Job ability/job trait gear?Follow

It's because FFXIV doesn't allow for gear-swapping during battle, so there would be no benefit to wearing gear that would be overall weaker while enhancing just one ability.

The other problem with that is that you end up collecting 50 pieces of gear broken down into 5-6 "sets" and you have to have elaborate macros or third party programs running on XML files to keep track of it all. My black mage had a nuking set, an enfeebling set, a fast cast set, a healing set, a resting set, a standing/idle set, and a drain/aspir set. Many pieces overlapped but I really got tired of changing gear every time I cast a spell.

Set bonuses are cool for job specific armor. I think they could get away with that route, potentially.

I would love to see set bonuses on Allagan. Otherwise I see the job specific abilities best used on jewelry.

I have mixed feelings on set bonuses. If they're too good, breaking them up to replace gear gets rough. If they're too bad, you just kind of don't care.

I've said it before, but the materia system could benefit exponentially by having materia that augments abilities. Of course, creating these materia shouldn't be as simple as SBing a piece of gear, but instead SBing gear that has at least 2 specific materia set. When you start dabbling into quad-meld requirements, you would be seeing certain materia getting gobbled up profusely due to the success rate chances of establishing the gear you'd later convert. This would be an economic godsend since while producing your more basic goods isn't terribly hard, the demand would be multiplied significantly, thus prompting quick sales. Put materia slots in all gear and boom. My general thought is you could basically devote each equipment slot to a specific skill alongside some slight general stat buffs.

So, let's say I wanted to do something fancy with Thunder:
A) Increases Thundercloud proc rate and reduces Enmity generated based on tier.
B) Turns Thunder into an AoE spell with the radius based on tier.
C) Increases Thunder Potency and duration based on tier.
D) Adds a Stun chance to Thunder ticks based on tier.
E) Reduces MP cost and Cast time based on tier.

Would you want to try and meld all those onto your BLM's gear? Now imagine a glut of other effects for Fire, Blizzard, Scathe, and the job's other abilities. It's a significant degree of potential depth that would certainly help in giving players a myriad of short-term goals to better pimp out their characters.

Those are some fantastic ideas for possible set bonuses. However, I have to imagine that the balancing of classes would become a nightmare for the developers.

Edit: I always especially loved the Treasure Hunter + 1, Enhances Dragon Breath, etc. abilities on armor in FFXI.

Edited, Jan 28th 2014 1:39pm by fatpolomanjr

Eh, it may complicate things a bit, but I do think there's some merit in allowing a bit of that "overpowered" feeling for the sake of fun factor. Mechanically, they can design the bleeding edge content under the assumption those people would be fully decked out with the easing of difficulty perhaps being a simple "naked materia" mode on the numbers end.

The harder part would probably be coming up with effects for every skill. Resource cost would likely be a default, as well as upping damage values. Certain DRG abilities I could see getting linear target field, to sorta mirror the Thunder AoE example. Cures could get a Stoneskin chance. The ARC ability that backflips away could leave some caltrops to damage/enfeeble pursuing mobs. Imagination is the limit, really, and I know the "blandness" of skills has been a gripe I've seen some sling around.

Not really wild about trade-offs, myself. One thing I didn't mention in my concept post was that these materia should also contain all the base stats relative to their SB set requirements. So if you wanted a chance at a particular INT caster materia, the gear you'd SB would have INT, ACC, Crit, and PIE all of the same tier to get that particular tier of the new version. Then divide those values by 3 or 4, but ultimately putting 3-4 of the new stuff in appropriate ilvl gear should get you to stat caps, if not close.

They implemented that way back in Final Fantasy XI with Evolith...

The idea, much like your own, was brilliant. Simply hunting monsters (and even in chests) got you these augment stones. It couldnt go wrong...

Till it did.

You had to slot gear, which wasnt a bad idea. But they made 6-7 diffirent kinds of slots which you were unable to select or change...

Then the "materia" you could put in had 5 diffirent shapes as well, a size system on both gear and "materia" on which no other size would fit, elemental affinity and special requirements that were SO INCREDIBLY SITUATIONAL that it borderlined on the rediculous.

Basicly came down to:

"Oh cool, you got a piece of augment materia? Lets put it inside your gear"

1) Can your armor piece you want to put it in hold slots? yes, ok. Most armor wasnt able to hold any.
2) What kind of slot? Because it's a fixed shape. Oh, Triangle while you have a Triangle materia? cool. (1/5 chance)
3) What size is the slot? Because no other size would fit inside. (1/8 chance)
4) Still here? ok um... elemental affinity. Only a materia aligned with... lets see... Fire can fit inside. (1/8 chance)
5) Wow, you sure are lucky. That Evolith materia you picked up, how strong was it? Because it's super random and can give +1 to +14 or even +20 to a stat or thing. (1/20 chance)
6) Awesome! What stat did it give though? Was it TP Bonus+20%? Or MP+4? (1/50 chance)
7) Still Lucky? No? You have MP+4? That's ok, i'm sure you're going to have a lot of fun with it. Oh right, REQUIREMENTS! "Vs. Aquans:" is your requirement! (1/30 chance)

Triangle, Size 8, Fire Affinity slot, Vs. Aquans: MP+4 (which is Max MP and therefor useless once a battle starts)

Which left you with needing the following slots on your armor piece:

Triangle Slot (1/5), Size 8 (1/40), Fire Affinity (1/320)

Which looking forward a bit to add in wanting the exact stat that you're looking for with the right strength:

Maximum strength as well (1/6400) for the right stat or skill which i asume there are atleast 50 diffirent kinds (HP, MP, 8 stats, 12 diffirent weapons, most of the weapon skills, individual resistances to every single debuff and random buffs to skills) of, but probably more like 100-150 of, if we simply asume just "50" diffirent ones (1/320.000).

And before you think you're done, the special requirements! Lets say only active Vs. Aquans! Awesome! but could have been during foggy weather or while under the effect of something too, so easily another 30 diffirent kinds.

You're looking at 9 milion 600 thousand diffirent possibilities if we dont even take into account ALL possibilities that need to match up for you to be able to get the Stat you're looking for, and being able to fit it in the Slot that you just happened to have for it. Considdering your gear can even hold a slot. Ready to kill yourself yet? Wait! Some armor can hold more than one slot! Enjoy.

It was the most terrible restrictive system ever and basicly turned something that could have been awesome and a massive addition to the game into pure and utter rubbish. They were afraid it would make things too strong, so they made it useless and waaaaaaaay too specific to one kind of scenario. Had there been no slot sizes, slot shapes, special requirements or elemental affinity, the system could have been fairly decent.

We simply cant trust SquareEnix with this anymore, ever...

Edited, Jan 29th 2014 4:45pm by KojiroSoma

Set bonuses could potentially work to give jobs more hybrid roles in parties... such as a paladin having a DD set to put it on par with warrior... or, I guess you could just be warrior.

Nevermind!

Hm, I don't know, the Delve etching wasn't exactly Random, so Yoshi has a lot of ideas to pull from with the other FF MMO they created. As always, Evolith was just a trial system for FFXIV, much like Fields of Valor was a trail for the Leve system, it was a good idea..poorly executed but the newer systems used for Delve is pretty amazing if you can actually DO delve and gain your potions (if you don't opt to buy everything.)