Personal opinion.... I really do like Optimal Rank, I come from an MMO that do not have "required rank" and to be honest I enjoyed it ... I have also played other games with "required rank" and for me it looks kinda "generic" and unreal... its like all the archers lvl 40 are wearing the SAME outfit, all the ranks 50 the same outfit and go on... With optimal rank, u can be a mage wearing armor, or cloth... its all about how u want ur character to be seen. At the end thats what matters...

If someone has issues to see a rank 1 wearing other stuff, then its just "his/hers" issue. After all what I like about FFXIV is this sense of "reality" or at least try to be realistic in some stuff (armory system for example) and I like the FREEDOM of the game. In the end required rank cuts out that freedom.


Still I think the optimal rank should be more "obvious".... but thats not just with optimal rank... thats with everything.. I remember someone said in this forum that to play FFXIV u need to have a friking PHD... or something like "FFXIV is only for smart people" and thats kinda true... 95% is not obvious or self explanatory.. u either need to have some sort of experience with ffxi or at least read ALOT from different sources (lodestone dosent has all the info).

In the end I think the problem wasnt "noobs wearing rank 50 stuff". It was "noobs not knowing that wearing rank 50 stuff was hurting their status instead of actually helping them building a better character". In the end thats because the game is not self explanatory at all... For example every item have this "optimal rank" but it dosent tell u the penalty of how many stats u are loosing for not equiping it when u are under-ranked. Also it would be nice some kind of effect, like showing the name of the item in red, when ur equiping something that its not for ur rank.

I think those two solutions would be a better alternative to just implementing a required rank and cutting a big aspect of FFXIV which is freedom. Freedom to choose ur job, Freedom to change it whenever you want, Freedom to do whatever and to be whatever you want. Freedom to equip whatever you want.
Unfortunatly this last one :P its already cutted down LOL...


Well not that it makes a HUGE difference... after all its just some "items" I just hope they dont start releasing every single item with a required rank system...