no longer easily accessible.
TIER 3 & 4 - Now that you are a strong boy with all your SW gear, a decent Reverse weapon / gloves / overall, and your other chaos equips, you can comfortably try taking on Pink Bean. Pink Bean now leads to some major upgrades. A Timeless weapon/gloves/overall will give some of the biggest range boosts out of any other equips. Like I said earlier, PB should drop Rock of Times which you can use to craft TL gear, but a single RoT to craft a TL weapon would be too easy and cheap in comparison to OA/Gloves. I think copying a little of what Dream does where a weapon costs more RoT's to craft (such as 3) and also allowing you to disassemble any TL weapon into a single RoT makes floor dropped TL weapons valuable while leaving Perfected TL Weapon crafts better. Failed/low roll crafts would also not be worthless anymore.
Now Empress can be ran with these new TL upgrades. I think making Empress function similarly to Pink Bean in terms of drops will function well. Your SW Weapon/Gloves/Overall can drop, as well as the Empress Diamond which will work similarly to a RoT except be used for your SW Weapon instead. SW Gloves and Overall would need their stats buffed so that their average floor drop is about the same as a NEARLY perfected TL counterpart.
I have no clue where to fit SW Helm in anywhere it just sucks compared to czhelm and needs some type of buff lul
The Problem
First, how does current gear progression work and flow and why isn't it that great? Here it is:
get Sweetwater gear
That's it, currently crafting Reverse equips is completely useless, along with almost all pieces of Timeless, excluding TL Gloves & Overall because they can end up better than their SW counterparts with good Crafting & Leveling RNG.
So, once you're able to boss daily, you can instantly go solo Papulatus and get the BIS SW Cape, reach level 150 and get the BIS SW Monocle, and quickly earn enough Spirit Points to craft your BIS SW Weapon. Now you already have 3 BIS Items including your Weapon. Being this strong now you can continue on and run Von Leon for your BIS SW Earring.
The issues here are that you become "strong" so quickly, and completely skip over other alternative equips that exist leaving them useless. All Reverse gear is irrelevant and almost all TL gear is not worth crafting, and now that you're getting so strong so quickly, you can move on to the harder bosses and continue your run in getting your BIS Shoes and Helmet from CZak, BIS Face and Pendant from CHT, and go spam some dojo for your BIS Belt.
Alternative Gear Progression
So instead of this, I can see gear progression being much less flat and becoming more rewarding with a few changes: (Let's call these "TIER 1, 2, 3, 4")
TIER 1 - First let's completely disregard SW Gear, imagine it doesn't exist in Maker skill, and doesn't drop from bosses. Now your options are Reverse and Timeless equips. Well, everyone will choose to craft Timeless, so let's make TL gear more expensive to craft by changing the recipe from requiring Piece of Times, to Rock of Times which drop from Pink Bean. Along with that let's add Reverse gear to Maker and let that be craftable with Piece of Times.
So now progression is looking like this - Reach level 120: While grinding your way towards level 140, craft your Reverse weapon and any other equips you want, get a ZHelm, some Facestompers, a Pink Adventurer Cape or BFC, and now you're a pretty geared "Tier 1 Player" who can run easy low-tier bosses like zakum, krex, etc. and start building your spirit points and upgrading your new gear.
TIER 2 - Now that you're stronger you can consider doing some Chaos Bosses like CZakum, CHorntail, and Von Leon. (which isn't a chaos boss but is similarly difficult) Now we can add Sweetwater Gear into these bosses loot pools. Still though lets exclude SW Gloves, Overall, and Weapons. So we're left with SW Tattoo, Earring, Shoes, Cape, and Monocle. (Belt can stay in dojo, and more info on Helmet at end of post) So now add these items into the loot pools of these bosses.
Von Leon - SW Earring | SW Monocle
Chaos Zakum - Chaos ZHelm | Enraged Belt | SW Shoes
Chaos Horntail - CHTP | SW Tattoo | SW Cape
Now after running these mid-late game bosses you can upgrade some of your gear like your Maple Leaf, Spirit Earrings / Rex Earrings, PAC/BFC, FS, White/Yellow Belt, Raccoon Mask/Spectrum Goggles, which have all become useful items because Sweetwater is no longer easily accessible.
TIER 3 & 4 - Now that you are a strong boy with all your SW gear, a decent Reverse weapon / gloves / overall, and your other chaos equips, you can comfortably try taking on Pink Bean. Pink Bean now leads to some major upgrades. A Timeless weapon/gloves/overall will give some of the biggest range boosts out of any other equips. Like I said earlier, PB should drop Rock of Times which you can use to craft TL gear, but a single RoT to craft a TL weapon would be too easy and cheap in comparison to OA/Gloves. I think copying a little of what Dream does where a weapon costs more RoT's to craft (such as 3) and also allowing you to disassemble any TL weapon into a single RoT makes floor dropped TL weapons valuable while leaving Perfected TL Weapon crafts better. Failed/low roll crafts would also not be worthless anymore.
Now Empress can be ran with these new TL upgrades. I think making Empress function similarly to Pink Bean in terms of drops will function well. Your SW Weapon/Gloves/Overall can drop, as well as the Empress Diamond which will work similarly to a RoT except be used for your SW Weapon instead. SW Gloves and Overall would need their stats buffed so that their average floor drop is about the same as a NEARLY perfected TL counterpart.
I have no clue where to fit SW Helm in anywhere it just sucks compared to czhelm and needs some type of buff lul