Make gear less boring

[Axxion]

I still disagree with the idea / logic it should be from savage, at least localized or specialized in anyway. Savage, ultimate, the like content is the reason we have such tight balance (and bland actions). The regular player is not bean counting this stuff.

Unique unbalanced stuff benefits the casual player and it is because of bean counting (not the regular player) that we lost a lot of this stuff. Naturally the hardercore players can enjoy the flavor, but will experience more extreme pressure to have specific things in order to be part of the theater of higher end group gameplay. It is why I said I'd honestly be annoyed if it was savage only, given that it was the savage acquiescence that caused us to lean away from interesting things anyways- now the solution is to make it exclusive? Ah man.. salty lol.

Worst case imo should be it comes from all content but doesn't work in content that can't get echo. Best case, everyone gets to have fun.

let me start by saying that was an example. It doesnt have to be that way. For instance you can get it from the normal ways such as tome, crafted, etc. Or have other outlets to get gear. take for dungeons allows us to argument the gear from there to the current lvl or something

[Shougun]

let me start by saying that was an example. It doesnt have to be that way. For instance you can get it from the normal ways such as tome, crafted, etc. Or have other outlets to get gear. take for dungeons allows us to argument the gear from there to the current lvl or something

Ah~ I want to add its not really addressing you, SE mentioned the idea in that format previously- I just find it a bit annoying that interesting gear was removed for balance for higher end content, as obvious balance isnt as important in MSQ, and then later only brought back exclusive to higher end content. Get a cool toy taken away because others will math calculate fun out and then it gets added back exclusive to the people who got it removed (unintentionally).

I just dont like the narrative itself lol. Can't have nice things because too many options to balance, but if we restrict the nice things to the people who effectively had it removed for balance reasons.. its now balanced.... boo! Haha.

I love gear that tells a story and can change your gameplay style, it is of course harder to balance.


Personally I would either lean towards effects that work when you can obtain echo, if we want wild effects with less balance, or materia like slot system- which could be even soul crystal based rather than gear. Might even appear like a GW2 like specializing or WoW borrowed power (minus the losing the power aspect).

[SieyaM]

No matter the set bonuses what will happen is one bonus will be however slightly more advantageous than the others, and that is the set that you will use. Even is the difference is as slight as 1% of damage, that is the set that you will use without deviation and so it turns out just like the system we have now except there will be some useless pieces in the mix.

[KitingGenbu]

No matter the set bonuses what will happen is one bonus will be however slightly more advantageous than the others, and that is the set that you will use. Even is the difference is as slight as 1% of damage, that is the set that you will use without deviation and so it turns out just like the system we have now except there will be some useless pieces in the mix.

Two problems with your logic: 1) There's still useless pieces now its just flat out boring. At least with a 2/4 set bonus, there will be something interesting to chase outside of just more raw secondaries. 2) There's always going to be a difference between those who prog and those who farm. Chances are when you have a farm group, you're either not using the same job for it or want to just change things up. This is why binary opinions make less sense because many people aren't static and those that are tend to think everyone either will be or should be. Just because someone was progging on sch doesn't mean they dont want to be smn or whatever on farm. Bonus point) Some people like to do things outside of savage or ultimate, so those bonuses might be nice to have for solo'ing certain content or whatever. Some people find more ways to play outside of raid-logging.

[Payadopa]

No matter the set bonuses what will happen is one bonus will be however slightly more advantageous than the others, and that is the set that you will use. Even is the difference is as slight as 1% of damage, that is the set that you will use without deviation and so it turns out just like the system we have now except there will be some useless pieces in the mix.

It is that mindset that makes games boring. All the more reason to not oblige it. But that's a few years too late for XIV at this point. heh

[Shurrikhan]

That has absolutely nothing to do with gear being boring.
It's boring because it has basically no influence on your gameplay, it's just a big "do more damage, take less damage, live longer" stat stick.

I wonder how it is that we ignore that Set Bonuses which affect gameplay likewise don't necessarily expand said gameplay.

Slightly more often, those bonuses instead constrain gameplay, replacing in-combat options that used to be balanced against each other with, instead, some overriding 'featured' way to play... that is itself narrower and frequently more finnicky, or else offers excessive lenience where skill-gaps used to be more prominent and efforts more fittingly rewarded.

Unless the kit is purposely designed in an incomplete manner, adding atop it tends to clunkily reduce its skill ceiling and fluidity, not improve upon it.

And if you're designing kits poorly just so borrowed powers can then complete them, I have to wonder how you got your priorities so backwards.

- Someone who has played with set bonuses at least as often as not.

_________


At the very least, acquisitions which customize gameplay should be considered first and foremost customization, not just carrots to be dangled before the player that will then rotate how they're actually allowed to play each job (usually in poorly thought-through and gameplay-degrading ways).

