"Perks" would do soooo much for this game

[Nalien]

A FF9 gear system can fit FFXIV, yet it would require a whole new system.

Technically, we already have AP in the game, it's just poorly implemented in PvP. It shouldn't be too hard to attach traits to gear and let players work on unlocking them permanently.

All they'd really need to do is give us a new traits window, with the traits functioning slightly differently (functionally the same as Additional Skills for the most part). Lets say I equip Valerian Dragoon's Mail, and that has High Tide on it (which increases the rate the Limit Break meter fills by a balanced amount). High Tide now shows up in the new traits window permanently, however I can only use AP (which would be tied to your level) to have it in effect while I'm wearing the armor it originated from. Alongside the trait though, is something along the lines of 0/100. That would increase through battle as long as I'm using AP to have the stat in effect, and when it reached 100/100, I no longer need Valerian Dragoon's Mail equipped to set AP to activate the trait. I'd have the trait permanently and could do whatever with the armor.

While some of that would be new to implement, I'd much rather have a well polished system like that, than have them continue to shoehorn materia into this game... Keep materia as a regular stats option (and actually work on them meaning a damned thing), I'd rather not go about looking to replace my High Tide materia every time I upgrade gear... I'd love it if they could rework stats in this game to the point where Paladin could benefit from melding Mind, or Dark Knight could benefit from melding Piety, and I'd have no real problem spending Gil to remeld basic stats like that with each upgrade, but actually interesting stats? Either that is a nightmare scenario where I'm frequently looking to obtain more High Tide materia, or I can just take the materia off old gear and put it on new gear, at which point the new materia contributes nothing to the games economy and it becomes more of a chore than anything...

There's also something to be said for losing meld slots with stat bloat... You'd be reducing your chances at specific materia by adding any new form of materia, which I'd consider bad, and you'd also be reducing the chance of "successfully" over melding, since you'd have more options for what stats to meld. You'd have more options of what to meld, sure, but I don't actually think that is necessarily a good thing. I'd rather see materia be my primary and secondary stats, and another system entirely for stats like High Tide. IMO it would be messy to just overload materia with potentially hundreds of additional stat options, I'd rather see two good systems, than one incredibly meh system. Though right now I can't really consider materia to be a good system anyway, maybe if they reintroduced having two main primary stats instead of this incredibly dumbed down system...

[Felis]

This happens anyway with the current system. If you don't want to do savage raids, you'll never get upgraded Esoteric gear, or the raid equipment. So, if you want the 'best' gear, you'll be forced into content you don't like, or you'll have to go without.

you don't need to do savage if you get the upgrade items also from Ark.

[ChocoFeru]

snip

I'd love to not depend on materia for all the gear, yet if you could remove materia and make it 100% success melding, then it would be a new thing D:!

Or making it like FFVII, when you get 5 stars of that materia, it replicates itself at 0 stars and so on...

I don't know, we just need more personalization here, having in mind that gear is temporary and will be useless after 6 months, so the "perks" should come from somewhere else and not be tied on the gear D:!

I pretty much like all the ideas on this topic, there are many ways to make it work on the actual expansion o,o

[Kurogaea]

Personalization is always good in an rpg. Not sure why everyone is worried about BiS for raids and dungeons when no one bothers with those kinds of people who select the best of the best to begin with unless they're their kind of people. Why not roll with your buddies or those who don't care like we always have?

[Nalien]

I'd love to not depend on materia for all the gear, yet if you could remove materia and make it 100% success melding, then it would be a new thing D:!

Well, like I said, that kind of defeats the purpose of materia in this game. That stops being something people actively work on obtaining and selling/buying because materia is always in demand with new gear to meld, and instead just becomes a case of; "I've upgraded my gear, time to remove this from my old gear and put it on the new gear", which I don't find to be a particularly appealing system in general. Like I said earlier though, I imagine that's exactly where SE is going, if they're going anywhere at all, what with materia being purchased from Diadem and tomestone/raid gear getting materia slots in 3.2.

I don't know, we just need more personalization here, having in mind that gear is temporary and will be useless after 6 months, so the "perks" should come from somewhere else and not be tied on the gear D:!

Gonna have to disagree there, I think having such stats coming from gear is the ideal. It creates long term value in the gear, and thus long term value in the events the gear is obtained from. Just take a look at stuff like Void Ark and the new dungeons, anyone currently rocking i200+ is unlikely to benefit from obtaining any of that gear. The dungeons will just drop out right inferior gear, while Void Ark may offer some better secondary stats, but with i210 upgrade items being more attainable, that wont really be applicable for long...

