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

[Enfarious]

Honestly, regardless of how you feel about it, here's one undeniable fact:

Without gear swaps, low lvl gear will CONSTANTLY become outdated...right now, so far, every single time SE has released new content, everything in our inventory has become nothing but Company Seal fodder. If there were gear swaps, there would be a LOT of opportunites for SE to capatalize on the possibility of keeping old gear relevant. I was able to use Rapparee Harness even at 75, thanks to gear swaps (loved that 4% haste for utsusemi xD). Anyway, that's just one of MANY reasons to bring gear swaps into the fold.

Don't even get me started on the "lack of character/job/class/equip uniqueness" aspect.....

Yes it will become useless, materia anyone? sell it? give crafters the ability to break down items for components. and like you said, GC Seals. There's plenty of uses for "old" gear.

I don't disagree gear swapping was a huge and very functional part of XI. I also understand the "I spent 3 weeks getting this 1 piece and now I don't even use it." arguments, and really I don't disagree with them. I do think that multiple gear sets have a place, just not swapping them in battle. Your going to fight something particularly defensive put on your attack set fight, really evasive swap into acc set fight, and so on. Not oh I'm gonna Impulse Drive let me just change these 4 pieces, ok Impulse Drive done, swap into Crit set ok now attack set, ok back to acc set for TP build for 1.2 seconds before I start my next round of swaps/abils.

[Rykan]

Yes it will become useless, materia anyone? sell it? give crafters the ability to break down items for components. and like you said, GC Seals. There's plenty of uses for "old" gear.

I don't disagree gear swapping was a huge and very functional part of XI. I also understand the "I spent 3 weeks getting this 1 piece and now I don't even use it." arguments, and really I don't disagree with them. I do think that multiple gear sets have a place, just not swapping them in battle. Your going to fight something particularly defensive put on your attack set fight, really evasive swap into acc set fight, and so on. Not oh I'm gonna Impulse Drive let me just change these 4 pieces, ok Impulse Drive done, swap into Crit set ok now attack set, ok back to acc set for TP build for 1.2 seconds before I start my next round of swaps/abils.

That would be a viable option, no doubt....but think about what that would entail?

Basically, my DH gear sits in the MH collecting dust until ONE day (SOME day) I find a fight, or a handful of mobs, that I "need" to use it on? lol

That doesn't sound very practical. I'm not trying to be condescending, btw. I just want to get this point across. I spent HOURS and HOURS trying to get some DH gear for my brother, and for my friend. And, now, it's not even very PRETTY compared to the new gear that's out....SE could TRY to keep it relevant; at least, then, it wouldn't feel like such a waste.

Thus far, every time new stuff has come out, my old gear got tossed away like it never meant a thing (hell, I have a pair of Bucaneer's Boots that probably couldn't get me 100k nowadays).

~Raids instead of Faction Leves
~Primals instead of World NM(s)
~Materia'd Gear instead of, virtually, EVERYTHING else.
~And, now, finally, that Darklight Gear (haven't played much since it got here)

Are you telling me that you want every bit of content, and every expansion to feel like FFXI's Abysea Pack??



For the "Layman," Abyssea: "An expansion that rendered every bit of your hardwork, utterly pointless, all the way down to the time you spent EXPING"

[Enfarious]

That would be a viable option, no doubt....but think about what that would entail?

Basically, my DH gear sits in the MH collecting dust until ONE day (SOME day) I find a fight, or a handful of mobs, that I "need" to use it on? lol

That doesn't sound very practical. I'm not trying to be condescending, btw. I just want to get this point across. I spent HOURS and HOURS trying to get some DH gear for my brother, and for my friend. And, now, it's not even very PRETTY compared to the new gear that's out....SE could TRY to keep it relevant; at least, then, it wouldn't feel like such a waste.

Thus far, every time new stuff has come out, my old gear got tossed away like it never meant a thing (hell, I have a pair of Bucaneer's Boots that probably couldn't get me 100k nowadays).

~Raids instead of Faction Leves
~Primals instead of World NM(s)
~Materia'd Gear instead of, virtually, EVERYTHING else.
~And, now, finally, that Darklight Gear (haven't played much since it got here)

Are you telling me that you want every bit of content, and every expansion to feel like FFXI's Abysea Pack??



