This is my least favorite gear system in any game I've ever played.

[MrDugan]

The first problem is that every new piece of gear is a NEW piece of gear, which sounds like a dumb problem, but hear me out. I have a chest piece I like. I know I'm going to have to replace it sooner or later (it's currently later. That's another problem.) but all the things I can replace it with are completely different stat-wise. I don't like any of the options. They all feel like they're for different playstyles or builds. Rather than doing what most games do, and doing what makes sense, where you have like classes of armors that are for different playstyles, these just have whatever stats they have for that level, and you get to put up with it. I'm going to lose bonuses I want because I HAVE to upgrade.

That's problem 2. Every higher level hat I can use is a downgrade in terms of defense from my current hat, but my current hat's level is too low, and it's causing level misalignment. Even if you hate all of the options on offer for higher level gear, you can either slog through having gear level be mismatched or you can settle for multiple options that have nothing to do with how you were playing and equipped before. This isn't new and refreshing, in terms of gear changes. It feels awful.

The last problem is the way you obtain gear from traders. If the top recommendation for farming materials is to sit on one screen and save and quit repeatedly while farming a plant, you've made a really, laughably bad system. Because trying to figure out how to get some of the materials I needed, that was the top method I saw on multiple posts. That's because the devs made it an absolute slot to go through a maze and jump through a bunch of hoops just to reach a plant that you can harvest once, without having to either go through a bunch more hoops, repeat the maze from earlier and then harvest again, or you can save and quit. Having to parkour through multiple screens and go through a maze of ledges and jumps for a single omega plant is horrible gameplay.

[live22morrow]

Equipment level doesn't actually do anything. It's just a general indicator of how the equipment's stats are. The equipment does tend fall into categories for different builds. For head equipment, the main stat for those is focus, and they tend to be the equipment category that has the least defense. There are head pieces that have a boost for other stats, but they're considered secondary, so there aren't as many among the levels. Generally, having a balanced build for stats is the most reliable approach, but you can choose to forgo stats in one area if you want to specialise or there's a particular ability you really want.

As for obtaining equipment, grinding is really unnecessary. If you pick up a lot of chests, do area quests, and bash plants you encounter along the way, you should get enough materials at least for the equipment you want. If you're short one or two materials, you can speed up by using the Straw Hat equip series from the quest which increases plant drop rate at high battle rank. Many of the more difficult rare plant materials also have alternate ways to get through trading, particularly in the Rookie Harbor trading hub. And just the standard shop equips you can get in each area are enough to deal with the enemies of that area. You only really need to do a lot of grinding if you want to get every single piece of equipment, which is a very niche completion thing (not even an achievement for it).

[Genny]

highly recommend installing ccmodloader and cheats and turning on plant drops to speed up your grinding if it bothers you

https://c2dl.info/cc/mods