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

[Duelle]

To be honest, that was not fun at all. Now changing equipment before a dungeon exploration trip due to elemental strength/null/weakness/absorb? Sure.

I agree with this. Ifrit requiring fire resistance gear is fine by me. That'd be no different than me having to carry a couple of pieces of frost resistance gear for Sindragosa when I was raiding Icecrown Citadel.

Gear change macros were what could make people good in XI.

Gear swap macros do not equate to skill. Never has, never will.

[Miliant]

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.

You state that you firmly believe that choosing gear carefully is fundamental to player skill. I will work with this assumption and ask, what exactly does it say about player skill that you need to have every piece of gear constantly available in order to play skillfully?

If you want to focus on certain abilities use a set of gear. If you want to focus on other abilities use another set. Be a resourceful adventurer: prioritize and plan your gear selection before the battle begins. If gear selection really says anything about player skill (again, debatable), then gear swapping is for those who really can't be bothered to try different setups and then think and choose those that output the best overall results. It's for the lazy, "just give me everything and I'll swap as I go" type.

[Physic]

Wow how generic. This is what people said when they were mad they couldn't get something someone else could.

If you have "skill" you shouldn't have an excuse to not have good equipment.

And how is the gear change debuff proof of anything? It's not like they're completely revamping the game or anything.

The bottom line is the game is easy and very simplified compared to XI. Even the "skillchains" do themselves. If they're trying to, as they've said so many times recently, "encourage skillful play", then gear change macros is one way to do it.

As for materia, I really don't see how putting a crystal in your weapon to give it Attack +1 is going to make actually fighting something any more complex. Materia will just be like normal gear: picked for general usefulness rather than situational.

situational would be like ok im fighting this type of monster, let me switch gear, ffxi was momentary as in like, ok ill switch for 1 second to do WS 1 second to do utsusemi 1 second to do boost 1 second to chkra etc. where is the skill exactly? people were able to download and import macro files, and people posted their gear selections. As much skill as you claim using ever piece of gear in one fight takes, it would probably take more to look at the situation your going to be in and pick the set that will best allow you to fulfill your role in the party with the least chance of screwing everyone up.

Play like a man, make a descion, pick what gear would best suit the needs of the party, dont just try to do everything with gear macro switches.

[Dekken]

Gear swapping is a horrible horrible idea. It adds an obnoxious element to what should be simple actions like weaponskills or casting spells.

[Cichy]

Gear swapping is a terrible idea. I'm not opposed to a different sets idea like a dd set for GLD vs a enmity/damage reduction for exp vs big fight use but constant swaps like in XI were terrible. Fix the stats 1st kthx

[Jericho]

If you want to focus on certain abilities use a set of gear. If you want to focus on other abilities use another set. Be a resourceful adventurer: prioritize and plan your gear selection before the battle begins. If gear selection really says anything about player skill (again, debatable), then gear swapping is for those who really can't be bothered to try different setups and then think and choose those that output the best overall results. It's for the lazy, "just give me everything and I'll swap as I go" type.

I did prioritize and and plan my gear selections before the battle begins. I chose which pieces to TP in, which to WS in, which to cast in, etc. I'm not quite sure what the argument is here. I'm unclear why it is such a disliked concept. It encourages people to want more gear? I'm pretty sure everyones going to want more gear regardless of it being a piece to WS in or a piece to choose from in pre-battle planning. Elitist can say "You don't have this piece for this dungeon?" just as easily as they said "You don't have this piece to WS in?".

Gear macroing in FFXI was not difficult. And it did not take long to pick up enough items along the way, especially once there was a lot of great questable gear ToAUish and on. There were some bad seeds, yes, but I personally avoided them. The only replay value an MMO has is gear acquisition, and gear acquisition for your friends. Why not be able to use it as your see fit?

As far as skill goes, gear macroing does not make you lazy. Theres still plenty of battle situative (SICH-you-uh-tive, new word there) choices to make. I would respond that choosing your gear prior to the situation and never changing makes is what will make you lazy. Sure, for some it was done with the same amount of macro hits. For people like me that enjoyed console gaming and disliked windower, it made it more challenging, and made me better. I could hit 3 macros per WS like nobody's business. I currently have 84 macros for my Bard.

It wont become an issue in FFXIV because of the way macros work. And thats fine, its a new game, and we will adapt to a new style of playing. Plus, WS's happen way more often than they did in XI. Regardless, I'm just unclear of what issue is with it. Thats all.

[Visch]

situational would be like ok im fighting this type of monster, let me switch gear, ffxi was momentary as in like, ok ill switch for 1 second to do WS 1 second to do utsusemi 1 second to do boost 1 second to chkra etc. where is the skill exactly? people were able to download and import macro files, and people posted their gear selections. As much skill as you claim using ever piece of gear in one fight takes, it would probably take more to look at the situation your going to be in and pick the set that will best allow you to fulfill your role in the party with the least chance of screwing everyone up.

