Required rank on all gear

[Rubicon]

My hope now is back to where it was: End game players will play with end game/NM dropped gear that is easily recognizable as top gear so there is no confusion to whether someone is geared optimally for their rank/job. That and each job has a set of gear that defines them like Artifact Armor did in FFXI. I suppose this is what will happen and I will survive. I know you all were concerned.

[KiniRyris]

Oscillate_Wildly's sig scares me. just sayin lol

[Kraggy]

Forcing people to re-gear every few levels is unacceptable if the old gear can't be sold on without having to find a crafter to repair it: make the NPCs repair to 100% so I can sell my out of date gear then fine, otherwise I certainly won't be letting myself be at the mercy of price-gouging crafters every 5 levels.

[Arduous_Soul]

I agree, I actually hate wearing gear that is over my rank, and whenever I look at the wards there is a complete saturation of higher level gear over the lower ones. Forcing anyone at lower ranks to have no choice but buy the higher ranked gear because of availability and price (because people mark up lower ranked gear due to it being rare).

[Mikita]

The reasons there is a shortage of lower level gear in the market wards is because:

1. There is only a small number of new players coming in to the game overall, so the pool of low rank crafters is small.

2. There is almost no incentive for advanced crafters to make low rank gear to keep the marketplace stocked.


My suggestions:

1. There are NPCs in the middle of the market wards that sell low level gear. Check to see what they sell.

2. Make friends and join a new-player-friendly LS with higher level players who like to help.

3. Ask in public /say or /shout. Use words like "Please" and explain that you are a new player who would really appreciate help in obtaining rank-appropriate gear.

I'd bet that there are some friendly crafters on your server who don't care about gil and will gladly help you.

Good luck. ^^

[Estellios]

The reasons there is a shortage of lower level gear in the market wards is because:

Don't forget the 2 biggest reasons I and any new players can't make a lot of gear: The recipes take waaaay too long to make and a large majority of low level items will need high level parts. Shouting for a crafter doesn't work all the time. It took me about 30 minutes to make a hempen acton someone had asked me to make for their newbie friend.

Also since it seems not many people caught it:

The "all crafted gear will become required-rank" was a miscommunication on the devs' part. They meant that all crafted gear that involves materials that drop from a NM will become required-rank gear (ie: Dodore Doublet, Silver Tricorne, etc)

[Mikita]

Don't forget the 2 biggest reasons I and any new players can't make a lot of gear: The recipes take waaaay too long to make and a large majority of low level items will need high level parts. Shouting for a crafter doesn't work all the time. It took me about 30 minutes to make a hempen acton someone had asked me to make for their newbie friend.

I do see your point and agree that it could turn off many people.

I think the reason of parts rank imbalance is why Square Enix is revising the recipes in 1.19, so that should simplify things for a lot of new players.

I think Square Enix had the idealistic vision of "encouraging" interaction between players to drive the economy and community. That's probably we have a lot of the current systems.
Unfortunately, many people see the "encouragement" as more "forced" or "troublesome" processes.

I applaud you for going through the trouble of making the hempen acton.
Did you make a new acquaintance or even a new friend in the process?

[Aeyis]

Don't forget the 2 biggest reasons I and any new players can't make a lot of gear: The recipes take waaaay too long to make and a large majority of low level items will need high level parts. Shouting for a crafter doesn't work all the time. It took me about 30 minutes to make a hempen acton someone had asked me to make for their newbie friend.

Also since it seems not many people caught it:

The "all crafted gear will become required-rank" was a miscommunication on the devs' part. They meant that all crafted gear that involves materials that drop from a NM will become required-rank gear (ie: Dodore Doublet, Silver Tricorne, etc)

Lets be honest to yourself. It took you 30 minutes to make because quite frankly you didnt have a single piece of grass or hempen yarn on you (what decently ranked weaver does?).
I had to go through the same because of that very reason, not because the subitems took long to ''make''.
Rather because the lowest grade of cloth i had stored was canvas~

Only reason why there arent many low ranked items on the wards is because due to retainer bazaar limits.
They simply wont sell for ''enough'' compared to other items, most of the time, and as such are not worth making.

Also, in my experience its not really strange being unable to make something when your low level at your craft. :P
People seem to forget that apart from being able to craft higher level items when your rank is higher, you also gain a much greater availability of materials~

More on topic: (and a general response, not person specific~)

Optimal rank is awesome for anyone with multiple classes and/or a crafter.

You want a sense of achievement getting that to ''that rank'' so that you can use your awesome equipment?
Guess what, most people already feel that sense of achievement just by obtaining said equipment.
Why wait to be able to equipment just to have another, but more fake sense of achievement?

I've done many dungeons/instances/tough stuff in the past in mmos, and gained a higher level item as a reward.
Frankly all it did was annoy me that i couldnt use it, rather then feeling any sense of achievement when i finally could.
Clearing that dungeon, killing that boss, doing that tough party/solo quest/encounter is what gives you a great sense of achievement, the equipment being its memento.


To give an example, in WoW, when tbc was new i was leveling up my druid first.
At level 68 i managed to tank the botany (sp?), before they took out crushes and all.
It was pretty rough altho fun, and gave me a great sense of achievement.
I believe it was the demon that dropped a staff that my druid could use for tanking, which would have been a nice memento for being able to manage that run at 68.
Except ofc i couldnt use it because it had a level requirement of 70~
When i gained 70 i must say i didnt feel much of anything being able to equip it then, after all the dungeon run that gave me said item was a bit in the past and the novelty of it wasnt quite the same~


The solo purpose of rank requirements is to prevent lower level characters from using items vastly more powerful from anything they could use at their current rank.
Given that currently items are already nerfed under optimal rank (albeit with them being % based its really no big deal for access/crafting equipment) that solo purpose doesnt exist here.

[Estellios]

Actually, I have a ton of hempen yarn that I use to make arrows, so that was not the issue.

If low level crafters could actually make low level gear, they could make stuff for themselves and stuff to sell, it's not rocket science. Once the crafting recipe changes take place that will be possible. As it is now you will usually need high levels for random pieces of parts and other misc stuff and it takes forever if you don't have parts like sleeves/etc already made.

It's one thing to be unable to make high level gear, but when you need this many materials and these many shards to make a piece of rank 1 gear, you can see how new players can get locked out.

[Aeyis]

What and it still took you 30 minutes? xd
Due to the leatherworking component?

You know they arent removing other class requirements tho~