Quote Originally Posted by Rubicon View Post
With this logic, let's ask a Level 50 THM what their unofficial "AF" is. A red hat, a purple robe, green gloves, blue pants, and white shoes? Sure if they want the best stats. Or they could try to wear the same color clothes (let's pretend that THMs are meant to be purple) and not have the best stats. Not having ultimate stats doesn't sound very AF-ish to me.

I wish people would quit referring to AF. I seriously doubt classes will even get an AF, as an AF's stats supports a specific role and classes aren't meant to perform one specific role, they can mix and match abilities. Jobs will get AF because players will know what role a job is meant to play and the gear's stats will support that role.
I'm not trying to say that classes are getting artifact armor (whatever that is, I presume it's some FFXI reference, which I never played). I'm also not saying that this is an exact repeat of a previous system from a previous Final Fantasy title.

All I'm trying to say here, is this : color intrinsically has a meaning beyond aesthetics in at least some of the Final Fantasy universe. The development team is building upon this, creating a system in which colors are in some ways associated with stats.

There are many degrees of freedom here.

On one side there are games in which both the color and the appearance have NOTHING to do with stats of gear. In Aion you could wield a fish, or a giant fork, with complete effectiveness. The upcoming game The Secret World (a modern-day conspiracy-type game) completely divorces your gear appearance from your stats. Great. That is one option.

In the middle ground, the physical model of the gear is restricted (i.e. robes for mages, plate for tanks, leather for DD), but the color is completely unrestricted. Lots of people are used to this way of thinking, and so think that it is "right". It's not right per se, just one more option on the design spectrum.

On the other side, both physical model of gear AND color can be restricted. Final Fantasy has a tradition of doing this. It seems to go against the current trend of MMOs, but do all MMOs really have to be the same?

On a side note, SE has clearly made the following color-to-element associations within the game, from day one:

Purple : lightning
White/light blue : ice
Red : Fire
Green : Wind
Tan/Brown : Earth
Blue : Water

Color here DOES matter.

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On a side note, I hope that SE does expand on their selection of armors and colors available within the classes, simply by adding more recipes/options. Given the sheer size of the 1.19 patch, I'm not really surprised that the new recipe selection first released was a bit skimpy, and am looking forward to more gear coming in 1.20.