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Firstly, this is mostly rantings and speculation, so take it as you will. Got nothing better to do.
If there's one thing I thought was crazy about FFXI it was the side-grade and gear macro nonsense.
The simple concept of completely swapping your gear for every single action you performed was pretty crazy. Swapping your pants mid-fight? Well, I, uh, ok, but it's a game I guess, I can let that slide. But this could be taken to some pretty extreme levels.
People had to build up a complete set of armor just for gaining TP and another just for performing a WS. You could have gear for each WS due to each one being bound to particular stats, sets of gear for every spell element, resistant gear to swap to when bosses used a TP move, gear that's good for exping, gear that's more suited to bosses, gear to wear while it's flying, gear to wear while it's grounded, high evasion or defence gear if you pull hate. If you cared to gather it all, it was a LOT. The complete mess of an inventory you needed to carry all this stuff was pretty surreal.
The game was never even really designed for it either. You couldn't actually fit enough macro lines in a macro to do it, and it ended up needing around 2-3 macro slots per "set", and a whole bunch of presses to do each time unless you used third party tools to do it for you. Then there was blinking out of existence every time you did it; annoying for healers or anybody sub-healing melee characters, because the game would drop your target all the time. And then there's the fact most of the time it meant none of your WS or spell animations actually played. It broke the game in the literal sense.
Ok, so it kept older content relevant for years, but I'm not 100% certain this was the boon it seems.
Keeping content "relevant" is what made people still need to camp Nidhogg against you 4 years later. There was never anything "better" for further advanced linkshells to move on to; the same Japanese linkshell would turn up 4 years later to get the same old gear for their older members who had now levelled new jobs. You may have finally gotten a Ridill for every person in your shell who needed one, but if you ever invited a new member, or had an existing member level a new job, all of a sudden you were back to camping Nidhogg, or farming for Kirin, all over again.
I'm all for having multiple things to do at any one time, but in FFXI basically the entire game's 4 or so years of level 75 content had built up and it was all needed by somebody or other thanks to the fact that all gear was "relevant", but most people had already grinded it all to high hell in the past. Convincing people to come do Dynamis or Sky or Sea for a few weeks after they'd spent 1-2 years before grinding it was rather difficult.
FFXIV 2.0, and 1.0 actually if you paid enough attention, is obviously following the tiered progression route. Even back in 1.0 we had dungeons that were added, that were then completely eclipsed by new content and equipment added later. Garuda stuff added 4-5 months later was just plain better than Ifrit stuff, and none of the gear in Darkhold was worth bothering to get anymore by the time we reached endgame.
Every item in ARR now has an "item level" -- separate from it's equip requirement level. An easy way to tell that this gear is "better" than this one. It's not exact, obviously, because differences in stats will make different gear better for different things/classes/people. But if my grand company axe is level 60, and my Mogaxe is level 80, the Mogaxe is probably just plain better.
I'm not sure if this is what they intend, but I'd personally balance those numbers such that a level 10 item that is "Item Level 15" means that you probably need to consider replacing it once you reach level 15-16 or so, because your average common weapon at that level is now better.
With the tiered item progression, each linkshell, or company now I guess, sits at a particular stage of progression. The company as a whole is capable of beating Dungeon C, and therefore their gear is mostly C-tier, but this is because they already spent months grinding Dungeon A and Dungeon B in the past. Newer members, or older members with new jobs, can skip having to re-grind older content for gear they didn't need before but they need now by simply attending on their already geared class and Greed-ing items other people don't Need.
This doesn't mean that Dungeon A and B are completely obsolete though. Some people will go back and do it for fun, maybe with less members to see how far they can get. And there are of course also newer linkshells with lower members who will want to do that content for a while. Dzemael Darkhold and it's gear was pretty useless by the end of FFXIV 1.0, but that doesn't mean it wasn't fun to go back and beat the thing with only 4 people for the heck of it. Also went back and fought Ifrit a few times for fun, even though Moogle and Garuda weapons were superior in almost every way.
