All relics, weapons, armor, accessories, etc. are bland.

[misterrpg]

There's no sort of special abilities, effects, or interesting aspects about the gear in this game.

It's like STR+5, VIT+5, etc. one of the main statistics. Even from launch at XI they had gear that wasn't like everything else.

and you know what? Square-Enix had 3 years to add this in a game that isn't even new. 50+% of the content in this game was already in 1.0 and yet they still cannot add in features that games had at their launch many, many, many years ago.

So, why?

[Zumi]

That is hard to do in a game with item levels. Because sometimes a special effect on an item keeps it viable for longer then it should even in higher tiers of raiding where you should be replacing something but because of a special effect. So they wanted to keep things simple.

[Kiroh]

That is hard to do in a game with item levels. Because sometimes a special effect on an item keeps it viable for longer then it should even in higher tiers of raiding where you should be replacing something but because of a special effect. So they wanted to keep things simple.

I think that's his point, when you oversimplify things they become bland and lifeless. Relics have gone from being "sacred artifacts of X job" to "shiny stat stick with shiny stats, oo pretty".

[Xenobius]

That is hard to do in a game with item levels. Because sometimes a special effect on an item keeps it viable for longer then it should even in higher tiers of raiding where you should be replacing something but because of a special effect. So they wanted to keep things simple.

Completely NOT true.
As proven by WoW itself and may WoW clones afterwards, you *can* add interesting effects to items governed by iLVL and stat budget without breaking the balance.
Buffs and debuffs that proc on hit/crit, passive or active bonuses, completely crazy stuff like this one here - you name it.
And since FFXIV *is* a WoW clone plain and simple, the only reason we're stuck with bland ability score bonuses is that the devs are lazy.

[Fhamran]

I think crux of the matter is that PvE ilevel based game design in MMOs has become bland in every example of it's execution, especially in the last few years where MMO veterans understand practically every caveat of the core mechanics and blast their way through the game's progression system effortlessly, putting great strain on the designers to keep pumping out "endgame" (endgame meaning the game now) producing a stream of lopsided and inevitably struggling MMOs.

Right now, gear, items, dungeons, all feel kind of loveless in their execution. It feels like there's an implicit understanding from the designers that what we're playing to attain is cheap and there shouldn't be any extra effort to make them more interesting, and it's depressing.

We all know that what we're grinding for right now is going to become worthless 2 updates down the road, the least SE could do was make what we're grinding have more than the shallowest of significance within the system.

[Djeserit]

Completely NOT true.
As proven by WoW itself and may WoW clones afterwards, you *can* add interesting effects to items governed by iLVL and stat budget without breaking the balance.

You know how they did that? By making stat gaps between tiers huge.

You know what they announced just this week at Blizzcon? Stat gaps between tiers are too huge, and they are doing a stat crunch to take stats back down to the same levels of late Burning Crusade.

They may have gotten around the problem of having unique stats, but the way they got around it was also a mistake. I don't have any problems with SE trying to find a viable solution for both problems in a single move.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

When they said "materia", I was SOOOO excited. I could already see the "x2" and "MP / 2" and other great stuff, enhancing this or that spell (as found in FFXI for instance), with raids designed to give you specific materias that would be required to clear the lass boss, and so on. Really inventive and cunning stuff that we would have to take advantage of in order to win.

Well…

They're just glorified gems. Yes, "glorified" means: "you may fail quite often at slotting them on".

To be fair, though, no MMO has really interesting gear, besides shiny numbers. This is an area where MMORPG are clearly much, much worse than most single-player RPG where you can legitimately get off on gear.

[misterrpg]

When they said "materia", I was SOOOO excited. I could already see the "x2" and "MP / 2" and other great stuff, enhancing this or that spell (as found in FFXI for instance), with raids designed to give you specific materias that would be required to clear the lass boss, and so on. Really inventive and cunning stuff that we would have to take advantage of in order to win.

Well…

They're just glorified gems. Yes, "glorified" means: "you may fail quite often at slotting them on".

To be fair, though, no MMO has really interesting gear, besides shiny numbers. This is an area where MMORPG are clearly much, much worse than most single-player RPG where you can legitimately get off on gear.

XI had some of the most unique equipment out of any game, ever, and I absolutely love RPGs.

XIV... it has the worst equipment (stat-wise/effect wise) out of any MMORPG I've played.

The relics in this game are absolute garbage compared to XI.

[Reiterpallasch]

XI had some of the most unique equipment out of any game

Gotta love things like CHR on BLM gear, or enhances resist virus. So many "unique", utterly useless gear stats. I can bend a turd into a pretzel shape, but that doesn't mean it's not still just a turd.

The relics in this game are absolute garbage compared to XI.

Because this isn't XI, and the only thing the two relics have in common is the name. These are much closer to XIs AF weapons, if that wasn't obvious right from the start.

Because sometimes a special effect on an item keeps it viable for longer then it should even in higher tiers of raiding where you should be replacing something but because of a special effect..

I can think of another popular MMO that has tons of special effects on gear, and it's never kept around when the next tier of gear comes out.

[Steeled]

Gotta love things like CHR on BLM gear, or enhances resist virus. So many "unique", utterly useless gear stats. I can bend a turd into a pretzel shape, but that doesn't mean it's not still just a turd.

Or you know, JA enhancing gear. No, I don't want gear swaps galore like XI had (can't gear swap at all), but the reason XI went to that is largely that while the ability enhancement was good, the gear was no longer full-time worthy.

DRG in XI has many gears that enhanced jump... monk had full chakra (second wind) sets, etc etc. I don't wanna go back to chakra sets but wearing armor for a valuable bonus is good.

I can think of another popular MMO that has tons of special effects on gear, and it's never kept around when the next tier of gear comes out.

Hmm. Do you mean WoW? If you mean WoW, I remember several 2 pc set bonuses surviving well into/through the next tier. I believe warrior (a shield tank) had a 2pc that increased their blocking by 10% (additive) when they used some ability, for 10 seconds. Warriors took the hp hit, from less ilvl STA (vit). Dps and healers did it frequently too.