So, lot's of gear options, yet no gear swap in active mode..

[Krausus]

Um pretty sure aside from weapons you can already gear swap, its just slow.

[ReplicaX]

No, and seriously stop bringing this topic back. I don't even need to explain why as others have every time this thread is made.

[Fingerbox]

If gear swapping is allowed, (or if it's already possible), then it's just one more thing the developers have to keep in mind when tuning encounters, making changes etc. One more thing that can go wrong on patch day, one more thing that can end up trivializing a fight that's supposed to be hard.

I'm all for more features in the game, but somethings simply are not needed.

Ask yourself: What would gear swapping add to my experience playing the game that isn't already here?

I come up with the answer of nothing. You may say it adds an extra dynamic to fights, thus increasing the difficulty, and you'd be right in a way, but you also have to ask yourself another question in correlation to the first:

Is there anything else that could achieve this same result in a better way?

If there are any acceptable answers to that question, then gear swapping should not be.

I would prefer the difficulty of encounters to derive directly from the mechanics of the encounters themselves.
Even better, would be if the difficulty was a result of a need for group synergy.
In too many of todays MMO "High End" encounters. It is a team with each member acting independent of the other members of the group, trying to push out some maximum number. Group contribution is measured by individual performance.

[Tacotaru]

I wouldn't be hoping for gear swapping if they wouldn't keep designing gear around it. Some of the enhancements for AF are only useful if you gear swap. That's it. If they want to add gear like that, then accommodate it with gear swaps. I'm fine with them not adding equipment swapping to the game, but stop designing gear that's only purpose is to be swapped in for the ability and then to be swapped back out.

[CoDeWa]

Can't wait till someone makes an MMORPG without gear. They could give the character more unique features and make their clothing depend on a rank system and leave all the in-game customization in the weapons and magic. Kind of like classic FF games. Gear is just too overrated. It always pretty obvious what you need to equip based on the class your playing and what your doing at the time. All gear swap does is add another mindless click for you. "I'm going to do strong physical TP attack" *swap to the gear that helps your TP move based on what internet told you*.... "I'm tanking a physical damage mob" *swap to eva/def gear*...etc. I actually think I've mentioned this before, but Siegan and Hasso like spells serve as gear swap like commands WITH balance. Maybe what SE needs to do is give players 2 stat pages per class and introduce a stat swap command. I honestly could do without it seeing as it doesn't use up much brain power(a lot like gear swapping), but it provides a more balanced approach to the idea than mid fight gear swap.

[Krausus]

Can't wait till someone makes an MMORPG without gear. They could give the character more unique features and make their clothing depend on a rank system and leave all the in-game customization in the weapons and magic. Kind of like classic FF games. Gear is just too overrated. It always pretty obvious what you need to equip based on the class your playing and what your doing at the time. All gear swap does is add another mindless click for you. "I'm going to do strong physical TP attack" *swap to the gear that helps your TP move based on what internet told you*.... "I'm tanking a physical damage mob" *swap to eva/def gear*...etc. I actually think I've mentioned this before, but Siegan and Hasso like spells serve as gear swap like commands WITH balance. Maybe what SE needs to do is give players 2 stat pages per class and introduce a stat swap command. I honestly could do without it seeing as it doesn't use up much brain power(a lot like gear swapping), but it provides a more balanced approach to the idea than mid fight gear swap.

The game you are looking for is The Secret World, gear is mostly for looks only.

[VeranRamaden]

Having played mage jobs in FFXI I absolutely hate gear change when active.
No matter what system or computer i've played on, the only thing changing gear
during a fight (especially a very quick paced fight) does is make it impossible for me to cure you.
Now, if the gear swap could be done without the cursor not disappearing from the person targeted
great that's awesome. I don't care. But none of that

"oh im tanking and I have 50% health left and this mob is taking out 15% chunks of my health each second with no stopping in sight, let me change my gear as i'm at 20% health"

bam. your ass is grass.

[Teknoman]

I was going over my gear sets for DRG and WHM and I noticed that, compared to FFXI there's a helluva lot more situational gear to use in this game. For example DRG body is mainly useful for the boosted invigorate, however Explorer's Tabard or a triple melded Cobalt Hauby is still far superior for 'everyday use" or just in general unless there's a hidden benefit to using all AF I'm not aware of.

So whether you're for or against gear swapping, we're getting flooded with gear that's almost designed for it ontop of being able to meld and have 6 different versions of the same gear screams for it lol :| Hopefully when they let us upgrade AF it'll remove that need for an active gear swap, since otherwise I think there's been a disconnect between the item team and what the community reps relayed to us >.>

So aside those who hate gear swaping, those who do still utilize it, especially for mages, do you break down your sets as usual or just keep a single triple meld (x) and go to town in AF armor?

Honestly I think it would be better to just equip accordingly before the fight, or if you have no clue what you are up against (not being indicated by your surroundings and so on) then just equip the best you've got.

[Ramsey]

There's no gear swapping because the detrimental effects of the system far outweigh the benefits. Let's take a look at some of the issues it causes...

• Inventory management problems, we're already able to swap jobs in the field, what if we have to carry 5 items per slot per job?
• Accessibility issues, it's a huge learning curve to master the art of gear swapping, and creates unneccesary rifts in the playerbase.
• Visual issues, there is no acceptable way to deal with gear swapping visually, characters blinking in and out, and canceling animations and spell effects is absolutely unacceptable.
• Macro storage issues, there have to be significantly more macro slots, and more lines per macro.
• Playability issues, the game becomes unplayable without macros. Lost your macros? Playing on a new machine? Time to spend 9 years writing macros.

The only benefit is that a wider array of gear is useful at the same time for a single player. This is nice, but it's not worth all of the downsides. Not to mention there are other ways to accomplish situational gear being useful.

[Jokerz]

Having played mage jobs in FFXI I absolutely hate gear change when active.
No matter what system or computer i've played on, the only thing changing gear
during a fight (especially a very quick paced fight) does is make it impossible for me to cure you.
Now, if the gear swap could be done without the cursor not disappearing from the person targeted
great that's awesome. I don't care. But none of that

"oh im tanking and I have 50% health left and this mob is taking out 15% chunks of my health each second with no stopping in sight, let me change my gear as i'm at 20% health"

bam. your ass is grass.

Again, the blame is on the faulty UI then the actual mechanic. If the community could figure out how to get around the targeting issues for gear swapping why did hell didn't SE fix it?

I get the whole debate about it not being realistic but I'ma use the "it's a game" rhetorical that I see so much on these boards. However I'm more against gear swapping due to believing that it will not fit with the battle mechanics in this game. The game is just to fast for it you will probably spend more time fumbling with gear swap macros and loose your combo bonus. However there is nothing stopping you from buffing in your DRG af body then switching to cobalt or something for the fight>.>

Also, mages can gearswap during battle<_<