Rank limits on gear

[Augury]

Honestly, I don't know how long you played other MMOs, but every MMO revolves around gear and every MMO has had a very large social environment. 14 does not. 14 is also the only MMO that relies this heavily on crafting and doesn't put any emphasis on ANYTHING regarding other players other than "I have this item that I found. Make it into this item for 200k." At least in 11, you could get gear off of higher level mobs that COULDN'T be bought from some price gauging low life. 14's downfall is that it has too many differences when it comes to every other MMO. The lack of limitations is one of these downfalls. A game without rules is a boring game.

This is just the problem though! Games of the future should involve immersion, not convention. Gear systems are cute for games like FFIV where you raid dungeons and turn Cecil into a walking Abram's Tank that spouts of White Magic like it's nobody's business.

I have played a wide variety of social games, as well as RPGs and find that the only reason we cling to gear being a large portion of our play... IS BECAUSE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS DID IT. But for me, super-awesome gear that only "top-tier" players can unlock lost it's novelty before WoW ever hit the shelves. My favorite example is Conquer Online, which at one point was an amazing Kung-Fu Diablo where I ultimately became a healer who carried a massive poleaxe. But in Conquer, gear was ALL that mattered, and that really took away from it's playability as the game was developed (and then turned into a cash cow).

If most gear serves for much more than DEF/RES and aesthetic choice, then it has a tendency to limit design potential. The old gear system is just something that XIV can do without