For the "Layman," Abyssea: "An expansion that rendered every bit of your hardwork, utterly pointless, all the way down to the time you spent EXPING"

Ok so the real problem here isn't that gear swaps are a must, but rather that like so many others have said, "My gear goes out of style every week." I agree that's obnoxious, getting darklight should be more challenging, real challenging, not number of runs challenging cause that's not challenge but rather a means to keep a person busy, like telling someone to sweep and mop a clean floor, just busy work to hide the fact that there's nothing better to do.

So we also know that they plan to slow the pace of pretty much everything, I assume that gear acquisition will be included, hopefully not by further reducing drop rates. This also assuming that leveling will be a slower process will make gear useful a bit longer.

They have set everything at a breakneck pace up to this point, there's new gear every week, causing things to become dated was bound to happen. Leaving gear in your mog cause it only serves a single purpose is gear worth tossing. I'm talking about sets like, Ifrit full tilt fire resist, and other things that can/will serve a purpose regularly maybe in a raid the mobs are real evasive but don't have alot by way of def or hp, while running through you stay in acc gear, at the boss you switch. You'd be carrying stuff full time, using it in different situations, just not while in combat.

Gods no, Abyssea ruined the game, I didn't mean to imply that I liked it, or anything about it. Not even sure where I mentioned Abyssea? I'll go look for it though and edit the post to make sure no one else gets the idea that I thought it was good.
Edit: Ok I've no idea where the Abyssea bit came in.

[SwordCoheir]

Honestly, regardless of how you feel about it, here's one undeniable fact:

Without gear swaps, low lvl gear will CONSTANTLY become outdated...right now, so far, every single time SE has released new content, everything in our inventory has become nothing but Company Seal fodder. If there were gear swaps, there would be a LOT of opportunites for SE to capatalize on the possibility of keeping old gear relevant. I was able to use Rapparee Harness even at 75, thanks to gear swaps (loved that 4% haste for utsusemi xD). Anyway, that's just one of MANY reasons to bring gear swaps into the fold.

Don't even get me started on the "lack of character/job/class/equip uniqueness" aspect.....

Honestly what's wrong with the aspect of new gear constantly being cycled in and old gear being phased out, new gear that's worth aiming for is part of the attraction of doing new content. After 2.0 comes out I think fights like Garuda, Ifrit, and King Mog are gonna eventually disappear with the cycling of 7th Umbral Era events, so the old content and gear that your trying to keep relevant wouldn't even be obtainable anymore.

With that comes gear exclusiveness, SE can make new similar gear that does not have to outclass older equipment, and really only older players would face the dilemma of having enough situational gear to make gear swapping really viable. It doesn't give gear swapping enough leverage, when new players would be at a severe disadvantage and would likely make it difficult for new players advancing in the game for not having the good/best equipment options available to them.

If that doesn't make a strong enough case against gear swapping, I don't think there's anything anyone could say to convince you otherwise. I personally think just having inventory issues from carrying gear for all seven jobs will be tough enough when they lower our inventory again, without the need to bring every little situational piece with me.

[Rokien]

Honestly what's wrong with the aspect of new gear constantly being cycled in and old gear being phased out, new gear that's worth aiming for is part of the attraction of doing new content. After 2.0 comes out I think fights like Garuda, Ifrit, and King Mog are gonna eventually disappear with the cycling of 7th Umbral Era events, so the old content and gear that your trying to keep relevant wouldn't even be obtainable anymore.

With that comes gear exclusiveness, SE can make new similar gear that does not have to outclass older equipment, and really only older players would face the dilemma of having enough situational gear to make gear swapping really viable. It doesn't give gear swapping enough leverage, when new players would be at a severe disadvantage and would likely make it difficult for new players advancing in the game for not having the good/best equipment options available to them.

If that doesn't make a strong enough case against gear swapping, I don't think there's anything anyone could say to convince you otherwise. I personally think just having inventory issues from carrying gear for all seven jobs will be tough enough when they lower our inventory again, without the need to bring every little situational piece with me.

It's not even old vs new, it's also new vs new. Some new gear is completely pointless unless one or two occasions DURING a fight.

[Enfarious]

It's not even old vs new, it's also new vs new. Some new gear is completely pointless unless one or two occasions DURING a fight.

And here's to hoping that SE doesn't continue this trend, it's what they ended up doing for hell 90% of gear in XI, no gear should be designed to only be useful during a single ability. This would lead to players who think swapping is good being absolutely right it would be necessary all over again.
Hopefully this is a mistake made in XI that they learned from and it's only player perception that makes it appear as if it's only useful in such limited circumstances. If I sit and crunch every number to truly maximize everything for everything then of course gear swapping is a must and so is having 200 inventory slots and this game like so many others becomes "work" to play. It's going to do that given time anyway, why rush it, let it like anything else grow and evolve over time, stop looking for the "final" result so early.

