Required Class/Rank failed - Can we have Optimal Rank and Favoured Class back?

[Answa]

How is it "the hard way out" when the dev team placed restrictions on items instead of trying to predict future problems and counter those intelligently without resorting to restrictions? Restrictions are just simplifications to make the dev teams life easier, but make the game harder and more convoluted for everyone else.

It's not a revamp either. Unless in whatever language you're speaking revamp=worse.

This is, once again, subjective.

Bottom line:

Is having restrictions hard to understand? No.

Is the optimal system confusing/unnecessary? Yes.

Trim the fat, concentrate on what matters. Mix that in with Materia, you have more customization and flexibility on your stats. And you know what stats you're getting.

And, for the record, the current UI doesn't tell you the downgrade from wearing so-called "optimal" gear outside of its "favors" and "optimal", it just tell you the difference between your stats now and how the gear will change them.

[Oscillate_Wildly]

I wish it was a little more flexible. Hard restrictions are ridiculous right now. On a personal level I didn't care what anyone else was wearing. It was crafted gear, it wasn't as though they slaved a week over ifrit or darkhold over them. Instance/boss gear though should have restrictions, anything special.

Besides there are obvious penalties now for equipping even the older gear. Why not build upon the current system and revamp the penalties to wearing gear outside your favoured/optimal class/level? >: No spirit binding, to slow spirit binding at half, and full at optimal+.

Again though these views end at crafted gear, and are only for crafted gear. I'm about 16k away from being able to equip a tiara I'd like to turn into Materia, I'd take a hit to the speed of that spirit bind gain if it meant I could get a small head start on it.

It worked because it was flexible. And it didn't hurt anyone because it was aesthetics. Class is irrelevant if you have all at 50 anyway. I'm sorry that this bothers people so much that it had to hinder a perfectly decent crafted gear system.

[ellohwell]

This is, once again, subjective.

Bottom line:

Is having restrictions hard to understand? No.

Is the optimal system confusing/unnecessary? Yes.

It's the other way around.

Restrictions are confusing, unrealistic, illogical, time-consuming, inconvenient, unintuitive, frustrating, anti-RP...

The optimal system was the less confusing of the two systems, and accommodated the other systems in the game perfectly.

[Answa]

I wish it was a little more flexible. Hard restrictions are ridiculous right now. On a personal level I didn't care what anyone else was wearing. It was crafted gear, it wasn't as though they slaved a week over ifrit or darkhold over them. Instance/boss gear though should have restrictions, anything special.

Besides there are obvious penalties now for equipping even the older gear. Why not build upon the current system and revamp the penalties to wearing gear outside your favoured/optimal class/level? >: No spirit binding, to slow spirit binding at half, and full at optimal+.

Again though these views end at crafted gear, and are only for crafted gear. I'm about 16k away from being able to equip a tiara I'd like to turn into Materia, I'd take a hit to the speed of that spirit bind gain if it meant I could get a small head start on it.

It worked because it was flexible. And it didn't hurt anyone because it was aesthetics. Class is irrelevant if you have all at 50 anyway. I'm sorry that this bothers people so much that it had to hinder a perfectly decent crafted gear system.

The aesthetics angle is easy to overcome: dated gear is still there and is not going to be deleted, and for now you can still craft them. The dev team just thinks we'll see the futility of still having it around ourselves and Materia it.

It's the other way around.

Restrictions are confusing, unrealistic, illogical, time-consuming, inconvenient, unintuitive, frustrating, anti-RP...

The optimal system was the less confusing of the two systems, and accommodated the other systems in the game perfectly.

Please justify all of your adjectives. I see nothing confusing, unrealistic, illogical, unintuitive, or frustrating about it.

Time-consuming? Meh. It doesn't take 4 million steps to synthesize.

Inconvenient? Meh. Level one class at a time.

[whoopeeragon]

I have no qualms about either system really. They work for what they intended; but please do not use the word failed, when both are equally good for their purposes. Both systems serve a different purpose for roles; with classes more defined around a given role, it should also make sense for gear to be defined according to that certain role. -cant really explain that well on a phone. So that's my thoughts in a nutshell. >.<-

[Jennestia]

I think the real problem is people believe MMOs are sandboxes and restrictions or requirements = bad. No, SE didn't take the easy way out instead of balancing around a bad system, they turned it into a system that's been in MMOs, let alone RPGs, for decades.

