Skill-Specific Gear

[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.

[Naelle]

1.0 af gear had bonuses to job skills and a lot of those bonuses were too good to give up for more stats. I think that's what he's referring to when he says keeping them balanced.

[Eagleheart]

1.0 af gear had bonuses to job skills and a lot of those bonuses were too good to give up for more stats. I think that's what he's referring to when he says keeping them balanced.

Not asserted in that post. What was asserted was that specific choices in skill enhancements would become staples over others, an entirely valid, but different point.

It is then incumbent upon Dev Team to offer good choices to the players. Additionally, the stat system in 1.x was completely different from what we have now, and even doubling the potency of Dragonfire Dive would be not particularly game-breaking, as it is on a three minute recast. An addition of 240 potency over the span of three minutes is... very minor, in the grand scheme of things. Maybe awesome for speed runs for Mythos, elsewise just a fun little tidbit.

o.0 Still not furthering the case against improved itemization.

[Adrian74]

NO to improve the skills using gear... I'm already tired of gear progression...

YES to this idea: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ills-or-traits.

(I thought I alread put this message here... Maybe got deleted or just got an error when puting it?... Uh, anyways)

[Eagleheart]

NO to improve the skills using gear... I'm already tired of gear progression...

YES to this idea: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ills-or-traits.

(I thought I alread put this message here... Maybe got deleted or just got an error when puting it?... Uh, anyways)

Why must they be mutually exclusive? O_o

[Barboron]

Skill enhancing materia over skill enhancing gear.

This was my first thought while watching it on Tuesday. Although would that mean that people would still be forced/required then to get crafted gear? Perhaps some of the coil/tome gear could have these stats and make them materia enhanced also so you can go either way.

NO to improve the skills using gear... I'm already tired of gear progression...

YES to this idea: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ills-or-traits.

NO to this idea

YES to this idea: Leave it as it is

[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 @_@

[Gormogon]

This was my first thought while watching it on Tuesday. Although would that mean that people would still be forced/required then to get crafted gear? Perhaps some of the coil/tome gear could have these stats and make them materia enhanced also so you can go either way.

Well I agree there should be options. It shouldn't be gated behind just Crafters and AH since that wouldn't be fair.

[Nahara]

Although the idea of introducing gears with skill-specific stats is enticing, a lot of thought and planning would need to go into it first to ensure balance is maintained.

He said this as well during the English live letter; I was annotating the letter for my friends who couldn't watch it and I remember this as being part of the answer he gave.

[Garlyle]

He said this as well during the English live letter; I was annotating the letter for my friends who couldn't watch it and I remember this as being part of the answer he gave.

Thanks for digging up the quote.