Legitimate reasons why many of you do NOT like Gear Swapping

[TheRac25]

1) It looks ugly. Charactesr disappear every time they swap gear, I dont not want to blink in and out of reality the entire time I'm fighting. Not visually attractive.

2) Its overburdensome on inventory. We are getting a reduced amount of inventory spaces too, I can't have most of it taken up with gear. Sounds like a nightmare.

3) Its a balancing nightmare. As a dev, if you have gear swapping, how are you going to balance the content? Around a set of gear? Around Gear Swapping? Deciding a difficulty curve is pretty much a dice roll.

4) It alienates casual players, which eats away at a lot of profits. Once you have gear swapping, gear swapping becomes law. No gear swap no group. Oh you dont have 3 different sets as a tank? Too bad gtfo. Does the casual person have time to amass 3 sets of gear, all melded and ready to go? No. Do casuals mean more money? Yes. Therefore it is a bad idea to alienate casuals.

5) A game that is gear dependent is a bad game imo. If everything is dependent on gear (as in all problems are fixed with a gear swap), then it removes whatever challenge the game might have had if you could only use one set of gear. Unless they, of course, raise the difficulty curve...but in that case gear swapping woudl become a necessity, and casuals would be alienated. That is bad.


There are plenty of reasons for not employing gear swapping. It is a potential party nightmare..where everyone is required to have 6 sets of gear and multiple class/jobs maxed before they are even allowed to participate in group content. That kinda atmosphere is destructive to a game's health and longevity, turning away everyone but the hardcore few. The hardcore few cannot keep a game afloat, nor can they keep SE's investors happy.

sidegrade, inventory killing, no feeling of progression nightmare that needs 3rd party tools to play. yay!

[Chinchilla]

The people who don't want to use gear swaps never used it properly, switching your one staff to rest in xi wasn't 'gear swapping'.

However I will say that it looks like they're moving towards the 'not' gearswapping like a spazz. With the way stat points are set up etc etc, that's just the way it looks to me at this time. I'm ok with this, it's just going to be like (someone else mentioned this) you're going to have several pieces of gear each useful for certain events... it's just going to be about what gear is more useful and unchangeable during each different event/raid/whatever

[Molly_Millions]

The people who don't want to use gear swaps never used it properly, switching your one staff to rest in xi wasn't 'gear swapping'.

However I will say that it looks like they're moving towards the 'not' gearswapping like a spazz. With the way stat points are set up etc etc, that's just the way it looks to me at this time.

you didn't read the thread did you?

[ThePatriarch]

How about adjust your strategy rather than your gear? Strategy =/= Gear


This is exactly the point those of us on the non-gear swapping side of the fence have been trying to make.

This is a fair response.

What I am about to propose is purely theoretical, just FYI. I know, right now in FFXIV we have no events that would even come close to justifying gear swapping.

Lets say for example, that we have a dragon. This dragon deals purely physical damage + AoE, and Wind Damage for the first 75% of its health.

Now, when you get it to 25% it switches to heavy fire damage, and pure magical damage. In what sense would you wrap a strategy around that? I'm being completely serious. I would love to see true reasons why strategy would always be =/= gear. It just makes sense to me that if a Monster switches to magic damage, ill switch to gear that nullifies magic damage.

I mean, macro's are easy to make. And I only had 1 bar of Gear Swap macros. There were what, like 100 bars total to create?

I am genuinely interested in hearing about new systems though. But to me, just using one set of gear all the way through a raid, or boss seems like easy mode. Before anyone gets mad, this is only my opinion.

[Chinchilla]

you didn't read the thread did you?

25 pages? nope

[StateAlchemist]

This is a fair response.

What I am about to propose is purely theoretical, just FYI. I know, right now in FFXIV we have no events that would even come close to justifying gear swapping.

Lets say for example, that we have a dragon. This dragon deals purely physical damage + AoE, and Wind Damage for the first 75% of its health.

