I remember back during my early XI days something struck me, in a very disappointing way.
I was a (can't remember the specifics so I'm approximating here) lv ~30 Taru WHM. I had up until this point been wearing a bunch of mediocre gear. Then I had a RL friend hook me up with all top notch healer gear... So I'm thinking, this is going to be awesome. With my average gear I was healing ~100 MP per cure... then I put on all this super expensive gear and I was expecting to see some nice rewards in terms of my healing ability.
What did I get? A measly +2 per cure on HP.
I feel as though the fun in games, especially of the MMO variety is to be able to "strut your stuff" so to speak. If you have amazing gear, there should be real tangible differences between you and the guy with junk armor on.
Now I know with DDs this may have existed, and those with awesome gear may have been much better (I had several 75 DD jobs I just can't remember how much gear played a part,) however I know with my healer, especially in the low and middle level ranges, gear had minimal effects on the efficacy of your characters ability.
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A second thing I'd like to see... Please, please, please, SE. Make it worth my while to get my fishing and crafting levels up. In XIV 1.0 this was done miserably. I had a capped fisher, and there was little to no market on which to sell my goods. They need to get this right from the very start!
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Most ffxi gear offered minimal improvements, but there were pieces like O. Kote that, if you acquired them early enough, made a little more noticeable impact.
Often those pieces remained viable, or even best-in-slot until endgame. While I liked that aspect of holding on to certain pieces, I'm not sure its best from a game design perspective. Especially considering how difficult those pieces were to obtain at the level you could equip them.
I'd prefer the really elite pieces of gear be distinguished mostly by their appearance. I'd also like to see options for switching the appearance of a piece of gear with another piece you have, like in most contemporary mmos.
Often those pieces remained viable, or even best-in-slot until endgame. While I liked that aspect of holding on to certain pieces, I'm not sure its best from a game design perspective. Especially considering how difficult those pieces were to obtain at the level you could equip them.
I'd prefer the really elite pieces of gear be distinguished mostly by their appearance. I'd also like to see options for switching the appearance of a piece of gear with another piece you have, like in most contemporary mmos.
Well from what I could recall it did make a difference. And the higher the level, the bigger the difference.
Also stuff was capped and also depended on your skill points as well as MND gear.
An extra +2 could mean saving you at least 1 Cure a fight or could have meant the difference between someone dying or not. Though if you had "decked out" MND gear I would assume it would have been a bit more than just +2...
But I was strictly melee. I immediately saw dividends when wearing my leaping boots, emperor pin, and deft rings.
Again, this was all within the context of FFXI and grouping and it's "thin" margin between a good vs. great player. You could try to skate by with average gear, but be an excellent tank, however when you're taking too many hits with not enough eva/agi, or not obtaining enough aggro with dex/acc gear, people will pick the ones with the better gear almost always.
In the end I'm kinda conflicted. I do like games that place a heavier emphasis on gear, i.e. more gear available, and would like to see a bigger gain from gear as well.
However in FFXI though I believe the margin between cost and usefulness was a bit too high, that gear like O. Kote would last for a long time and would be sharable between a few jobs. Not to mention you could possibly sell it for more if you were lucky.
I also liked the exclusivity that gear like that provided and in part how it weeded out certain people. On the other hand it added to the elitism of the game.
I want to be able to farm for that awesome gear or finish an awesome quest and I want it to look cool as well. Of course I don't want for everything to become min/maxed, but I think this just happens ultimately anyway.
So, I don't know. I like the way gear was handled in FFXI, because gear fit the game as it was. But I think the way WoW handles gear is probably more apropos to FFXIV. Where there are multiple tiers and multiple focuses.
I'd hope that things like materia would add enough variety to have melee specialize into things like being Crit focused or DoT focused, but be rare enough and meaningful enough to make a difference when you put it on...
Also stuff was capped and also depended on your skill points as well as MND gear.
An extra +2 could mean saving you at least 1 Cure a fight or could have meant the difference between someone dying or not. Though if you had "decked out" MND gear I would assume it would have been a bit more than just +2...
But I was strictly melee. I immediately saw dividends when wearing my leaping boots, emperor pin, and deft rings.
Again, this was all within the context of FFXI and grouping and it's "thin" margin between a good vs. great player. You could try to skate by with average gear, but be an excellent tank, however when you're taking too many hits with not enough eva/agi, or not obtaining enough aggro with dex/acc gear, people will pick the ones with the better gear almost always.
In the end I'm kinda conflicted. I do like games that place a heavier emphasis on gear, i.e. more gear available, and would like to see a bigger gain from gear as well.
