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

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

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

Right now I'm more concerned about the fact that this game doesn't seem to be for way too many people. It has a good foundation to begin with, some very nice ideas, but there are huge flaws that really need to be thought over —and fixed!— if it's ever to reach mainstream success in the long run. As it stands, the next "big thing" —be it TESO, Star Citizen, other rivals— will just take the hype away and it will be done.

Think about it: the FF IP sold over 100M games in its 25+ years of existence. It's one of the top 10 best sellers in the world. Yet its latest flagship canonic title can't attract more than 600k subscribers when even Second Life (not a game…) or EVE Online (talk about niche, hardcore game) or Lineage (very grindy and PvP-oriented MMO) can do better than that? When the last FF MMO, which came out before this market was hugely expanded by WoW, peaked at 550k? Isn't that worrying to some degree that FF XIV, ten years after, in a market that's at least five times bigger overall, doesn't do better at all?

EDIT: removed a "rumor" that hasn't been relayed yet in the media. (at Yagrush's request; granted, it wasn't very smart to say that).

[Reiterpallasch]

XI had some of the most unique equipment out of any game

Gotta love things like CHR on BLM gear, or enhances resist virus. So many "unique", utterly useless gear stats. I can bend a turd into a pretzel shape, but that doesn't mean it's not still just a turd.

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

Because this isn't XI, and the only thing the two relics have in common is the name. These are much closer to XIs AF weapons, if that wasn't obvious right from the start.

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..

I can think of another popular MMO that has tons of special effects on gear, and it's never kept around when the next tier of gear comes out.

[Sotek]

I kind of agree...

[Yagrush]

And there are already talks that over this 600k peak, a third left already…

Dont say stuff like this without any sources.

Also, let's not turn this into a doom and gloom thread, there are enough here, follow the topic of the thread.

[Lithera]

They do NOT want FFXI all over again. The unique gear stats were nice and all but when you were expected to swap in a piece of gear 15-20 levels below your current level (*cough*Thief's Knife*cough*) it started getting kind of silly and for some jobs people looked like they were caught in a strobe light with all the gear swap macros. I was disappointed that they didn't put macro slots on the JSE though. There is a ton of potential in the materia system especially in terms of materia that could carry those special enhancements. With any luck we'll see it going forward. As was mentioned earlier we aren't at the hard level cap yet so the dev team isn't about to blow their entire load now.

What I'd LIKE to see is either materia with the unique enhancements that can be applied to gear (perhaps quests to unlock materia slots in JSE) or perhaps a system not unlike FFIX wherein a trait attached to a piece of gear can be learned over time so you no longer require the piece of equipment to enjoy the enhancement. While the item is BiS it wouldn't make a difference but once newer gear arrived you could retain the trait after switching to the new gear. Maybe this would also have a prerequisite quest that first involved a full spiritbond of the piece of gear or HELL even the intentional breaking of the gear. It would certainly make spirit bonding and the damage/repair system a little more relevant. Especially the damage/repair system since outside of DoH/DoL it's becoming irrelevant with the gil returns in dungeons now. One dungeon run can net you enough to cover three runs worth of repairs.

[Ri_ri]

Raiding tier Weapons and armor in WoW often have cool side effects, sometimes changing how the class plays, and they're still replaced at the next patch/expansion. Being a vertical progression isn't a good reason to make items so bland.

Personally, I don't feel very motivated to work for gear that'll only give me a few stats increase. It has to make a difference in how I see myself - having my Firagas hitting for 1400 instead of 1300 isn't worth the effort of hours of dungeon grinding or raiding.

[Lithera]

Personally, I don't feel very motivated to work for gear that'll only give me a few stats increase. It has to make a difference in how I see myself - having my Firagas hitting for 1400 instead of 1300 isn't worth the effort of hours of dungeon grinding or raiding.

Tell that to the min/maxers lol "OMG I have to have that armor! It gives me +1 STR over what I'm wearing!"

[Xenobius]

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.

Completely NOT true.
As proven by WoW itself and may WoW clones afterwards, you *can* add interesting effects to items governed by iLVL and stat budget without breaking the balance.
Buffs and debuffs that proc on hit/crit, passive or active bonuses, completely crazy stuff like this one here - you name it.
And since FFXIV *is* a WoW clone plain and simple, the only reason we're stuck with bland ability score bonuses is that the devs are lazy.

[Fhamran]

I think crux of the matter is that PvE ilevel based game design in MMOs has become bland in every example of it's execution, especially in the last few years where MMO veterans understand practically every caveat of the core mechanics and blast their way through the game's progression system effortlessly, putting great strain on the designers to keep pumping out "endgame" (endgame meaning the game now) producing a stream of lopsided and inevitably struggling MMOs.

Right now, gear, items, dungeons, all feel kind of loveless in their execution. It feels like there's an implicit understanding from the designers that what we're playing to attain is cheap and there shouldn't be any extra effort to make them more interesting, and it's depressing.

We all know that what we're grinding for right now is going to become worthless 2 updates down the road, the least SE could do was make what we're grinding have more than the shallowest of significance within the system.

[Asiaine]

Token system, bland gear, everyone has.

The sad irony is, so many people were jumping up and down demanding token system... demanding the ability to get all the gear.