FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread III: Where's my beta invite?

[ascalon]

Why add gear switching if your going to gimp people for doing it wtf?

So it doesn't get massively abused like it did in XI? They've stated numerous times that they wanted to get away from the blink blink blink effect of characters changing equipment.

By having a 30 second 'gimp' period it ensures that people only change equipment/classes for legitimate tactical reasons, rather than just so they can get an extra +2 STR for their weapon skills, or whatever...

[omegaB]

the idea was always that they didnt want the kind of gear swapping that occured before ie constantly changing you gear every 2 sec and neededing 10 macros for different gear sets, they do however want you to have to the freedom to change jobs or gear in the field, with macros and less delay when drawing weapons they decided to just reduce gear effectiveness for 30 secs to discourage mass job changing or gear swaps but still making it feasible to do sometimes.
Sounds good to me.

[BlackheartX]

So it doesn't get massively abused like it did in XI? They've stated numerous times that they wanted to get away from the blink blink blink effect of characters changing equipment.

By having a 30 second 'gimp' period it ensures that people only change equipment/classes for legitimate tactical reasons, rather than just so they can get an extra +2 STR for their weapon skills, or whatever...

I'm not seeing how that's abuse considering some jobs needed to do that to be effective.

[Jinfire]

Why add gear switching if your going to gimp people for doing it wtf?

Completly agree, what I assume is (speculation thread amirite?) for the everyday, leveling situation they dont want you to change gear / jobs easily. But on bosses or "HNM"s ect. they might want you to be able to change classes/gear (although you would be gimp for 30secs) since though battles last a lot longer.

Also if lets say you are on a guildleve that does "waves" of attacks or something you can change gear mid combat and it wouldnt be so detrimental because by the time you fight again you can be okay.

I think the overall point is to allow people to change gear / class between fights easier (or durring prolonged fights) but not during "trash" mobs.

[BlackheartX]

the idea was always that they didnt want the kind of gear swapping that occured before ie constantly changing you gear every 2 sec and neededing 10 macros for different gear sets, they do however want you to have to the freedom to change jobs or gear in the field, with macros and less delay when drawing weapons they decided to just reduce gear effectiveness for 30 secs to discourage mass job changing or gear swaps but still making it feasible to do sometimes.
Sounds good to me.

Job changing restrictions I agree with but gear not so much.

[omegaB]

the needed to do it because everyone else did, the only macros i think they really wanted in battle before was like fight or heal mp macros, basically tactical not instaneous. once the super macros were in it became a part of the game design, but this is a new game and they want to avoid that design

[Jinfire]

the needed to do it because everyone else did, the only macros i think they really wanted in battle before was like fight or heal mp macros, basically tactical not instaneous. once the super macros were in it became a part of the game design, but this is a new game and they want to avoid that design

Im confused so are macros only going to be text? Or will you be able to imput commands / equip changes in macros too?

[BlackheartX]

the needed to do it because everyone else did, the only macros i think they really wanted in battle before was like fight or heal mp macros, basically tactical not instaneous. once the super macros were in it became a part of the game design, but this is a new game and they want to avoid that design

I see but if there are limitations because they add new content and don't fully take into account how the playerbase plays the jobs available we may end up with more LOLDRG,PUP ect....
(as well as LOLGEARFORLOLJOBS)

What's my poor Ninja gonna be without proper haste gear a gimp paladin

[omegaB]

I think they said that macro's were planned, but arent ready, so who knows yet

[ascalon]

I'm not seeing how that's abuse considering some jobs needed to do that to be effective.

But that's the problem. They shouldn't have needed to do that to be effective. Gear should play a part, obviously, or we wouldn't have it, but in FFXI you could macro a set of gear for every single spell, and it just isn't realistic.

And yeah I know, fantasy game etc etc...

Why are you so concerned anyways? Did you honestly enjoy having to collect, carry around and macro six sets of gear? Did you like the fact that 9/10ths of the time your character wasn't even visible because you were changing equipment every ability? Considering how beautiful the new character avatars are, I'd actually like to spend time looking at them, rather than at the space I know they occupy.

