[dev1072]Gear-based systems are bad

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The impact of attributes will decrease as players gain in level; however, the benefits granted by gear will be increased.

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I don't want FF14 to become a raid centric game or one of the other MMOs where having the right gear is all that matters. Gear should be important IMO, but not more important than either attributes or your skill bar.

It's almost impossible to quantify gear centricity, so I'm not sure where you're trying to go with this. You should probably wait and see before you decide if gear is too important or not important enough for your tastes.

She's talking in general i assume. I agree tho...i'd love to see the skill worthing more than the gear. This was the major flaw of FFXI and i didn't want to see this here too.

In FFXI a n00b with top-notch gear and a set of macros copied from one of these fansites can easily surpass a skilled player with average gear in every single aspect...because in FFXI gear is all that matters.

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Originally Posted by Lienn

She's talking in general i assume. I agree tho...i'd love to see the skill worthing more than the gear. This was the major flaw of FFXI and i didn't want to see this here too.

In FFXI a n00b with top-notch gear and a set of macros copied from one of these fansites can easily surpass a skilled player with average gear in every single aspect...because in FFXI gear is all that matters.

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Sorry but I'd have to disagree here. There were numerous times where I partied with very well geared people who had no idea how to play their jobs (probably bought accounts), and the parse results proved that skill mattered.

Also, often people blame gear differences even though they're failing because of their own shortcomings, so it can be hard to tell whether gear supremacy is actually causing trouble or not. I saw this a lot in WoW where gear was important but where for the longest of time the average player was such garbage that even the best gear couldn't have brought them to the level of a good player.

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Originally Posted by MeowyWowie

Sorry but I'd have to disagree here. There were numerous times where I partied with very well geared people who had no idea how to play their jobs (probably bought accounts), and the parse results proved that skill mattered.

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Well, yeah i saw those kinds a few times too...but i'm not talking about recently bought accounts...its obvious that if a dude can't time his WSs he might fail or if he doesn't know where to stay when he SATA the abilities will be wasted..

What i mean is...comapare a dude that knows the gameplay basics (knows how to use the macros, that he needs TP for WS, that SA requires to be behind mob, that TA requires to have a player between you and the mob, that to SC the WS needs to pop in like 3 seconds after first one andMB in up to 5 seconds after the SC effects...the basic anyone past dunes already is supposed to know) but that has the best armor in comparison with some badass player (like those crazy NINs that can stay 30~45min without getting a single hit unless AoE...there's gear and latency involved...but this also requires tremendous skill) with average gear...you will see the dude with top gear having superior overall performance than the other dude no matter how skilled he is...sometimes the dude in average gear can put some tremendous effort to get even to the top gear one, but still in overall performance the one with top gear will win.

making stats mean something on a gear set helps me set a goal in the game, i hope tho that to archive that goal im required mad skills,

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Originally Posted by Lienn

Well, yeah i saw those kinds a few times too...but i'm not talking about recently bought accounts...its obvious that if a dude can't time his WSs he might fail or if he doesn't know where to stay when he SATA the abilities will be wasted..

What i mean is...comapare a dude that knows the gameplay basics (knows how to use the macros, that he needs TP for WS, that SA requires to be behind mob, that TA requires to have a player between you and the mob, that to SC the WS needs to pop in like 3 seconds after first one andMB in up to 5 seconds after the SC effects...the basic anyone past dunes already is supposed to know) but that has the best armor in comparison with some badass player (like those crazy NINs that can stay 30~45min without getting a single hit unless AoE...there's gear and latency involved...but this also requires tremendous skill) with average gear...you will see the dude with top gear having superior overall performance than the other dude no matter how skilled he is...sometimes the dude in average gear can put some tremendous effort to get even to the top gear one, but still in overall performance the one with top gear will win.

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eventually the dude with skill with get the Gear and be better that the dude qith the gear only.. why would the dude with skill not wnat to have the gear??

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Originally Posted by Yoohre_WildRiver

eventually the dude with skill with get the Gear and be better that the dude qith the gear only.. why would the dude with skill not wnat to have the gear??

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Well, assuming my example was based on FFXI, i can say sometimes obtaining a certain gear was more than just a matter of wanting or needing it.