I'd be okay with revamping Materia in that manner, for instance, and giving players the direct choice of what Materia to take. But don't force rotating Tier Sets or Set Bonuses of any sort; both just reduce the gearing and gameplay choices available to players.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

I also love that there is usually 4 sets,

Full Crafted / upgraded later on
Full Tome
Full Savage
Full 24man raid

As only Crafted is available at the start of the tier, which ever set bonus is given to it will be already included into the dps etc calculation making it null

The 24man raid comes out when the Tier is done for those that cared, the full tome gear will take you so long to obtain you will have the raid tier finished, by the time you get the savage gear you are done with the patch.

The best you could hope for is for Tome and Savage gear to give you a buff to clown in extreme trials ... and at that point you will see "gear set only" if it matter, if it doesnt matter its all pointless to begin with and just another number to make you happy.

The only time you wear full sets is during savage weak 1 right now AND EVEN THEN you usually get 1-2 tome pieces before you enter savage. The entire balancing of this "set bonus" is going to be wonky at best

[Shougun]

I wonder how it is that we ignore that Set Bonuses which affect gameplay likewise don't necessarily expand said gameplay.

Slightly more often, those bonuses instead constrain gameplay, replacing in-combat options that used to be balanced against each other with, instead, some overriding 'featured' way to play... that is itself narrower and frequently more finnicky, or else offers excessive lenience where skill-gaps used to be more prominent and efforts more fittingly rewarded.

Unless the kit is purposely designed in an incomplete manner, adding atop it tends to clunkily reduce its skill ceiling and fluidity, not improve upon it.

And if you're designing kits poorly just so borrowed powers can then complete them, I have to wonder how you got your priorities so backwards.

- Someone who has played with set bonuses at least as often as not.

_________


At the very least, acquisitions which customize gameplay should be considered first and foremost customization, not just carrots to be dangled before the player that will then rotate how they're actually allowed to play each job (usually in poorly thought-through and gameplay-degrading ways).

I'd be okay with revamping Materia in that manner, for instance, and giving players the direct choice of what Materia to take. But don't force rotating Tier Sets or Set Bonuses of any sort; both just reduce the gearing and gameplay choices available to players.

I've only viewed borrowed power from afar, which to me looks like a more expansion wide 'exploratory' system (where we have Eureka or Bozja, WoW would have that expansion's relic). I never thought it was that interesting that player's lost their effort, but did curiously wonder at it if it stayed as an option among options.. if it could be akin to a horizontal system built on top of a linear system. So each expansion might introduce new powers but you'd not suddenly lose everything (so no 'de-volving').

IMO the best systems to reference for these things are like Hades or Diablo 3 effects.. Those effects at that scale wouldn't easily fit into FFXIV, and would cause massive redesigns, but just example of where powers can be really exciting and build defining (but not exclusionary). Naturally would also work better in a horizontal system lol. Linear does mess with a lot... WoW's general item / enchanting effects always seemed okay to me (though I've more vanilla experience, and don't really know what happened on a more intimate scale past TBC). Most easily functional system for FFXIV as we have it, imo, would be materia effects working into special materia slots (such you can't stack a bunch of effects into one item) or alternatively they're not slotted into items but into the soul crystal itself (assuming gear sets can hold the materia layout, such that you can more freely change the crystal). I would also note what is nice about Diablo 3 set example is the ring of grandeur and valuable bonus effects with incomplete sets- this allows build craft still while harkening to those 'complete set' ideals some people may have- if we simply went straight to set only in FFXIV, given the linear growth, and likelihood that SE would only add one effect at max set, it would be extremely limiting and while adding novelty would destroy any sense of building (novelty exclusively from if the effects do anything cool or not).

Obviously in harder content you wont really get to pick as many options, when a multiplayer game has like 3 builds for a job that's a win given normally we're railroaded into 2 or likely less. Though this is why I was saying I'd be salty if it was made for hard content given they'd not be able to appreciate the options as much as non-hard content, and would likely force strict designs, and why I said 'worst case' it's echo-able content only and best case we all get to have fun (and harder contents will be more restrictive as they always have and always will be).

While I think it's harder for well balanced content these ideas largely explain what I dearly had wished for Blue Mage prior to release and why I continue to hope / push for them to redesign the earlier kit and add core spells that can encapsulate the ideas of things like Hades or Diablo 3 'build-craft'. Rather than what they did which was make a weak build system by taking the one job concept (limited) not forced in a trinity.. and forcing back into a trinity XD. Some were excited due to 'builds' but I was a bit salty that the best builds we could muster was making blue look almost normal (almost, it still clearly has some bonker spells).

[Shurrikhan]

I've only viewed borrowed power from afar, which to me looks like a more expansion wide 'exploratory' system (where we have Eureka or Bozja, WoW would have that expansion's relic). I never thought it was that interesting that player's lost their effort, but did curiously wonder at it if it stayed as an option among options.. if it could be akin to a horizontal system built on top of a linear system. So each expansion might introduce new powers but you'd not suddenly lose everything (so no 'de-volving').