However in FFXI though I believe the margin between cost and usefulness was a bit too high, that gear like O. Kote would last for a long time and would be sharable between a few jobs. Not to mention you could possibly sell it for more if you were lucky.
I also liked the exclusivity that gear like that provided and in part how it weeded out certain people. On the other hand it added to the elitism of the game.
I want to be able to farm for that awesome gear or finish an awesome quest and I want it to look cool as well. Of course I don't want for everything to become min/maxed, but I think this just happens ultimately anyway.
So, I don't know. I like the way gear was handled in FFXI, because gear fit the game as it was. But I think the way WoW handles gear is probably more apropos to FFXIV. Where there are multiple tiers and multiple focuses.
I'd hope that things like materia would add enough variety to have melee specialize into things like being Crit focused or DoT focused, but be rare enough and meaningful enough to make a difference when you put it on...
Kierk wrote:
But I was strictly melee. I immediately saw dividends when wearing my leaping boots, emperor pin, and deft rings.
yes, yes, and highly doubtful. maybe in a parser lol. edit: nevermind, you clearly meant "when using all of those pieces in tandem" and I misread it. oops.
Kierk wrote:
So, I don't know. I like the way gear was handled in FFXI, because gear fit the game as it was. But I think the way WoW handles gear is probably more apropos to FFXIV. Where there are multiple tiers and multiple focuses.
I'd hope that things like materia would add enough variety to have melee specialize into things like being Crit focused or DoT focused, but be rare enough and meaningful enough to make a difference when you put it on...
Totally agree here. It all depends on the type of game. And materia hopefully will provide meaningful choices in a sidegrade fashion. (sidegrade from other choices, not sidegrade from un-materia'd gear ofc)
Edited, Jan 12th 2013 5:41pm by Llester
Llester wrote:
Most ffxi gear offered minimal improvements, but there were pieces like O. Kote that, if you acquired them early enough, made a little more noticeable impact.
Often those pieces remained viable, or even best-in-slot until endgame. While I liked that aspect of holding on to certain pieces, I'm not sure its best from a game design perspective. Especially considering how difficult those pieces were to obtain at the level you could equip them.
I'd also like to see options for switching the appearance of a piece of gear with another piece you have, like in most contemporary mmos.
Often those pieces remained viable, or even best-in-slot until endgame. While I liked that aspect of holding on to certain pieces, I'm not sure its best from a game design perspective. Especially considering how difficult those pieces were to obtain at the level you could equip them.
Quote:
I'd prefer the really elite pieces of gear be distinguished mostly by their appearance.
I would have to say (again speaking from personal taste and opinion) I do NOT want the type of appearance some MMOs offer where your armor looks like it has been designed by a gay barbarian in san francisco i.e. bling and flames and tassels and sparkles and so big that it looks like you're preparing for a moon walk mission.
I think elite pieces should be distinguished by performance, as well as looking more prestigious if you will.
Quote:
I also liked the exclusivity that gear like that provided and in part how it weeded out certain people. On the other hand it added to the elitism of the game.
Trust me when I say this, I am never the elite player in an MMO, I simply don't have enough time... But, I LOVE a certain level of elitism in games. I want to know that if I ever feel like it, there is some awesome reward that I can go and get that not many others will have achieved.... The only thing close to this I ever got was Lu Shang's rod. It felt amazing having that rod! (Then they nerfed fishing like 2 days later lol -Of course!!!!!)
I also liked seeing people walk around with their amazing gear, it leaves a sense of wonder and excitement in the game.
Edited, Jan 12th 2013 5:49pm by je355804
Quote:
I also liked seeing people walk around with their amazing gear, it leaves a sense of wonder and excitement in the game.
Especially in AF.
I bring this up a lot but one of my favorite FFXI memories was when I was around level 30 seeing a JP DRK wearing his full AF gear (including weapon) and using Guillotine on a mob (when he was helping) for one of my AF quests.
I think it was testament on how awesome the design in both weapons and skills were in that game.
Materia (on a side note) should have meaningful combos as well. And it should act more like FFVII and less the way it was implemented in FFXIV. I think it would be an opportunity to make the materia more rare, yet more powerful, while having a wide range of weapons to choose from.
A poison materia should be pretty rare/expensive, but combo it with an equally rare haste materia and you'll be doing tons of damage. The "combo" could be something like armor down, but have it proc randomly but be a big percentage.
I'd much rather see this than incremental +4, +10, +20 attack, because in this sense you lose the amount of POW! (for lack of a better word) than when you go from +0 to +20.
I'm amazed how many ideas I see posted that would require a total rework of the games infrastructure. Lets be reasonable guys, im sure SE spent the better part of a year developing a materia system for ARR. One thing I really hope they bring back is those NMs with a hour or so respawn time (window), that have great drops everyone wants ie (Leaping lizzy). They really skewered the NM idea in 1.0.
