Dev Tracker - Discussion

Some people do/have gear kept in storage for nostalgia. I am one of them. As soon as I see that piece, I remember the huge ordeal it took to get. But that's only storage and to an extent, mog safe. Case and satchel contain very situational pieces such as level 1 weapons for trials, etc.

While JSE capes are a cool idea, they too cause bloat. That too isn't the player's fault. I have 6 capes for Cor alone and I still have 2 more I need to make. It would have been cool if they made a way to just bloat all the augments onto a single cape. Why not? Some new gear has a crap ton of stats on it.

I'm the same. Hauby+1 I spend 3 months camping astral earring against RMT to buy, W-legs that took 21 Kirin kills over 5 months. Can't bring myself to drop those kind of items. Saying that, I have a few mules I use for Aman trove and 95% of my "legacy" gear in in those storage and safes.

Besides, I was one of those who kept the glowy weapons from 90-99cap and eventually they got used in Ambu weapons so sometimes useful to be a hoarder!!

I have Level 14 Battle Gloves in my storage from 2003. I camped the treasure chest in KRT for days for them and was so happy when I got them. Doesn't seem like much but Accuracy+3 was BiS until like level 70+ on DRG back in those days before Sushi/Accuracy food was a thing. Was the first item I ever "camped" for.

Never tossing ridill!

Moldavite earring was my first special piece of equipment for my BLM back in the day. I don't think I can ever part with it. I know space is a premium, but I'd rather keep 2-3 nostalgia pieces for the special memories.

It's still useful for certain ToM trials on slower DPS (BST, RNG).

I could never drop my Auriga xiphos, felt so special when it dropped, first rare/ex weapon from an NM, good times.

Also a hoarder, I had 8 pulse weapons (On mules though) when they released Ambuscade weapons, always good when some outdated equipment becomes, must have ;)

Again, you're missing the point. Min/maxing to that degree is not necessary in FFXI even on the hardest content. Will it help on occasion to be able to swap in 100 more accuracy when your bard sucks, or to swap in PDL when attack capped for a couple more percent damage on your WS? Sure, but it's a minor effect and not necessary. I do all these things to, but that doesn't stop me from recognizing that I don't need to in order to play FFXI at a sufficient level to beat everything.

Job bloat is another thing that isn't actually necessary. Players choose to gear more jobs because they are able to, not because the game requires you to have more than a few to participate in all content. I could fit ten jobs without much issue if I wanted just by reigning in rare situational pieces and organizing useless items better.

FFXI encourages you to play a variety of jobs. That's literally what one of the few things that separates it from other MMOs or games, along with the diverse armor/macro system. It may not be "necessary" (I don't know what that word means here, what is really necessary in FFXI?), but the entire premise of the game is built around that foundation. Otherwise, they wouldn't bother buffing all of the jobs regularly, or wouldn't bother giving you more than a couple DD, a healer, and a tank job. The current endgame is a prime example of where job diversity may not be necessary, but it is definitely encouraged and beneficial to have.

I don't really agree with you. You need some level of min/maxing to beat the highest content in the game atm. It is built around that and you aren't winning just using 1 gear set... so. Also, Odyssey actively encourages having multiple jobs leveled and geared.

Define min/maxing. Are we talking about having sets for different occasions (I just consider this normal gameplay) or obsessing over the absolute highest/BIS stats/gear per slot. The game has never required the latter level of "min/maxing" to complete content, if that is what people refer to when they use that phrase.

Back when FFXI came out, it actually surprised the Devs a lot to see that people were leveling and gearing multiple jobs to 75. It wasn't even something they conceived, and were thinking that players would pick a job and stick to it alone. The multitude of jobs to pick from were for variety of playing with, not the variety of playing as.

Now, that's obviously changed these days, but that's because the players have forced it by making it part of the culture and the devs followed suit, not because FFXI was built around it.

I don't think I'm talking about the same min/maxing as you are. In this context, doing your best to put together potent DD sets (for DDs), healing and enhancing sets (for healers), etc. isn't min/maxing, it's just playing your job at a high level.

Min/maxing in this conversation refers to items that are super situational pieces that might be used once a week for the less situational ones and never get used (but are still in your inventory) for the more situation ones, as well as pieces such as ones that are a tiny 0.05% increase in DPS, but only when you're attack capped. Gearswap has exacerbated this issue because there's no limit to how complex you can make luas and can fit in pieces of gear no matter how situational somewhere, so players are tempted to go further than necessary.

I also do this, so I'm not knocking the practice, but it's a fact that keeping unnecessary situational gear is the source of 95% of gear issues (with the other 5% being those players that keep nearly every job all up to date simultaneously).

I can understand those few random pieces that you'll likely never use because there are people who will farm up a storm for things that will never see the light of day. I'm talking about the obvious things.