But again, personal taste I know

[omegaB]

I see but if their are limitations because they add new content and don't fully take into account how the playerbase plays the jobs available we may end up with more LOLDRG,PUP ect....

What's my poor Ninja gonna be without proper haste gear a gimp paladin

i think your supposed to choose what style of fighter you want to be before the fight, you choose to be haste nin or super ws dmg nin. not that nin is in this game, or that your choices will be the same as they were in 12. Basically you had to do it all to be effective because everyone else was doing it, if no one could gear swap or did (like the early days) people actually choose one set of gear based on thier playstyles.

[Destinye]

People did fine in FFXI before players made massive gear swaping a standard. You'll do fine without it, just better with it. You don't -have- to gear swap constantly, that's a player invention. It's helpful no doubt, but not at all required.

[BlackheartX]

i think your supposed to choose what style of fighter you want to be before the fight, you choose to be haste nin or super ws dmg nin. not that nin is in this game, or that your choices will be the same as they were in 12. Basically you had to do it all to be effective because everyone else was doing it, if no one could gear swap or did (like the early days) people actually choose one set of gear based on thier playstyles.

Yeah and given the content provided, some jobs would be more well equipped then others. I just saw the freedom of gear swapping as a way to troubleshoot situations without having to wait for a developer to say "Hey maybe Ninjas need more base enmity". Just feels like a reduction in the freedom of experimentation. However that was XI so we'll see if this works well in XIV. (Red Mages will be more butthurt than I am)

P.S.

The new windowless gear menu is UGLY!!!

[Jamison]

If they introduced the restrictions on gear-swapping in FFXI now, yeah.. that would be a big change to the balance of the game and the balance of the jobs. But since they are developing everything for FFXIV with this already in mind, and designing around it, it really should be a non-factor.

This only gimps the specific piece of gear changed, right? So you could slowly change one piece every 30 seconds, not take that significant of a penalty, and in 2-3 minutes have spec'ed yourself out differently?

[blythe]

This only gimps the specific piece of gear changed, right? So you could slowly change one piece every 30 seconds, not take that significant of a penalty, and in 2-3 minutes have spec'ed yourself out differently?

I'm sorry but if this becomes "expected" for anything but end-end-end game I will just refuse. People can kick me out of parties for being gimp if they want. Yeah I conformed to the macro supremacy in XI but that's because the game mechanics clearly promoted it (or at least didn't discourage it)

[ascalon]

The new windowless gear menu is UGLY!!!

I think that's a bug. It had a window/background in the E3 demo.

[ascalon]

If they introduced the restrictions on gear-swapping in FFXI now, yeah.. that would be a big change to the balance of the game and the balance of the jobs. But since they are developing everything for FFXIV with this already in mind, and designing around it, it really should be a non-factor.

This only gimps the specific piece of gear changed, right? So you could slowly change one piece every 30 seconds, not take that significant of a penalty, and in 2-3 minutes have spec'ed yourself out differently?

Possibly, but bear in mind that many pieces of equipment are Discipline-specific. For example, you couldn't swap out to a robe and pointy hat as a Discipline of War; and if you wanted to swap to Conjurer from Gladiator, the moment you change weapon any gear that a Conjurer can't wear would be unequipped, leaving you practically naked.

[BlackheartX]

Assuming there will be homogenization and cookie-cutter norms in XIV.
How does everyone see the differentiation between good and bad players?

[Jinko]

I don't know any other MMO's that allow you to change gear during battle, I don't think I can think of many single player RPG's that allow you to this either for that matter.

As long as SE take their time with itemization and tuning classes correctly then we won't need to switch gear about like we did in FF11, personally I think they should take the whole ability to change gear during battle out completely.

[Antithesis]

I absolutely love how the update notice is almost exactly the same format as the FFXI version updates notices. This is truly FFXI 2.0.