I just don't get it.

[Welsper59]

I'm not even advocating that they slow down on releasing gear really, just saying that it's not necessary for every other patch to include definite upgrades for every single slot on every single job. Of course, you really could get by with less gear added overall. I never quite understood the very rigid gear set structure that they use, but I suppose it's just another layer of accessibility (ie. as a tank everything 'of fending' is for me, and maybe some 'of slaying' stuff sometimes, and nothing else ever).

At this point in the game, at least until they give a HUGE heads up on revamping the system, it is absolutely mandatory that they keep going up on the ilvl. The players, unbeknownst to themselves, have an expectation in regards to content and reward. We want content to be harder and give us worthwhile rewards. No ones going to find it worth their time and effort to run through Savage just so that their a drop from it might offer a better ratio of a secondary stat for one job, while the rest might get something worse or just outright pointless.

Ignoring the fact that FFXI was not gear-locked in combat, the only reason XI got away with so much diversity with gear was because of how situational each piece was. If you were trying to be good at the game, you didn't stick to your WS set while you were trying to TP build. You didn't leave your Fast Cast gear on by mid-cast. No, you would macro a switch of gear to benefit from the wide array of stats that benefit you. In other words, that gear you macro generally sees action for a second or two when you do something related to it. Sometimes, you wouldn't even see it on your character by the time it swaps out lol. Not exactly material to be "cherished" outside of the numbers it represents.

We don't have anything like that because this game is not designed to handle that. Even if they did introduce side gear to remove that definitive upgrade next patch, absolutely no one with any sense of logic would find it to be truly worth their time if it were locked behind something like Savage. They would have to literally redo the entire stat system in order to introduce worthwhile side gear options. Even then, it'll come down to a singular BiS system without the ability to swap gear mid-combat. So along with that, they'd have to redo it so that we'd be playing FFXI, basically. WoW had a wide array of fun/useful/useless stats on their gear, but just like here, it came down to one BiS set. Alternative gearing only existed outside of endgame there, which is why FFXI essentially perfected horizontal gear progression.

If what you meant was that the upgrades were miniscule, then that absolutely would not work with the current system. If 6 months for the next tier of max ilvl isn't long enough to cherish your gear, then what realistically is? Why would anyone bother spending their time doing new content enough to last until the next cycle, when the difference with the new and old stuff is negligible?

Edit: This got cut off and its a rather important part to the tone of this lol. If what you were saying was encompassing your mention of adding interesting stats in order to keep gear relevant, then yeah, I totally agree obviously. It's just that based on the way you were arguing the subject, it sounds like you were looking at one being separable from the other, which is something I don't agree with.