Why the sudden rise in class locked gear?

[TheFanciestBard]

In both ARR and Heavensward, outside of job specific or Ironworks the DoH and DoL items as well as accessories in general were listed as "All Classes" while in Stormblood seemly every item has specific classes labeled on them. I feel like this is a rather large step back for one of the most interesting parts of FFXIV which was how freeform glamours could be. While maybe not a lot of people used gathering gear in their PvE glamour there are a number of pieces, such as the leather jacket in 3.0 or the 63 set in 4.0, which were quite popular. This also inadvertently harms RPers who are denied access to outfits that would be fitting for their characters unless they get up and level a gatherer or crafter to a certain level. This can be a huge investment or something that someone simply doesn't find fun.

There's really no reason to offer people the ability to wear gathering gear from 1-60 then stop them from doing it at 60+. The only reason I can come up with is that they wanted to avoid new players who used jump potions to not end up buying items that are worthless for their class, but that's a silly point. Let players do what they want and wear what they want! If they mess up they have no one to blame but themselves.

I would like to clarify that job liked blue/green left side is totally fine. Each class SHOULD have a specific silhouette and look to them because as amusing as it would be to see a warrior running around in white mage armor.. It wouldn't be that fun for long. I'm sure many would argue "Well it's about time DoH/DoL get their own unique gear no one else can wear" but really... Some of the coolest "casual" attire belongs to gatherers and no one mains those classes. They're not the focus of FFXIV. They can have their job gear, let everyone have the whites.

[OoglieBooglie]

I think they did it to prevent ilvl cheesing and to try to put an end to strength tanks. Of course, we all know they failed on the strength tank part with the i270 accessories.

[TheFanciestBard]

I think they did it to prevent ilvl cheesing and to try to put an end to strength tanks. Of course, we all know they failed on the strength tank part with the i270 accessories.

They really did... I was trying not to touch much on the tank issue but that mess is pretty troubling. Crafter/gatherer ilevels always trailed behind pve stuff so I feel like in a few patches that'll be the case again and cheesing won't really be a thing. I dunno, seems like punishing the majority for a small portion of people being dumb.

[AstralKaos]

The only logical reason that the non-class specific DoH/DoL gear is role locked (including the Ironwork gear), is because they probably realised they hadn't - for a long time - put much role-locked gear in the game and needed to fix that... OR, they still think that nonsense, illogical gear locking on certain gear perhaps can equate to depth or creativity in character customisation (psst... it doesn't!).

TL;DR - There's literally no reason for it. The "not cheese item level or have STR tanks" is all well and good for content; doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to glamour them still!

[Niwashi]

The "not cheese item level or have STR tanks" is all well and good for content; doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to glamour them still!

Agreed.
I think they need to separate their rules on which classes/jobs can wear gear from which can glamour it. The only gear that should be glamour restricted to a particular class or job are the AF (and AF-like) sets.

If they'd do that, then the increase in role-locked gear would be fine.

[QT_Melon]

It wasn't just STR tanks. There was a big problem in ARR and HW would put on crafting accessories to spiritbond quickly in other content. Materia had a big market value, and users were getting fed up with people running in with CP/GP accessories just so they could make a quick buck in their market and put unfair strain on other players in a dungeon who did not want to carry others.

There would also be players wearing incorrect accessories to boost their ilevel to get into other content.

On a related note, this is why they also locked out players from using DoL skills like Triangulate. Yes, had a dungeon where we had a Triangulate-Mage where they had that as a role skill.

Personally I was kind of hoping SB had them re-doing their Gear system, not so much in just glamour but how they read.

I don't get how a main stat like Dexterity for example is listed as a "Stat Bonus" But MDef and Def are listed as super important ...like a headline. I know it was likely due to what was intended from 1.0, but it severely needs an overhaul. I suppose it's because they can only put out so many fires at a time.

[koichi88]

A lot of the new crafter/gatherer gear is just reskinned versions of airship glamour gear. If any class could wear them and thus glamour their appearance it would tank the value of windsilk coattees, suspenders and the poncho. I'd also mention the male Thav gear but that stuff is basically worthless anyway.