We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[Deceptus]

It's more likely that they didn't change the role requirements for already existing accessories so players wouldn't suddenly find themselves with empty gear slots when 4.0 launched. It would have been a disaster if players logged in to find they could no longer equip some of their gear.

Because they didn't warn players for weeks/a month. Oh wait, they did.

[Penthea]

Because they didn't warn players for weeks/a month. Oh wait, they did.

You still should not remove the ability to equip already existing gear. This sort of thing renders some very hard-earned gear useless and ruins glamours. Doing this would have resulted in a tremendous amount of backlash. The best thing to do is change the requirements for new gear, which is what SE did.

Furthermore there is no point in wasting resources to rebalance accessories for old content when it has near zero impact on the new content. That would have been a lot of time and money wasted.

Of all the things to criticise SE about, choosing to not remove the ability to equip already existing gear is definitely not one of them. This is hardly a "problem" worth even thinking about. There are far bigger and deeper things wrong with the game.

[Magic-Mal]

You still should not remove the ability to equip already existing gear. This sort of thing renders some very hard-earned gear useless and ruins glamours. Doing this would have resulted in a tremendous amount of backlash. The best thing to do is change the requirements for new gear, which is what SE did.

All of the battle jewelry lv50 and up look exactly the same regardless of job and DoW/DoL jewelry also look exactly the same. As in, All Lv50 jewelry looks the same for all jobs. All lv52 jewelry looks the same for all jobs. These can be locked with no loss of glamour.

As for the 1-49 jewelry, what they could do is create a confirmation prompt saying:

"This equipment is not compatible with your class/job. Are you sure you want to equip?

Equip: [Check Box]

Confirm______Cancel"

We need a way to stop players and let them know the stats are not compatible with the jobs they have. Or else they will never learn. It is an issue.

[Penthea]

All of the battle jewelry lv50 and up look exactly the same regardless of job and DoW/DoL jewelry also look exactly the same. As in, All Lv50 jewelry looks the same for all jobs. All lv52 jewelry looks the same for all jobs. These can be locked with no loss of glamour.

No they don't all look the same, some have different colours within the same model. Even if they all looked the same it wouldn't change the fact that people worked to get them and taking away the ability to use them is a bad thing.

And in case you don't believe me, here is an image directly from my armoire.

We need a way to stop players and let them know the stats are not compatible with the jobs they have. Or else they will never learn. It is an issue.

Most players have the presence of mind to notice that their weapon always has a certain main stat on it, so it means that stat is for their class. They see their starter class quests award gear with that same stat. They see they can only roll need on armour with certain stats on them while they are playing a certain class. They eventually learn if they fall in to DoM or DoW based on the gear their class can equip. There is also the recommended gear button that recommends specific types of gear with specific stats.

And in SB you're forced to only equip gear for your class so even if a player managed to not notice any of the above, they still end up in gear appropriate for their class. The worst that can happen is people to not meld, or meld the wrong materia. You would have to be fantastically oblivious to meld something like mind when the game keeps throwing dex gear at you. Or something called spellspeed when you play a class that isn't a caster, and your gear has this other stat called skillspeed but never spellspeed.

This so-called issue only applies to an extreme minority. Fixing this would result in little to no noticeable improvement in the quality of the playerbase.

[Kirsten_Rev]

This so-called issue only applies to an extreme minority. Fixing this would result in little to no noticeable improvement in the quality of the playerbase.

I agree given the current state of the game, but speaking personally (and likely for many others on the forums), I very much want SE to begin introducing meaningful gearing options. Stormblood gearing, as you pointed out, is relatively ignorance-proof, but this also results in an incredibly stale progression system. Case in point, the only thing I care about with 4.4 gear is whether or not it offers me a desirable Glamour; the stats associated with the items are utterly boring and predictable.

Given that this path would require SE to implement better in-game guidance for players who don't engage with the broad out-of-game community and its resources, I want to see it done. In fact, I don't want to just stop at notifying players of useless stats: SE needs to provide us with much more detailed information about how our stats impact our performance. Diablo 3's character screen would be an ideal example to learn from.

[Magic-Mal]

No they don't all look the same, some have different colours within the same model. Even if they all looked the same it wouldn't change the fact that people worked to get them and taking away the ability to use them is a bad thing.

And in case you don't believe me, here is an image directly from my armoire.

Those earrings are the only earrings in the game that are special in that way. Although I will admit that the gathering and crafting jewelry does seem to be different but only for HW and SB leveling. In HW and SB endgame they share models.

