Legitimate reasons why many of you do NOT like Gear Swapping

[Roaran]

Gear Swapping is common in RPGs.

I need a logically sound argument as to why you do not want gear swapping.

Someone said, "it promotes elitism".

I say gear swapping is beneficial for SE, the worlds' economies, and game play.


BTW Mages can gear swap, melee can't. You have a flaw SE. Fix it and give us gear swapping in ACTIVE mode.

It's fairly simple really, and the developers already answered this long ago.

Their choice was between allowing gear swaps or not. The simple difference in this choice was in when the decision of what gear to use should be made. The developers already stated they wanted this choice to be made before the battle.

Personally, I do not see gear swap macros as a viable game mechanic. If this was FFXI, where combat was necessarily simple and required very little input or movement, then I could see there being a place for gear swap macros. However, this is FFXIV, where the pace of battle is significantly faster and requires far more inputs from the player. There eventually comes a limit to what a human can possibly macro; so, with every increase in inputs, we eventually get closer to a point where we will no longer be able to add battle mechanics. Implementing Gear swaps eventually comes at a cost to the faster paced battles. Battles like Ifrit probably have to be adjusted.

I also wonder whether gear swaps are even worth the time it takes to switch the gear back and forth. Would you really be able to get any gains at all?

[StateAlchemist]

It's fairly simple really, and the developers already answered this long ago.

Their choice was between allowing gear swaps or not. The simple difference in this choice was in when the decision of what gear to use should be made. The developers already stated they wanted this choice to be made before the battle.

Personally, I do not see gear swap macros as a viable game mechanic. If this was FFXI, where combat was necessarily simple and required very little input or movement, then I could see there being a place for gear swap macros. However, this is FFXIV, where the pace of battle is significantly faster and requires far more inputs from the player. There eventually comes a limit to what a human can possibly macro; so, with every increase in inputs, we eventually get closer to a point where we will no longer be able to add battle mechanics. Implementing Gear swaps eventually comes at a cost to the faster paced battles. Battles like Ifrit probably have to be adjusted.

I also wonder whether gear swaps are even worth the time it takes to switch the gear back and forth. Would you really be able to get any gains at all?

Biggest difference you would see is from WHM and BLM currently (however even though we CAN viably gear-swap since we can stay in passive mode it takes TOO LONG) In princess fight I can have fire magic+++ when i go to cast flare i can swap to mag acc PIE, when i go to convert i can swap out for HP++++ gear...same for whm, when whm cures it can stay in hmp gear, soon as they go to rebuff, change to VIT+++ and enhancement magic pot+++ its not like you would be binking all fing fight...

[Andrien]

Personally, I do not see gear swap macros as a viable game mechanic. If this was FFXI, where combat was necessarily simple and required very little input or movement, then I could see there being a place for gear swap macros. However, this is FFXIV, where the pace of battle is significantly faster and requires far more inputs from the player. There eventually comes a limit to what a human can possibly macro; so, with every increase in inputs, we eventually get closer to a point where we will no longer be able to add battle mechanics. Implementing Gear swaps eventually comes at a cost to the faster paced battles. Battles like Ifrit probably have to be adjusted.

QFT

I just hope people understand this, because it seems common sense is so rare it might be considered a super power now.

[Gidonoidon_Sur]

I am pro gear swaps. It really allows you to make separate builds (str, def, acc, tp, -pdt, etc) and max your character to the situation. Promotes horizontal progression, and extends the life (and value) of existing content. If one piece is best in slot what is the purpose of all the other pieces in that slot? Some might say that is what materia is for. Maybe in theory, but unfortunately, not practice.

[Cendres]

Could materia be improved then so it could take the place of gear swaps?

[Zantetsuken]

Could materia be improved then so it could take the place of gear swaps?

You might be on to something...

[StateAlchemist]

You might be on to something...

Hell yes it could! They could allow all materia to be melded to all slots with say a reduced effect except on its primary slot. But SE can't seem to think that far out of the box. It might not make the problem go away but it would allow a lot more fine tuning to gear.

[Molly_Millions]

I am pro gear swaps. It really allows you to make separate builds (str, def, acc, tp, -pdt, etc) and max your character to the situation.

we can do this now, so gear swapping adds what exactly?

Promotes horizontal progression, and extends the life (and value) of existing content.

like it or not, so does the current low drop rate on most of the good gear.

If one piece is best in slot what is the purpose of all the other pieces in that slot?

a different build for that class silly, see your own comment above. the difference here is when you have to make the descision, before battle, or not at all and just bring all your gear. I'll take the more difficult and strategic decision of before battle thanks.

Some might say that is what materia is for. Maybe in theory, but unfortunately, not practice.

We just got some materia reforms, there is reason to believe that SE is not done in that regard.

[Griss]

1) Leads to Gear and inventory bloat.
1a) Allows for the creation of hyper specialized items that are only good for fractions of a second.

2) Engine limitations.

Have you ever changed a piece of gear and then be rooted to that spot for what feels like an eternity while the game re-renders your character? Its annoying when you are in the field or in town. It would be deadly in battle, specifically in the type of content that gear swaps would see there lion share of use. That alone puts the kybosh on this until the magic 2.0 fix. This game is still very much about movement and some small bit of player skill in avoiding things.


3) I really don't want to have to go to the lengths that I did for xi with this crap. To be considered any where near decent in xi you HAD to do it. You had to either fill your macro slots with Gear swaps or use widower in order to facilitate running swap scripts. You had to fill your inventory full of hyper situational stuff.

[Klive]

Gear swapping is a relic of FF11. Other MMOs have had it but normally they put in a way to stop it. Even WoW had gear swapping. Warrior, in vanilla WoW, would dual wield weapons for fast rage generation and abuse of miss mechanics so they could use an ability called overpower. Then swap to the slowest hardest hitting axe to use overpower and attack skills, making tthem hit hard and fast at the same time.

This is called min/maxing. This is abusing game mechanics to minimize weakness while maximizing strengths. This makes gear impossible to balance. For example, Devs make a weapon to hit hard but really slow, so we use a high speed weapon to build TP and then swap to heavy hitting weapon to do a weapon skill for max damage. This removes the weakness of the slow weapon and the weakness of the fast weapon, you get the best of both worlds. You can get you cake and eat it too! This is not a great game 'mechanic' nor should it be encouraged.

I'm glad many FF11 people enjoyed being able to min/max with gear swapping before, but that doesn't mean we should have it now. The key arguments for gear swapping are it was in FF11 and was fun, add new elements to gear. Really it just makes you have all strengths and no weakness. You get to have a perfect character. The strength of fast weapons and hard hitting weapon at the same time. You can have the strengths of maxed healing gear and maxed enhancement gear. High physical and magical defense! All hard choices are non-existent, because you can have BOTH!!

In short, you want a system where you can have everything.