Can We Get Rid Of The "Unique" Status On Gear?

I've been wondering this for ages. What's the point of the Unique status on gear? What does it do? All I've seen it do so far is cause problems and restrictions. There are so many good things that can come out of getting rid of this lock..

Unique Glamours for gear(even though that's more of a band-aid), more customization for individual jobs, easier desynths, easier GC turn-ins and more..

If I had the ability to buy more than one of the same castimg Creator piece I could.. create the best gear combo for each job or make glamours for each job! You can buy multiple gathering pieces or any other gear and make a bunch of combinations with those so why not tome/raid/dungeon gear?

Honestly I think for the sake of dungeon drops the Unique status should be reworked where you no longer have the power to Need on the piece you already have that drops and only allow Greed. That sounds fair.

For some jobs you might want Critical Hit on the piece for that class but Spell Speed for this class but you can't do it because you can't buy duplicates. Want to wear a BLM glamour and a RDM one? Can't because you can't buy duplicates. Now, obviously it would require extra slots, but it only makes that way.

So can this be changed?

But how do you justify being able to NEED only once on something that you might want to meld differently for different jobs? You legitimately NEED two of them. Isn't the one-need rule just as arbitrary as the Unique attribute in reducing loot competition?

I'm pretty sure it's made so thing aren't as simple. Same with the weekly token cap.

There isn't enough weekly tomes or inventory space for this

I think they simply apply labels too liberally sometimes (see also: gender-locking hats just because they can). The unique flag makes sense on dungeon drops. It makes absolutely no sense on things like tome or PVP gear where you voluntarily want to buy extra copies, harming nobody, but cannot because the game wants people to have suboptimal materia for other jobs or carry around a bunch of mismatched gear pulled together from other sources. It's most silly with rings for obvious reasons.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

But how do you justify being able to NEED only once on something that you might want to meld differently for different jobs?

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How do you justify being unable to need on gear you want to sell to the vendor?
You NEED that gil for a house!

You can spin that into IRL, too. How do you justify being disallowed from stealing from your neighbor when you're hungry? You need food to survive!

Rules are all arbitrary. Behind them lies the desire to protect a claim deemed legitimate from another party. In the RL case, it's the property rights of your neighbor. In the loot case, it's the person who hasn't gotten the piece yet - "Let everyone take a slice before you go and get your second."

And depending on the general moral code of society, those rules will change. "Cull the Weak" societies are downright a trope in fiction.

Moreover, all "Need" only exists together with a "Want". You don't need to sustain your body if you don't want to live. You don't need better gear if you don't want to play content that requires it. You don't need an airplane if you don't want to fly. You don't need a mount if you don't want to go faster. Need and Greed are essentially the same thing in the first place, they're Wants, desires to have something.

Separating the two is arbitrary - It's an attempt to distinguish "Higher Wants" and "Lesser Wants", both as deemed by the underlying moral code. And ultimately, this is also what the unique tag tries to achieve. In addition, it historically was also used to prevent players from making overpowered characters by equipping/slotting multiple extremely powerful items, though that function isn't exactly applicable in this game.
What baffles me is that it's also pasted onto token and vendor armors - best I can think of is a protection against buying the same piece you already had by accident. It can't really serve a different purpose there. But for all I know, they just pasted it there because other MMOs do it and they never really thought about it. /huh.

I don't see why this should be a thing.

I dont mind the fact that lootable gear is unique (though, this can be cheesed by storing things with a retainer and then looting them again), but I dont understand why things you buy with tomestones need to be unique. Let us at least buy duplicates of those items (looking at you, tomestone rings)

You can have "two" tombstone rings, you just have to upgrade one to 340. So get cracking on O2S already, heheheh.

Healers this tier it's better for damage to have a 330 tome and an upgraded tome 340 ring over the O1S 340 ring + 340 tome ring.

You can effectively get around this restriction already, so I don't see them removing it on their own (because this will make things too easy for us). With the exception of rings, and while it is a hassle, you can have as many copies of an item as you have retainers (not including the one you can keep in your inventory because you need an empty space otherwise you won't be able to take anything out).

Probably the biggest defense for the Unique tag is for extremely exclusive gear, like Raid items. It's gotta sting to see a rare drop you need like the Genji Fending body get need-lotted by the other tank, who already has the piece, because he wants it to glamour one of his other tank jobs.