I can promise that if I go into another MMO at this point in time I won't be able to wear gear tailored to Mages as a Ranged DD or some type of Warrior.

I can also promise that it won't allow me to wear gear because:

A. I don't have the stats to
or
B. I'm not of level.

Allowing "absolute freedom" can't be balanced, no matter how badly people wish to think it can be -- It just can't be. They could have balanced the scaling, but then what's the purpose of levels? Why even attach levels to gear? Why even have different classes at all?

[Wynn]

Inconvenient? Meh. Level one class at a time.

Doesn't this go against the whole basis of the game though? It is intended for us to level multiple classes concurrently.

[Wynn]

I think the real problem is people believe MMOs are sandboxes and restrictions or requirements = bad. No, SE didn't take the easy way out instead of balancing around a bad system, they turned it into a system that's been in MMOs, let alone RPGs, for decades.

I can promise that if I go into another MMO at this point in time I won't be able to wear gear tailored to Mages as a Ranged DD or some type of Warrior.

I can also promise that it won't allow me to wear gear because:

A. I don't have the stats to
or
B. I'm not of level.

Allowing "absolute freedom" can't be balanced, no matter how badly people wish to think it can be -- It just can't be. They could have balanced the scaling, but then what's the purpose of levels? Why even attach levels to gear? Why even have different classes at all?

Thank you for the hyperbole.

Doing something just because it has always been done is stagnation. Nothing would ever be innovated if everyone had that attitude. The old system could have worked, just like many of the things in the old game, had this game had even half a chance to fully flesh out these concepts before it was pushed out of the nest by corporate suits.

[Oscillate_Wildly]

The aesthetics angle is easy to overcome: dated gear is still there and is not going to be deleted, and for now you can still craft them. The dev team just thinks we'll see the futility of still having it around ourselves and Materia it.

I'm keeping a lot of mine for the appeal they hold. Sure the stats are bonkers right now and useless but at least I'm equipped until I hit 50 again.
At the very least, if not rank, then I'd rather see favoured classes make a return and make it so equipping an item on any other class but favoured is just as good as being nude, whether it has materia or not. That's balanced to a degree.

Because I don't think that a level 2 marauder should be wearing level 48 skirts etc. Not effectively or anything. But as we can change classes so often making the bulk of crafted gear restricted to specific classes is frustrating. Necessary or not is a subjective opinion, that I'm sure we could agree. There are lots of frivolous requests from both sides and it is a visual interactive experience, you cannot blame a person for wanting to experience it a certain way for purely aesthetics. I suppose you could argue compromise was made with undyed gear, but since that too is also going out the window who knows. :/

I just hate being unable to equip certain pieces for fun unless they're dated even if I match level in that class while on another.
Oh well.

[Answa]

I'm keeping a lot of mine for the appeal they hold. Sure the stats are bonkers right now and useless but at least I'm equipped until I hit 50 again.
At the very least, if not rank, then I'd rather see favoured classes make a return and make it so equipping an item on any other class but favoured is just as good as being nude, whether it has materia or not. That's balanced to a degree.

Because I don't think that a level 2 marauder should be wearing level 48 skirts etc. Not effectively or anything. But as we can change classes so often making the bulk of crafted gear restricted to specific classes is frustrating. Necessary or not is a subjective opinion, that I'm sure we could agree. There are lots of frivolous requests from both sides and it is a visual interactive experience, you cannot blame a person for wanting to experience it a certain way for purely aesthetics. I suppose you could argue compromise was made with undyed gear, but since that too is also going out the window who knows. :/

I just hate being unable to equip certain pieces for fun unless they're dated even if I match level in that class while on another.
Oh well.

What do you mean about undyed gear? Yoshi stated he wanted to have a whole palate of colored-dyes that would not at all affect stats, but at the moment that's hard to implement due to textures (please don't ask me what that means, I'm a Chemistry nerd, not a computer graphics nerd).

Hey, I get you. Though I don't think the same way, I get it. I just think there are currently more important things to address, and the RP community is a minority, so sadly it will be catered to the least.