Everything below the platinum earrings in the market section looks exactly the same for every level.

Red/metallic earrings = STR
Yellow = VIT
White/Blue = INT
Green = MND
Purple/metallic earrings = DEX

The devs could easily lock them and make Lv1 versions of all the colors as crafting recipes and call it a day. Done and simple. Red earrings, blue earrings, green earrings, etc. I understand that earrings and jewelry are used for glamour, I have jewelry glamoured on my AST, WHM, SMN and soon-to-be BLM. They could either lock them, or do the warning prompt solution I posted which would be 100x more glamour-friendly while also teaching the players right from wrong.

Most players have the presence of mind to notice that their weapon always has a certain main stat on it, so it means that stat is for their class. They see their starter class quests award gear with that same stat. They see they can only roll need on armour with certain stats on them while they are playing a certain class. They eventually learn if they fall in to DoM or DoW based on the gear their class can equip. There is also the recommended gear button that recommends specific types of gear with specific stats.

This so-called issue only applies to an extreme minority. Fixing this would result in little to no noticeable improvement in the quality of the playerbase.

It's not an extreme minority. It's the new players leveling from 1-50 and not all will understand exactly what every stat means. I'm speaking from experience as someone who had many friends brand-new to the game who DID run around with the wrong battle jewelry, crafting/gathering gear, and crafting materia in their gear.
EDIT: All Aetherial gear and crafted gear except for those meant for Disciple Of War in ARR can be needed on by anyone so no players don't see it. In fact, the armor says "Disciples of War or Magic" or "All Classes".

This is an MMO and for alot of people who are just starting they will not always understand what everything does. It is the game's job to teach players most of everything there is early in the game the best way possible so that they can go forward with new knowledge. That's what tutorials and help prompts are made for. Not to let them "figure it out" sooner or later by getting frustrated on a boss they can't beat due to having crafter stats, looking on the internet, or getting yelled at by somebody in the dungeon.

Things like that make new players want to quit early because they're still not fully hooked. And that's the last thing FFXIV needs right now because the new player retention rate is pretty horrible. Anything that can help lessen that blow should be considered. And I am not saying things like story pruning isn't as important. I actually have a whole section in my OP about the early experience.

[KaivaC]

This is an MMO and for alot of people who are just starting they will not always understand what everything does. It is the game's job to teach players most of everything there is early in the game the best way possible so that they can go forward with new knowledge. That's what tutorials and help prompts are made for. Not to let them "figure it out" sooner or later by getting frustrated on a boss they can't beat due to having crafter stats, looking on the internet, or getting yelled at by somebody in the dungeon.

To be honest, I've never really seen anybody in lvl 15-50 content getting yelled at for having the wrong gear (and really, the only wrong gear they could possibly equip would be right side, and even that won't matter in leveling dungeons or primal fights outside of extreme). The only real gear issue I see before HW would be possibly the chest gear that prevents you from equipping anything to your head, and the leg gear that prevents you from equipping anything to your feet. Ther emight be a few exceptions here and there, but as long as your right side is decently ilvled, having accessories not meant for your job aren't too much of a problem, save for when you hit Aurum Vale, because damn that dungeon is punishing without your level 50 abilities.

More often than not, newer players tend to get yelled at for not demonstrating a basic level of understanding of their job, which up to lvl 50, all the ARR job quests do enough to teach you the basics of competency. If they boosted into HW or SB, that's an entirely different matter, and is a understandable frustration for seasoned players having to deal with them. Players have tooltips - if they can't bother to read them by looking at the abilities, then that's on them.

[Magic-Mal]

To be honest, I've never really seen anybody in lvl 15-50 content getting yelled at for having the wrong gear (and really, the only wrong gear they could possibly equip would be right side, and even that won't matter in leveling dungeons or primal fights outside of extreme). The only real gear issue I see before HW would be possibly the chest gear that prevents you from equipping anything to your head, and the leg gear that prevents you from equipping anything to your feet. Ther emight be a few exceptions here and there, but as long as your right side is decently ilvled, having accessories not meant for your job aren't too much of a problem, save for when you hit Aurum Vale, because damn that dungeon is punishing without your level 50 abilities.

Except these exist:



Says All Classes when it is quite literally lying to the player as neither are for All Classes. One is for crafters and one is for DoM. People absolutely do run around with these left side items too. Seen them with my own eyes.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

Because they didn't warn players for weeks/a month. Oh wait, they did.

You mean like the major part of players, who never read patch notes or Lodestone news?