Waist items gone, where's the gil I spent on them?

[Myrany]

I don't.

But I still check the important news postings and lodestone articles, actually read patch notes, etc.

OP just wants to whine. If they can't be bothered to read notices as posted, then there's literally no way devs could've appeased. They'd be dismissing in-game notices all the same because "blah blah spam let me play."

It's an actively running MMO. Things change. Either keep yourself informed or be ready for surprises.

I knew about the change months before it happened. I have a friend who's main gig in the game is crafting and honest right up until a week before patch he was insisting on making new belts for me because I had out leveled the old ones. Didn't matter how much I argued I wouldn't be on much or level much before they became useless. LOL

Even so I did remove materia and desynth the one I was not wearing before the patch. Otherwise they would have sat on the calamity salvager until the next umbral era before I remembered to go get them and desynth.

[PastelPirate]

I don't follow fanfest because I don't have the bandwidth to stream things like that. My ping to the game servers is usually in excess of 300 m/s, I can barely play the game, and in dungeons, I die frequently because aoe's etc hit me, before I even see them. As I said before, my internet is so bad I can't even stream a video off YouTube at it's lowest settings. Don't say "get better internet"", there is none available where I live that is affordable on a small fixed income. Sure I could spend $200 a month for satellite, and possibly get better speeds, but that is literally 1/4 of my monthly income, and is not affordable. I will also mention, that my address, isn't an address. It's a po box, and I live in the mountains on undeveloped property of a family member in an rv that is 30+ years old. Wanna know how long it took to load this page? More than 8 seconds. I.E. Slow, so I generally don't spend time reading things. Admittedly, my lack of knowledge is my fault, but there are extenuating circumstances, and reasons why I rarely stay up-0 to date on the latest breaking news. Wanna know how long it took me to download Endwalker? 11 days. Think that through. Have a nice day.

yes, I just finished downloading endwalker.

[Bixillarla]

So you're wilfully ignorant and complaining that you don't know stuff.

Who plays this game and doesn't follow fanfest?

Even if you were justified in being this ignorant, this is a non issue. All of your "expendive belts" would have becone redundant with the release of Endwalker anyway, just like all other gear.

I dont follow fanfest but I do check the news and read patch notes before patches. Believe it or not you can play a game and be into fanfest, live letters, vidoes, etc. I do not do any of that but I do read the news on the launcher and check patch notes.

[Seraphor]

I don't follow fanfest because I don't have the bandwidth to stream things like that. My ping to the game servers is usually in excess of 300 m/s, I can barely play the game, and in dungeons, I die frequently because aoe's etc hit me, before I even see them. As I said before, my internet is so bad I can't even stream a video off YouTube at it's lowest settings. Don't say "get better internet"", there is none available where I live that is affordable on a small fixed income. Sure I could spend $200 a month for satellite, and possibly get better speeds, but that is literally 1/4 of my monthly income, and is not affordable. I will also mention, that my address, isn't an address. It's a po box, and I live in the mountains on undeveloped property of a family member in an rv that is 30+ years old. Wanna know how long it took to load this page? More than 8 seconds. I.E. Slow, so I generally don't spend time reading things. Admittedly, my lack of knowledge is my fault, but there are extenuating circumstances, and reasons why I rarely stay up-0 to date on the latest breaking news. Wanna know how long it took me to download Endwalker? 11 days. Think that through. Have a nice day.

yes, I just finished downloading endwalker.

So why would you spend 100k gil on paper equipment you're just going to outlevel and then complain about it?
Youre not playing in a way that necessitates BiS gear, and even if you were, you'd know it's always completely redundant by the next patch anyway.
Buying gear is always a waste of gil, unless it's for glam, which belts weren't.

[PastelPirate]

Primarily, because I wanted all my gear to match. It's kinda a spectrum thing. It bugged me to have gear that wasn't the same type, ie Exarch etc. Probably not understandable to anyone that doesn't deal with autism, but little things like a belt being neo-ishgardian when everything else is Exarch, is like a festering wound. Now that I have been caught flat footed by this game change, and being told it was mentioned repeatedly, I have a new festering wound. Now I have to read everything, every update, every patch note, etc that I can get my hands on from this point forwards. If you understand what that entails, then you'll understand that now, I have no choice. I have to do it. And I don't find that type of forced need (by me, not SE) thing enjoyable, I find it as a punishment.

[tdb]

Primarily, because I wanted all my gear to match. It's kinda a spectrum thing. It bugged me to have gear that wasn't the same type, ie Exarch etc. Probably not understandable to anyone that doesn't deal with autism, but little things like a belt being neo-ishgardian when everything else is Exarch, is like a festering wound.

Fair enough. I don't know how bad your OCD is and if you're able to rationalize your way around it, but tell me, what would you have done with your belt if you had been directly told that the belt slot would go away? Unless you've been using it exclusively for social purposes, it was bound to you, so you couldn't have sold it to anyone else before the patch to recoup the cost. Close to the patch it's unlikely anyone would have wanted to buy a soon-to-be-obsolete item anyway.

[PyurBlue]

And I don't find that type of forced need (by me, not SE) thing enjoyable, I find it as a punishment.

There is no forced need here, this is the nature of this game and many games in this genre. Belts were removed to help the game run more smoothly given the huge influx of players. The change wasn't made without a reason. If following news about the game is too much for you, it might be better to look for more slowly evolving games. I'm saying that as genuine advice.

Besides, the removal of belts at a new expansion isn't really a big deal. All of your belts would have been rendered more or less useless anyway, as has been the case every expansion release.

[Brightamethyst]

Now that I have been caught flat footed by this game change, and being told it was mentioned repeatedly, I have a new festering wound. Now I have to read everything, every update, every patch note, etc that I can get my hands on from this point forwards. If you understand what that entails, then you'll understand that now, I have no choice. I have to do it. And I don't find that type of forced need (by me, not SE) thing enjoyable, I find it as a punishment.

No one is suggesting checking the Lodestone every day and reading every single article -most are just generic maintenance announcements anyway- but why wold you NOT read the patch notes (which are always on the giant banner on the launcher)? Telling you what's new and changing in the patch is literally what the patch notes are for.

[Seraphor]

Primarily, because I wanted all my gear to match. It's kinda a spectrum thing. It bugged me to have gear that wasn't the same type, ie Exarch etc. Probably not understandable to anyone that doesn't deal with autism, but little things like a belt being neo-ishgardian when everything else is Exarch, is like a festering wound. Now that I have been caught flat footed by this game change, and being told it was mentioned repeatedly, I have a new festering wound. Now I have to read everything, every update, every patch not, etc that I can get my hands on from this point forwards. If you understand what that entails, then you'll understand that now, I have no choice. I have to do it. And I don't find that type of forced need (by me, not SE) thing enjoyable, I find it as a punishment.

Well I'm sorry you have to deal with that, but it's only one page of patch notes every 3 months at most. Fanfest is once every 2 years and there are summaries that will detail all changes like this. It needn't cost you much in the way of effort or bandwidth.

[PastelPirate]

I'll make sure I stay up to date from now forward. In hindsight, when I first learned (via other players in game btw) of the 2 new classes, I probably should have done more digging into what other changes were also coming, but I didn't, and that is my fault. It won't happen again.