Item level / vertical progression query

[Zumi]

If you like vertical gear progression, FFXIV is that way---------------->

You argued that vergical gear progression is "more modern and better", but it's not, it's just different model that works differently. It's not better nor worse, just different.

If you often visit major mmorpg gaming website like mmorpg.com, many players there hated vertical gear progression like how you hate FFXI system, if it's really "better", then everyone should love it no?

I can name many disadvantages of vertical gear progression model too:

1. You can't do next tier of content until you have current tier gears. GL spamming same content over and over and unable to do different stuff until this tier is over. It's boring as fuck IMO.

2. A gap between community. I can only play with players on same tier, because there's no reason to back and farm lower tier lv gears. If my friends/LS mate want to do tier 1 content, and I'm on tier 2, I see no reason to go back and play with them.

3. Vertical gear progression makes old content extremely boring after you climbed to certain tier. Right now in FFXIV majority of players in XIV can kill garuda HM in 6 min, or beat WP(a 90 min dungeon) in less than 10 min. If I go back to solo salvage 75, I can still die if I'm careless and pull too many mobs that I still have to focus and pay attention, that makes the content more fun to do as long as there's a reason to do it. Personally I don't find facerolling WP in less than 15 min(again, a 90 min dungeon) is fun at all.

4. You don't really need to climb everything, you can have just have someone carry you and start from highest tier. That killed the sense of character progression.

Also you're fooling yourself if you think nobody wants to do content if it's sidegrade, gear swap system/sidegrade and situational useful gears is exactly what keeps old content alive. Vertical progression model is something that WILL kill old content fast. Players still do limbus2/Odin2 for maybe 1~2 pieces of gears before SoA, now nobody do them anymore.

The point of FFXI system is that your character grow as you collect as many situational gears as possible, that's how your character get strong. A job with 10 gear set is much stronger than 1 gear set. Most of the gear remain useful for very long time, not just a ticket to next tier content, that's what makes FFXI fun.

If you like to faceroll old content in god mode with gears 3 tiers higher, just play FFXIV. And please keep XI the way it was so whoever enjoys old XI can keep playing XI and vertical gear progression fans/wow fans go play XIV. One of the worst thing in XI community is players wanting XI to become next wow and bitch at dev for not turning FFXI into WoW, and when real wow clone FFXIV released they just end up playing XIV anyways, now whoever likes old XI has no game to play because XI is slowly turning into WoW lol.



tl;dr:

Nobody want to play FFXI in WOW mode, those who wanted WoW in FF style are playing XIV, those loved old FFXI can't tolerate current XI. This game is dying because it's turning into WoW, and it's not appealing anyone since whoever wanted vertical progression are playing XIV already.

I do play FFXIV honestly I think its a great game but I already capped out almost everything there is to do in it. It's just a difference of opinion I know people who quit FFXI because of side grades and there was no gear progression. I am very happy with the way FFXI is now, I don't see anyone in my LS complaining about it. They even updating relics/empyreans/mythic because people complained about it. Also I can distinctly remember lots of people complaining about how there were too many side grades in the game. Most of the people who didn't like upgrades quit when the level cap was raised I thought because abyssea was direct upgrades to gear.

SoA is really no different then Abyssea just the power level gap is bigger this time around. I think they wanted to raise the level cap again but they couldn't due to PS2 limitations.

Also 10 min WP is only beatable by a very small fraction I mean less then .1% of the population and takes a very specific set up, pld, whm, brd, blm. 2 dps classes that are very good at aoe. I done it countless times and have darklight for every class, but the majority of the playerbase does not have the ability to do this. This is only accomplished by taking those 4 jobs geared with at least some ilvl 90 gear.

If you don't want to help people get on the same tier as you, then your obviously not a good friend/ls member. When abyssea came out I helped a lot of friends get caught up with seals and +2s.

Lots of people are fine with the upgardes they just don't sit here and complain about it on the forums.

[predatory]

I do play FFXIV honestly I think its a great game but I already capped out almost everything there is to do in it. It's just a difference of opinion I know people who quit FFXI because of side grades and there was no gear progression. I am very happy with the way FFXI is now.

You don't see the irony in this at all do you? You're paying for two games, and you want them to be exactly the same, and bedamned to us who don't want to play ffxiv

[Jerbob]

I think a lot of the complaining about sidegrades and minor upgrades stems from storage issues. Because gear stats are so varied in XI (or used to be at any rate), you would often get an upgrade for some gear that wouldn't render the old piece completely obsolete - the gear had multiple functions. More recently there were new unique attributes for gear released - I raged when I saw Cursna improving gear because I knew I'd never have space for it. That doesn't mean the concept of sidegrading or "partial upgrading" is flawed, just that the underlying system supporting it - inventories - doesn't have the capacity for growth. In short, it's theoretically it's fine, but from a technical standpoint work needed to be done - hence complaints.

