Quote Originally Posted by Miliant View Post
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.