"Open Style" vs "Rigid Structure" what do you want for the future of FFXIV

[Kiara]

who cares if he can raise the dead? in fact this solves the shout for a raise issue.
Cross class penalties on skills are already in place
65% potency, (damage) and lowere acc
25% increase in recast time
stats do in fact have a large effect on the effectiveness of skills, ie you notice a lrge reduction with virtually no points in the applicable stat.

non favored gear is bad enough to the point of not even being worth a low level favored version usually
sub optimal rank gear takes heavy durability loss, and does not compete with hear within 5 levels of you, sometimes even worse.

there is a lot of misconceptions about how "open" the open style is open. just cause you see a level 22 thaum in level 45 gladiator gear, using red lotus doesnt mean he is comparable to a properly equed thaum using his native skill set.

Hi Physic,

Great points.

I think part of what makes this current system seem so open is just how easy everything is. I've seen so many Guildleve Parties now (with players on their 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. classes going through Leves), where they show up in Non-Optimal Class, and Non-Optimal Rank Gear and Weapons.

You're right in that there's a huge penalty for using Non-Optimal Gear / Weapons (and Tools), but since the system allows you to equip anything anyways, you see people show up in Crafting Gear to Guildleve SP Parties (~_~), sigh.

They may not be anywhere near as effective, but the Leves and SP'ing in general is so easy, that they can get away with showing up in Crafting Gear and as long as they're Leve-Linking, people don't mind.

I think that's one detriment to the current system. I've seen R21 Archers show up with a Crab Bow (>_>) just because they can, I guess. It's their choice, but I wonder if they realize how truncated their damage is?

I've spoken with random players wearing gear 20+ Ranks above them, or wearing gear that wasn't for their class. Some of them were genuinely surprised and didn't realize that they were penalized so heavily.

Without having Party Leaders who monitor or regulate certain rules for a Party, everyone just seems to go with the flow (i.e., no one really seems to mind either way).