Is this the road they will continue to take with items?

[Ghishlain]

And I understand that. However, it doesn't change the fact that it's the same thing at the end of the day, and calling for some sort of change would accomplish basically nothing, as this game has plenty of horizontal progression. I don't see how having gear from lvl50 being better than lvl75 gear is horizontal, but I can see why having several i100 sets is horizontal.

XI gearing is more complex because the interaction between gear pieces can affect your performance as a player.

For example, you're using a pair of gloves that gives you 2% Double Attack to Weaponskill / TP in. Good. Suddenly, you get a belt that gives you 2% Triple Attack and 1% Quaddruple Attack. Suddenly, the value of your 2% Double Attack piece is diminished because Quad / Triple attack overrides your Double Attack stat (QA > TA > DA > OAX).

BiS for XI is much more varied because when XI releases a new piece of gear, suddenly you need to change your ENTIRE gear set to suit the new pieces that may have "superior stats" but devalue the pieces of other stats, unlike in XIV where it's "slap on the highest ilvl gear you can find" since the performance changes of secondary stats are very negligible compared to the boost in primary stats (mostly).

The concept of BiS is the same, yes, but to think that determining BiS in XIV is as easy as determining BiS in XI is factually false.

[morlin]

When any MMO progresses, it generally makes old gear more easily available, and makes old hard-to-do duties, less hard to do.

Any MMO you say? FFXIV must be your first one then. Not even the prototype of all modern MMO's, world of warcraft, obviated gear at such a pace like FFXIV does.
The only gear reset that happened was between expansion packs. The first set of gear you obtain from the first endgame raid still mattered several patches ahead.

After logging off and returning after almost one year, you really cannot think your gear is still top-notch.

If you are going to reply to my post atleast have the decency to read what i wrote. Where did i state that i wanted my gear to still be "top notch"? I was expecting to get back and progress at the same pace that i left at, not being handed out previous-tier endgame welfare gear.

[Wolf_Gang]

Vertical item progression is fine.

What missing is horizontal stat-based progression to complement it.

[morlin]

Its clear to me that most of you play this game as a time sink, nothing else. Personally i'd like the free time i have spent on this game to reflect upon my character development. There is absolutely nothing satisfying with playing as of current system, unless you maybe do a world-first clear of a new endgame raid or something. But many people wont experience that.
Other than that it just seems like mindless running around and doing quests, and this is END GAME we are talking about here. Utterly disappointing.

But hey, if you like it, good for you. I personally dont and probably wont play post this one month subscription.

[Kisshu]

In FFXI, we had "viable" sets. That is, you prioritized Haste, Accuracy, main stat. This isn't any different than what we have here, except that FFXI took longer and you could get that amazing gear at much lower levels.

Note I played right untill the 80 level cap increase, but when I played gear was heavily decided on your build.
Top priority: reach 90% hitrate with sushi, if you can't then you need more accuracy
Second: Haste (for most jobs, but if you went /nin you would want "enhance dual wield" before haste)
Third: Enhance trait (some are situational like "Enhance barrage" while others like "dual/tripple attack" can be used all the time)
Fourth: Attack (much better than just STR when TP'ing)

This is only for melee jobs, mages have elemental skill/magic attack bonus/enfeebling gear depending on situation.
A WAR/NIN builds slightly different from WAR/SAM
A Ranger must decide on a STR archery build versus AGI build GUN/xbow build, but could also make a MND holy bolt build.
In the end, each build can of course have BiS, but you have several different builds to choice from

The main difference is that FFXI had more build per job than in FFXIV, my guess is that they made it so because it's easier for new players.

As for the Hagun/Haidate/Rajas/Suppa comment:
How long did it take you to get this gear?
Haidate is endgame gear, Rajas from completing an expansion, suppa(along with the other 4 earrings) is from the 18 man battle Divine might which wasn't all that easy when it came out. It was gear you worked towards, spending time to get, but ya, using it for several years might be a bit to long

[Taban]

Any MMO you say? FFXIV must be your first one then. Not even the prototype of all modern MMO's, world of warcraft, obviated gear at such a pace like FFXIV does.
The only gear reset that happened was between expansion packs. The first set of gear you obtain from the first endgame raid still mattered several patches ahead.



