Gear Score, in my ARR?

[HiirNoivl]

I can see how this can be abused, I tried to join a pick-up group yesterday for Garuda, the party leader proceeded to play 20 questions with me, from how far did I get in the fight to whether or not I had teamspeak. even though I appeared to meet all thier criteria, they chose not to invite me, I never even recieved a response, so I'm not even sure why they turned me down.

I don't see this situation improving with gear score. The more I think about it, the more I don't like it. The potential for abuse outweighs its potential benefits. When it comes to punishing content, what people want is a static party or a linkshell. They would like to play with people they know. Does anyone here plan on tackling Van Darnus (Hard) with total strangers? Will you try Crystal Tower in a pick-up? Not likely.

Gear score won't mean anything when the person doesn't have the skills or doesn't have the ability to communicate wtih the party (in the case of language barriers or parties using VoIP). Not to mention the fact that someone with a good attitude good gear and good experience could easily get passed up by someone who's a no-nothing, elitist jerk, who thinks his gear is all he needs to succeed, just because his gear score might be a point or two higher than a nicer person.

And if we're not talking about punishing content... then what's the point of gear score at all? Gear score does little to nothing to avoid wasting time with people you don't want to play with.

[Hanabira]

how is this any different from what people have been doing since my days in everquest. you cant be a fresh max level and expect to jump right into a high end group taking down t4 content. you wont be able to hit anything, and you'll be squishy and a huge burden.

just like with garuda, people only want to go with players who spent the time to properly gear themselves and learn their job, you CAN win with 1 or 2 people in crappy gear, but why frustrate yourself trying?

what happens if your tank is taking too much dmg, war cant kill the plumes, whm not healing for enough, dd's missing or doing sub-par dmg. you lose, end of story. and these are things that no amount of personal skill can make up for.

[Jocko]

It's like every new detail about 2.0 slowly chips away at the base of the hype mountain that was generated by those first few screens. At this rate, may as well just play any other MMO with FF style .dat mods

[KamikazeMan]

As long as dungeons don't have a required gear level to enter, then I don't care. I didn't like how in TERA I knew I could take on a dungeon, but couldn't enter it because my gear score was off by two points.

[Bharata_Senka]

As a tool, depending on how it's implemented, it is fine to have. The problem comes with the way people deal with the information this tool provides.

If there is a gear check for high-end content, fine, but I want people to understand that to get good gear, at some point you have to run with not-so-good gear until you are able to win a few times. By shutting out all people without "X" gear score, your beginning to limit the number of people who have access to obtain said gear that you want them to have. However, since this is happening right now without a visible score, I don't see this concept changing any time soon.

That said, I'm really curious to see how a gear score would be calculated. I have a pair of nicely melded Felt Trousers with STR and VIT that I use for my WAR and for my MNK. The pants are better for WAR because of the VIT, but they're still useful for MNK. (and before you say "Felt? why not DL? n00b!", this is just an example) Will the pants have the same score regardless of job, or will it be variable?

Once we have a better understanding of the calculation method, then we can start determining if this will be a useful tool or not.

[HiirNoivl]

Once we have a better understanding of the calculation method, then we can start determining if this will be a useful tool or not.

You are quite correct. "Gear Score" sounds like they're assigning a flat, single number to an entire gear set. Such a feature lacks nuance and therefore utility. But I hope it is a bit more detailed.

I remember that Yoshi said that you can't use Content finder for content you haven't reached yet, so they will have to have at least gone to the dungeon once before they use Content finder and gear score. But beyond DPS, rank and Damage, what could Gear Score calculate? Wouldn't the other stats and their utility be based primarily on what the rest of the gear is for and what the content is and how the party is set up?

For example: WHMs can have their gear set to Cure-bombing, Buffing, or Nuking. But if gear score only takes into account Healing Magic Potency and Attack Magic Potency of the gear set (or, gods forbid, the DPS/Damage/Delay stats of the weapons....), it's not going to be useful for content similar to Ifrit (Extreme) where the party is scattered across the field and needs a strong regen to survive.

Gear Score might be good for "introductory to gear" purposes... but, in the end, a serious player will still need to know stat caps and know the content to play effectively. And all the players will have to know how to do their job and work together in the party....

I just don't know how a "Gear Score" could do all this.... Maybe YoshiP can tell us. Has someone posted a question about this yet?

[Bharata_Senka]

Maybe YoshiP can tell us. Has someone posted a question about this yet?

I actually just posted a question on the "Letter from the Producer, Live" question thread. Hope it gets picked.

edit: here's the link, if anybody wants to "Like" it, that thread is kind of a cluster-F right now...

[HiirNoivl]

I actually just posted a question on the "Letter from the Producer, Live" question thread. Hope it gets picked.

edit: here's the link, if anybody wants to "Like" it, that thread is kind of a cluster-F right now...

I gave it a like. ^^

[Hanabira]

with all of the personal skill in the world, you cant damage a high evasion boss without good gear. on the other hand, you cant beat certain bosses if you dont know how to avoid taking as much damage as possible from them. you need a mix of both, at least with gearscore you can see if they have 1 part of that at a glance. if they are a static or a linkshell, you know if they have the latter. hell, leeroy jenkins was in a high end raid guild, im sure he had good gear but was retarded. but on the flipside, how many of us have been experienced at a class/job, but have been ineffective at something because of gear?

I want people to understand that to get good gear, at some point you have to run with not-so-good gear until you are able to win a few times. By shutting out all people without "X" gear score, your beginning to limit the number of people who have access to obtain said gear that you want them to have.

this is absolutely right, but the main problem is that people get powerleveled to max level, then try and go straight for the top notch gear in their scraps. if a person is decently geared for material 1 rank below what they are trying to attain, there is no problem. but when someone shows up with common un-melded gear and a crappy weapon (-acc) trying to get a garuda weapon... we see the problem

[Hanabira]

hell, we dont even know if that number is public