SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[Felis]

Gear swaping could be ok, so long it don't work during combat.

[Fornix]

Modern gamers who rush through content, don't read text, and just focus on progression progression progression end up playing too much due to lack of self-control.

I focus heavily on progression, and play quite a lot. However, none of this has to do with a lack of self-control. Just a matter of time availability. Next to working 46 hours a week, sporting 20 hours a week and sleeping roughly 50 hours a week there's still 52 hours remaining for other stuff to do. And when there's nothing else of interest to fill that time with, FFXIV gets to do it for a sizeable portion. If something else comes by, it's very easy to let FFXIV pass by. And I know numerous players for whom this is very similar.

Not reading text in this game also has nothing to do with simply being progression focussed. I am progression focussed in every game I play, MMO or not. Skipping on text has all to do with the quality of story. And as SE was sending me out as an errand boy for the Sylph still as I was closing in on endgame, it was enough for me. The story in this game has been utter crap straight from the start and all way through to that point, it is very unlikely to get any better beyond that. So I stopped reading.

If SE wants their story to be enticing and worthy enough to read, they should actually have given a damn about it.

[Yhoiryo]

The gear treadmill isn't totally the problem I feel, every mmo has gear that you'll need to grind out to perform better, the problem really lies within the lack of "different" gear.

Basically every job in this game will be the same gear wise save for relic weapons and how people want to spec them, maybe accessories to with materia but that's it. It's very bland as you'll know that once you get all the "best gear" that someone else on the same job as you will have the same set of gear with no difference.

FFXI had the option of having so many choices for gear, certain gear enhanced abilities or shortened cooldowns, raised your elemental defense more, increased your attack speed, increased the number of hits you could put out, ect ect. This way players could build around certain endgame content or for any other thing that they'd want to do, it added interesting variety because players would have varying gear setups even after you had gotten a good amount of endgame gear, and there was plenty of that to go around as well, not just "Oh this 1 set is the best at the moment till the next patch of ilvlxxx gear."

I'd be much happier if instead of adding a higher gear level items SE added same gear level items with different stats that maybe enhanced different abilities or any other thing instead of just slapping on an extra +xx amount of str/vit/dex/int blah blah blah.

[Nalien]

Just give me this and make all gear somewhat relevant, and in turn make the events they come from relevant outside farming tomestones.

[Tsukino]

This is incorrect actually, what FFXI offered (which was far from perfect mind you) was variety in content.

Because gear progression was horizontal and equipment could be swapped in for various abilities etc during battle, content was relevant for much longer than it is here. You could arguably be doing Dynamis, CoP Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, Einherjar, Nyzul Isle, Sky, Sea, HNMs, ZNMs, Campaign, and various small NMs for years because something there would still be usable (this was at 75 cap btw), and yes much of this content was added over YEARS of expansions (While ARR is only a little over a year old, FFXIV is going on 4+ years now)

I don't think anyone wants the horrible and lulz-worthy system that was mid battle gear swapping back, nor do i think you'll find anyone who will argue that gear from 4 years prior should be best in slot for anything (it shouldn't), what people do want however, is more variety in content maybe a branching path of gear options as opposed to a ladder that goes one way.

And yes before someone brings this point up, number-crunchers will always find the numerical BiS for any job given situation and opportunity, this however shouldn't stop the devs from adding a variety of content.

This is all pretty accurate. Note that making lots of content remain relevant not only provides gear variety, but actually provides for content variety, because nothing gets "replaced." All those events listed are mechanically very different from each other and have varying party size requirements, while XIV just has three: 8-man endgame, 24-man catchup raids, and 4-man facerolls for grinding.

Also, XIV's system kind of screws over players in the "middle" of time commitment and progression. People at the top are always ready for the next thing, while the most casual players benefit from the easing of previous content, but there's this place in the middle where you finally complete a set just in time for it to be replaced with another and for what you just got to be made much easier to do. And a lot of people fall into that middle category.

[Duelle]

Just give me this and make all gear somewhat relevant, and in turn make the events they come from relevant outside farming tomestones.

Except you then create inventory issues while forcing people to carry 50 sets of gear. We do not need inventory bloat.

[Nalien]

Except you then create inventory issues while forcing people to carry 50 sets of gear. We do not need inventory bloat.

You Spiritbond the gear and then you do whatever with it, you don't need to carry 50 sets... No inventory issue outside what unique gear (which plenty of people already hold onto for potential Glamours) already creates.

It's exactly the system Final Fantasy IX had, and you didn't carry every single piece of gear that game had now, did you? Once you've unlocked the stat you do away with the gear.

[Duelle]

You Spiritbond the gear and then you do whatever with it, you don't need to carry 50 sets... No inventory issue outside what unique gear (which plenty of people already hold onto for potential Glamours) already creates.

You can store glamour gear on retainers once you've used it. "Unique" stat gear becomes mandatory and create inventory bloat. And devalues any gear without said stats.

[Nalien]

You can store glamour gear on retainers once you've used it. "Unique" stat gear becomes mandatory and create inventory bloat. And devalues any gear without said stats.

How about you actually read the thread I linked? You've clearly missed the part where you Spiritbond the gear and then do not need the gear to have the stats.

tl;dr - Gear gets unique stats like Enhances Ballads again. Upon Spiritbinding that gear, you no longer need to wear the gear for that stat, instead you can set the stat on a new menu option similar to how subclass skills function. Gear gets to be remotely interesting again, without people being stuck in a single piece of gear for the rest of the game because of how useful that stat is. Unlike subclass skills, there would probably be a lot of such stats to unlock and set, adding some much needed character customization to the game.

It doesn't bloat your inventory, because you don't need to carry the gear around. It doesn't devaluate gear, because you can still wear Dreadwyrm Tabard Of Aiming with Enhances Ballads after you've Spiritbond Choral Shirt. No idea what link you read...

[Tsukino]

You can store glamour gear on retainers once you've used it. "Unique" stat gear becomes mandatory and create inventory bloat. And devalues any gear without said stats.

You didn't read his link. They're proposing a system where you "learn" abilities from gear, thus making it valuable to obtain many different pieces of equipment, but you can then get rid of it once you learn its unique ability.