Skill-Specific Gear

[Itseotle]

How about instead of skill specific gear which would get replaced, how about Skill Specific Materia that can be bound to any gear? <.< Just make it so each gear can only have 1 of these materia bound to it.

[Renik]

Specific stats are a good thing, and it should be bound to gear, stats bound to gear means more gear choices, less importance to gear tiers and more content to obtain certain gear, i don't mind having to change gears before a battle, the system is too mindless as it is now. having to chose the right gear before a battle adds more deep and strategy.

Also Yoshi said they want to implement it w/o affecting the balance, so i don't think it'll be mandatory in any way.

Your potential problems are just laziness, not real issues.

[NovaUltimatum]

Your potential problems are just laziness, not real issues.

- The large description issue is probably not that major but is more of a system display one, rather than a user not bothering to read one.

- The inventory issue is actually very much a possibility and is actually caused not from being lazy but rather the opposite. Players would actually have to go out of their way to have a full deck of gear/items to accommodate for each situational battle.

[Renik]

- The large description issue is probably not that major but is more of a system display one, rather than a user not bothering to read one.

- The inventory issue is actually very much a possibility and is actually caused not from being lazy but rather the opposite. Players would actually have to go out of their way to have a full deck of gear/items to accommodate for each situational battle.

Yeah and that's what we had to do in previous MMOs, QoL is important but we are getting it to an extreme to the point you're asking for more inventory so you don't have to go back to your home to change your inventory, this may seem normal to you, but these small details will turn this game into an arcade with a big lobby.

Where'd you get the idea I was against it, because I specifically went out of my way at the end of both posts to say I want to see more done with it, and would be happier even if (maybe especially if) it wasn't actually significant, because yes, it does 'feel' better and more interesting. I just, at the end of the day, agree with Yoshida's decision that this shouldn't come at the penalty of overwhelming players with false choice.

Yeah sorry i was reading too fast, wanted to watch the LL, and Yoshi may be right, but in the end it's just another excuse. It will only be a false choice if they make it that way.

Let's say they make a stat that is "shield bash +10" the meaning of that +10 is 1 more second of stun(i assume you know how it works, 4>3>2>1>resist, this would add 1s to every hit with a cap of +15=1.5s), it will be a minor advantage but a skilled pld could use that second to cast a SS or stop a boss after losing hate, or may save his life giving the healer a chance to heal him.

It's just a second, but it can be useful w/o being gamebreaking, and none will expect every pld to have this, and more important i'll fell good.

[Eagleheart]

A combination of minor modifications on certain pieces of weapons and armor, and a customization system utilizing skill-enhancing materia would be a fine idea.

Yoshida said he feared that skill enhancements on equipment would take away player choices in gearing.

Yoshi P, I love you forever, but sir, what choices?

i70: Crafted, Darklight, Darklight Equivalent in Expert
i80: CT gear
i90: Myth, Allagan, Crafted
i100: Weathered Soldiery
i110: Soldiery +1, High Allagan

That is it.

We are not awash in choices, and we are not awash in gear, either. A group farming up to turn 08 will generate six 110s a week among eight players, plus the Oils. Can farm one accessory from Soldiery a week, or most of (but not all of) an i100 primary armor a week.

We do not have a five-star restaurant menu of choices going for us here. Dev Team fears boxing themselves in, but they need to remember two big things:

#1: They are bound only by imagination. This game is their oyster. They can take any crazy number of ideas from these forums, BG, or hell, reddit, or dream up their own. They need not make the modifications excessive or game-breaking, merely interesting. Situational. Remember when stuff was situational? I do. I loved that. o.0

#2: Taking the OP's first concern up, so what if a particular piece of, say, 150 gear is slightly outstripped by a 140 with Brutal Swing: Stun Duration +1s in someone's view? If it is worth it to them, let 'em do what they want. People do this already, utilizing i90 crafted gear to load up on secondaries and using that gear in Coils instead of certain 100s, or even some 110s (though in my opinion, ya gotta be crazy to skip a 110 for crafted breadth of secondaries.) Player choice is not a bad thing, and Spineshatter Dive: potency+50 is not going to annihilate all balance in the game. We already have folks sequence-breaking Coils simply by piling on the damage faster than Dev Team imagined they would, or solo healing turn 9. C'mon.

[Gormogon]

what choices?

stat specific choices you aim for.

Det
Crit
Speed
Balance
Hybrid

It's not amazing choices but they are there. Skill enhancing would be more enticing but the balance around it isn't simple especially if it's on gear since it gets constantly replaced.

[Eagleheart]

stat specific choices you aim for.

Det
Crit
Speed
Balance
Hybrid

It's not amazing choices but they are there. Skill enhancing would be more enticing but the balance around it isn't simple especially if it's on gear since it gets constantly replaced.

Again, what choices?