I honestly can't see the point of it on stuff like Tomestone gear, though. Seriously, SE should WANT players grinding out more Tomestones, since it's further incentive to keep playing the game even when you've met other goals.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

But how do you justify being able to NEED only once on something that you might want to meld differently for different jobs? You legitimately NEED two of them. Isn't the one-need rule just as arbitrary as the Unique attribute in reducing loot competition?

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Because it's so people who might actually have nothing can have the first chance to Need on it over someone who already has it. Is that not very fair? That way for a dungeon or raid, if someone does have a nice piece (s)he can only Greed that to give the other 7 people in the raid a chance. It would essentially be the same. Just allowing the player to greed on a duplicate if no one else wants it. And it also wouldn't effect dungeons either.

Greed is fair.

On top end raid gear, I can kind of see a purpose for it. It's supposed to give other players a chance at the gear. (Even there, they could probably do without the UNIQUE tag, since they already have other ways of limiting people's rolls there anyway.)

But SE has overused the UNIQUE tag to a rather ridiculous extent. It's on tomestone gear where there's no competition for who gets the item. It's on low level dungeon drops that people can turn in for GC seals, so they're rolling on multiple copies of the item anyway. It doesn't make any sense there.

If they're going to keep it at all, at least restrict it to only where it makes sense. (Or better yet, just eliminate it entirely. Even where it's somewhat reasonable, it isn't necessary, and it exacerbates the problem with our glamour system.)

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

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I would like it to be removed but in a way, moreso reworked. Remove it so you can possess a duplicate but you won't be able to prioritize yourself over others like in a raid. Have raid chest piece? Can't Need on it anymore. Can only Greed. That gives the others a chance to get it too.

Change Unique to Limited so you can't Need it if you already have it, and then we can have duplicates for Glamour and Materia-specific purposes.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

... moreso reworked. Remove it so you can possess a duplicate but you won't be able to prioritize yourself over others like in a raid. Have raid chest piece? Can't Need on it anymore. Can only Greed. That gives the others a chance to get it too.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

Change Unique to Limited so you can't Need it if you already have it, and then we can have duplicates for Glamour and Materia-specific purposes.

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Agreed. Remove it from tome gear altogether, and change it to "Limited" for dungeon/raid drops, where you can have multiples, but just can't roll Need for them.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

I would like it to be removed but in a way, moreso reworked. Remove it so you can possess a duplicate but you won't be able to prioritize yourself over others like in a raid. Have raid chest piece? Can't Need on it anymore. Can only Greed. That gives the others a chance to get it too.

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Unfortunately, there's an easy way around this: Just store the item you want on a Retainer. The game no longer detects it in your inventory, and leaves you free to Need lot it. You can do this NOW, in fact - if you really want two raid bodies, there's nothing stopping you. No one does it, though, because there's little point since you can't carry them on you at the same time, and no one wants to have to zip to their retainer every time they want to change jobs. However, if you COULD carry around both pieces, folks most definitely WOULD store pieces on retainers in order to be able to double Need.

I suppose you could have the code check each players' retainers, as well, before distributing the right to Need lot, but I have no clue how difficult that would be to code, given that Retainer data is not stored locally and needs to be accessed on-demand.

I used to use the retainer method last tier because of having an extra Alexander STR ring, one with VIT meld for tank, and another with a Crit meld for the DPS jobs. Most of the time I used the VIT one on tank and DPS just because of traps.

Although some people here just want the easy way so they can equip two tome rings. Which you can, just one has to be upgraded to 340, and that requires a glaze from O2S. Or just get a Genji 340 ring from O1S. Otherwise why does it matter if you aren't doing high-end content where higher ilvl matters.

The unique restriction is just current inventory, also prevents needing an item again, or accidentally messing up pages, or a weekly tome purchase.

I would love this. It was a pain in the ass to outfit my retainers with scrip gear and a bigger pain to remove it and replace it with new crafted stuff I made for this tier.

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Originally Posted by technole

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This isn't about raiding. This isn't about O2S. This isn't about an easy way to get rings. And this isn't about the "Why would you need it anyway?" argument. Why are you bringing all these things up... Does it matter to you if you think it doesn't matter to non-raiders?

This is about asking for the possibility of allowing more in-depth customization options and glamours, would it be fair or not, an whether it would actually be beneficial. And for all players. Casual, midcore, hardcore, anyone should be able to build their perfect sets and glamours.

Also I have beaten O2S multiple times in PF.

What is annoying about it is unsynched solo play. For example, Sohm Al is a leather desynth leveling gold mine with everything but weapons and accessories being leather type. The catch is you have to remember to desynth drops as you get them because, obviously, the unique label makes it fall to the floor. In this case it really shouldn't apply since there's only one person in there to make unique for competitive purposes moot.

