My Opinion on XIV's Gear Progression

[Usho]

FFXI did better with gear progression during end game periods. Like you could be ilvl 119 and a old lvl 75 or lvl 99 piece of gear could STILL last you YEARS.

FFXI was good at balancing gear progression and ensuring that old pieces of gear can still have their uses years down the line.

FFXIV's gear progression is a pure example of bad design. Some gear might take a long time to grind for and when you do get pieces you needed for all your jobs, a major patch comes and the ilvl raises again, thus making all that effort you did grinding for that gear completely POINTLESS.

Unless you like keeping the outdated pieces for glamour then it's basically going in the trash when the ilvl raises and new gear becomes available.

FFXI pieces? New gear! YAY! Awesome, this older piece of gear can still be useful in this slot!!

Dear FFXIV Gear Trendmill: Get Good. <3

*I'll await the White Knights with the Pitchforks while I'm busying doing my dailies.*


Thanks for reading.

[Crescents]

FFXIV isnt set up in the same ways "traditional" MMOs are Yoshi himself is on record as saying he doesnt want people playing his game everyday, just come back for patches it's not supposed to be lasting, sure myself and a lot of people who grew up on grindy MMOs would prefer the older style of logging in everyday always having something to work toward but that model of game is kind of dying because largely MMO's in general arent appealing to a younger crowd and those of us who grew up on it don't have as much time so they opted for a style where you can log in an hour a night and still meet your weekly caps.

The truth is this game needs to make money and casting a wider net and appealing to casual players with full time jobs is what pays despite how anyone feels about it.

[Erudito]

There are a few things that really irk me about the gear progression:

1. How useless gear is in the long run. It is all replaced too easily, too quickly.
2. How empty it is. Not a single piece of gear in the last 4 years of FFXIV has any special abilities or effects. Not. One. Would it kill them to make some gear with an in-town-only ability?
3. How difficult it is to gear up more than 1 job. In a game where you can be anything, it is incredibly difficult to properly gear up 2 or more jobs without exposing yourself to the horrible, terrible and hellish RNG and therefore sinking in ludicrous amounts of time.
3a. Let me also say this: I HATE RNG.

So yeah, those are my 2 cents.

[NolLacnala]

2. How empty it is. Not a single piece of gear in the last 4 years of FFXIV has any special abilities or effects. Not. One. Would it kill them to make some gear with an in-town-only ability?

Subligars have a built in debuff called Full Moon that makes you embarrassed to be in public

[Brill_]

2. How empty it is. Not a single piece of gear in the last 4 years of FFXIV has any special abilities or effects. Not. One.

There was that ring that increases spiritbound gain.

[Gurney]

That is the one thing I liked about 11. There were several choices for gear setups, and most of the best gear setups were pieces from different gear sets. Even when the lvl cap hit 99 the best ring for a TP set was a lvl 30 rajas ring. This also gave people multiple things to do to get instead of savage or dungeon grinds for tomes.

[Nora_of_Mira]

Go play FFXI.

[Gemina]

Go play FFXI.

This^

Seriously, if I personally felt like XI did so many things better than XIV, I would be playing XI. These comparisons are getting quite old, especially when considering that XIV is a more modern mmo. FFXI did so many things wrong, especially when it came to QoL. If those early 2000 era elements were present in FFXIV, no one would play the game.

I'm not exactly sure what the issue some players have with gear progression in the game, or at least it hasn't been explained in a way I comprehend. XIs stat system was convoluted. A stat like +15 accuracy was huge because very few items gave an ACC bonus, so it was highly sought after and sometimes even mandatory to get into endgame content. That's how it was when I left. I haven't the slightest clue why anyone would favor such a system in this game.

Gear does get outdated very quickly in XIV. So what? It's also easy to obtain. Why do you think current tomes have a max cap and a weekly cap? Relic weapons are the only thing I can think of requiring a true grind that is anything comparable to the grinds FFXI provided when it comes to gear. They also serve a similar purpose. You grind for it so you can continue to use it. If/when it gets outdated, you glamour over the superior weapon with it. Under the right perspective, what you're really doing is taking the superior stats, and giving it to the weapon you grinded for.

We're getting relic armor next, and this is very exciting. I have no doubt that these items will be gorgeous and worth the time put in. Not for the stats though. For the appearance. At the end of the say, stats are just numbers and glamour is the true endgame.

[ShanXiv]

This^

Seriously, if I personally felt like XI did so many things better than XIV, I would be playing XI. These comparisons are getting quite old, especially when considering that XIV is a more modern mmo. FFXI did so many things wrong, especially when it came to QoL. If those early 2000 era elements were present in FFXIV, no one would play the game.

I'm not exactly sure what the issue some players have with gear progression in the game, or at least it hasn't been explained in a way I comprehend. XIs stat system was convoluted. A stat like +15 accuracy was huge because very few items gave an ACC bonus, so it was highly sought after and sometimes even mandatory to get into endgame content. That's how it was when I left. I haven't the slightest clue why anyone would favor such a system in this game.

Gear does get outdated very quickly in XIV. So what? It's also easy to obtain. Why do you think current tomes have a max cap and a weekly cap? Relic weapons are the only thing I can think of requiring a true grind that is anything comparable to the grinds FFXI provided when it comes to gear. They also serve a similar purpose. You grind for it so you can continue to use it. If/when it gets outdated, you glamour over the superior weapon with it. Under the right perspective, what you're really doing is taking the superior stats, and giving it to the weapon you grinded for.

We're getting relic armor next, and this is very exciting. I have no doubt that these items will be gorgeous and worth the time put in. Not for the stats though. For the appearance. At the end of the say, stats are just numbers and glamour is the true endgame.

Well...even Ultima online ,had horizontal progression ,or "different gearing form"?
platemail=high defense, low attack speed, low MP
chainmail mid defense, mid attack speed, mid MP
leathermail=low defense, high attack speed, high MP
naked=red name murderer
clothes over the armor=glamouring

[Rhaja]

I only have two issues with the way gearing is done in this game. The first is difficulty gearing multiple classes, and the second being the lack of any set bonuses or effects on Gear.

In theory you can have multiple classes decently geared up. You have tome gear, raid gear, NM Raid Gear, and crafted Gear. While its doable to gear up multiple classes through these methods its not practical for most, which typically leaves you with just NM raid and Tome gear. However there is a second problem to this which is how weapons are handed out. Personally I don't understand why the Story version of Primals/Trials doesn't give a weaker weapon. Dungeons could also help with this.

What ultimately kills me however is how boring gear is. I don't mind the cycle of 6 months for gear, however as long as it does nothing but numerical upgrades it has gotten increasingly difficult to care. I didn't realize how much this was effecting me until I tried WoW again and found myself wanting to run content because the set bonuses would add to the classes in either minor or dramatic ways. Let alone some of the cooler pieces of gear you get like being able to randomly breathe fire, or summoning wolves.

Ultimately, the gearing in FFXIV is painfully dry. I remember Yoshida not wanting to add too much to gear out of fear of alienating the playerbase but we already do that at a stupidly high level as is.