[ Dev's ] Gear Swaps Can I have It?

[Gidonoidon_Sur]

I guess I could warm up to the idea...Does seem ridiculous to change gear while fighting. I guess I am afraid more of the implications (one piece of gear is best) and therefore everyone spams that event and everyone looks the same etc. If they can avoid that I guess I don't care that I can't change midcast.

[Betelgeuzah]

The point of different gear in FFXI wasnt to be a god all the time, it was to pick the gear that appropriately fit your skills and role, and made you better at the style of play you chose. The fact that people could use it all basically ruined those strategic choices.

imagine 1 rdm chose to be a stamina type with really high mp regen
another rdm chose to be a melee type with melee gear aCC attack and use enspells
another rdm chose to be a light BLM with back up cures

one monk chose to be a tank, and thus was full of ACC and counter gear, HP boosting gear and haste
another was all spike damage and went ACC ATTACK and STR and VIT for WS with a theif sub used kick attacks and kick damage boots.

people just did it all in one fight, your supposed to choose before you go into battle.

It the equivalent of swapping skills in battle out of your bar right now during a fight, without even having to put away your weapon, its just a work around to cheat the system. Oh im sure its cool, and makes having situational abilities more usefull, but that because you are cheating the system whereby you were actually supposed to choose your gear and skills BEFORE you went into battle.

You are making this shit up. Gear swapping functioned the way it did by DESIGN, which means it was working AS INTENDED, which means nobody was "cheating" the system. You can't say how it was "supposed to work" when the fact is that SE had no problem whatsoever with the way the system was functioning, otherwise they would have changed it.

The fact is that there will be a fraction of situational equipment to choose from, you did not disprove this (I never said there were none of them). To top it off, the game is changing to function in a way where everyone has a more clear cut role in battle, meaning there is less demand for exotic playstyles (if you're not a unique snowflake while gimping yourself that is) and thus less demand for specific gearsets (like tanking on a DPS oriented class).

In the end it'll be like trying to get a tanking set for Monk because you already have everything else that boosts your DPS, yet there's little incentive for it and you do it mainly to be a completionist, not for some great advantage in normal gameplay. What a great incentive for players to do the new mid-expansion situational gear dungeon.

[Kiara]

Hi All,

I'd agree with physic. While Gear Swapping in battle certainly added more strategy and more thought, and made use of more types of gear, there's nothing to say that we can't use different sets, they'd just be chosen before battle.

We can still have a High Accuracy Set, or a High Damage Set, or a Debuff Set or a Healing Set, and it'd be what you'd choose before a fight. Is this Boss something with High Evasion? Then you choose to go with your High Accuracy Set before the Boss fight.

Is this other Boss, slow, with Low Evasion, but High Defense? Then go with a High Damage Set, etc.

Also, we don't know the full extent of their new Combat System. Seeing their most recent work on Final Fantasy XIII and the upcoming FF XIII-2, they have a Paradigm System.

So perhaps, instead of Gear Swapping (manually with Macros like XI), who knows? Maybe we'll have the eventual ability to Swap Jobs (roles) in Combat, like Lightning swapping between Saboteur -> Commando -> Ravager mid-combat. I could see them developing the Job System so that you can swap your Job during a fight, which would then add more strategy and tactics back in, like Gear Swapping in XI.

Ultimately, I think it's a mistake for SE to leak only a small bit of information again (No Gear Swap), without showing us the full Battle Plan. I think it makes more people uneasy / angry / frustrated / confused, and only a portion of the Players happy (those that just didn't like Gear Swapping).

Let's see what it's like after we see their Full Battle System in place. Here's to hoping for good things!

[PrettyPrincess]

I am pleased with this dev post

[Rane]

I'm glad we won't have gear swapping mid-battle. I really didn't like that element of XI. I'd much rather the game keep me involved through creative new challenges and interesting story-based content as opposed to hunting for new shoes over and over because I have to wear something different for every spell I cast.

That's not to say that there should be one gear set to rule them all; optimally, the "best" gear should depend on the battle strategy you wish to employ. Creative bosses and battle situations sometimes require a change in strategy and a corresponding change in gear before the battle begins. But allowing gear swapping during battle (in addition to looking ridiculous) creates a situation where gear sets are too numerous and too specialized. To allow it would be to require it, as the battle system would have to be balanced around its existence. No thanks.