Tie bonuses to specific pieces of gear, though? Suddenly that gear has significantly more value to it. It would still end up suffering the same fate, since you could permanently unlock the traits through grinding in the gear, but rather than getting a drop and immediately stuffing it on a retainer (for glamour) or turning it in for Grand Company seals, the gear would be something I'd actually equip properly and fight in.

The only issue I usually see with that, is that some people seem to think it means you need to go out and obtain every piece of gear in the game. That's not the case though, AP limits how many traits you can set, unlocking all the stats would literally just be a game for the completionists or those really interesting in getting a minor advantage. Balanced correctly, the gear your average player already uses could provide more than enough traits to put all their AP into, and still have options for customization. The really useful traits, I imagine, would be tied to stuff like tomestone gear, while raid content would offer more niche traits (Void Ark, for example, could offer Demon Killer, as a minor boost to damage verses Voidsent, and other similar traits). The other complain is that it creates a grind, but I personally don't see that... I'm already grinding through dozens and dozens of enemies farming tomestones, now I'm just doing it with AP to permanently unlock traits... There's a grind there, sure, but it's only an extra grind if I want to speed up the process... If one isn't particularly bothered about that, then they can just stack the AP grind with their existing tomestone grind and nothing has really changed...

[MugenMugetsu]

I see the addition of being able to add materia to tome/raid gear as a nice gesture to accommodate our request for more gear/stat personalization, but honestly it seems like it will just be more of a headache. There will always be the min/max theorycrafted best build, it will be a gil sink, and unless we have crafts leveled sufficiently to meld our own materia it will require hunting down someone to meld the materia for us, which for some may not be so bad, but for others could really be a pain in the ass. Just my two gil...

[Voldemort]

In regards to the "having to equip said item to gain its perk" idea, I don't think they would be used all that often.

Unless the stats stack according to your level, the basic stats tied to the gear piece will be underwhelming compared to anything you equip otherwise. For example, if you're going into level 60 content and you have the choice between equipping your esoteric gear and the perk gear, chances are you will need the esoteric gear.
As the perk gear will never outclass the gear for that content anyways.

Or consider the Bismarck EX trial, where everyone is trying to squeeze out as much damage as possible on the Scale. There is really no perk that you could have that would be more beneficial than a gear piece that increases your damage, critical hit, etc. And if it was, players would almost make it mandatory to use in place of the damage gear (as some people already pointed out in the thread).

Though the perks might be useful for leveling up lower classes in dungeons or something, where the gap in stats is not as noticeable as higher level content.

[Kewitt]

When Merits where added to FFXI... it was you need THIS THIS THIS... and last one you could pick. It would be no difference with any other system added.

As for Gear with Perks. They don't want to make gear in such a way that if you do not have it you will not get invited to something.

[Yuisr]

happened with merits in FFXI the merit points could be put into countless areas to improve a character... but warriors still put them into strength, mages into int etc.. its a pointless system that makes it feel like we are progressing. but as you say, it is an incentive to be active when you've done all there is to be done. im 50/50 on the perk idea.

[randysquirrel]

Just my opinion, but I'd like to see something like equipment (or materia) that adds a small chance of something happening. Rather oddly, I think the chance should be very small, so small that it is never RELIED upon, and no-one would care if you didn't have it, but just something a bit more fun so on the odd occasion it did come up, it would add something new. For example, as BLM, imagine a materia that added a 1% chance on that any fire spell would give me a triple buff for my next spell. 1% should be low enough that this doesn't come up very often, but the rare occasion it did, it would be fun to shoot off 3 x fire IVs/Flares/whatever.

As I said just my opinion, might be more fun and mix people's rotations up a bit, whilst remaining rare enough that people wouldn't be like "hey you don't have that 1% buff gtfo"
I believe they don't add things like this tho, someone said, is because a raid group might "get lucky" and get a lot of these buffs on one particular run and get world first on something.

Maybe SCH could have a 1% chance of the second fairy appearing for 1 minute, SMN could have a small chance of another summon appearing. BRD could have all songs activate for 30 seconds. Maybe an ASTs next card could have all 3 royal road effects. I'm sure people could come up with better ideas than I have.

I'm still progressing on A3S, and obv I know it's a completely different beast from A1S and A2S. In those two floors, I cast the same spells, in the same order, move to the same spots, at the same times. Every. Single. Time. There is no variation at all, except whether or not something crits. And even whether it does/doesn't, I still don't change what I'm doing/casting. Bit dull really.