Rank required gear and the impact on inventory

[Vesper]

As it has been stated before the developers are looking into Rank Requirements on gear. This is my personal opinion is a good idea. As it is now to many people just wear whatever they want regardless of rank. Now I am all for options and hell, I am guilty of wearing higher rank gear on my character as well. But the reason I wear over rank gear is inventory issues.

In most games having 100 inventory spots on character is more than enough, but that is not the case in FFXIV. In this game you are expected to rank several jobs, the current fatigue system pushed this multi-job concept as does the fact that crafting classes require you to rank some subs pretty high.

The main issue I see popping up near instantly if/when Rank requirements hit is that people are going to have very little inventory space. In this game I think the way inventory as it relates to gear needs a drastic change.

Let's assume one player has 5 jobs ranked. A Conjurer 10, Archer 17, Fisher 22, Carpenter 33 and lancer 22 you are looking at 5 different gear sets needed. On the low end you are looking at 7-12 items per class you play imo. In the case of archers/fishers even more based on arrows and lures required to play your class. You can expect to lose 50 slots easily due to needing separate sets for each class when Rank Requirements are added. Many players in game are playing more than 5 jobs and the longer the game goes on the more gear you will need to carry.

Also when it comes to gathering jobs our inventory is completely wrecked by our jobs. DOL job requires that we harvest all this raw material, but we need more space to do so.

Now there are ways to fix this, several in fact that I can see. Before we get to that I would like to mention something I would like to see. Inventory split up into several tabs...

• [Gear] Tab: Would only hold Armor, Weapons, Accessories.
• [Pouch] Tab: Would only hold consumable class items (Arrows, Bait/Lures, Bullets, Throwing items)
• [Inventory] Tab: Would Hold food, potions and raw materials as well as craft components.
  NPCs would go here. Also this tab would have a button that would allow you to [Sell All Junk] at once (Yes similiar to DA).
• [Repair] Tab: Works like crystal tab, takes up NO space to have items listed here for repairs. It would be separate from bazaars.
• [Crystal] Tab: No Change
• [Loot] Tab: No Change
• [Currency] Tab: No Change

Now with a revised inventory management system there are several ways to go up making gear management better.

• Option 1: Make it so that any items in [Gear Tab] take up no inventory space. Yes that's correct carry as much as you want. Very drastic, but fairly simple IMO as the mechanic exists for crystals, would need some modifying im sure.
  
• Option 2: Give all the inventory tabs, except for crystals and repair tabs their own inventory space. Each tab gets 50 slots for their item types. Instead of just 100 inventory spots overall. This is a better overall system imo and opens up the opportunity for Inventory Increasing Quests
  
• • Option 2-B: Giving each inventory space 50 slots at the start of the game offers flexibility at the start of the game. But ensures that as time goes on you are going to need more space still a great reason for some new inventory side quests that are story based! Make it so that Every 10 ranks of DOL, DOW/M and DOH will get inventory quests. Eligibility of doing these quests would be based on your HIGHEST rank DOL, DOW/M or DOH.
    
    These would be available to do every 10 ranks and yes if you ranked them all (DOLs, DOHs and DOW/Ms) you would get extra inventory space that stacked, doing the DOL R10, 20, 30 etc would still allow you to do the DOH & DOW/M quests to further your inventory more.
    
    Its nice to do quests and get rewards, but its even better to get rewards that are useful across the entire life of your character.

Those are my thoughts on what could be done to improve the inventory system. Feel free to discuss or post your own ideas.