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

[Velhart]

I thought gear swapping was one of FFXI's more negative but necessary features. I like having my characters having one distinct look, not a look for every ability I use.

It's expensive and an inventory filler. I hope this concept never comes to FFXIV.

[weeble]

if the gear swaps in ffxi weren't meant to be then it just goes to show it needed to be implemented better. i don't get how no one again wouldn't want something that adds more collecting of gear per class. it keeps comming down to lazy asses and people who want a real mmo that doesn't pamper your ass all day and take your money.

still no matter how many here didn't like it, it still came down to not liking to make macro's = fix macro's they are old and need a rework to begin with.

blinking? whatever this game didn't need to blink.

immersion? whatever, lemme log out and go shit flames. anywho.

inventory? make more

still no reall good reason for this to not come back exept people don't want to spend time making macros or collecting hours and hours of more gear from other nm's. and the collecting part is frigin awsome. more is better and this is more.

to roll, maybe u need to gtfo this thread and stop the stalking you frickin tool, i'm here trying to give my opinions as one of the few for the gear swaps and you are not adding anything to it in anyway. and surely nothing else anyone else isn't saying so do yourself a favor and take a non gear swaping leap without your blinked in parachute.

[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.

[Molly_Millions]

please don't, this was a ridiculous mechanic in XI that should have never been in the game.

[weeble]

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.

/clap /clap/clap

very well said. i'm mostly worried about the content being pointless as new comes out, the dungeons we doing now will become pointless i bet, some max caps will run them to get maybe a gear for there lowbie classes if they finally fix the game and having decent gear matters by then.

without gear swaps this game will become like warhammer or wow clones, where u'r always replacing your set of gear instead of keeping most of it. and i don't think materia will fix this but we'll see how it is implemented. but still really wish devs would consider adding gear swaps again.

[Cairdeas]

/clap /clap/clap

very well said. i'm mostly worried about the content being pointless as new comes out, the dungeons we doing now will become pointless i bet, some max caps will run them to get maybe a gear for there lowbie classes if they finally fix the game and having decent gear matters by then.

without gear swaps this game will become like warhammer or wow clones, where u'r always replacing your set of gear instead of keeping most of it. and i don't think materia will fix this but we'll see how it is implemented. but still really wish devs would consider adding gear swaps again.

The whole point of materia is to remove stock equipment from the world inventory.

[weeble]

i've said it earlier, that chances are it will just create a wide amount of players wearing sub par gears all day so they can turn materia instead of wearing there good gear or not even waist there time getting them all way to end game. but again we'll see how it's implemented and how it pans out. if having to turn materia from nm drops is important then it will keep content and nm's from being useless but i still think it will ruin parties with people geared in stuff they wouldn't be.

[Elexia]

This if not FFXI. Instead of telling people to leave FFXIV because we don't like certain aspects of FFXI, maybe you should just go back to the game you love so much and gear swap your days away.

You do know it's not wise to tell people to go play SE's successful MMORPG instead of sticking with this game, right? You do know Yoshida said in a recent interview that they're banking on the success of XIV's PS3 launch to save this game, right? Telling us to go back to XI is like telling SE "We don't care for XIV, focus on XI."

[WillRiker]

i've said it earlier, that chances are it will just create a wide amount of players wearing sub par gears all day so they can turn materia instead of wearing there good gear or not even waist there time getting them all way to end game. but again we'll see how it's implemented and how it pans out. if having to turn materia from nm drops is important then it will keep content and nm's from being useless but i still think it will ruin parties with people geared in stuff they wouldn't be.

I don't think it'll take a month worth of wearing a piece of gear to fill the prerequisites for manufacturing materia. Maybe a week at most. I really don't think it'll have everyone running around in NQ for an extended period of time. Honestly, while a valid concern, I don't think it'll be as ad as you are making it out to be.

I bet you the time it takes to out rank a piece of equipment it will be made into materia. Any more time than that, and people might as well just repair it for resale instead transmuting it. If it takes an extended period of time, it would do absolutely nothing for reducing the number of NQ's on the market.

[Cairdeas]

I don't think it'll take a month worth of wearing a piece of gear to fill the prerequisites for manufacturing materia. Maybe a week at most. I really don't think it'll have everyone running around in NQ for an extended period of time. Honestly, while a valid concern, I don't think it'll be as ad as you are making it out to be.

I bet you the time it takes to out rank a piece of equipment it will be made into materia. Any more time than that, and people might as well just repair it for resale instead transmuting it. If it takes an extended period of time, it would do absolutely nothing for reducing the number of NQ's on the market.

I wouldn't Expect it to take one round of Guild Leves to be honest.