Question: What is the point of gear sets?

[Kalise]

Basically, with ShB, Tanks are getting not trash accessories so all items will now have capped Primary Stats on and Primary Stat materia are being removed.

This leads to the thought... What is the actual point of gear sets? Like, already they're of limited actual relevance due to 99.99% of items being Primary Stat capped anyway *Cough*Fending Accessories*Cough*

But... With the complete removal of Primary Stats from the equation, there's no point in actually having the 4 different Primary stats (Outside of gimping Physick on Summoner) making there be little point to have the different sets.

Literally the only thing about the sets that will actually matter is that Fending/Maiming stuff will have slightly higher Defence on and Fending/Healing stuff doesn't naturally have Direct Hit on (While being able to have Tenacity/Piety instead)

But honestly... Couldn't that be adjusted in alternate ways too? Such as tying the extra Defence to the Tank Trait (Which is where they're getting their extra HP from instead of extra VIT) or even just scaling items based on the job you're on (Kind of like how the Aetheryte Earrings change what stats they give based on your jobs role)

Like... The only thing I can think of to actually keep gear sets around instead of just you know... Removing the different Primary Stats and simply letting people figure out what items they want based on their secondary stats... Is that comment about "Wanting players to be able to easily tell what job you're playing" via locked Glamour options (Which is a really weak excuse when you remember that you can literally Glamour any job into wearing regular clothes/bikinis/chocobo suits etc. With job identification literally only coming down to weapon usage (Outside of SCH/SMN because outside of relics their weapons are identical))

I don't know. It just seems like they're needlessly complicating things by having to add so many different types of gear in each category to have different secondary stats on when there's little actual point of doing so. Since you can simply just reduce things down given that Primary Stats are essentially non-existent (While also then freeing up people to have more freedom to glamour )

[Hezkezl]

To reverse your line of reasoning... you're saying that the only purpose of having gear sets, was so that you could add Primary Stat materia to it because there was uncapped Primary Stats on that gear?

[Kalise]

To reverse your line of reasoning... you're saying that the only purpose of having gear sets, was so that you could add Primary Stat materia to it because there was uncapped Primary Stats on that gear?

Pretty much.

That and pre-Aetheryte Earrings they hadn't shown the capability to easily adjust certain aspects of gear (I.e. Defence) as well as pre-Media Tour details for ShB they hadn't shown they could adjust stat scaling to alleviate things like Fending having extra VIT compared to other gear.

With the above things showing that they can bypass the major differences between gear, the only other thing that was relevant was looking for the specific materia to bump up the right Primary Stat for your job.

Essentially, the 3 major things about the different sets are:

* Primary Stats (In the case where they weren't capped and you needed specific materia to address that)

* Defences (I.e. Fending having higher than other sets, with some other differences like Casters/Healers having slightly higher Mag defence compared to Scouting/Aiming whom had higher Phys defence)

* Vitality (Specifically, Fending stuff often had more Vitality on to give them more HP than other jobs)

They've addressed one of the above aspects (Vitality) with ShB. They have the tools available to remove the other 2 due to one of them being made irrelevant (Different Primary Stats) and the other being easily role scaled like with another item they have in the game (If not addressed via Trait like with Vitality)

[ArcaneDisgea]

Pretty much.

That and pre-Aetheryte Earrings they hadn't shown the capability to easily adjust certain aspects of gear (I.e. Defence) as well as pre-Media Tour details for ShB they hadn't shown they could adjust stat scaling to alleviate things like Fending having extra VIT compared to other gear.

With the above things showing that they can bypass the major differences between gear, the only other thing that was relevant was looking for the specific materia to bump up the right Primary Stat for your job.

Essentially, the 3 major things about the different sets are:

* Primary Stats (In the case where they weren't capped and you needed specific materia to address that)

* Defences (I.e. Fending having higher than other sets, with some other differences like Casters/Healers having slightly higher Mag defence compared to Scouting/Aiming whom had higher Phys defence)

* Vitality (Specifically, Fending stuff often had more Vitality on to give them more HP than other jobs)

They've addressed one of the above aspects (Vitality) with ShB. They have the tools available to remove the other 2 due to one of them being made irrelevant (Different Primary Stats) and the other being easily role scaled like with another item they have in the game (If not addressed via Trait like with Vitality)

Oh man I forgot they are removing secondary stats too. I second this why have gear sets and since stats are capped anyways lets remove materia slots unless they have intentions to give us back PVP materia(stun resistance, sleep resistance, etc) for PVE use.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Let's take it a step further: no more gear. You just get a basic AF appearance, and your power scales based on level. And you get more levels after max, which let's you do more damage to higher level enemies and raid bosses. Actually, let's just remove damage too, since it just goes up with level. Just make enemies take a % reduction from 100 per hit, with decimal places.



