Gear should grant passive abilities

[Dark-Saviour]

Anyone ever played Phantasy Star Online ep1&2?

That was precisely what I was alluding to. >_>

Once you got past a certain point pretty much any rare weapon was viable, as were a number of normal weapons. Each weapon felt distinct and worthwhile, so it fostered a desire to collect all of them and use whichever you enjoyed the best.
While games like WoW, FFXIV, etc. get hit with the label 'gear-treadmill', PSO was what I like to call a 'Gear Collectible Card Game'.

Having a set up that promotes getting X to get Y to get Z (which is all you really cared about) is dull... Having a setup that promotes getting and using the entire alphabet is much more fun.

[Edellis]

That was precisely what I was alluding to. >_>

While games like WoW, FFXIV, etc. get hit with the label 'gear-treadmill', PSO was what I like to call a 'Gear Collectible Card Game'.

Having a set up that promotes getting X to get Y to get Z (which is all you really cared about) is dull... Having a setup that promotes getting and using the entire alphabet is much more fun.

Absolutely agree. PSO is one of the first MMOs i'd ever played, and it has unfortunately stopped me from enjoying so many games because of how dynamic its gear system was

That would be along the lines of bringing interesting complexities to the game like player elemental damage and that's a no no. Don't want to be confusing the poor players little heads with things like basic depth.

Which is sad, because TBH so few games actually incorporate the sort of depth im talking about into their systems. I honestly can't think of a single one that does, including the sequels to PSO Ep1&2. I should mention, something like "+10 hidden dexterity", or "Randomly does 10 fire damage" is not the type of hidden abilities i'm talking about. Those essentially are no better than stat increases because they still only improve overall DPS, without much depth to them.

In regular MMOs, gear increase = DPS increase, while in PSO, gear increase = option increase. This is something that i've never seen another MMO do correctly, because their systems aren't pre-designed to incorporate the feature. You are the same character with a lv.9351 weapon as you are with a lv.1 weapon. You just do more damage.


So if FFXIV had abilities similar to PSO, i'd imagine it'd be something similar to equipping Additional job abilities on your character that just come from the weapon. Some help tons, some only help a little, but it's great to have direct control of them and use them when you want to.