Play like a man, make a descion, pick what gear would best suit the needs of the party, dont just try to do everything with gear macro switches.

loooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

It's so funny how people can cry about "customization" but when it comes to needing equipment and know how to do it they want it simple. How would it take more "skill" to specialize 1 set of equipment then 3 or 4 for different actions?

Gear swapping is a horrible horrible idea. It adds an obnoxious element to what should be simple actions like weaponskills or casting spells.

Do you know what a macro is?

Gear swap macros do not equate to skill. Never has, never will.

Then what is skill? Not changing any equipment and being bad? LOL. It's the same thing you just actually use macros and have to think about what is best for each action *gasp*. The game might be complex.

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

It wont become an issue in FFXIV because of the way macros work. And thats fine, its a new game, and we will adapt to a new style of playing. Plus, WS's happen way more often than they did in XI. Regardless, I'm just unclear of what issue is with it. Thats all.

There are a few legitimate issues, without going into the "because it sucks" or "omg elitism" responses. They are:

• It isn't realistic. Yeah sure it's a fantasy where we shoot fireballs from our eyes but is there is a difference between magic and absurdity. It is absurd to change your clothes every other second.
• Situational gear takes up a lot of inventory space. This is gear you're not storing on your retainer or in your safe but gear you are actually carrying on you. There's no two ways around this.
• "Skill" at the game comes down to skill at either a) writing situational macros or b) downloading someone else's macros.
• Bypasses the "pros and cons" of armor by twitch-macroing to avoid any drawbacks. Hecatomb gear, for instance, goes from balanced (best STR but Slow) to unbalanced (best STR and just don't TP in it).

The "against" camp agrees that this is a new game and prefers to adapt to a new style of playing.

The "for" camp... hasn't actually made any substantive arguments and mostly just calls the "against" camp a bunch of idiots. For every, "It's not very realistic to take off your pants in the middle of a fight" they respond with "lol use a macro noob" or several posts about defecation.

The only reason the "against" camp is still quite active in this thread is because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the "for" camp, although small, is quite squeaky.

[Nabiri]

Gear swapping was one thing in XI that was too annoying for me to participate in. Especially since some of my macro sets are full. I really hated how it became expected of everyone. I have 4 jobs I play very often. That's 4 sets of gear already. I wasn't going to make that 8 or more...I wouldn't have room if I wanted to anyways. I had some pieces that I'd wear in place of others on occasion - depending on what would work best for the situation, but I was never switching gear during battle.
On WHM it was annoying, everyone blinking all over the place, making it hard to target and heal them. I shouldn't have to download windower to make other people's blinking stop. You blink too much, I can't heal you, you die? Your fault. Simple as that.
I hate gear swapping. Always will. It's a silly practice. Every time I look at my boyfriend's full inentory, mog safe, storage, mog locker, mog satchel, and mog sack, I cringe.

I won't argue that gear swapping didn't make people more efficient/stronger/faster etc. It did.
I will argue that if people feel the need to do it that something is wrong.
It's something that is too annoying for me. I don't want to feel inferior to others in the game because I refuse to do something ridiculous like change my character's armor every few seconds.

[WillRiker]

hehe that guy actually said I should play like a man... wow.

Seriously though, gear swaps added longevity for end game events. Without them, we would have had only 1-2 events at a time to do. You know, kind of like FFXIV right now. Once dungeons are released that will be the only event. Once AF's are released, that will be the only event. And so on.

Sure, this is the current model that most MMO's emulate. But, a two years from now. when you look back and see many dungeons that just arent run anymore, youll know why. And youll know that your input lead to that situation. Heck, look what happened to FFXI once they raised the level cap and introduced af3. Instantaneously, it went from a game with a huge endgame, to a game with pretty much one endgame event. All I am really saying is that gear swaps made the huge endgame that most of us enjoyed viable by reducing the need to raise the level cap.

As for skill, copying a gear list isnt skill. Developing a gear list, using the gear you currently have, and possessing the knowledge to identify gear that would improve your performance is the most fundamental level of skill. It is skills foundation. Macro swaps added customization that injected a whole level of complexity to FFXI's combat system that almost every other game lacks.

Well, I guess we could add jump and integrate it into combat so you need to jump every 10 seconds or be frozen to the ground, or take damage from lava, or to avoid damage from a big glowing circle on the ground... that would add complexity... Every MMO has its own silly gimmicks. Gear swaps was just FFXI's gimmick. A gimmick that built a game with the largest PvE endgame around... until they raised the level cap.