And this is the point...because no MMO have or ever will have endgames where the effort of only one is rewarded properly...it will always be something bigger than a single player and, due this, often you can see extremely skilled players not being able to achieve what they wanted while some n00bs, with the correct support, will.

I guess I would agree with you to an extent, Lienn. But look at the bright side.

Currently, 99% of the gear in FFXIV is ridiculously easy to obtain, and the few pieces that take a little extra work are only marginally better, if that. I don't see this trend changing much, as Yoshi P said something along the lines of crafted gear being more or less on par with rare/ex gear.

A very bad example of how to handle gear stats and such is RIFT's tiered system. From what I understand, (I had a few RL friends who played, but did not play myself) You needed a full set of tier one gear to even hope to survive a tier 2 dungeon, which then you needed a full set from there to attempt the T3 raids and so on. Just be glad this is not the case in FFXIV. (I may be wrong, I have no interest in RIFT whatsoever and this is just word of mouth from my friends that played.)

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Originally Posted by MeowyWowie

A very bad example of how to handle gear stats and such is RIFT's tiered system. From what I understand, (I had a few RL friends who played, but did not play myself) You needed a full set of tier one gear to even hope to survive a tier 2 dungeon

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They're idiots, you can enter T2 perfectly viably with crafted gear and never having run a single T1. T3 can be done in T1, though some T2 is obviously useful.

I've done T2 as a noob 50 on one class, and while I haven't done T3 non-T2 decked-out guildies certainly have.

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Originally Posted by Kraggy

They're idiots, you can enter T2 perfectly viably with crafted gear and never having run a single T1. T3 can be done in T1, though some T2 is obviously useful.

I've done T2 as a noob 50 on one class, and while I haven't done T3 non-T2 decked-out guildies certainly have.

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You're missing the point.. Each tier of gear shows a significant improvement over the previous tier, while player skill takes a back seat.

What about PvP? When they were still playing, someone in full T1 vs someone in full T6 will get 2-shoted without ever having a chance of winning. Gear was (and still is?) king in RIFT, period.

Here's the thing, I think that skill playing the game should be the most important thing. That means having the right bar for the job (and different goals needing different bars) and knowing how and when to use it. I don't want the endgame to become grinding for better gear so we can more easily grind for better gear.

I also remember reading about FF11 where the named items from the previous game took a year or some crazy number to get to the point where it was usable. Something like that isn't what I'd call good game design.

When the forums first started, I asked the devs to look at modern games like EVE (and its new incursions), Rift, and GW2 and offer real dynamic content. Something like that were you aren't raiding the same dungeons, you aren't always facing the same foes, and you can't always use the same tactics would be better... and in a game like that, I think that gear should intentionally be lessen in impact so players are forced to get better.

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Originally Posted by Winterclaw

I don't want FF14 to become a raid centric game or one of the other MMOs where having the right gear is all that matters. Gear should be important IMO, but not more important than either attributes or your skill bar.

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as long as i can still use my attribute conversion traits then i wont mind. i think the benefits towards gear is referring to the materia mainly. do you choose to add +10 int or +10 vit. your still tweaking your stats, but doing it through your gear.

I still play Rift. The gear system, PvE wise, is actually quite good. You can pull a full set of tier 2 out of your butt in about two weeks with no guild involvement simply by mashing the dungeon finder button; and bam, you're ready to raid. It doesn't get nasty hard until Hammerknell (Tier 4 raid), but they've got it horrendously overtuned - even the elitists can't clear it right now.

I doubt my guild (and by natural extension, myself) will play it much longer, though. We joined for the a PVP system that is falling apart due to neglect.

But back to the original topic of discussion - pretty soon here we're going to all have complete access to every class and spec with no restrictions. Without tiers of gear, or at least a variety of gear types and qualities available to max level characters, what's going to distinguish one character from the next?