But for real, the sets all have varying secondary stats. Main Stat melding never had a point unless you were a tank for str, and then only in 4.x, or if you had nq gear, which you should never have had anyway.

[Edax]

Let's take it a step further: no more gear.

For real through, that would be an excellent way of removing that awful gear treadmill in-between expansions.

[Kazrah]

But honestly... Couldn't that be adjusted in alternate ways too? Such as tying the extra Defence to the Tank Trait (Which is where they're getting their extra HP from instead of extra VIT) or even just scaling items based on the job you're on (Kind of like how the Aetheryte Earrings change what stats they give based on your jobs role)

Like... The only thing I can think of to actually keep gear sets around instead of just you know... Removing the different Primary Stats and simply letting people figure out what items they want based on their secondary stats...

As one great programming philosopher once said, "if you make something 'idiotproof', then someone will just build a bigger idiot". There's a reason why SB leveling sets for crafters and gatherers are locked to them rather than having the "all classes" tag on them like before: because people are stupid. Not only did you have the "spiritbonders" in various roulette content (usually Main Scenario) bringing groups down because they wanted materia, but you also had people with crafting and gathering gear equipped for jobs in dungeons just because they genuinely didn't know better.

To answer the question, there are probably a couple of reasons. Role fantasy and identity, QoL for newer or more inexperienced players, some excuse about using multiple glamours for other roles to prolong their usage like the gear from the Sirensong Sea dungeon, but I think the biggest two are loot conditions and base-level coding (as in a 1.0 leftover like base classes) that doesn't have any extreme reason to be changed.

While I do agree that some accessories could potentially be adjusted if there's no primary stat on them except for Fending ones, having primary stats on armor provides a more visible way for the player to increase the power of their character without always having to resort to some arcane theorycrafting min/maxing guide. Then again, I think I'd much rather wait for the expansion to come out to actually question or critique stat stuff.

[linay]

Gear sets also exist for loot distribution. Rather than everyone needing for that shaft, only tanks need to worry about fending and Dragoon for maiming, etc.

[Kalise]

But for real, the sets all have varying secondary stats.

But, outside of Tenacity (On Fending gear), Piety (On Healing gear) and Direct Hit (Absent from Fending/Healing gear) that's not really a reason to have different sets.

Especially when all jobs have the same stat priorities based around Crit/DH/Det/SkS/SpS with Tenacity and Piety not being wanted...

If you simply just had items with different secondary stats. People would then just pick the items with the optimal secondary stats.

Essentially, meaning that they wouldn't end up having to design say, several different Fending helmets all with different secondary stats to make getting BiS gear require getting items from multiple different sources (I.e. Raids, Tomes, Eureka, Crafting) to try and get secondary stats to align (With then mathing out whether the Primary Stat gain from a higher ilevel item is worth the loss of several hundred of a optimal stat in favour of a less optimal stat)

Someone could more easily gear up with their optimal stats via a single route. By just choosing the higher level item with stats they want on it.

While I do agree that some accessories could potentially be adjusted if there's no primary stat on them except for Fending ones, having primary stats on armor provides a more visible way for the player to increase the power of their character without always having to resort to some arcane theorycrafting min/maxing guide.

Note that I've not actually said to remove Primary Stats altogether. Just to remove the 4 different ones.

I.e. Consolidate them all down to a singular Primary Stat. Since that is essentially what they are given that they're all identical and all maxxed out with the only thing that was in any way relevant to them being different (Materia) being removed.

Alternatively, you can remove sets by simply doing an Aetheryte Earring and having items swap Primary Stat based on what job you are.

The result would being that they could continue to make Glamour sets. Such as having a bunch of Plate armour, Medium armour, Light armour and Robes.

Just that these Glamours wouldn't be restricted to certain jobs with the items themselves merely being differentiated by the secondary stats they have on them (I.e. They could still make it so that Tenacity is still found on the heavy Plate armour glamour sets and Piety is found on the Robes. Just, Tanks/Healers won't be forced to wear these items if they want an ilevel increase but don't want those stats, in favour of items that have say, Crit or Det on)

[kidalutz]

I think its to extend the contents viability with those items being needed that said.. if they would lower the bloody things to two each or even better one each for all of them I think it would make that entire process less tedious. as anyone whos ever healed past midnight can attest