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

[WillRiker]

say what you want about gear swaps, but there were a couple of really good things it did for FFXI.

Firstly, being able to swap gear in and out at a moments notice allowed for a lot of min/maxing. This allows you to use your abilities to their maximum effect. At first players complained about not having enough solo content, but as players matured and came across various trinkets, many solo options and challenges began to open up. And certain spells that were almost unusable, due to limitations placed on the main job, began to have an impact. Sure, a Paladin wont be able to Silence an IT, but a Paladin would be able to Silence a T-VT (Like an Imp) with good macro swaps. This one example allowed me to solo 5k/hr on PLD, and duo 8k at rank 75. That's more exp/hr than whole parties would make with a NIN main tank during the height of the PLD vs NIN debate. It is also up there with the arrow burns pre RNG nerf. And it was due to macro swaps, along with the skill to know how and when to use them.

Secondly, it allowed for more interesting battles. This is true for big scale and small scale. Tiamat becomes an entirely different fight once your tank was able to swap between haste/def/eva gear and fire resist gear. And on small scale, being able to swap elemental staves allowed for fights where your mages needed to actually pay attention to the enemies behavior. Because casting the wrong element spell would actually heal a certain enemy for much more than any nuke would deal in damage (for example: the ZNM gears). Currently, FFXIV suffers from very one dimensional battles. I really believe that gear swaps prevented FFXI from suffering the same issue.

I am a firm believer that gear selection for a fight is a fundamental part of player skill. The question is not gear vs skill. Its how a skilled person recognizes which gear to use, and when. After playing both games, i can tell you that i feel like my hands are a bit tied without gear swaps. For example, solo Gladiator/Maurader would be a much better experience if it was able to swap in resist gear when needed.

I also don't think FFXI would have lasted as long as it did before raising the level cap without gear swaps. The longevity of events like sky was a great thing. It kept older content relevant. And, made for many sources of endgame activities to partake in. This amount of longevity for endgame events is almost unheard of in other games. Shoot, when i stopped playing LL and VE was still relevant for certain jobs until endgame.

Without gear swaps, you are forced into a WOWesk endgame. You no longer search for macro swap gear, instead SE must release more powerful gear. You are also forced to raise the level cap more often, for the more powerful gear. Doing so relegates older content to obscurity, and it also makes for an endgame that will ALWAYS only consist of 1-2 events which offer the latest and greatest gear. For example, as soon as the level cap increases your Crab Bow+3, Silver Tricornes, and Iron Plate +3 sets will be pretty much useless for any new endgame. If you were fortunate enough to play other MMO's, ones without gear swaps, you'll know what I am writing about. Macro swaps kept many pieces of gear relevant for years.

Because gear swaps made allowed for many events to be made, without raising the maximum level, you also found that players were able to have some sort of diversity in viable equipment. This diversity of viable equipment was directly correlated to the number of endgame events. And the number of endgame events was due to the existence of macro swaps eliminating the need to raise the maximum rank. Look around FFXIV. Hehe, you don't even need to look further than the rank 50 Gladiators. Its all Iron Plate set, with the illusion of individuality provided by changing a color. Now look at FFXI. Hagun was a superb Great Katana, but there were others that were also very viable. The skilled player would know exactly why Hagun was such a good Great Katana, and gear appropriately. The same player would also know why another Great Katana could put up respectable numbers as well. And he would play/equip gear appropriately for that one. At first it doesn't seem like this is because macro swaps existed. But, without macro swaps making it possible to keep the maximum rank static for so long, it would not have been possible.

I do agree that changing your pants every spell was silly, in terms of breaking the few portions of realism left within an MMO. But, I don't see how completely eliminating gear swaps is a good thing. If anything, I would say that the complete elimination of them has been detrimental.

[Bando]

What pants you're wearing should be a factor in determining your success, but I think we agree it's more about choosing the right outfit ahead of time rather than how fast you can change it.

err,actually,this is nothing about fast,press macro button and that's all.
It's about wearing the right thing in the right situation, and situation changes. (eg:when you casting ice based magic and fire based magic,you need the different element enhance equipments.) It also tells the difference between newbie and experienced player, which could also bring the game more challenge or possiblity.
If there is someone don't want or don't like gear swap,they can just ignore the function, nothing will change.

[Jynx]

lewl. That had absolutely 0 to do with it. You'll run into that wherever there are, well, people.

No thanks to gear macros. I'd rather my selection and timing of abilities dictate success rather than what pants I'm wearing.

Elitist may happen in any MMO but they were the worst I've ever seen in XI. If you didn't have 100 peices of situational gear and 10 macro pallets for gear swaps...you were gimp.

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

Elitist may happen in any MMO but they were the worst I've ever seen in XI. If you didn't have 100 peices of situational gear and 10 macro pallets for gear swaps...you were gimp.

I think you're exaggerating just a little. I only had 99 pieces of situational gear and never got called gimp. But maybe you just ran with a bad crowd.

In any case... inventory space is too limited as it is. I don't mind a game where you build up certain sets, like a fire resist set or a m.acc set vs a m.atk set, but once I leave my moghouse to do an event I shouldn't have to change my gear until I'm done with the event.

[Amage]

Elitist may happen in any MMO but they were the worst I've ever seen in XI. If you didn't have 100 peices of situational gear and 10 macro pallets for gear swaps...you were gimp.

if you had to use 10 macro pallets for XI then you played wrong i used 1 row for everything on my jobs blm was only one i used 3 full bars

[Jynx]

if you had to use 10 macro pallets for XI then you played wrong i used 1 row for everything on my jobs blm was only one i used 3 full bars

I used all 10 of my pallets between Thief, Blackmage, Beastmaster, Puppetmaster and other misc jobs.

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

No thanks Macroing gear made XI the worst place for people with massive inferiority complexes to whine about "elitists."

Fixed.

But seriously, this isn't Sailor Moon Online.

[jwang]

Fixed.

But seriously, this isn't Sailor Moon Online.

That line made my day. Also ends the thread rather conclusively if you ask me.

My opinion of gear swaps? Rather than it being a part of the original game design, I see it as more of a symptom of the flaw in XI gear itemization, rather than something that was purposely designed in. Notice how later gears are "multi-purpose"? And how prior to Abyssea, most gear were so situational that at best you wore them for the span of 3 seconds every minutes?

The best part about gear swaps? You can't do them well without third party tools. You can either fill up half your macro bars with gear swap lines, or you can suck it up and use the Windower, which would then cause console players to cry about unfair exploits. On top of that, you now have several sets of gear competing for inventory space, which honestly isn't something that's needed. As it stands, I already have more than enough gear for my crafts, gathering, mage, and physical classes to fill half of my bag, the rest going to crafting mats. I have no desire at all to further fill up that space with gear that I'm only going to wear less than 10% of combat time just so I can have that minor boost in WS or spell damage.

[Rinsui]

Yes. That's one of the veeeeery few things from 11 I am actually happy they did not copy.

[Shikaree]

I never want to see gear swapping in another MMO game ever.

It's just ridiculous that you need at least 2+ different gear pieces per slot just to maximize your usefulness, add more and also put in day/weather conditions for any caster classes.

Keep it simple, SE. You can combine gear to tailor to what you want to put your strengths to, but keep away from the damn situational need to swap everything in battle on the go.