Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Brian_]

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From a recent interview with Yoshida:

http://gamerescape.com/2016/06/17/e3...naoki-yoshida/

Question: With items, Heavensward is interesting with the diversity in how they look like weapons and equipment. We’re still seeing items however that only have marginal upgrades. Have you given any thought or concerns to diversifying items from a gameplay standpoint like changing how your abilities work or anything like that?

Yoshida: If there were specific items that had that boost or an added ability, we would want a situation where that item needs to be hard to obtain by farming or making the drop rate extremely low and that’s not really productive either. In this game we have people of all skill levels. Different players have the freedom to choose which content they want to play and so the development team wants to make it so that no matter how each player plays the game, they can still end up at the same strength and be on an equal playing field. That’s what we keep in mind when deciding the strength of an item. Adding anything special like stats or abilities on weapons is quite dangerous and so we avoid that kind of situation.

As a preface, I have always been of the mentality that people should be free to do as they wish and act within their individual rights to enjoy the game. But, as they say, “your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.”

In the quote from Yoshida, he is essentially saying that because they must cater to a common denominator, that we cannot have gear with unique and interesting effects. He's saying that despite playing the game in different ways with varying skill, that we should be able to reach the same potential. He's implying that because certain people cannot clear certain content for lack of effort or interest, that he cannot give the content rewards that create an imbalance in character potential.

I'd argue that no matter which direction you go, one side will be hurt. The overarching and unfortunate point comes down to which side you leave behind. And, I'm fully willing to leave behind a certain portion of this player-base if that means we can get more interesting itemization. I sincerely do not think the lack of a certain item will ever hurt a player's experience of the game enough for it to cost you a subscription. On the other hand, boring itemization and the generic gear treadmill has already cost SE at least a few of my friends.

Also, I don't think it's impossible to create a system that features more interesting itemization but doesn't compromise our ability to be selective with the content we challenge or the way we enjoy the game. The common description of World of Warcraft is that they're good at stealing ideas and refining them. In how they've described their new growing weapon system, they've basically ripped off FFXIV's relic weapons and made it into a system that accomplishes varied itemization with content freedom. Think about it -- what if gear in this game accumulated experience from any content we did (PvP, dungeons, raids, etc.) and unlocked unique traits that we could use? What if through the accumulation of tome-stones (which you can obviously get from various content) we could purchase materia that changed our skills when melded?