In what direction are armor, weapons, and other equipment heading in the future?

[Corrderio]

Greetings! This thread seems like a good place to drop another major posts from Yoshida, as it deals heavily on the armor and equipment in FFXIV.

Wow, I really do not like the sound of this.

I'm all for challenges but I really have a problem with how he wants to divide people into hardcores and casuals. And catering to hardcores then dumbing down their content for casuals once they get new stuff seems like a pretty ass backwards concept. Seriously WTF @ the admire statement.

And more crap drop rates? What is with SE and souless grinding? I'd rather be rewarded for my effort, not a random number generator having a 5-10% chance of landing in my favor. Doing an event months after you have it down to a science just for a rare item isn't fun, it's boring as hell.

[Betelgeuzah]

And more crap drop rates? What is with SE and souless grinding? I'd rather be rewarded for my effort, not a random number generator having a 5-10% chance of landing in my favor. Doing an event months after you have it down to a science just for a rare item isn't fun, it's boring as hell.

This is rather dumb and ignorant comment any way you look at it. I'm very disappointed.

[AurelienRainier]

One of the best parts of this whole "growing alongside FFXIV's development" is getting a second-hand look into the thoughts developers have behind their game. Aspiring game developers, take note!

Anyway, I am very satisfied with the reasoning presented here. One of my most major gripes in MMOs is when a "costume" system is implemented. The first MMO I played that implemented this was Lord of the Rings: Online. The game would let you equip items that were specific to your class, but then let you equip practically ANY item in a "costume" slot. What it would appear you are wearing is the Costume item (so, like in Yoshi-P's example, a Black Mage could look as if he is in Full Plate armor), but the stats are from the item that is actually equipped.

I do not like this idea, and I am glad that (at this point) it seems the FFXIV development team is not going in this direction.

I have often argued with my friends that one of the best parts of FFXI in its early days was the concept of AF armor. Each class got a set of armor before end-game that not only differentiated their class from others (such as what earlier Tier armor did in Vanilla/TBC World of Warcraft), but had the iconic look of the classic Final Fantasy class. This aspect is what the armor in FFXIV is missing, imo, but I trust that it will be added once the classic Classes are implemented (and if Yoshi-P's concept art is any indication, this is being designed right under our noses!).

That is not to say that the current Jobs shouldn't get their own unique armor sets just because they aren't of Final Fantasy fame. All I am saying is that a costume system is a bad idea, and that I agree with Yoshi-P that we can't have everyone equip everything or all equipment be too restrictive to what class can use it (especially since this latter point will lead to the promulgation of a need for the armor/weapons of more common classes, making it harder to get armor/weapons for lesser-played classes since there just won't be the economy for it).

[Corrderio]

This is rather dumb and ignorant comment any way you look at it. I'm very disappointed.

What? It is boring doing the same thing over and over again until a mob decides to put out. It wasn't fun farming Dio/Water for hours in Sky, it wasn't fun killing a mob for months for a piece of L35 armor from salvage, and it wasn't fun camping (read: botting) HNMs for years.

I'm not saying everything should be 100%, but god awful drop rates for a false sense of accomoplishment isn't fun either. I quit XI because of that crap, it started to feel like a full time job with little to no pay. One of the main reasons I picked XIV up despite it's horrible ratings was because Tanaka was going to base the game around casual gameplay this time.