Someone being sufficient is apparently a relevant term. There are people who run around in 1 gear set for TP and WS and seem to be fine with it, thinking "I don't need all that" while they're spamming their high-end 4k WSs. They may not need it because they don't do much higher end content. If you're fine with that, more power to you. It's also easy for someone who plays 1-3 jobs to think you don't need all that space.

The game doesn't require you to gear a bunch of jobs but that's what games like this are designed for, so you can play all the jobs you want on 1 character. The fact that multiple (some 6+ for 1 job) ambuscade capes are necessary just makes it even more complicated. Sure, you can make yourself a simple idle cape and think a TP cape, WS cape, MAB cape, etc are not necessary but you're only forcing others to pick up the slack.


Source? I would say 95% of the gear I have is necessary. The other is just "occasional" stuff that I keep in my mog sack.

I don't think there is anything you couldn't realistically do with 5/5 odyssey set and never change a single piece accessories either. Even roll+ song+ etc are merely speed enhancers.

With very few exceptions. And Idle refresh gear and fast cast being "needed".

How you clearing V20s with a party of 6 like that?

Unless you have like 15 jobs and use them all regularly, I can guarantee that there's a lot of stuff you deem necessary that actually isn't, and even then, there are almost certainly pieces very nearly as good that fit more jobs.

I don't know that I necessarily agree with the players forcing the change. The Devs may have said something like this, but that's because the game was different back then. More people played the game, so it was not necessary at all to play more than one job because you could easily form groups to accomplish goals for events/content etc. The way the game has changed now is that there are dead servers where it is almost impossible to get things done unless you multibox, play different jobs, or move to a more populated server.

I never intended to play as many jobs as I have over the years. In fact, back in the early days, I only played MNK and DRG. It's only until modern FFXI (like past 5~ years) did I start amassing several jobs. Since I form most of my own groups for things, it got frustrating looking for necessary jobs that nobody wanted to play (because everyone wanted to play DD). It became easier to level multiple in-demand jobs, so that when I am looking for a group to do things with, I am not wasting hours looking for a Bard or Geomancer or Tank whatever; I could just play it on my own and find whatever jobs there was a surplus of (DDs). Thus, it did become necessary for me to play a variety of jobs so that I am not wasting more time that I don't have. If you have ever formed your own group, you know how long it takes to find exactly what you want. So out of necessity to get things done in a dying game, this is what sprung the modern "Job Bloat" era. In turn, this also sprung a lot of early multiboxing. Players could get more done if they just did it themselves, vs looking for other players to partner up with.

That's a result of the state of the game, not a design choice of the game itself. The devs never intended us to play more than one job at a time while designing the game, which is why we had only 160 inventory slots total (which also had to fit all your non-equipment items) originally.

It was the players who turned FFXI's culture into what it is today by taking the lead and having the devs follow, but it wasn't something that was intended by how SE designed the game's core systems.

Of course they intended for us to play more than one job. If they didn't, then changing jobs wouldn't have even been a feature since the initial release

Changing jobs is necessary for the subjob system. The original devs have gone on record saying that they never expected people to level multiple jobs to 75 and use them.

I don't speak for anyone else but every piece I have is necessary. I play 5 jobs mainly and I'm full on wardrobes 1-3 and 11/80 on 4. I have at least 5 capes on each job. Some pieces are only in there for 1 thing, such as Desultor Tassets to reduce roll recast. Could I live without those? Sure, I did for a while but I roll all the time. Relic pants? Sure, but I use snake eyes often. Can snake eyes without them but the proc is nice when it happens.

I can't imagine what a career Rdm needs.


Whether true or not, it's happened. But that's level 75. Today, leveling a job to 99 is a breeze. It's different in the era when you relied on others just to level.

Like I said, you're labeling many pieces as necessary when they actually aren't.

Maybe not to you, but they are to me. Nobody decides what is necessary for me but me.

You decide what you want the games time limits and your parties impatience decide what you need.

No, this is a conversation about what is necessary to clear all of the content in the game (without just barely scraping by in the fights). What players deem "necessary" being different what is actually necessary is the whole point.

And what you think is not necessary that I have is irrelevant, same with anyone else.

To me, better to be prepared than say "Well, I can't because I don't have..."

Also, some people diversify... level jobs to be more useful when a certain job isn't available.

This topic started off with necessary being defined as what is required to beat all of the content in the game. It's what you deem as necessary beyond that goal that is irrelevant here. Someone could say that their worm hat is necessary to them, but it's not necessary in terms of what the topic is about.

Do you have a source for this

It was something like 15 years ago, so not offhand. If there was a database of interviews somewhere it should be in there, I think it was in a fairly prominent one.

To beat all content? I'd be going for those "just in case" in that case. I don't want to be that guy getting ".... resists the spell" on something critical.


As I said, 15 years ago, you relied on others to level. You can level and master without others. They also likely didn't intend for people to have multiple relics and today, several have them all.