That's the thing, though: If you already start out with a kit that has both breadth and depth, and then you choose to specialize your power in some part of it over another, you haven't necessarily or even likely added any depth, but you have reduced that kit's breadth, and thereby its ability to adapt to content, in turn reducing its skill ceiling.

Borrowed power, therefore, is almost always a bad thing if the kit was already great, because if it has any impact, it breaks what was already finely tuned to work as well as it did.

And if your kit isn't already great... which would you honestly prefer? To purposely leave it crap just so that borrowed powers can fix rotating parts of it to something approaching a good kit... or to just fix the kit, and then not drop the slurry of borrowed powers over it (breaking its fine internal balances)?

Personally, I'd much rather have both breadth and depth in the base kit, and end up optimizing that kit differently in different fights as needed than just to have a set bonus constrain what I can and can't be good at. I already have my choice of job to apply those outermost parameters for my playstyle; I don't need a seasonal rotation constraining my play atop that.


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In the end, that doesn't matter too much, as most kits in XIV aren't all that well designed anyways. The few that feel pretty damn complete still have their little potency imbalances that limit rotational options and give insufficient reward for the risks otherwise worth situationally taking.

But, to my mind, there's only so much customization possible before it essentially just replaces gameplay with menu-play -- where it exists only to limit the options a player is allowed to interface with in a given fight. And I'd rather see XIV kits have more breadth, if able to be introduced synergistically, not less, so gameplay options is something I'd much rather see in the base kits, not gated behind tier sets or the like.

[Shougun]

That's the thing, though: If you already start out with a kit that has both breadth and depth, and then you choose to specialize your power in some part of it over another, you haven't necessarily or even likely added any depth, but you have reduced that kit's breadth, and thereby its ability to adapt to content, in turn reducing its skill ceiling.

Borrowed power, therefore, is almost always a bad thing if the kit was already great, because if it has any impact, it breaks what was already finely tuned to work as well as it did.

And if your kit isn't already great... which would you honestly prefer? To purposely leave it crap just so that borrowed powers can fix rotating parts of it to something approaching a good kit... or to just fix the kit, and then not drop the slurry of borrowed powers over it (breaking its fine internal balances)?

Personally, I'd much rather have both breadth and depth in the base kit, and end up optimizing that kit differently in different fights as needed than just to have a set bonus constrain what I can and can't be good at. I already have my choice of job to apply those outermost parameters for my playstyle; I don't need a seasonal rotation constraining my play atop that.


_______________



In the end, that doesn't matter too much, as most kits in XIV aren't all that well designed anyways. The few that feel pretty damn complete still have their little potency imbalances that limit rotational options and give insufficient reward for the risks otherwise worth situationally taking.

But, to my mind, there's only so much customization possible before it essentially just replaces gameplay with menu-play -- where it exists only to limit the options a player is allowed to interface with in a given fight. And I'd rather see XIV kits have more breadth, if able to be introduced synergistically, not less, so gameplay options is something I'd much rather see in the base kits, not gated behind tier sets or the like.

Just for a temperature check, how do you feel about Hades or Diablo 3 like systems? I realize FFXIV is not prime to be used in such a system, but I find them fascinating- and yes there is probably an actual build that is 'optimal' or some pieces of the kit that could just be in the base if we 'really' wanted.. but I prefer it to come together (or apart) as you shift your castle.

Then- GW2? Which also has builds, still farther away than FFXIV but closer.

Last I would suggest that jobs are specializations, like GW2 or WoW, and are part of the build system and how do you feel about the jobs being so similar that they are significantly more alike than different?

To me I like those differences, assuming the differences are fun, but know they play awfully in content that requires balance. I am not sure about currently but at least when I played harder content in WoW there were definitely 'banned' specializations because they were effectively useless in the hard content lol.

From what I am reading, the lack of building mechanics, would very easily end in the world of what we have now (quite homogenized). That might be taking your idea farther than you intended, but it appears to lean that way.. Is it that you're okay for specialization differences but that each specialization is essentially crafted to be perfect? If that's the case I can see the logic behind it all, but I still would like to say that 'choosing' is a fun component and would draw you back around to games like Hades or Diablo 3 and wonder if you find those choices meaningless or not. I would accept that the games are too different for it to be an exactly fair comparison but I would be surprised if you were like "gut the system and make them perfect from the beginning" lol, and if you accept that building can be fun.. I would just wonder if the line is because of our differences in core or setting (MMORPG) and whether you could see a setting where it worked.

All of that why I thought Blue Mage would have been perfect though... why does it matter the game isn't perfectly bred for it when you're making it limited, and what better candidate for 'building' than a job that gets effectively 'cards'. Almost perfect opportunity, they've improved it a bit, but I still feel they really missed a lot in terms of that perfect opportunity (a lot of bad 'cards', particularly the release ones, and cards that force limits to meet the system it originally escaped).