[ Dev's ] Gear Swaps Can I have It?

[Miliant]

I am a firm believer that gear selection for a fight is a fundamental part of player skill. The question is not gear vs skill. Its how a skilled person recognizes which gear to use, and when. After playing both games, i can tell you that i feel like my hands are a bit tied without gear swaps.

You state that you firmly believe that choosing gear carefully is fundamental to player skill. I will work with this assumption and ask, what exactly does it say about player skill that you need to have every piece of gear constantly available in order to play skillfully?

If you want to focus on certain abilities use a set of gear. If you want to focus on other abilities use another set. Be a resourceful adventurer: prioritize and plan your gear selection before the battle begins. If gear selection really says anything about player skill (again, debatable), then gear swapping is for those who really can't be bothered to try different setups and then think and choose those that output the best overall results. It's for the lazy, "just give me everything and I'll swap as I go" type.

[Jericho]

If you want to focus on certain abilities use a set of gear. If you want to focus on other abilities use another set. Be a resourceful adventurer: prioritize and plan your gear selection before the battle begins. If gear selection really says anything about player skill (again, debatable), then gear swapping is for those who really can't be bothered to try different setups and then think and choose those that output the best overall results. It's for the lazy, "just give me everything and I'll swap as I go" type.

I did prioritize and and plan my gear selections before the battle begins. I chose which pieces to TP in, which to WS in, which to cast in, etc. I'm not quite sure what the argument is here. I'm unclear why it is such a disliked concept. It encourages people to want more gear? I'm pretty sure everyones going to want more gear regardless of it being a piece to WS in or a piece to choose from in pre-battle planning. Elitist can say "You don't have this piece for this dungeon?" just as easily as they said "You don't have this piece to WS in?".

Gear macroing in FFXI was not difficult. And it did not take long to pick up enough items along the way, especially once there was a lot of great questable gear ToAUish and on. There were some bad seeds, yes, but I personally avoided them. The only replay value an MMO has is gear acquisition, and gear acquisition for your friends. Why not be able to use it as your see fit?

As far as skill goes, gear macroing does not make you lazy. Theres still plenty of battle situative (SICH-you-uh-tive, new word there) choices to make. I would respond that choosing your gear prior to the situation and never changing makes is what will make you lazy. Sure, for some it was done with the same amount of macro hits. For people like me that enjoyed console gaming and disliked windower, it made it more challenging, and made me better. I could hit 3 macros per WS like nobody's business. I currently have 84 macros for my Bard.

It wont become an issue in FFXIV because of the way macros work. And thats fine, its a new game, and we will adapt to a new style of playing. Plus, WS's happen way more often than they did in XI. Regardless, I'm just unclear of what issue is with it. Thats all.

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

It wont become an issue in FFXIV because of the way macros work. And thats fine, its a new game, and we will adapt to a new style of playing. Plus, WS's happen way more often than they did in XI. Regardless, I'm just unclear of what issue is with it. Thats all.

There are a few legitimate issues, without going into the "because it sucks" or "omg elitism" responses. They are:

• It isn't realistic. Yeah sure it's a fantasy where we shoot fireballs from our eyes but is there is a difference between magic and absurdity. It is absurd to change your clothes every other second.
• Situational gear takes up a lot of inventory space. This is gear you're not storing on your retainer or in your safe but gear you are actually carrying on you. There's no two ways around this.
• "Skill" at the game comes down to skill at either a) writing situational macros or b) downloading someone else's macros.
• Bypasses the "pros and cons" of armor by twitch-macroing to avoid any drawbacks. Hecatomb gear, for instance, goes from balanced (best STR but Slow) to unbalanced (best STR and just don't TP in it).

The "against" camp agrees that this is a new game and prefers to adapt to a new style of playing.

The "for" camp... hasn't actually made any substantive arguments and mostly just calls the "against" camp a bunch of idiots. For every, "It's not very realistic to take off your pants in the middle of a fight" they respond with "lol use a macro noob" or several posts about defecation.

The only reason the "against" camp is still quite active in this thread is because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the "for" camp, although small, is quite squeaky.