Rank limits on gear

[northernsky]

1) With the current system, you "could" play every job with any gear, but you will be less useful than someone who actually knew what they were doing. Regardless, you cannot play any job on the fly with the current system either due to having to reset skill points and skills themselves.

2) You must not be familiar with metaphors or figures of speech.

??
Main point was that it has more to do with convenience than not knowing how to play. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for rank restriction on gear, I just don't think that the main reason we need it is that people are too stupid to adequately use the current system. Which is why point 2) was a joke regarding those allegedly stupid players

[Jinko]

2) If like you said, a rank 50 weapon gives 100 attack to a rank 1 player, that weapon does work best for him so he's not an idiot lol

Not if it last 3 fights before becoming damaged.

[Moth]

I already carry enormous amounts of gear around for all my jobs. Main DoW gear, high lvl crafting gear, high lvl gathering gear, secondary Dow gear etc. It is just something you have to deal with.

[gifthorse]

[SIZE="6"]IF STATS ON GEAR ACTUALLY MATTERED, THEN HAVING A SYSTEM THAT SCALES ARMOUR DOWN IF USED OUT OF LEVEL RANGE WOULD PREVENT PEOPLE FROM JUST WEARING WHATEVER, BUT WITHOUT BEING SO PEDANTIC ABOUT IT.[/SIZE]

[Mack]

Aren't limitations usually bad? (By definition)

This is the wrongest statement that seems to have some weight under it. People will argue to death that limitations are bad and that we should have "freedom" but this isn't true if it makes the game less fun. In professional sports there are all sorts of limitations because THAT is what makes the sport enjoyable. If you take hockey or soccer and you remove all offsides, icings, fouls, free kicks, etc. etc. and let everyone do anything the sport becomes bland and not enjoyable. The game needs to have set rules, imo armor rank limitations gives you an incentive to work towards something. Right now as it sits the armor in this game is for aesthetics only because for one the game isn't challenging to the point where it requires you to care that much for your armor and two the stat differences between armor sets are irrelevant. I'm pretty sure they'll keep it as is for armor already in the game and I think in the future they'll add more "free for all" armor but Its obvious they're going with restricted armor too now, I just hope they can balance it.

[Cairdeas]

Here is an Idea thats a bit of a Middle ground between the two extremes people are supporting.


If The item says its "Optimal Used" by like say "Disciples of Land Rank 25" Then only Miners, Botanists and Fisherman over rank 25 can wear it, But they can wear it on ANY class. They already have the requirement They have a DOL at 25, it doesn't have to be active for them to wear it.

If the item says its "Requires" Then the item can only be worn by a Disciple of the Land Rank 25 or higher. So they have to be on say Fisherman rank 25 to wear it.

[Augury]

Meh, I think gear should be mostly aesthetic in purpose with the exception of the "invisible" gears, or the ones that are not displayed on the character model. I also REALLY dislike the idea of raid and NM gears that don't require being parts of the manufacturing process because it breeds noninteractivity. Tiered-armor sets ESPECIALLY should never see the light of day in FFXIV

[Dubont]

Meh, I think gear should be mostly aesthetic in purpose with the exception of the "invisible" gears, or the ones that are not displayed on the character model. I also REALLY dislike the idea of raid and NM gears that don't require being parts of the manufacturing process because it breeds noninteractivity. Tiered-armor sets ESPECIALLY should never see the light of day in FFXIV

Saying that gear drops causes players to not be social is incredibly incorrect. FFXI was all about gear drops and people were more social in that game than 14 has ever been. Also, gear has always played a big role in almost every RPG. Demon's Souls? If you don't have the right gear, you'll die (faster). FF games? If you don't have the right elemental resistances, you'll get 1 shotted. Man even in FPS, if you don't have the right grenade at the right time or the right gun at the right time, you'll get owned hardcore. For gear to be essentially useless is more unrealistic than having a knight in full plate able to jump 10ft in the air.

[gifthorse]

Saying that gear drops causes players to not be social is incredibly incorrect. FFXI was all about gear drops and people were more social in that game than 14 has ever been. Also, gear has always played a big role in almost every RPG. Demon's Souls? If you don't have the right gear, you'll die (faster). FF games? If you don't have the right elemental resistances, you'll get 1 shotted. Man even in FPS, if you don't have the right grenade at the right time or the right gun at the right time, you'll get owned hardcore. For gear to be essentially useless is more unrealistic than having a knight in full plate able to jump 10ft in the air.

First of all, I find FFXIV more social than FFXI so i totally beg to differ with you.

Secondly, I don't think anyone is suggesting that gear should mean nothing. If anything, Im suggesting that stats should make more impact so that people will be discouraged from using lvl-inappropriate gear. At the moment, stats mean nothing so even though gear gets nerfed if you aren't the correct level, players dont feel punished because they cannot sense the punishment which is inflicted upon them.

Flat out restrictions are just annoying.

[Augury]

Saying that gear drops causes players to not be social is incredibly incorrect. FFXI was all about gear drops and people were more social in that game than 14 has ever been. Also, gear has always played a big role in almost every RPG. Demon's Souls? If you don't have the right gear, you'll die (faster). FF games? If you don't have the right elemental resistances, you'll get 1 shotted. Man even in FPS, if you don't have the right grenade at the right time or the right gun at the right time, you'll get owned hardcore. For gear to be essentially useless is more unrealistic than having a knight in full plate able to jump 10ft in the air.

The causation of XIV's lack of interaction has nothing to do with it's production based play. Having gear play a major role has become a design crutch and flaw of most modern RPGs. Take Ragnarok especially, with gear importance very similar to XI. In RO, only the largest guilds with the most resources are able to farm out the higher level dungeons, and only the highest level gear sells for high prices, perpetuating the concept that large guilds have to rule the game without exception because raid gear is what is important. This is also true of WoW, and consequently most other MMORPGs, and it doesn't permit real interactivity with smaller groups and the player market.

Ontop of that, let's be honest, we want to distinguish our characters, so why should most be gear be much more than aesthetics anyways? I'm not saying all gear shouldn't produce bonuses, but the simplest way to balance gear is to give different weight classes different absorption rates, trading element absorption for defense (or vise versa).