I think this is blowing this specific statement out of proportion, even now on XIV, and in every game ever, the endgame centers around gear, when you can't level any more, it's the gear that pushes you past that stat cap, what they're saying isn't so much a change in the system as it is a general explaination of every game ever, the higher your level, the more the gear matters, doesn't matter if we're talking about FFXIV and gear, WoW and purples (or whatever the hell color they use for endgame gear) be it Need for speed and tier 4 mods, or Armored Core and Extensions, gear will alaways mean a world of difference after you hit the wall, this is not going to change no matter how much you protest it because this is the way it has always been.

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Originally Posted by MeowyWowie

Sorry but I'd have to disagree here. There were numerous times where I partied with very well geared people who had no idea how to play their jobs (probably bought accounts), and the parse results proved that skill mattered.

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Yep but then you have players who can't get good gear and there very skill players o.o i had this issue in FFXI. Samurai always picking on me because i had a kirin body and not a hagun. There like sell your body for a hagun ya ok then my monk would be gimp. I love how people go hey look at me DMG does 2k and die lol when i can do that much i just don't feel like it so i wont die and i can go on fighting.

That how you play a game you do the most dmg you can but you make sure you don't do too much or you die and be wasting 5min of fighting time. anyways i think gear should not make a big thing for players but still give good enough tthat we want to get it.

i don't think what se going to do to fix this but w/e

Unfortunately, Having potency based primarily of skills would require a system that implies effort in gaining skills. This particular game and most other MMOs require you merely to level up to get new skills. If you had to complete various tasks to earn new abilities after reaching a given level it would be more feasible but would require far to much of an overhaul to be implemented any time soon.

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Originally Posted by Kiote

Unfortunately, Having potency based primarily of skills would require a system that implies effort in gaining skills. This particular game and most other MMOs require you merely to level up to get new skills. If you had to complete various tasks to earn new abilities after reaching a given level it would be more feasible but would require far to much of an overhaul to be implemented any time soon.

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When we told about skill it was meant "playing skill"...not game actions or skill points ^^:

Have you guys played AoC? At least in the early days, when I played, equipment mattered very little and man was it boring. Skill should always be the most important, but equipment should always matter as well imo, especially at endgame. I don't like the idea of busting my butt off for that great looking piece of gear that does next to nothing for my performance, be it healing/dd or something else.

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Originally Posted by Kiote

Unfortunately, Having potency based primarily of skills would require a system that implies effort in gaining skills. This particular game and most other MMOs require you merely to level up to get new skills. If you had to complete various tasks to earn new abilities after reaching a given level it would be more feasible but would require far to much of an overhaul to be implemented any time soon.

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This would be pretty good actually, but yeah i doubt they would implement it.

However what they are really talking about, is putting player skill ahead of gear, which is fairly common in other games, and even i would say in this game before. BEfore as in right now, but in the future i think that will change.
right now, and especially with the old battle system, skill and skill selection was the biggest factor, gear does in fact matter, but it isnt too hard to get good gear, and the best gear is only so much better than good gear.

Right now, and in the old battle system as well, choosing when to strike, dodging abilities, and picking the right skill sets/stats were the greatest determining factor of your victories.

But this is not the direction they want to go anymore, Somewhere matsui said the focus would shift to how you equip and where you hunt, and the changes they are talking about speak to that.

1. The battle system currently seems to be going in a direction with less player control

2. The armory system has been declared that it will go in a direction with less player control, more job exclusive abilities, retooling other abilities to only work well on main jobs (like mp consumption increases makes curing outside of con/thm pretty impossible, although you can eq the abilities)

3. The stat system for now will have no customization, with more to be added later, but it seems like it will be less than now.


these things mean, the ways in which you could have used skill, or strategy choice are going to be diminished in effectiveness, that means just by default gear will become much more dominant. Add to that materia being used to customize, and you realize, they have decided to make this a gear centric game. Many people have asked for it, and while i prefer skill, intellegience and planning to be most dominant in success, This may not be the plan for this game.

On the plus side, they may make obtaining gear not extremely foolish like it was in FFXI or many other games. However this is another situation where some people are actually requesting that it be that way.

While i found it to be bad planning that 18+ people would be required to get one item, and could only attempt it once every 3 days, and it might require 15-100 runs to get the first tier of items to upgrade that item, some people loved it, and advocated for it.