Now, when you get it to 25% it switches to heavy fire damage, and pure magical damage. In what sense would you wrap a strategy around that? I'm being completely serious. I would love to see true reasons why strategy would always be =/= gear. It just makes sense to me that if a Monster switches to magic damage, ill switch to gear that nullifies magic damage.

I mean, macro's are easy to make. And I only had 1 bar of Gear Swap macros. There were what, like 100 bars total to create?

I am genuinely interested in hearing about new systems though. But to me, just using one set of gear all the way through a raid, or boss seems like easy mode. Before anyone gets mad, this is only my opinion.

I am sure someone would just say "Bring two tanks...one in VIT/DEF the other in HP/Elemental Resistance gear."

Silly. Gear-swapping doesn't have to become a standard. Just make it an option. If it's not needed then no one is gonna make you do it. But at the same time even if it's not needed, some people still wanna do it. Like me.

[ThePatriarch]

I am sure someone would just say "Bring two tanks...one in VIT/DEF the other in HP/Elemental Resistance gear."

Silly. Gear-swapping doesn't have to become a standard. Just make it an option. If it's not needed then no one is gonna make you do it. But at the same time even if it's not needed, some people still wanna do it. Like me.

That would leave you with a tank sitting on the sideline for 75% of the fight. While you could have 2 tanks actively sharing hate, and backing each other up, then both could swap gear when needed. Adaptive Tanks.

If you only had 1 tank for each session, if one goes down your backup tank is set-up for a beating, since he is not in gear that is suitable.

But all this being said, Gear Swapping does not need to be a standard. But why is it an issue if it is possible?

Just because other people are doing it, doesnt mean you have to.

[syntaxlies]

i wish they wouldnt have but skill enhancing effect on the af gear so there wouldnt be so many of these threads

[Molly_Millions]

This is a fair response.

What I am about to propose is purely theoretical, just FYI. I know, right now in FFXIV we have no events that would even come close to justifying gear swapping.

Lets say for example, that we have a dragon. This dragon deals purely physical damage + AoE, and Wind Damage for the first 75% of its health.

Now, when you get it to 25% it switches to heavy fire damage, and pure magical damage. In what sense would you wrap a strategy around that? I'm being completely serious. I would love to see true reasons why strategy would always be =/= gear. It just makes sense to me that if a Monster switches to magic damage, ill switch to gear that nullifies magic damage.

I mean, macro's are easy to make. And I only had 1 bar of Gear Swap macros. There were what, like 100 bars total to create?

I am genuinely interested in hearing about new systems though. But to me, just using one set of gear all the way through a raid, or boss seems like easy mode. Before anyone gets mad, this is only my opinion.

I know your playing Devil's advocate here, but this scenario doesn't exist in the current game. If this sort of thing were more common in this game, I might be more inclined to support gear swapping.

In the above scenario strategy comes into play when deciding if it's more important to have more HP during the first 3/4 of the fight or more HP during the last 1/4. I would argue that if that dragon is not beatable without adding gear swaps, then SE didn't do their job balancing the battle. (This is with the battle mechanics 100% as the are in-game right now.)

[StateAlchemist]

That would leave you with a tank sitting on the sideline for 75% of the fight. While you could have 2 tanks actively sharing hate, and backing each other up, then both could swap gear when needed. Adaptive Tanks.

If you only had 1 tank for each session, if one goes down your backup tank is set-up for a beating, since he is not in gear that is suitable.

But all this being said, Gear Swapping does not need to be a standard. But why is it an issue if it is possible?

Just because other people are doing it, doesnt mean you have to.

I knew I should have worded my previous comment better. I am agreeing with you just to clarify. Let me re-phrase:

I am sure someone would just say "Bring two tanks...one in VIT/DEF the other in HP/Elemental Resistance gear." But saying that is silly.

I am all for gear-swapping. That doesn't mean Gear-swapping has to become a standard. Just make it an option. If it's not needed then no one is gonna make you do it. But at the same time even if it's not needed, the people that still wanna do it, can. Like me.