Quote Originally Posted by Velhart View Post
Let me ask. Lets say we go by FFXI's formula. You are a new player and you want to get to end game as soon as you can, you finally get there and turns out what is required out of you is gear that takes a horrendous amount of time to obtain to be even considered "caught up." Even if end game FC's let the person in regardless, it is massively overwhelming for a newer player to try to get caught up. This is something that will drive a newer player away very quickly.
Ah, but the thing is, up until the last couple years of FFXI's life, while these hard-to-get pieces of gear were desired, they were not REQUIRED. The content could be completed without it; it just made the ride smoother. Groups that demanded such-and-such gear or you can't join? All but non-existent, and the few who tried were generally laughed off the field.

I remember on my server (Leviathan), there was one Red Mage who demanded nothing but Warriors with Relic weapons (arguably the best DPS at the time) to join her party. She was an outright laughing stock, because there were maybe a dozen Relic Warriors total on the server (relics were INSANELY hard to come by; a worse grind than any ten grinds in FFXIV put together), and they weren't particularly interested in carrying a Red Mage whenever she wanted an exp party. In another example, the Scorpion Harness was among the best DPS body pieces in the game for a long, long time - it was crafted gear, and while terribly expensive any DPS could get one if they saved up for it; likewise, the Noble's Tunic the best healer piece. And yet, very few people would turn away a DPS or healer simply because they didn't have one.

I can't say for certain what the reason was. Was the content too easy? Was gear acquisition too difficult? Or was the playerbase simply less "elitist"? Or some combination of these. Whatever the case, in FFXIV, not having top quality gear was not a bar of any kind, for any content in the game, for most of the game's lifespan.

Admittedly, this changed around the time Adoulin was released. FFXI started adopting a model more similar to FFXIV's at that point, with gear ilvls and boss monsters that would make short work of anyone without top-notch equipment. FFXI was successful for many years up to that point, but MMO players were a different breed back then, much more tolerant of spending months or YEARS just to get a particular piece of gear (though, again, it helped that that gear was a luxury, not a requirement to complete content).

Whatever the case, it's unquestionable that gear itemization in this game is excruciatingly boring. Whatever piece of gear you obtain, no matter how difficult, challenging, or grindy, it's all going to look the same: another notch up in Primary Stat, with a sprinkling of the same old tiresome substats. It's not going to last you for years like a Scorpion Harness or Astral Ring would - you can expect, at best, a little over half a year of life to it. Even as a trophy, it's not going to be long before the hoi polloi are parading the same gear around as the content gets easier and easier (whether through nerfs or simple gear advancement).

It's not going to change, either; we're stuck with this model. We can't introduce things like interesting gear abilities, because every piece of gear, down to the tiniest accessory, includes Primary Stat. As ilvl marches on, that interesting piece of gear will by necessity be left behind. If SE had had the foresight to keep primary stat OFF the accessories, they could have left those slots free for progressive experimentation. Equip left-side gear for primary stat advancement, and use right-side gear for interesting stuff like "Raise cast time reduced by 50%" or "Adds 20 potency Fire Damage to auto attacks". Situational stuff that's more useful in some fights than others - and for those who cry out that inventory space is too limited to have situational gear, just how much free space do you have in your Accessory tabs? I see no issue with having a few extra pairs of earrings that I could swap in for certain battles where they're more useful.