This works as long as the "dress up" gear is worthless, i.e "Casual" gear that they mentioned prior to release.
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One of the reasons I don't really like rank restricted gear is because in a way doing that is like SE is saying to us "You don't know how to wear the appropriate gear for your rank so we'll make sure you do" and imo that'd be kind of insulting, because it means that in a way SE would be taking away our ability to think for ourselves and make our own descisions on gear.
You clearly understand it then -- You look towards gear to work toward, however if you can wear it at whatever level you please, you're not working toward it as you can put it on now, and suffice to say the current penalty to wearing less than optimal rank gear isn't big enough to keep that goal where as locking the gear out till said rank will keep the goal intact as you're leveling to wearing that nice piece of armor you have your eye on or leveling to wield that demonic sword that shoots skulls.
It's not about being special, it's about the game giving you a goal to toward -- I don't play to just dress up my character in any attire, I play to experience the storyline and further my class which includes gaining the best gear possible, but if I can do this at rank 1, what's the point of having DoW or DoM gear if you're just going to forgo every other requirement that should be used? Clearly Yoshida agrees that there needs to be requirements on gear so the debate is pretty much done with in general, but while this is a role playing game, it's also about striving for goals, and I'm not going to artificially handicap myself from gear.
There's plenty of things in life you'll get to make decisions on and whether you decide or are forced to wear a specific gear set at a specific level in a video game will not make much of a difference in your lifetime, the only difference it *might* make is make the game more fun.
I've never heard this before -- Clearly if you're a DoW, you'll want STR, DEX, ATTACK and ACCURACY, so you know what type of gear to get, all having a rank or class requirement on gear does is let you strive for obtaining it, for example if a Marauder gear gives "Bloodbath effect +2", why should this be wearable by anyone at any level?
Hopefully the next patch will include changes in rank requirements for gear.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ear-affinities
No point discussing this again, SE have made there mind up, restrictions are on the way, deal with it.
Now I can go into Ul'dah and laugh at all the level 10 noobs running around in there underwear as they blew all there gil on rank 50 armor and can no longer wear it :D :D :D