[Jokerz]

Honestly what's wrong with the aspect of new gear constantly being cycled in and old gear being phased out, new gear that's worth aiming for is part of the attraction of doing new content. After 2.0 comes out I think fights like Garuda, Ifrit, and King Mog are gonna eventually disappear with the cycling of 7th Umbral Era events, so the old content and gear that your trying to keep relevant wouldn't even be obtainable anymore.

With that comes gear exclusiveness, SE can make new similar gear that does not have to outclass older equipment, and really only older players would face the dilemma of having enough situational gear to make gear swapping really viable. It doesn't give gear swapping enough leverage, when new players would be at a severe disadvantage and would likely make it difficult for new players advancing in the game for not having the good/best equipment options available to them.

If that doesn't make a strong enough case against gear swapping, I don't think there's anything anyone could say to convince you otherwise. I personally think just having inventory issues from carrying gear for all seven jobs will be tough enough when they lower our inventory again, without the need to bring every little situational piece with me.

Well to be fair keeping older content has a purpose, not every player in the game was there since the beginning nor able to participate in in older content which is pretty bad considering the quest like nature of this game. At this rate come 2.0 people won't want to do these fights for wins leaving new players to their own devices. I mean you may get lucky and find a ls that will do it for you after you constantly beg lol... People will do new content when it's released guaranteed.

I wonder if a viable alternate to gear swapping will be enhancing the materia system. I mean that's what this game is centered around. One thing that confuses me is why can't certain pieces be meldable albeit at a much lower success rate? Imagine if every AF piece could be converted to materia then melded to gear to enhance a certain aspect of the job. Or you could further improve upon darklight. I mean eventually this stuff will get dated but it will allow us to get more use out of gear for the time being.

[Enfarious]

Well to be fair keeping older content has a purpose, not every player in the game was there since the beginning nor able to participate in in older content which is pretty bad considering the quest like nature of this game. At this rate come 2.0 people won't want to do these fights for wins leaving new players to their own devices. I mean you may get lucky and find a ls that will do it for you after you constantly beg lol... People will do new content when it's released guaranteed.

This is gonna happen anyway, people playing now will mostly be sick of that "old" content whether the gear is still useful or not it'll still come second to new content. New players are still gonna get snubbed by old players, even more so by the "established" EG LSs out there that don't want new players, they only want seasoned vets. No matter what new players will mostly be left to their own devices.
It'll create a really interesting dynamic in the community though, grandparents ... grand kids, with no parents to bridge the gap. People playing pre 2.0 will be seasoned, well versed, and "past" all that old crap. Grand Kids will be shooed away to seek out their parents lol

[Jokerz]

This is gonna happen anyway, people playing now will mostly be sick of that "old" content whether the gear is still useful or not it'll still come second to new content. New players are still gonna get snubbed by old players, even more so by the "established" EG LSs out there that don't want new players, they only want seasoned vets. No matter what new players will mostly be left to their own devices.
It'll create a really interesting dynamic in the community though, grandparents ... grand kids, with no parents to bridge the gap. People playing pre 2.0 will be seasoned, well versed, and "past" all that old crap. Grand Kids will be shooed away to seek out their parents lol

Very true unfortunately:/ Lol I always like showing newbies around lol

[Duelle]

Honestly, regardless of how you feel about it, here's one undeniable fact:

Without gear swaps, low lvl gear will CONSTANTLY become outdated...right now, so far, every single time SE has released new content, everything in our inventory has become nothing but Company Seal fodder.

And this is a bad thing because?

You may not realize it, but a large part of XI's economic woes and imbalance came form the fact that the gear market could very easily become saturated, and as a whole was prone to fits of inflation and deflation. Sure, RMT greatly contributed to the economy's mood swings, but there were other factors. Gear leaving the economy through NPC-related means is never bad. That being said, I do hope dungeon drops and such can be sharded into materia, if only to deal with your concerns.

And here's to hoping that SE doesn't continue this trend, it's what they ended up doing for hell 90% of gear in XI, no gear should be designed to only be useful during a single ability. This would lead to players who think swapping is good being absolutely right it would be necessary all over again.

Agreed. I hope their balance for gear shifts into a direction that makes sense. I know it's neat to have stuff themed after the elements, for example, but it isn't exactly practical. Never really was. XI just had a funny way of making it seem useful.