All relics, weapons, armor, accessories, etc. are bland.

[misterrpg]

There's no sort of special abilities, effects, or interesting aspects about the gear in this game.

It's like STR+5, VIT+5, etc. one of the main statistics. Even from launch at XI they had gear that wasn't like everything else.

and you know what? Square-Enix had 3 years to add this in a game that isn't even new. 50+% of the content in this game was already in 1.0 and yet they still cannot add in features that games had at their launch many, many, many years ago.

So, why?

[Zumi]

That is hard to do in a game with item levels. Because sometimes a special effect on an item keeps it viable for longer then it should even in higher tiers of raiding where you should be replacing something but because of a special effect. So they wanted to keep things simple.

[Kiroh]

That is hard to do in a game with item levels. Because sometimes a special effect on an item keeps it viable for longer then it should even in higher tiers of raiding where you should be replacing something but because of a special effect. So they wanted to keep things simple.

I think that's his point, when you oversimplify things they become bland and lifeless. Relics have gone from being "sacred artifacts of X job" to "shiny stat stick with shiny stats, oo pretty".

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

When they said "materia", I was SOOOO excited. I could already see the "x2" and "MP / 2" and other great stuff, enhancing this or that spell (as found in FFXI for instance), with raids designed to give you specific materias that would be required to clear the lass boss, and so on. Really inventive and cunning stuff that we would have to take advantage of in order to win.

Well…

They're just glorified gems. Yes, "glorified" means: "you may fail quite often at slotting them on".

To be fair, though, no MMO has really interesting gear, besides shiny numbers. This is an area where MMORPG are clearly much, much worse than most single-player RPG where you can legitimately get off on gear.

[misterrpg]

When they said "materia", I was SOOOO excited. I could already see the "x2" and "MP / 2" and other great stuff, enhancing this or that spell (as found in FFXI for instance), with raids designed to give you specific materias that would be required to clear the lass boss, and so on. Really inventive and cunning stuff that we would have to take advantage of in order to win.

Well…

They're just glorified gems. Yes, "glorified" means: "you may fail quite often at slotting them on".

To be fair, though, no MMO has really interesting gear, besides shiny numbers. This is an area where MMORPG are clearly much, much worse than most single-player RPG where you can legitimately get off on gear.

XI had some of the most unique equipment out of any game, ever, and I absolutely love RPGs.

XIV... it has the worst equipment (stat-wise/effect wise) out of any MMORPG I've played.

The relics in this game are absolute garbage compared to XI.

[Yagrush]

Relics would be a nightmare to balance in a ilvl governed game. What would be the point of weapons dropped from Coil if the relic was better/had unique benefits the coil weapon couldnt give?

The only thing I can think of is that Coil, instead of dropping redundant weapons at the same level of relic, drop items required for making the relic, or a new stage for the Relic.

This route works wonders for WoW, and there's no shame in looking at it for inspiration here.

[Pride_Xiv]

You know in FFXI the game level cap was 50 at release just like it is here. Around level 42 each job could get an "artifact" weapon which was a weapon just for that specific job. Paladin for example had the "honor sword" which was the best sword for the job at that time. Later on the level cap increased, dynamis came out and people could work on getting relic weapons which took a huge amount of work but were best weapons in game.

This game is very new and SE could be going this route again I when it comes to creating a weapon for each class that falls along the same lines as FFxi relic weapons. The first real class weapon wasn't hard to get in XI but is harder in XIV, just saying give this game some time.

[misterrpg]

You know in FFXI the game level cap was 50 at release just like it is here. Around level 42 each job could get an "artifact" weapon which was a weapon just for that specific job. Paladin for example had the "honor sword" which was the best sword for the job at that time. Later on the level cap increased, dynamis came out and people could work on getting relic weapons which took a huge amount if work but were best weapons in game.

This game is very new and SE could be going this route again in the future creating a weapon for each class that falls along the same lines as FFxi relic weapons. The first real class weapon wasn't hard to get in XI and it is harder in XIV, just saying give this game some time.

Like I said, I did. 3 years.

[Pride_Xiv]

Like I said, I did. 3 years.

Then maybe this game isn't for you amigo..

[Doo]

Token system, bland gear, everyone has.