No, seriously, there are specific builds that are the best for each class already, they were extrapolated and posted literally three hours after 2.2 went live. This point you bring up is further diminished by the existence of that new rotation simulator now available on the internet, with adjustable parameters producing thousands of averaged results of that particular rotation with varying stat sets in seconds, so that the player may optimize even faster. We cannot pretend that there are not BIS or Best Builds.

Additionally, your point about gear constantly being replaced actually cuts down the thrust of your post, which is that further itemization may be game-breaking - how is it game-breaking if it is swiftly replaced? (Also, aren't Balance and Hybrid the same thing?)

There will always be The Best™. Using this as reason to avoid further customization of the stat system is a disservice to everyone involved.

Look at it another way: every piece of gear looks the same. Nothing is unique. Nothing makes you raise an eyebrow and go o.ô {hmmm.} In 2.3, there will be new gear with... lower numbers of the same stats that are on every other piece of gear. Nothing unique. Nothing role-enhancing. Nothing that makes you say "in this situation, I could..."

Nothing that makes a piece of equipment, skill, or a player stand out. We are totally and completely homogenized. o_O This is not a good thing.

With no skill trees and no builds to pursue, there's nothing there to interest people.

[Garlyle]

Yoshida said he feared that skill enhancements on equipment would take away player choices in gearing.

Yoshi P, I love you forever, but sir, what choices?

You're misunderstanding the meaning of choice here.


When you offer a greater variety of effects of choices, it's inevitable that certain ones outstrip others. Consider just for a moment that we're talking about support skills, because in a way, they're equippable. Say every class was only afforded one. What would happen to a Marauder that didn't take Provoke? How would developpers handle the existance of Warriors without Provoke? Do you create content that never involves Tank Swaps, or do you still go ahead with it on the assumption they will have that?

Obviously, gear isn't as significant in terms of its effects - but let's face it, unless it is really significant, it won't satisfy the crowd who're hoping for it. Otherwise it falls into the "tiny number tweaking for min-maxing", which is what we already have. The more variety of significant choice you give players, the more that certain choices prove superior to others; to continue responding to those stronger existances, you end up having to design challenges around that, which means players who don't make that choice lose out. You don't actually get real choice - you get a right choice and a wrong choice. You don't have three choices for iLvl 90 body armor - you have one right choice, and two wrong ones. Nevermind if those three are things like "Water Resist +40" which you'll want for Leviathan EX and another is "Paralysis Null" which you'll want to ease up ADS nonsense, and another is "+15% HP recovered" which you want on for everything else - now you don't have a choice between all three iLvl 90 pieces, you need to get them all. I'm being a bit extreme, but you understand the risks, right?

Players already hate the effects that we do have because they "don't feel significant" - which is a completely fair assesment - but so long as they aren't significant, it really doesn't matter which of the iLvl 90 pieces you use unless you are really, really interested in getting that 5 extra DPS. That's a margin that can be balanced around.

So there's three levels you end up at now:

1. It's all basically the same - the differences are functionally so tiny that the balance doesn't really change much, overall power remains constant and expectable. (We are here)
2. Flavour differences - You have a whole lot of different tasting flavours, but realistically, they're such minor changes you wouldn't ever really notice. There's a lot more variety here, and I think people might overall be happier here, but you still don't have real meaningful variety. (We should probably be here, and I think this is what Yoshida is willing to start looking into based on his answer)
3. Significant differences - What I think a lot of people would like to see, but it runs huge risks of False Choice, forcing players to acquire and carry assloads of situational equipment, being extremely difficult to create content around, and other problems. (Yoshida doesn't want to be here, and going here would be a pretty significant philosophy change for XIV).

[Eagleheart]

You're misunderstanding the meaning of choice here.
~snip~

Because

(A. this is done properly in plenty of other games, by other developers, and I know that XIV Dev Team can do it,
(B. we are talking about skill modifications, not skill additions,
(C. skill additions could also be done if the skills are created in the proper fashion,
(D. by your own admission, this is already occuring, so your argument against further itemization is made moot by your own reasoning,
(E. sating the playerbase with things to build towards / specialities to pursue and spend time upon is not only a good idea to keep their players contented, but it is in fact the way they generate income, and
(F. people are always going to complain. Always. Does not delegitimize the argument for improved itemization.

As a total aside, your argument, and its preface, are total non sequiturs in relation to one another. The body of the text is prefaced with "misunderstanding the meaning of choice", and then proceeds into making the argument that there is no choice at all, which, while appreciated (as it strengthens my case), does not relate to how I am misunderstanding the meaning of "choice". The post is self-contradictory on the whole.

[Garlyle]

The text that you have entered is too long (6217 characters). Please shorten it to 1000 characters long.

goddamnit me

(A. this is done properly in plenty of other games, by other developers, and I know that XIV Dev Team can do it,

I'll say this again later on, but XIV is a very controlled game. It is not the open ended sandbox of many other MMORPGs.

