Quote Originally Posted by Aenarion View Post
Call me crazy, or maybe it's because of my mindset as an Eve player, I detest the idea that everyone should be able to do everything perfectly with no drawback whatsoever. It'd be like having a ship that can do max short AND long range dps, ewar, tackle, shield, armor, speed tank all at the same time. Not saying there should be zero flexibility, but it should come with a trade-off somewhere.

and saying that all-purpose would even be remotely ok is a bit misleading, in a system designed to function around gear swap, being all-purpose would be akin to a DD wearing mining gear now. Even the term all-purpose is misleading - a character atm is built around a certain role, it is in fact the opposite of all-purpose.
Well, even with gear swaps things aren't going to be perfect. Jobs still have their limits but gear swaps allow for them to play out their role to the maximum. Take RDM for example in XI, I for one make a very strong effort to see just how melee I could go with RDM and as RDM/BLU could put out 900~ damage Vorpals on Decent Challenges with the right gear. However, I still couldn't really compete with a Warrior's Vorpal Blade so while I could solo efficiently I still wasn't an all-star. In a similar light, if XIV had haste gear then DDs would only have two(/three~) options. Go full Haste and max out melee attack dps, or go full STR/Attack and make up for those weaker hits with slow hard hits and powerful ws. (Or you could could be a flakey hybrid of the two but those don't always work out so well.) In this instance gear swapping wouldn't change the LNC to anything outrageous like a white mage, but simply allows them to perfect their role.


I'm not familiar with the game Eve but I would assume that you could outfit your ship with more than just one weapon, right? Maybe a long range sniper and either a short-range gun or perhaps missiles. You could just stack long-range if you were confident enough to take only 1 shot but especially for PvP the most logical approach would be to equip multiple weapons to cover as many blind spots as possible. Gear swapping is a lot like that, its less about turning yourself from a LNC to a THM on a whim, but making the most of what you have and being the best at what your job is.