Situational Gear

[Yugl]

SE has increasingly released situational cast time gear and, given this game's limitations, it seems quite pointless for them to do so. Why don't you change all gear to either Black Magic/White Magic/Blue Magic/Bard/Ninjutsu/Summoning/Fast Cast instead? You only give us six line to change gear, so it's pretty ridiculous to shower us with a ton of "Wind Element Bard Stuff Cast Time Reduction ONRY" type gear.

- Even with "other measures", some of this gear is so situational that even they cannot effectively handle the specificity of this gear
- Inventory limitations will always mean that these situation pieces will be the first to go

There is really no excuse for releasing that kind of gear. I know SE has a habit of releasing "trash" gear to go along with the good stuff, but that excess gear, especially in this circumstance, is pointless. Do consider changing specificity of these pieces, thanks.

[Jerbob]

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Inventory space is a pressing concern for anyone doing their best to build the best sets of equipment that they can, but I think the part that annoys me the most is, as you say, the macroing. Situational gear is best made use of by people who can cheat their way into equipping several whole sets of gear in the time it takes to cast spells or use job abilities and weapon skills, and that's not even mentioning things like latent effect equipment that can be automatically equipped when the conditions are right.

As a White Mage the best example I can think of is casting Cure optimally. People can cap fast cast/recast reduction/cast time reduction, enmity reduction, cure potency, use an obi appropriately and use the Empyrean +2 body using a single macro. There's no way I can physically do that. I do the best I can with whole books of macros I've painstakingly optimised, but the fact remains that SE balances their "new" "content" around people who achieve the most - and those people cheat using all this situational equipment, which means SE ups the difficulty and creates more situational equipment... a vicious cycle.

Then you've got the irritation of SE doing insane things like nerfing Pet TH into the ground but saying they'll compensate with equipment... why? Equipment that enhances cursna, equipment that increases potency of Protect and Shell recieved... it boggles the mind.

Sorry for the rant. 100% support.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Cheat really isn't the right term to use.

[svengalis]

This brings up a good point. Well i don't know how anyone can be the best bard they can be because of all the different gears for bard. Its not that fun to me and has wàaay to much gear if you want to be a good bard. All this new situation gear they are adding I am just like where are we supposed to put it.

[Jerbob]

Cheat really isn't the right term to use.

Urgh. I wrote a proper response to this but the forums decided it wasn't to be and proceded to eat it for me. Oh well. Here we go again.

I can appreciate that there are different "levels of severity" of cheating, and that extended macros (I don't know what they're technically called but that will do) are not on the same level that some hypothetical "press button to recieve items of your choice" hack might be, but in a game where effective use of equipment is extremely important, making equip swaps easier, more reliable and having them work with a certain limited degree of automation is undeniably very powerful.

Some things are simply not possible without extended macros, like the example I gave above. Some are possible but invite error in the form of mismashing of keys during 3-4 step macros (which, if you need something done fast or under pressure, is quite possible regardless of care taken), the intrinsic sluggishness of the interface when chaining macros, the time it takes and so on. We've all been in a situation where you use a few macros too fast, but correctly, and the book/set swaps haven't worked properly. This is before discussing features that automate situational effects that are otherwise awkward or very difficult to do manually. It's not just convenient to use extended macros - it's indisputibly better, which is unfair on those who cannot or do not use them.

SE may not be good at taking on board all the feedback our forum representatives dilligently provide for them, but they do recognise how capable the playerbase are - how they react to that, in our favour or otherwise, is another thing entirely, of course. People who are just that little bit faster, who are able to make use of this or that situational piece of gear, and who are able to optimise every action by a fraction, add up to being more capable as a whole and are going to be the "top end" of the playerbase in SE's eyes. SE will gear difficult content (and new equipment, including slews of new macro only stuff) to that level of ability. If the developers are designing content with this in mind then cheating becomes part of the game proper, at least in expectation - and that's just from the developers, let alone players towards each another. Again, it's not fair.

I don't dispute that making these macros takes a lot of skill - probably more than standard macros - but that's not the point. Not only is it not an option that not everyone has, it's also explicitly not permitted by the rules that we all agreed to. As I said before - sure, it's not creating ???s that dispense free level 99 relic weapons, but it is an unequal advantage and it isn't permitted. The effect on performance is significant, and in my eyes that is practically the definition of cheating.

[Camiie]

When we get stuff like this, you know they've gone way too far:

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Blenmot%27s_Ring

[Yugl]

Let's acknowledge that the use of certain programs are violations of the TOA and leave the ethical question of "cheating" out of this thread. What is important here is that you cannot effectively utilize a variety of gear even with aforementioned violations available to you. The only difference the ethical question makes is the degree to which SE should trim down how situational the gear is. That debate can come later. For now, I think we can agree that there is too much diversity in the "situationalness" of the gear. Especially, when we consider cast time reduction pieces. Observe:

White Magic
White Magic with certain buffs up
Black Magic
Black Magic with certain buffs up
Blue Magic
Summoning
Song
Ninjutsu
Fire
Earth
Water
Wind
Ice
Thunder
Light
Dark
Fast Cast
Dark Magic
Elemental Magic
Enfeebling Magic
Enhancing Magic
Healing Magic
Divine Magic
Stoneskin
Cure

I know that gear does not necessarily exist for some of these, but the fact that they have managed to distinguish between Element, Skill, Fast Cast, and Spell name suggests that they can make gear that narrow. It's obvious there is a problem here and that they should aim to collapse these pieces into broader categories, if not, change them all to Fast Cast for each piece.

This is just for cast time reduction pieces (My example since these pieces of gear can interfere with proper equipping). The additional "Receive X" gear they've release furthers the general point.

[Jerbob]

The only difference the ethical question makes is the degree to which SE should trim down how situational the gear is. That debate can come later.

Fair point, apologies for my derailment.

[Arcon]

When we get stuff like this, you know they've gone way too far:

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Blenmot%27s_Ring

http://www.ffxiah.com/item/11753/emphatikos-rope

[Bulrogg]

Maybe I'm wrong in thinking this... but if people took the time to properly learn how to use the "macro book/set" commands they too could use the situational gear.

Yes it may take you a some time to work out the kinks and yes it would require you pushing the same macro button over but it can be done. A great example can be found in the SMN job forum. I've been using them since then and have not had any mash-up mess ups.