Why is this specific mechanic during Relics Quests still that way?

[Elecrom]

I'm talking about the turn in if you want to advance a step.
Currently you need to be the Job for the Weapon you want to power up, but you cannot equip the weapon, which forces you to aquire some weapon just for the 2 seconds you need to turn in the quest which is extremely annoying.

The quest text logs which class you were and which weapon you want to turn in, so why are you still forced to be that class on top of it?

[Atelier-Bagur]

Idk but I just take it as just another one of those weird engine quirks (since the game prompts you multiple times when you want to do that specific step as that job). I doubt its because they wanted to be like that but knowing how janky this game's coding is, I assume its done that way to be a fail safe or whatever.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Most quests require you to be the same job you started them with to turn them in. That has nothing to do with relics.

[MsQi]

Most quests require you to be the same job you started them with to turn them in. That has nothing to do with relics.

But many don't so it's obviously a choice. There is no reason to do that here since the items involved are already locked to specific jobs. It's not like completing the quest for a bow as a scholar would create a new item: a bow only a scholar can use. It's just annoying and dumb.

[Mikey_R]

It is due to the fact that, in the back end, you don't upgrade the weapon, you delete the weapon and then put a new item in the player's inventory, this is also why materia is not preserved. If you had the weapon equipped, there would be a point where you character has nothing equipped to the main hand slot, something that is not normally possible at all. As for why they cannot just replace the weapon in the same slot, I suspect it has to do with new items not being able to be directly equipped to the player and it has to go into the inventory.

[Rongway]

As for why they cannot just replace the weapon in the same slot, I suspect it has to do with new items not being able to be directly equipped to the player and it has to go into the inventory.

More likely, it was a future-proofing precaution just in case such a gear upgrade ever caused the gear to increase in level, making the new gear unequipable. Currently no gear upgrade methods change the equip level, but these devs would have considered that even if they deemed it unlikely to ever happen and decided it would be safer just to disallow upgrading equipped gear than it would be to put in a bunch of unnecessary checks to cover scenarios that might never happen.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

It is due to the fact that, in the back end, you don't upgrade the weapon, you delete the weapon and then put a new item in the player's inventory, this is also why materia is not preserved. If you had the weapon equipped, there would be a point where you character has nothing equipped to the main hand slot, something that is not normally possible at all. As for why they cannot just replace the weapon in the same slot, I suspect it has to do with new items not being able to be directly equipped to the player and it has to go into the inventory.

There is a bit of technicality behind this answer - there actually is a hidden "job" that NPCs get assigned when they aren't battle related NPCs, along with a potential catastropic glitch that causes the player character to not have a weapon equipped - "Adventurer" (ADV) : https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._0_adventurer/, so removing a weapon from the player character actually doesn't cause any issues, as long as they get re-equipped with a weapon before control is returned to them. (This actually happens in some other cutscenes when the player equips prop items for the cutscene)

Theoretically speaking, they could code it so the player character in the cutscene is assigned to adventurer temporarily for the duration of the cutscene, then re-equip them back with the new weapon, but that's on a thoeretical level - there's likely some other problems or unseen control variables in how quests that require specific jobs function in the backend, like Rongway mentioned with the potential 'gear could have leveled up' idea the devs may have thought of long ago.

[dspguy]

I'm talking about the turn in if you want to advance a step.
Currently you need to be the Job for the Weapon you want to power up, but you cannot equip the weapon, which forces you to aquire some weapon just for the 2 seconds you need to turn in the quest which is extremely annoying.

The quest text logs which class you were and which weapon you want to turn in, so why are you still forced to be that class on top of it?

Think about every turn-in you've ever done. The reward goes into your inventory. If the weapon is in your main-hand and you turn it in, what job are you afterwards? You have no weapon. No job. That isn't a "state" that FFXIV knows how to handle. Should it be possible? Sure. I wouldn't be surprised if they are wary about making changes to code that has been in place since at least 2013, if not carry over from 1.0.

[Elecrom]

Think about every turn-in you've ever done. The reward goes into your inventory. If the weapon is in your main-hand and you turn it in, what job are you afterwards? You have no weapon. No job. That isn't a "state" that FFXIV knows how to handle. Should it be possible? Sure. I wouldn't be surprised if they are wary about making changes to code that has been in place since at least 2013, if not carry over from 1.0.

I know this. But wouldn't it be easier to just let you finish the quest as another class then? The weapon is locked in anyway so there should be no way it could cause problems that way.

[UkcsAlias]

Think about every turn-in you've ever done. The reward goes into your inventory.

Your armory and loadout is still just an inventory, where chaning loadout just exchanges weapons in slots.

If the weapon is in your main-hand and you turn it in, what job are you afterwards? You have no weapon. No job. That isn't a "state" that FFXIV knows how to handle. Should it be possible? Sure. I wouldn't be surprised if they are wary about making changes to code that has been in place since at least 2013, if not carry over from 1.0.

Considering the change is effectively instant, you arent a null job. And the turn in doesnt happen when you click ok. As after that click, your duty can pop, and the item is still in your inventory. The only moment is when the game confirms the change of state (quest completion). This is an instant change. If your duty pops, either you have the old or new state. But you dont lose your items.

And for this purpose alone, they could have made a null weapon slot for each job to use in these cases. This is a slot that is normaly not accessible, and never actualy saved either. This way the item can always be moved without issue. (the null slot gets the new item, and then the weapons are changed around as if its a player action). And we know this slot can exist without issues, since we used to have a belt slot.