If you are going to reply to my post atleast have the decency to read what i wrote. Where did i state that i wanted my gear to still be "top notch"? I was expecting to get back and progress at the same pace that i left at, not being handed out previous-tier endgame welfare gear.

I'm not sure what version of wow you were playing, but every new raid tier invalidated the tier behind it in that game as well. There were occasionally one or two items that would last more than one tier because they were itemized extremely well, but that was rare. Honestly WoW leaves behind gear faster than even ffxiv does when a new patch is introduced.

[Duelle]

Not only did it not make other mage weapons obsolete, it was mostly used because it consolidated the need for carrying multiple weapons, in some cases multiple wands and shields - The main reason to use an Elemental/Prism Staff was the 10-15% bonus to x element, however a certain stick aside, your relic/mythic/empy weapon was far superior.

Yet no wand and shield combo came remotely close to the elemental staves, and thus were non-factors. Even the relics were an absolute joke next to them. Mythics didn't dethrone the staves, and I don't think I ever saw an empyreal BLM weapon, since everyone just swapped between magian staves (themselves an extension of the same problem).

Here's the thing, I truly don't see an actual difference between BiS and the system we had in FFXI.

BiS is more something to aim for in an MMO. It's literally the best possible combination of gear to meet stat goals.

XI's gear system was convoluted because you needed a set for everything your job was capable of due to gear swaps being a mainstay in how everyone played. That's not necessary here thankfully because jobs have combat models that focus on one thing and gear swaps won't ever darken our doorstep. Gear was desired largely because in most cases it became inventory +1 rather than something actually powerful that improved your overall performance. Even the Iridal Staff that was introduced many years after the elemental staves was basically just inventory +7, and to my recollection was for the "gimps" that never got the HQ staves.

Those ilvl jumps in WoW were a gear reset, there wasn't anything placebo about them. They didn't want the game to be horribly trivialized by old gear in a new expansion and by extension not making it impossible for anyone new without that gear. They also wanted the next raid tier to be useful even to the high end.

Gear reset would have still happened if you had made Hellfire Peninsula greens roughly the same as naxx gear, as people in naxx gear would still be forced to switch that gear for better pieces once they get past the lv58-61 part of the expansion. The people who didn't raid would still be brought up to that same level and the playing field would still have been leveled.

As such your raiders would clear HFP and start replacing their naxx gear with drops from Hellfire Bloodforge and Zangarmarsh quest gear. Your non-raiders would put the HFP quest gear to use and...replace that gear with drops from Hellfire Ramparts/Bloodforge and Zangarmarsh quest gear. By the time they'd finish Zangarmarsh everyone would be using the same gear, as intended.

[Zumi]

Since in FFXIV in a game where you can't switch gear even if an item say a weapon had a special effect on it. Say a DRG weapon had the effect of making Heavy Thrust last 40 seconds. Someone would do the math to determine which of the currently available weapons is the best and people would try to get the one that was determined the best. They would factor in any special effects and come out with the optimal set. You can't switch gear and always have special effects on abilities active like you could in FFXI.

FFXI is a totally different game where you could swap gear any time you want. People had their TP sets their WS sets usually different for each WS because they had different stat mods. People had job ability set for each ability they used, (swap in all your gear that enhances beserk, warcry, might strikes ect). If you were a top tier player in FFXI you were almost always full on items 80/80 filled with gear for every job ability tp and ws gear, as well as defensive sets -magic damage and -physical damage which started to be important later on in FFXI during SoA when mobs started to hit much harder.

[Risvertasashi]

FFXI is a totally different game where you could swap gear any time you want. People had their TP sets their WS sets usually different for each WS because they had different stat mods. People had job ability set for each ability they used, (swap in all your gear that enhances beserk, warcry, might strikes ect). If you were a top tier player in FFXI you were almost always full on items 80/80 filled with gear for every job ability tp and ws gear, as well as defensive sets -magic damage and -physical damage which started to be important later on in FFXI during SoA when mobs started to hit much harder.

This is one part of FFXI I don't miss at all.

That said, horizontal progression would be cool. Can't gear swap while under aggro in this game so you wouldn't see the FFXI problem here.

[myahele]

I'd gladly spend 300k+ on materia that has a percentage of procs popping up for novus than just a stat increase.

I'm not gonna stress out on gear, since its not gonna help you in bosses with instadeath mechanics.