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Originally Posted by Lienn

When we told about skill it was meant "playing skill"...not game actions or skill points ^^:

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He understood you perfectly. The problem you're not seeing, however, is that progress is a major component of the MMORPG gameplay experience and currently the only way we have to measure progress is through gear. If you can't get improvements through gear, how will your character improve? Stagnation and a lack of goals will easily lead to boredom.

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Originally Posted by Physic

Right now, and in the old battle system as well, choosing when to strike, dodging abilities, and picking the right skill sets/stats were the greatest determining factor of your victories.

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Nonsense. Currently, as well as before, 90% of the outcome is decided by your rank and the opponent's rank. The impact rank has on all formulas is so heavy there is no way to reasonably overcome it. If your rank is high enough, you can almost auto-attack an enemy to death. If it's too low, you'll take massive damage and will barely be able to dent it regardless of what you do.

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1. The battle system currently seems to be going in a direction with less player contro

2. The armory system has been declared that it will go in a direction with less player control, more job exclusive abilities, retooling other abilities to only work well on main jobs (like mp consumption increases makes curing outside of con/thm pretty impossible, although you can eq the abilities)l

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On the contrary, I expect to get abilities with more impact. This was not possible before because they'd be accessible to everyone and everyone would be able to do everything very well.

An example: Imagine if every class had a non-TP 3-second stun. We'd just equip the stun from each class and chain stun stuff to death without letting it retaliate. This is why isolating abilities to certain classes gives them a lot more freedom to design meaningful abilities (not do-nothings like Keen Flurry or Enduring March).

Actually, I think we may already have such a problematic ability in the game: Twisting Vice. Unless bosses can force TP moves through without TP, it should be possible to reduce them to auto-attack tank & spank encounters by simply spamming TV. The only reason this isn't a staple strategy is that 1) bosses cheat on TP too much or 2) people have yet to adopt it.

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3. The stat system for now will have no customization, with more to be added later, but it seems like it will be less than now.

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There is barely any customization now either, unless you think doing it wrong is a viable way of customizing your character. This will not change as we will still get to distribute our points for each individual class and 85% of the time that will mean choosing between doing it right or doing it wrong.

There has to be some method of growth for characters. Normally, it is experience; yet, once the cap is reached, there has to be another method.

Gear or some way to learn new skills or gain more attributes would be the next logical step.

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Originally Posted by Frein

He understood you perfectly. The problem you're not seeing, however, is that progress is a major component of the MMORPG gameplay experience and currently the only way we have to measure progress is through gear. If you can't get improvements through gear, how will your character improve? Stagnation and a lack of goals will easily lead to boredom.


Nonsense. Currently, as well as before, 90% of the outcome is decided by your rank and the opponent's rank. The impact rank has on all formulas is so heavy there is no way to reasonably overcome it. If your rank is high enough, you can almost auto-attack an enemy to death. If it's too low, you'll take massive damage and will barely be able to dent it regardless of what you do.


On the contrary, I expect to get abilities with more impact. This was not possible before because they'd be accessible to everyone and everyone would be able to do everything very well.

An example: Imagine if every class had a non-TP 3-second stun. We'd just equip the stun from each class and chain stun stuff to death without letting it retaliate. This is why isolating abilities to certain classes gives them a lot more freedom to design meaningful abilities (not do-nothings like Keen Flurry or Enduring March).

Actually, I think we may already have such a problematic ability in the game: Twisting Vice. Unless bosses can force TP moves through without TP, it should be possible to reduce them to auto-attack tank & spank encounters by simply spamming TV. The only reason this isn't a staple strategy is that 1) bosses cheat on TP too much or 2) people have yet to adopt it.


There is barely any customization now either, unless you think doing it wrong is a viable way of customizing your character. This will not change as we will still get to distribute our points for each individual class and 85% of the time that will mean choosing between doing it right or doing it wrong.

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rank had a large effect on your performance, however in targeting things of a fixed rank, IE how well you were able to fight different things 10 levels above you, or how far above that you could kill things, was most directly based on your skill selection, understanding your jobs strengths, and weaknesses, and capitilizing. There were a number of people with the same gear, and the performance level was vastly different, in terms of what they could survive, what they could kill, etc.

