That's what they're called though. They're relics and artifacts. They're used properly, or I've completely misunderstood the concept and definition.
Printable View
In most games, it's just "epic" gear- usually each class has its own set of epic gear form a given content and the set has its own unique name. Sometimes they're tagged with "tier X" where x is the number of the set in terms of how many sets had been released before it e.g. the tier 3 WHM set.
The term "artifact armor" is unique to FFXI. I can't think of another game that used this. Part of the reason is most games had more job specific sets than FFXI ended up having (three). Coming up with different names for each tier is cumbersome- In fact, in FFXI, most people just said AF / AF2 / AF3 even though these terms were ambiguous because the first second and third original AF quests were often refered to as the AF1, AF2, and AF3 quest. Very few people ever said "relic armor" and "empyrean armor." Thus many games used the generic "tier" terminology.
Ah, so that's why you dislike they used it, got it. Petty reason but eh, it's not like there's an actual definition to the words or anything. I mean, the artifact gear in XIV had zero significance to the job's lore or anything, you know..the culture and history, usually what an artifact is.
I can kind of understand his point. I mean the weapons and armor in ff5 weren't called "artifacts" either. I mean, I know a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. But if you tell someone, they're about to step in rose, it'd be a completely different outcome if by "rose", you mean 'dog fecal matter'. I think the artifact armor in ffxi was never meant to be standard issue. Same with relic, mythic, etc, etc. I mean, there are only so many ways you can say "powerful armor of a lost age." It kind of loses it's meaning after a while. Well, I personally don't mind a different term for the armors, just as long as we get a chance to improve on the gear we worked so hard for on our 1 job.
I agree with this... and " the notion of christening them as a "powerful armour of a lost age" actually has a nice ring to it... "Allagan Armour", "Crystal Set" or "Cuirass of Emperor Xandes"... I really think the names are what makes obtaining them unique.
In the end, I just want it to have superb spiffy stats, look spiffy, and let it have some spiffy lore added to it.