I'm sure many of you already know what gear truncation is and how it works, but for those who don't, when your gear is above the maximum item level for a duty and gets synced, the game removes any benefits you get from materia and instead allows each piece of gear's substats (crit, direct hit, determination, etc.) to be capped at that piece's maximum. For example, if gear can have one substat at 100 and another at 75, and you have the next level up that has 110/80, the game reduces the 110 to 100 but allows you to keep the 80 you got from the new better gear. This continues until the seconds substat also reaches 100, at which point you have reached full truncation of 100/100.
There are two impacts this has on the game. The first is that once your gear over-levels the content by enough, that truncated gear allows you to get more substats than the materia would have given, making old content easier than it ever could have been when it was current. While I don't mind that too much, it is one of the factors that undermines sufficiently old content we all have to play in roulettes, making it all feel samey.
The second impact is that if your gear only barely over-levels the content, the truncated gear gives you way less substats than the materia would have given, making content between patches that go up by only 30 item levels harder than when it was current (assuming you had good gear).
This encourages players who want to do an expansion's previous content to save their old melded gear for that content because it will be better than higher level truncated gear from the same expansion, wasting armory space, forcing multiple gear sets, and overall complicating the game for no real benefit.
Continue reading...
There are two impacts this has on the game. The first is that once your gear over-levels the content by enough, that truncated gear allows you to get more substats than the materia would have given, making old content easier than it ever could have been when it was current. While I don't mind that too much, it is one of the factors that undermines sufficiently old content we all have to play in roulettes, making it all feel samey.
The second impact is that if your gear only barely over-levels the content, the truncated gear gives you way less substats than the materia would have given, making content between patches that go up by only 30 item levels harder than when it was current (assuming you had good gear).
This encourages players who want to do an expansion's previous content to save their old melded gear for that content because it will be better than higher level truncated gear from the same expansion, wasting armory space, forcing multiple gear sets, and overall complicating the game for no real benefit.
Continue reading...