Itemization... or the lack of it.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

They do not want to make something irreplaceable. Look at Everquest’s Necromancer Epic 2.0, EQ introduced the 1.5/2.0’s a decade ago, yet serious necros still use that item (despite it having no Heroics and literally 8-10% of the stats of current gear) because of the effect. That’s the exact situation that FFXIV Devs want to *avoid*.

They have also touched upon the “illusion of choice” - if you have three roughly equivalent pieces of gear (same primary stat, same physical/magical defense) that contain different secondary stats, there is numerically exactly one optimal choice. Make the three pieces too far apart, and two of them are lesser choices; make them too close together and there’s effectively no difference between them at all. Either way, the choice is moot, and thus illusory : either there is only one real option to take and the others are not worthy of consideration, or the lack of difference makes it irrelevant which is chosen.

[killerVanilla]

Yeah, this is one of the very few things about FFXIV that I don't like. Everyone is pretty much the same. I feel it's telling that it's real hard to screw yourself over by messing up your stats. Everyone is essentially the same, and it's hard to really excel because of the lack of choice. It's kinda like having an Apple vs an Android: everything is real pretty, it's hard to break it, but damn if you want to step out of the bounds.

[DrWho2010]

Yeah, this is one of the very few things about FFXIV that I don't like. Everyone is pretty much the same. I feel it's telling that it's real hard to screw yourself over by messing up your stats. Everyone is essentially the same, and it's hard to really excel because of the lack of choice. It's kinda like having an Apple vs an Android: everything is real pretty, it's hard to break it, but damn if you want to step out of the bounds.

i like that everyone is the same because then you can't blame poor output on gear. it's on you to improve how you play the class.