[Arcell]

Well within the same class/role you would likely see people with the same gear like all Gladiator Tanks would have a set of gear but that's different from Pugilist Tanks. Similarly Pugilist Tank gear would be different from Pugilist DD gear. It's already kind of this way except you have a lot of the gear being shared between classes for similar roles, this is especially obvious with mages.

To achieve good diversification they'd have to break gear down from broad to specific, example:
Conjurer > Black Mage > Nuker > Water

You start off with the most broad gear, gear simply for Conjurer and then start getting more specific by selecting the job, role within the job and then a specific build for that role.

To do this for the Disciples of War they would have to make multiple builds within any role viable for the jobs. Like having Vitality builds and Dexterity builds be viable for tanking for all jobs. Gladiators/Paladins would use bigger heavier armor/bigger shields/bigger swords for Vitality builds but the lighter armor/smaller shields/shorter swords for a Dexterity build. I say Dexterity instead of Evasion simply because for something like Marauder Dexterity means Parry. Currently this isn't quite as possible but it should be looked into.

[Moth]

I never really liked the whole gear swapping in XI, but then again I never hated it either. It was just a little headache. I highly doubt they will bring it back though. Right now, there is so much effort to prevent you from gear swapping. It seems that the developers really don't want people to do it.

[weeble]

I remember running into this in FFXI, too. Not sure where the rose tinted glasses are being sold in this thread.

if this was happening it was many many years after the content was added not 60days after. they are pre'empting a fix for things that won't happen for years, but still adding content that will die out in months.

there are many other ways to fix this other then gear swaps, but gear swapping was a way none the less. racing to the latest content is a stupid idea. having empty zones is a stupid idea. gear swaps weren't stupid they were just implemented wrong.

they should at the very least make every spell and move have the option to have say 6scrolls, all the scrolls are scatered in the nm's, hnm's, dungeons and missions. that way the more of them u have the better your spells improve, just like gear swaps but u never gotta make macros or swap gear. u don't need to get the scrolls like the gear but if u did it helped in the same manners. u can skip it ..if want ..till last spells and moves. the main thing is not to kill content and to make it worth having everything.

being a nitch class is dumb to me, i then don't want to take the time to gear anything else. i'll grab my niche gear, say i'm a niche class, and play my niche game. granted the few that can switch to any gear when needed will be needed players but it's not necessary and in no way will make u want to spend that extra time doing so.

[Xatsh]

My next question I want to ask to the devs is what is square planning on doing with content at expansions? Not having gear swaps is ok but how are they handling content then... atm most who are against gear swaps it is because of this reason from reading the these post.

If the Plan to:

-replacing old content with new dungeons/raids/quest (Western sytle concept of expansions)
or
-incorporating old content to keep all content in the game worthwhile (XIs method of expansions)

If it is the first one... I hope people like the game now because the way SE released every mmo and every mmo expansion has been like this. Absolutely nothing in it besides zones and barebone quest/missions with everything else being fleshed out over the next 2yrs period of time.

And even with a level increase are you going to continue to spam old dungeons knowing that in a few months all your time is wasted? You will have the same crap you have in WoW atm. Everyone is crazy active at an expansion/content update... then everyone stops logging on once they do everything. If anyone thinks that is good something is wrong with them.

Square needs to insure me that they will not screw the game over everyupdate. I want more content then I can handle...not some BS that I can finish in a week then take a break for 6 months.

Atm this game seems to be going more and more in the direction of the worst WoW clone ever created... I sure hope these content updates are some kind of godly content... if they want to butt heads with WoW, Rift, and GW2 they need to not match them but beat them... good luck if they are on that path.

[Arcell]

That's just what happens with people who play a lot though. They're the first to burn through, beat and burn out on new content. For people who have been playing since launch or who are pretty much all caught up on content then yes all new additions will be short lived. However for all new players every addition is more to keep them playing longer until they too get caught up. Depending on the player this could take a few months or a few years.

Point being every addition of content is a good thing, some people will burn through it quickly no matter how big it is. I'm a bit of a completionist so I'm not sure I could see myself being out of content for quite a while now, especially with new stuff always coming out.