I can get on board with this but under one condition..

You can only roll on something that isn't in your inventory/armory/retainers.
That means if you wanted 2x pieces of Genji armor, you can trade in pages to get that 2nd copy, but you cannot roll on it if you have one already.

The exception to this is normal dungeon drops because there aren't any token-like items that you can use to purchase additional copies. Perhaps if you have one somewhere on your character/retainer you can only Greed?

I could make use of multiple copies of the same gear piece, for glamour purposes in most cases, the only exception to that would be the ability to wear two rings of the same kind, but I don't see it happening easily, there won't be need for a change anyway if they rework the whole glamour system!...

A workaround for this would be to create or buy as many crafted gear sets as possible, if only it wasn't so hard to make or so expensive to buy!...

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Because it's so people who might actually have nothing can have the first chance to Need on it over someone who already has it. Is that not very fair? That way for a dungeon or raid, if someone does have a nice piece (s)he can only Greed that to give the other 7 people in the raid a chance. It would essentially be the same. Just allowing the player to greed on a duplicate if no one else wants it. And it also wouldn't effect dungeons either.

Greed is fair.

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I disagree. But before getting to the reasoning, let me just note that I'm also fed up with the Unique business, I'm also one who plays multiple jobs of the same type and I want different glamours and different melding for my jobs that share tomestone gear, too. But I do not see the one-need rule as a fair one.

Now that's out of the way, how is it fair that for people who all contributed in the same encounter, someone who had it from a previous run must defer to someone who doesn't have it? The piece I already have is a reward for my efforts in a different run, why is it justified or fair that I do not qualify for NEED, when I actually do need it to gear myself, just like the other people who's NEEDing it to gear their jobs?

Greed is fair when nobody have a legitimate reason to NEED, but in this particular case we are discussing, I do have a legitimate reason.

If the goal was to let people have multiple of the same piece for different melding (and glamour), then the second piece is just as legitimate as the first piece, both equally qualifying as NEED.

I can understand it if people straight-out say that the one-need rule is there to distribute gear more uniformly. But I disagree that it is "fair". It may be good for the community as a whole, and call it a necessary evil if you don't agree with the rule at all, and I can support it if it gets rid of the Unique attribute, but I disagree that it is fair.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

I disagree. But before getting to the reasoning, let me just note that I'm also fed up with the Unique business, I'm also one who plays multiple jobs of the same type and I want different glamours and different melding for my jobs that share tomestone gear, too. But I do not see the one-need rule as a fair one.

Now that's out of the way, how is it fair that for people who all contributed in the same encounter, someone who had it from a previous run must defer to someone who doesn't have it? The piece I already have is a reward for my efforts in a different run, why is it justified or fair that I do not qualify for NEED, when I actually do need it to gear myself, just like the other people who's NEEDing it to gear their jobs?

Greed is fair when nobody have a legitimate reason to NEED, but in this particular case we are discussing, I do have a legitimate reason.

If the goal was to let people have multiple of the same piece for different melding (and glamour), then the second piece is just as legitimate as the first piece, both equally qualifying as NEED.

I can understand it if people straight-out say that the one-need rule is there to distribute gear more uniformly. But I disagree that it is "fair". It may be good for the community as a whole, and call it a necessary evil if you don't agree with the rule at all, and I can support it if it gets rid of the Unique attribute, but I disagree that it is fair.

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Would it be fair to people that don't have it if others that do kept rolling higher Needs and taking extra of something they need too and therefore cannot get? Even if you need extras for glamour and materia customization, you still have one period. They, on the other hand, do not. The fairness is that everyone has a chance to get at least one before seconds or more are taken. Wanting a second or more after all is indeed Greed, regardless of the reason.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

Would it be fair to people that don't have it if others that do kept rolling higher Needs and taking extra of something they need too and therefore cannot get?

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It is fair, because that's exactly what the loot system is: we all depend on luck. If I keep rolling single digits, it's still fair because one day I may roll a 99. The determining factor, in my opinion, shouldn't be whether someone already has it, but whether the need is genuine. In this case, it is genuine, hence loot must be distrubted fairly, i.e. by the dice roll.

I mean that's exactly what the system is right now. I go into World of Darkness countless times and lose my roll to different people every time, it is still fair. We all contributed to this particular run and that gives us equal legitimacy in NEEDing the gear we are able to equip. Whether or not you've already got 100 of this piece and turned them all in to the Grand Company, has no relevance whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

Wanting a second or more after all is indeed Greed, regardless of the reason.

