Quote Originally Posted by Bayohne View Post
Moving forward, all gear that is introduced will have requirements placed on them as we will be phasing out the "Optimal Rank" system. With new recipes being introduced in 1.19, the old recipes will be lost and it will not be possible to make that gear anymore going forward. So only the currently existing versions that exist prior to the change will feature "Optimal Rank" features.
That's some disappointing news IMO. Because while the rank restriction is common in many MMOs, the armory system isn't. Actually in most MMOs you don't even change classes...

With rank requeriment instead of carrying one set of armor for craft and one set for gathering you will have to carry multiple sets. This will pretty much break the armory system as a whole...some people might just say "But in FFXI you had level restriction and everything was fine"...but in FFXI you couldn't change class on-the-fly...you had to go to mog house, change class, withdraw most of the new cclass gear, deposit the other class ones...sometimes even having to mule back gear from your storage mule.

Here you need to be carrying with you every piece of armor if you want to effectively use the armory system...so the more generic they are the better.

Some examples of myself:

I use velveteen coatee set as gatherer...right now its OK. But with rank restriction i'd need to carry a velveteen AND a canvas coatee set because my BTN is 46 but my MIN and my FSH are 35ish.

Same goes for craft...i use velveteen coatee but my craft range goes from 42 to 33, with rank restriction also forcing me to carry 2 sets instead of one.

And this goes for battle classes too. Sometimes you just don't have the correct rank gear with you...maybe you're gathering with a r40 class and a friend pass by and invite you to grind with him...sometimes you deposited part of your gear to free space...but the armory system offers you the possibility of swaping class right away and start playing with him...but with rank restriction this won't be possible...even though you can change classes on -the-fly you cannot use it effectively right away...you will be required to go to city and withdraw the correct armor.

Too bad indeed, IMO. Its another great aspect of the game that will be discarded...maybe later on they also discard the favor option and add a nomad moogle at camps so players can change jobs there instead of on-the-fly.