The difference is that we no longer have to go back and grind older content. We already grinded Dungeon B for 3 months, lets put it to rest. Go back to it in 12-18 months time when they add a hard mode or something.
So the downside is that some of that gear you spent months grinding for is now useless? Well that's not to say it was useless. That gear served as your stepping stone to the gear you have now. It wasn't just a waste of time. Minus a little skipping particular pieces here and there, you wouldn't have gotten the gear you have now without the gear you had before. You don't have to throw it away; go hang it up in your house as a testament to ages past.
As for crafted gear, I'm certain I've seen Yoshi say that he thinks that crafted gear should take somewhat of a backseat. Should it really be possible for people to craft gear that skips several tiers of content progression without ever completing any of that content? Why spend weeks trying to beat a dungeon for a cool new weapon, if you could just buy a better weapon from the market with zero effort?
What about members who fall behind? Not as much time to play, not as much luck with drops, perhaps join the game later, etc. Well I think this is what crafted gear and material is for. To help people supplement their gear or to catch up, so they can be useful when helping out on higher content.
The materia system is at least meant to be a way for people to catch up, or maybe supplement gear in slots they don't have dungeon gear yet for. You can even do multi-melding to push the limits of gear if you really have the money to burn. But gear now has stat caps based on it's item level, and from what I've heard it's not particularly high. Then you have to consider that the "risk" was nerfed; gear doesn't explode if you fail a meld anymore. So I don't think it sounds like multi-melding gear is going to be anywhere near as powerful as it was.
But lets not forget that FFXIV puts emphasis on skill over gear. Minus a few encounters (hi Ifrit Extreme), in the majority of 1.0 and what I've seen so far of 2.0, your success hinges on your party knowing what to do, when to do things, and where to be. Sure, gear helps, but even our motley group of slackers with very little materia gear was able to beat Garuda. Because that fight isn't about having awesome gear, it's about knowing the fight, knowing what to do, knowing what Garuda is going to do, and how to avoid it. Same with Ifrit, it's a very "active" fight, and all about knowing how to avoid his attacks, rather than having the gear required to beat it.
The Darkhold Ogre required you to know when to move to avoid little spawning ghosts, the demon at the end required you to know about standing on circles while dealing with adds. The Cyclops in AV required you to avoid his massive one-shot swinging attacks; the Chimera required you to know to move around and where to stand to avoid his breath and massive aoe attacks. In 2.0's lowbie dungeons I've already seen bosses with poison pools to avoid, electrified floors to get off of, items to touch to stop AoE damage, enemies that can only be damaged by leading them to other enemies, and the list goes on. Very few encounters simply require you to have decent enough gear and damage output to overcome massive HP regen, ala FFXI.
That's not to say gear doesn't help, of course gear is important. Better gear means faster kills, which means less time enduring attacks. The more the battle is dragged out, the harder it will be, but not completely insurmountable simply because your gear isn't up to snuff. The less times you need to deal with Garuda's clones, the better. But if a few of your members are slacking or behind on gear, it doesn't seem like FFXIV intends to completely lock you out of content.
As for when there are lots of tiers and it's possible to really fall far behind, that's when games are meant to have level cap increases. FFXI was stuck at a level 75 cap for a long-ass time, after only a single expansion, lasting through many expansions after it, which is really what made all of it's content swell up at that single side-grading level cap. Really, what they should do is add another 10 levels per expansion or something. The tiers then kind of "reset" each expansion, the old gear becomes obsolete, and it's possible to catch up by simply exping up to the new level cap. The dungeons are still useful as places to exp and for gear to use while you exp through those levels, of course, so it's not all wasted.
Everything is now a little casual, sure. But honestly, I'm not the player I once was. I can't dedicate every waking moment to the game now I'm older, even if I am able to leave the game logged in all the time.
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