Enhances Ballads and other stats

[Sotek]

That being said, I feel that the current gear is incredibly stupid. It's just all super boring -- I only NEED 2 drops from Bahamuts Coil (as a scholar). Just hands and the book. Every other item might as well be my Mythology gear, and even to that end, it's all just useless stat padding. It's totally unacceptable from a FF game imo, and it bothers me that the dev team is so hush hush on this.

Did past Final Fantasy games actually have that much going on with gear? I mean, IX certainly did (and XI), and I guess VII had Materia slots to mix things up, there were usually accessories that did things as well like Ribbon (I particularly remember VI having a lot of effects on accessories), but general equipment? Hasn't that pretty much always just been a steady increase in stats? Some had other things going on I guess, Flame Mail reducing fire damage (though stuff like that got replaced on a dungeon to dungeon basis afaik), or weapons like the Chicken Knife, but for the most part gear has just been a steady progression in stats from what I remember...

Still, part of the reason I remember IX so fondly is because the gear system was so different compared to the other titles. It made equipment much more interesting, rather than just upgrading to the best in slot, I'd also have to think about the Abilities I want to unlock. Making equipment interesting is definitely something a MMO needs in my opinion, I think it would be really great for instances where there are two pieces of gear to pick (Mythology gear/Allagan) if one was the best in slot, and the other had a trait you want to unlock; OK, Argute Gown is the best body piece of Scholar, and maybe it has Enhances Adloquium II (going off my previous examples), but the Allagan Tunic Of Healing has Enhances Cure Potency, something else I'd probably really want to get on Scholar. While the Tunic might not be better, I still have reason to obtain it and equip it for a while. Usually I might actually see that as a needless grind, but given ARRs complete lack of grinding so far, especially at endgame (well, it is a grind, but with weekly lock outs), it's something I'd damn sure welcome...