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

[Coldbrand]

Wait, is she saying gear will become useless over and over again like WoW? We're going to have fucking tier 7 tier 8 etc. instead of Adaberks or something like Trial of the Magians?

[Ashaylin]

It was an example of how human nuture works.

There is always one person that does something first. They're the pioneers. Everything they do will trickle down to the masses so that what was uncommon becomes common. The time frame for that in an MMORPG was guessed to be 3 months by Yoshi.

[Holland]

I guess this must happen to every thread, spelling doom, how this game will fail, blah blah blah, it happened with Auto attack, it happened with crafting, with repairs, it happens every once in a while with MW vs AH, etc.

Guys... were just here to provide feedback, not to run the game. We are not the developers here. Let them implement what ever they want, how ever they want, when ever they want, then provide feedback. If it fails, it fails... If it becomes a niche MMO, so be it, if it becomes the next Successful MMO, cool...

Some of you take this as if your life depended on it. but worse of all, some of you want to shape this game however you feel will satisfy your personal needs for entertainment, there is no such thing as the perfect game, and an MMO most of all will not have all the features/time sinks/casual play/hardcore play you might want it to have. Let Yoshida and team complete their vision of the game (Not that you really have a choice) and the decide if its worth paying for, if not, then lets just move on to the next MMO.

Everyone keeps jumping the gun... after so many threads of the same doom spelling because x feature is not the way I want it to be... /sigh

[Davorok]

I look at it this way: There is gear that I need and there is gear that I want.

In XI, I had 1 gear set that I loved and wore the most, while traveling, doing quests, soloing or in large groups where roles were less restrictive. There were some variations depending on the circumstance but there was always other gear that I wanted.

I had a 2nd gear set that I wore for Grind Parties...my RDM AF with MP, INT and/or MND + accessories. I needed this gear set to be an effective Galka Red Mage (in a party).

My point is that we may want the newest gear, but we may not need it. In those cases, either just enjoy the quest/mission/NM Hunt/Dungeon Crawl that drops the gear or skip it entirely. The choice is yours.

[Caliburn]

Whole-heartedly agree with Holland.

The game is clearly not going to stay the way it is, in fact it cannot stay the way it is, and you're just going to have to let the devs do their thing to salvage some prospect of a profitable game. And I think they're doing pretty damn well so far.

Regardless of the launch failure, FFXIV would have changed from what it was at launch. There would have been problems and plenty of patches anyway. Things would not stay the same.

SE are taking feedback pretty seriously it seems, but at the end of the day you may have to just get used to the fact that the fundamentals of this game are set to change drastically from the launch state.

[Kiara]

Think about this from the perspective of XIV; a game where it is expected that you level multiple classes. If each class receives an upgrade every patch in the form of new encounters, and you have not just "main" character to cap but all of your classes, it is simply overwhelming for the casuals and perhaps even some hardcore, especially if you're a completionist. If there is no breathing room and gear becomes inferior so fast, burnout is inevitable.

This is exactly what I mean. Will the shining rod be inferior by the time the casuals get it? It is a squirrel wheel where you're never content with what you've accomplished, since every patch the developers keep adding carrots. That would be fine if the carrots weren't better than the shining rod you just got your hands on, but is this really what he means here?

In my opinion, a perfect scenario would be to create a "pool of events" during an expansion of the game when few items only are made inferior in regards to the rest of the content. That gives every player some breathing room, since the items you obtain in few months will not be inferior until perhaps a year and a half down the line. Expansion packs would basically slowly reset the situation when new, better gear would be introduced. And this way, there is never just a one event to do at any given time.

Well said, Betel.

I also hope that Yoshida-san doesn't mean he's going to release a constant stream of New, Shiny Items every major Patch (~3 months) that invalidate all the best gear beforehand.

It's demoralizing and really devalues the hard work many people put into earning and finally gaining various, rarer pieces of equipment if that were the case.

And in addition, it would lead to burnout with a constant "every 2-3 months (major patch), go rush and try and get the newest, best equipment again (that's superior to what you just spent months getting earlier)"-type scenario. It's a constant scrambling cycle at that point which is not something I'm looking for in FF XIV.

I hope Yoshida-san doesn't mean that, and instead we get a wide variety of events eventually, that offer longer term goals to work towards (like a Relic Weapon), or rarer pieces of equipment that you earn but can effectively use for longer than 2 or 3 months before it being thrown away.

[Judge_Xero]

No/Less Restrictions on Casual Gear. More Restrictions on Hardcore/Mid-Hardore Gear. Sounds good to me. Yoshi FTW

[Mudd]

I'm a little surprised that there was no mention of the possibility of a system like Aion's, where you can change the look of a piece of equipment without changing it's stats. For example, say you liked the look of the iron plate armor, but want the stats of the Revolutionary's Bliaud. Bring both items to an NPC, the "looks" item (in this case, the iron plate armor) would be lost, but your Bliaud's model is now that of the iron plate armor (this service would cost a small fee as well). The same NPC can restore the Bliaud's original model for a fee.

Now, obviously something like this would require a tremendous amount of time and resources to implement, but given the ideals laid out by Yoshi-P's post, it seems like something that would be ideal, and might be a possibility for the dev team to consider.

A bunch of Miqo's running around in pseudo coatee sets..
No thanks.

[BONKERS]

A bunch of Miqo's running around in pseudo coatee sets..
No thanks.

I disagree. Aion is by far the ONLY MMORPG to get "Personalization" and "Customization" with appearance and gear right.
Especially in character creation.
If people want high stat gear with a silly/wahtever appearance then that's up to them.

I for one HATE playing MMO's where i'm stuck with generic copy/paste gear forever.
"OH LOOK NEW GEAR!"
"...oh, it's the same as the one i'm wearing now, but they changed the *color/whatever*"

Square is extremely guilty of this in both FFXI and XIV until high levels.

I wish I could customize and personalize the appearance of my gear with different items of the same type in FFXIV.

[Solljak]

if people want unique looks i think some form of tailors and armourers in cities should be considered.

Tailor could give you 3 lengths for your robes and maybe gems for your hats and wristbands. maybe make materia visible on the items too that would be cool to be able to represent your materia.

as for armour, different shoulder pads, gauntlet sizes and all that .. again materia being able to be visible would be fun on your armour. i think that would work.

this way low level gear could be customised as well as high level gear and everyone gets more customisation