When you say top notch healer gear do you mean a seers set and a pair of saintly rings? The stats were probably a mild boost over what you were using,but no it wouldn't have been terribly noticable in terms of raw curing power.
I agree that there should be differences between vendor gear and items with useful stats, but XI probably shouldn't be used as the model. Some of the pieces were downright broken for their level and stayed that way for years and years. Others might as well not have existed because they boosted absolutely nothing. Lots of spaces on the AH for pieces of equipment no one ever used. Kind of sad.
Now, fishing is something that they SHOULD copy from XI in spirit. That was done very well, from beginning to end. Fish really meant something no matter what level you were starting at.
I agree that there should be differences between vendor gear and items with useful stats, but XI probably shouldn't be used as the model. Some of the pieces were downright broken for their level and stayed that way for years and years. Others might as well not have existed because they boosted absolutely nothing. Lots of spaces on the AH for pieces of equipment no one ever used. Kind of sad.
Now, fishing is something that they SHOULD copy from XI in spirit. That was done very well, from beginning to end. Fish really meant something no matter what level you were starting at.
Torrence wrote:
When you say top notch healer gear do you mean a seers set and a pair of saintly rings? The stats were probably a mild boost over what you were using,but no it wouldn't have been terribly noticable in terms of raw curing power.
I agree that there should be differences between vendor gear and items with useful stats, but XI probably shouldn't be used as the model. Some of the pieces were downright broken for their level and stayed that way for years and years. Others might as well not have existed because they boosted absolutely nothing. Lots of spaces on the AH for pieces of equipment no one ever used. Kind of sad.
Now, fishing is something that they SHOULD copy from XI in spirit. That was done very well, from beginning to end. Fish really meant something no matter what level you were starting at.
I agree that there should be differences between vendor gear and items with useful stats, but XI probably shouldn't be used as the model. Some of the pieces were downright broken for their level and stayed that way for years and years. Others might as well not have existed because they boosted absolutely nothing. Lots of spaces on the AH for pieces of equipment no one ever used. Kind of sad.
Now, fishing is something that they SHOULD copy from XI in spirit. That was done very well, from beginning to end. Fish really meant something no matter what level you were starting at.
Speaking of fishing, how relevant was it in 1.0? Was there like a moat carp for poor noobs to hit the ground running with? Obviously there's no telling what will happen in ARR but a quick modest income to start with is my next priority after getting a feel for fight mechanics.
[quote=Kierk]Well from what I could recall it did make a difference. And the higher the level, the bigger the difference.
This.
Also I guess it determines what your evaluation of good gear is, white mage set up at level 30, you were basically looking for mp gear, or mnd to help land important enfeebles such as paralyze or slow--which were almost vital to land in order to slow down or mitigate the damage the monster did as opposed to gear to buff your cures. As far as curing goes, at level 51 you get a light staff which is an automatic 10% boost to cure potency and there's also the ability to improve healing magic by skilling up as well. Its all the minor upgrades that generally add up to a bigger difference low level.
Subjob vs non-sub job, A damage dealer in leaping boots/balance rings with +Dex to help with accuracy and beetle earrings for an attack boost vs a damage dealer in a full evasion set, or basic gear with no real stat bonuses and who doesn't use food.
I will say if the ffxiv team takes a page from the current version of final fantasy 11, a single piece of gear (once again, high level) could make for a pretty huge difference but even then those pieces aren't simply buyable pieces (which still give you an edge and will still make a party want you over someone who doesn't have them) but usually extensively quested and gradually upgraded over time.
This.
Also I guess it determines what your evaluation of good gear is, white mage set up at level 30, you were basically looking for mp gear, or mnd to help land important enfeebles such as paralyze or slow--which were almost vital to land in order to slow down or mitigate the damage the monster did as opposed to gear to buff your cures. As far as curing goes, at level 51 you get a light staff which is an automatic 10% boost to cure potency and there's also the ability to improve healing magic by skilling up as well. Its all the minor upgrades that generally add up to a bigger difference low level.
Subjob vs non-sub job, A damage dealer in leaping boots/balance rings with +Dex to help with accuracy and beetle earrings for an attack boost vs a damage dealer in a full evasion set, or basic gear with no real stat bonuses and who doesn't use food.
I will say if the ffxiv team takes a page from the current version of final fantasy 11, a single piece of gear (once again, high level) could make for a pretty huge difference but even then those pieces aren't simply buyable pieces (which still give you an edge and will still make a party want you over someone who doesn't have them) but usually extensively quested and gradually upgraded over time.
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