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If loot was given first-come-first-serve, then it is fair to let everyone get their piece before anyone can get seconds. But that isn't the case here.

Taking into account the fact that I already have one, is the same argument as saying people wearing 310 gear should not be able to NEED a 120 piece because they already have something better. I don't agree with that.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

It is fair, because that's exactly what the loot system is: we all depend on luck. If I keep rolling single digits, it's still fair because one day I may roll a 99. The determining factor, in my opinion, shouldn't be whether someone already has it, but whether the need is genuine. In this case, it is genuine, hence loot must be distrubted fairly, i.e. by the dice roll.

I mean that's exactly what the system is right now. I go into World of Darkness countless times and lose my roll to different people every time, it is still fair. We all contributed to this particular run and that gives us equal legitimacy in NEEDing the gear we are able to equip. Whether or not you've already got 100 of this piece and turned them all in to the Grand Company, has no relevance whatsoever.



If loot was given first-come-first-serve, then it is fair to let everyone get their piece before anyone can get seconds. But that isn't the case here.

Taking into account the fact that I already have one, is the same argument as saying people wearing 310 gear should not be able to NEED a 120 piece because they already have something better. I don't agree with that.

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The whole reason Need exists is so someone that actually needs the item can bypass the rng involved. Yes it only applies if you are a job that can wear the gear but that is usually not an issue. As for the comment about not being able to need gear lower level than you have, that is a bogus statement as glamour is a thing. If someone already owns the 120 piece then yeah they shouldn't be able to need it, only greed it. That way anyone that truly needs it has a chance. That said, it would probably be beneficial if any job could need any item if they don't have it yet.

Your argument about having just as much claim on an item as anyone else just because you contributed does have merit, but it is also saying you are entitled to anything you want just because you are there. Entitlement should not come before anyone else's true needs, for that truly is greed.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

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What you are explaining is kinda the definition of Greed. You get a piece for one job. Then you *want* another piece for the other job. You don't *need* another piece for your other class because you have one already and can simply make do. You just *want* that other piece for your gear. That is actually pretty much the definition of greed. To take more than what you need yourself to "sustain". Greed = Want basically.

That's why people are disagreeing with you. Because you should only be allowed to be greedy after everyone gets what they need. Then you can be free to take more. How about an example...

You have 4 people. You're Cassie, and your friends are Kim, John, and Joe. You order a pizza that has 8 slices, you all split the pay.

Unlimited Need:
Cassie: You win "need" on 5 slices. By chance
Kim: Does not win any
John: Wins 3
Joe: Does not win any
-You have an instance where you all have a part but because you can take anything you want, you end up with 5/8 of the pizza. And John with 3/8. 2 of the friends don't get anything at all. Because 2 people got theirs and more before they got any at all. Did you two really *need* that pizza? Could you not be satisfied with the one and until everyone gets theirs?

Need, Greed:
Cassie: Win 1 -> Greeds 3
Kim: Win 1 -> Greeds 0
John: Win 1 -> Greeds 1
Joe: Win 1 -> Greeds 0
-Here everyone gets a slice. Everyone gets a piece of something for the effort. Then once everyone got what they *Needed*, now everyone is free to get the extras they may *Want*. What do you typically call people who get seconds or thirds? Greedy. Because they *Want* more.

See where I'm getting at?

I don't have an issue with the unique tag on gear except for two very specific examples.

1. Treasure maps should not be unique. We should be able to stack ones we haven't deciphered yet.

2. I don't think rings should be unique equipped or at the very least they need to make a final decision on what rules they want. You can't have more than one dungeon/tomestone ring, but you can have two crafting/gathering ones and two from the vendors on white gear. At the very least the rules should be consistent.

I'd like SE to do away with the unique tag. I main BLM and my 3 retainers are all BLMs. Gearing them up and moving gear between them is a needles PITA if I have the same gear equipped or in my armoury chest.

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Originally Posted by Rakiria

I'm pretty sure it's made so thing aren't as simple. Same with the weekly token cap.

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Unique exist since 1.0
It exist so you can't farm specific gears twice (if you have it already in the inventory) and give someone else in the party the chance to get it if you can't roll on it.

example: 2 tank raid sets, while the other tank don't have a single piece yet.

Instead of removing unique, they should just rework the glamour system. Like a own glamour gearslots, where you can add the glamour to the gearset (will still cost prisma) and don't need to put it on the gear.

Or bring out 2-3 sets of same ilevels, so every job who share gear with other jobs can have their own set.