You believe they will make gameplay more skill centric, but i see nothing that hints toward this, i understand from your post you dont like the idea of people having the option to use similar skills, but making only 1 class have access to a skill doesnt make the game more centered on skill, it just requires you to have certain jobs. Making certain jobs invaluable doesnt equall a skill centric game, in fact in a skill centric game, you generally want every class to have a variety of abilities that allow them to perform equally, the key to uniquness is making it so that the way they go about handling the tasks is unique and synergistic within the class.

regardless i think its clear that the focus is going away from a free selection of skills, stats and roles, and into a more rigid system where your effectiveness will be most completely decided by gear and jobs, a lot of people asked for that, they need rails.

It's always skill > gear

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Originally Posted by Physic

You believe they will make gameplay more skill centric, but i see nothing that hints toward this, i understand from your post you dont like the idea of people having the option to use similar skills, but making only 1 class have access to a skill doesnt make the game more centered on skill, it just requires you to have certain jobs. Making certain jobs invaluable doesnt equall a skill centric game, in fact in a skill centric game, you generally want every class to have a variety of abilities that allow them to perform equally, the key to uniquness is making it so that the way they go about handling the tasks is unique and synergistic within the class.

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You don't understand. If every class has skills of each kind, yes, you'll get rid of rigid party structures and everyone will be self-sufficient within the context of the game. However, it also means all abilities have to be watered down, which reduces the impact of skill. You simply cannot have a wide range of high impact skills available to everyone. The game becomes way too easy to break. This is why we have a lot of abilities that do nothing or barely do anything and no matter how good you are, you just don't have much to work with, so it's hard to produce exceptional results with exceptional skill.

Well. Games where the armors dont matters. Let me think... Fps?

I dont know. I consider my self a good player. Not the top one for sure. But a skilled one. And i like to see my effort of focus, dedication while i play is reward it whit a better piece than normal. Becouse in this kind of games once you skilled enough you only way to improve your character is rise level, learn a new good skill or find a better armor piece.

So your point will not fit on an MMO if this generation at least.

Btw. They will improve the stats on armors. But not only the stats of rare armors. But all ones!!!!

Skill > gear - {Yes please.}

Gear should enhance someone's "awesomeness", but not hide someones "failness"; skill should shine through regardless of one's gear.

Gear: aesthetics, stat boosts
Skill: situational awareness, proper timing, ability use, rotations, etc.

As far as I'm concerned, the problem is not that the game will be gear-centric. It won't be. It'll be nice to obtain pieces, but with the crafting system being brought along hand-in-hand, this simply won't be the case. As I stated above, that is how I've seen gear in any MMO I've played. When you provide challenging content skill can be introduced. This game... FFXIV... it has no challenging content. There's no... difficult mechanics available to us yet, and understandably so. The system isn't finished.

Anyway, after reading this thread it became clear to me that the focal point is wrong. Content, objectives, etc. will dictate skill involvement. Doesn't matter if gear makes you uber, or skills make you uber, if the content is easy as hell, it's not going to be fun or challenging on either side of the coin. Just my two cents on the subject.

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Originally Posted by Physic

rank had a large effect on your performance, however in targeting things of a fixed rank, IE how well you were able to fight different things 10 levels above you, or how far above that you could kill things, was most directly based on your skill selection, understanding your jobs strengths, and weaknesses, and capitilizing. There were a number of people with the same gear, and the performance level was vastly different, in terms of what they could survive, what they could kill, etc.

You believe they will make gameplay more skill centric, but i see nothing that hints toward this, i understand from your post you dont like the idea of people having the option to use similar skills, but making only 1 class have access to a skill doesnt make the game more centered on skill, it just requires you to have certain jobs. Making certain jobs invaluable doesnt equall a skill centric game, in fact in a skill centric game, you generally want every class to have a variety of abilities that allow them to perform equally, the key to uniquness is making it so that the way they go about handling the tasks is unique and synergistic within the class.

regardless i think its clear that the focus is going away from a free selection of skills, stats and roles, and into a more rigid system where your effectiveness will be most completely decided by gear and jobs, a lot of people asked for that, they need rails.

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QFT QFE! Hehe