Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

[Aksannyi]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

I use spellcast, and I can just //cure5 name now, so that's no longer an issue for me, though with the new <stpt> and <stal> that's not an issue anymore anyway. Selects through your party list without targeting the person (just his/her name) and therefore makes it possible to cure them without losing target on blink.

I've also heard good things about using BlinkMeNot, but I can't seem to get it to work correctly on this laptop. Meanwhile, spellcast has proven to be the fastest way for me to cure/status cure/raise/whatever anyone.

[meSchnitzel]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

For some reason I just don't believe that SE intended for everyone to be switching gear for every skill/ability/spell...

I must be alone on this one

[Feba]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

You are not alone.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

For some reason I just don't believe that SE intended for everyone to be switching gear for every skill/ability/spell...

I must be alone on this one

If SE didn't believe in gear swapping then they wouldn't have put elemental staves in the game. They recently added grips with different elemental properties too. And there has been gear right from the beginning that has different elemental resists on it.

[Mhurron]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

For some reason I just don't believe that SE intended for everyone to be switching gear for every skill/ability/spell...

I must be alone on this one

Yes, clearly the ability to macro gear switches is evidence of the fact that SE didn't want people macroing gear switches.

[Vyuru]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

I think SE planned for some gear swapping at the start, but that the players took it and went further with it than they originally intended.

[Feba]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

If SE didn't believe in gear swapping then they wouldn't have put elemental staves in the game.

Also if SE didn't believe in parties that consist of nothing but healers, they wouldn't have put WHMs in the game.

Because there's absolutely no point in attempting to balance what you use; and especially no reason to ever attempt to specialize towards any purpose.

Yes, clearly the ability to macro gear switches is evidence of the fact that SE didn't want people macroing gear switches.

The ability to (exploit) is clearly evidence that SE condones (exploit). Fill in the blanks! It's like MadLibs for people without honor.

[Armando]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

Sneak Attack and Trick Attack damage is greatly affected by DEX and AGI, yet wearing a full DEX, full AGI, or full DEX+AGI gear set on THF would gimp your performance insanely.

Likewise, BST (which is one of the original non-expansion jobs) depends on CHR to successfully Charm enemies, yet it's also not good for a BST to fight in CHR equipment.

Red Mage uses both schools of magic, yet there's no way for RDM to gear for INT and MND at the same time while also gearing for Magic Attack Bonus, +MP, and +hMP (which, by the way, is a stat that's completely useless until you sit down, like +hMP - another possible indicator that gear swapping is intended.) If a RDM is meleeing for whatever reason, then it certainly is impossible to gear for INT, MND, MAB, MP, hMP, STR, Attack and Accuracy at the same time.

RNG has a wide variety of ammo it has to use - Sleep, Blind, Acid, Bloody and Holy Bolts come to mind. It's unreasonable to expect a RNG to change his ammo manually through the Equipment menu without slowing down significantly. Holy Bolts also aren't good for Weapon Skills because of their lower DMG compared to other ammo. Then there's single-use ammo like Patriarch Protector's Arrow or Gold Musketeer's Bolt which cost a LOT of CP and are clearly designed to be switched in and out for a single shot using RNG's Unlimited Shot ability (which makes the next shot not consume ammo.)

Hecatomb Harness set has been around since RotZ and provides big bonuses to Attack/STR/Accuracy/DEX, but also comes with massive amounts of Slow that makes it horrible gear to equip when attacking. A clear indication that it was meant to be used specifically for Weapon Skills.

S-E provided us with text commands to equip and unequip pieces. All text commands are macroable as far as I know. If they didn't wanted us gear swapping constantly they could've just not given us the text commands, or if it was an oversight, they could've taken away the text command after they realized their mistake.

If SE didn't want us gear swapping they should've done a hell of a better job coming up with equipment that cover a wide range of stats instead of having everything be specialized. We gear swap because there's too big of a gap between what we could have equipped in a given point in time (e.g. during a WS), and what we would have to equip to try to cover all our bases at the same time.

Whether it's a good or bad mechanic is up to you but it's besides the point. There are more signs indicating that it was intended than there are signs indicating that it wasn't. More importantly, S-E has done absolutely nothing to discourage it (and it could be argued that they've encouraged it with the addition of more and more specialized equipment as well as expanding the macro system) and it provides very clear and tangible performance boosts. It's part of the game and not using it is kind of like playing a fighting game but shunning X attack, technique or character (say, hadoukens) because you think it's cheap. All it does is handicap you because of imaginary rules you impose on yourself.

There's a balance between gear swapping and practicality. I don't swap gear for everything I do, although I very well could. You don't have to have every single piece of gear that gives MND or INT to shove into two macros when you cast a spell. Many pieces give such small bonuses that it's pretty much not worth carrying them around. This is especially true at lower levels where there's pretty much no gear that's arguably worth switching for Weapon Skills, and mages and BSTs only need to switch 3-4 pieces of gear at most (2 of them being rings) for spells or charming.

[Mhurron]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

The ability to (exploit) is clearly evidence that SE condones (exploit). Fill in the blanks! It's like MadLibs for people without honor.

Non sequitur.

Purposely written game functions are not exploits. Macros and the /equip command were purposely put in. Using them as presented is not exploiting.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

If SE didn't believe in gear swapping then they wouldn't have put elemental staves in the game. They recently added grips with different elemental properties too. And there has been gear right from the beginning that has different elemental resists on it.

It's like the higher your level, the less space you have for all your gearswaps. I started by filling my macro lines as best as I could, but eventually I got so much gear that I ran out of space.

Lol, that goes for inventory space as well as macro space. Spellcast is so good, SE should just incorporate it into the game. Writing an xml document isn't that hard once you get the hang of it.

[Armando]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

Aliases are also a wonderful thing. Go go //vorpal!

[Aksannyi]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

Their new name matching thing is awesome. Instead of typing //cure5 Rafleshiaa (true name in my LS) I can't just type //cure5 raf. Fucking awesome. Now if only it would recognize when I spell silena wrong for the twenty-ninth time.

[Feba]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

Using them to constantly switch armor without any sense of balance is.


Wait, guys, I'm feeling some deja vu here.

[Armando]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

Using them to constantly switch armor without any sense of balance is.

The difference is that that's arguably a poor game mechanic or poor game design. That doesn't make it an exploit. I thought FF8's draw-and-stock system was awful, but using it to the max wasn't exploiting the game. Many would argue Street Fighter III's Parry system was too powerful but it was very clearly an intended game mechanic too.

Every game has its flaws. You could consider this to be one of FFXI's (just like our shitty UI) if you wanted to. You can't really argue it's an exploit though, much less when SE has done jack shit about it for like 6 years.

[Ziero]

Re: Why no one seems to care about Renkei (weapon skill chain) anymore?

For some reason I just don't believe that SE intended for everyone to be switching gear for every skill/ability/spell...

I must be alone on this one

You are not alone.

But you would be wrong.