(D. by your own admission, this is already occuring, so your argument against further itemization is made moot by your own reasoning,

Not really. There's still cleanup to do on XIV's system. It isn't perfectly in line with its own philosophy of design - extremely few games are. I've got another note about elemental materia below that illustrates this. This doesn't mean that those are the routes that the designers necessarily want to pursue, and evidence and the logic of Yoshida himself supports that.

(E. sating the playerbase with things to build towards / specialities to pursue and spend time upon is not only a good idea to keep their players contented, but it is in fact the way they generate income, and

If the disposal of elemental skills and the near-disposal of elemental defenses is any indication, this is not the direction the XIV team has gone, or wants to go. What we have is an absolutely minimal amount of tweaking. They want to avoid situations where a player is useless due to a false choice - having grabbed the wrong piece of equipment, being the wrong class, picking the wrong one of x identical skills for a fight, etc. It has probably been taken a little far, and feels dry and unsatisfying as a result, but you didn't need to farm up five otherwise identical weapons to fight each EX Primal with a proper elemental advantage. That's what other MMOs have done, and XIV has said no to that. XIV does not want to put that burden on their players.

(B. we are talking about skill modifications, not skill additions,
(F. people are always going to complain. Always. Does not delegitimize the argument for improved itemization.

I'm aware, and yes, apologies on my part a bit for F for the brief time it was even part of the post. Speaking of, you might want to review the post now that I've got it all down. The fear on Yoshida's part - and understandably so - is that the complaints will turn from "eh, this is a little boring" to a far more serious issue where it is wreaking havoc on the actual playability of the game.

(C. skill additions could also be done if the skills are created in the proper fashion,

That is a balancing nightmare and I don't think you even realise it. Either the skill is an improvement or a new niche, in which case an expectation grows that the players of a class will have it, and the game has to be created around that in turn, and it butts out other options - or the skill is so negligible that in practice it doesn't actually matter. We already can demonstrate this with cross-classing as it currently exists. There is content expecting that Warriors have Provoke. And there is absolutely nothing that expects a Warrior to use Savage Blade. Savage Blade is new, and shiny, but functionally useless on a Warrior, and taking up the spot of something that could be used. Start having gear give skills and this is where you are.

As a total aside, your argument, and its preface, are total non sequiturs in relation to one another. The body of the text is prefaced with "misunderstanding the meaning of choice", and then proceeds into making the argument that there is no choice at all, which, while appreciated (as it strengthens my case), does not relate to how I am misunderstanding the meaning of "choice". The post is self-contradictory on the whole.

No, it's entirely linear. I guess, lemme take another shot at this though.

Yoshida recognises false choice - and that it isn't a choice. When people ask for significant gear differences, believing that it creates choice, Yoshida recognises that when you get too significant, you don't create choice - you lock players into needing very specific gear or gtfo in practice, and thus take away the choice. That's what Yoshida doesn't want to get into. A core aspect of XIV's design to this point has been making an effort to avoid forcing people into false choice situations. There's no elemental wheel because five identical spells, only one of which is actually effective, isn't actually choice, it's a question of right or wrong. They've done their best to try not to force "must have x class or gtfo", and the opposite. They've taken, to this point, a very similar avoidance with gear*

* I'm aware we do still have elemental resistance stuff that contradicts this, especially as it was turned functionally useless. I think in this case it's largely a holdover of 1.0 that they didn't want to get rid of to have players complaining about lost goods and aren't yet sure if they want to try to make these relevant again or just find a good plan to phase them out.

This isn't to say the system's perfect (again, review the post). What Yoshida said in the letter indicates that he's fully aware he's been quite conservative in just how much variance can exist on gear, with the intent of avoiding the situation he worries about - the point at which the illusion of choice in gear becomes not a choice at all. It also indicates they're going to look into seeing if they can introduce more variables without disrupting the system, becuase that would feel better - but everything you introduce is another thing to watch. XIV is a very controlled MMORPG by design, not a character development sandbox.

Right now, we at least have the choice between whether we get our level 90 gear from Myth tomes, or Coil, or EX Primals. It may not feel great, but it's something - and it's more than the scenario he wants to avoid where we either need to get all three to be relevant to different things later, or need to get one specific one because something about it in practice obsoletes the others.

And again, I'm not against more variety in gear effects, and things like minor potency bonuses to skills may very well be the way to go. It CAN be done, and I, like you, want to see it happen. But understand where Yoshida's coming from when he says that highly significant variety - the kind players often request - could very well damage choice, and that's what he wants to avoid. His answer indicates that he's aware they've been too conservative about it and are probably going to experiment and see what they can do.

EDIT: I feel like I near-literally repeated myself like three separate times during this @_@