Abyssea was fine to an extent (trying not to open a can of worms here) because we all knew from the start exactly where we were starting from and what the destination was. There was a finite length of time for growth (the final declared level cap of 99) that was exciting at the time, and because the whole thing was structured around new AF there was some control over stuff being rendered obsolete after a single update. I won't deny that some really nice gear that people worked hard for was made less useful - that sucked for those affected - but we all knew that, at the end, normal service would resume. That's not the case for the new direction we're taking now.

Lots of people are fine with the upgrades they just don't sit here and complain about it on the forums.

In all honesty, with this line of reasoning, the forums have no function at all. Of course people who are complaining shout louder than those who are content, but that's the case for any topic that's discussed here. Forums are never going to give unbiased points of view, but that doesn't mean that dissatisfied people shouldn't give their opinions.

[leorez]

You don't see the irony in this at all do you? You're paying for two games, and you want them to be exactly the same, and bedamned to us who don't want to play ffxiv

They also dont realize that this sharp vertical climb is what made them say "but I already capped out almost everything there is to do in it". Thats what that style of progression does, it quickly makes everything useless, turning it quickly into a single event game that people get sick of really fast. The beauty of FFXI was that there was so much endgame to do...because all the events provided gear that was useful, even if slight upgrades happened, you could be just as effective if you did the older one (as for how it is now, your not nearly effective enough so you need to be left out).

It seems Zumi loves XIV's style of game....thats great, so play it and play the 100s of games exactly like it with its style of progress that are out on the market. Your wasting your time on XI if thats the type of gameplay you like. I just want what made FFXI great back then along with many of my old friends who all pretty much quit because of its crap.

[FaeQueenCory]

It seems I'm one of the very minor who likes the vertical progression.... and dislikes it equally.

I like it because with a new expansion, the game should evolve by a large jump.... And +20 is reasonable.
(TBH, IMO, the level cap should have slowly increased to 99 from the beginning: RoTZ/CoP: 75, ToAU: 85/90, WotG: 95/99... The problems we are having right now are because for 4 expansions... the level cap never rose... then it rose from 75-99 almost over night with Abyssea.)
But what I seriously DISLIKE about it all is that gear is now pretty much 100% "highest iLv# or you fail"... At least for anything that's not a mage job. There really is little reason to wear the lv100 bayld gear... EVER. Just farm the original price of it and get the 106....
:/
And then there's the huge problem of endgame....
Or even just getting to the endgame....
Once you have the few pieces of Delve gear that you want/need... why bother ever going on a delve run again?
To make money?
What for? You have everything you want...
To... get... more plasm? for what?

The real problem with Adoulin is that it's an endgame without an endgame.... and the the extreme degree of vertical progression...
The degree is also bad for two reasons
1) it makes people disheartened... people can only do so much grinding before they say "nope. we're done here, shut it down." Outdate something that someone ground out too much.... and you'll have people leave because the point it gone. This was probably best shown with the outdating of the REMs. While one can argue that one of the three is "harder" to make... we can all agree that each takes a HUGE investment to just make the base. (R=money, E=NM time, M=ToAU+money+NM time) And the cries of rage at their outdate is due to before, this huge time sink rewarded you with something great.
But with Adoulin.... the grind rewards you with something that will be crap by the next update.
2) it brings out the douchiness in ppl.
Now, I'm all for requiring your endgame content pts to be well geared... but requiring the drops from the content that you're about to do is insane troll logic. (which is why I have always favored the REM update: REMs being back = more ppl can join in on the.... Endgame... :/ )
Sure, the REMs made some ppl feel bad because "oh you don't have a REM? sorry, we need someone who does." (that's what I said, cause I don't like being rude.) But the thing with REMs were: if you have one, you probably know what you're doing... or at least are invested enough in that job to actually make one.


My problem with Adoulin is that Delve is an awful endgame... And I don't see it ever being better. Even with the other fractures, once it's done, there's just 0 reason to do it again.

[Zephrose]

I can't see why vertical wouldn't be the way to go... If you want to go somewhere, why not UP?! Moving laterally is only going to do the same thing but in more minor movements and in all the same systems.

Honestly, this game isn't updated in the right way to make Vertical leaps well accepted. Truly, when the expansion came out, that was the best position for Vertical leaping. Everyone felt it and moved up to it. Not quickly but at a good pace. What destroyed this, and it's classic SE since ToAU, is the amount of content and forced leaping the player would have to do in order to obtain the gear for the higher content. They got this right in the Delve fights, as players started to gain the gear from the NMs, they started winning more fights. However, outside of delve, the balyd system with reives and WKRs, this system failed. No amount of growth was really needed for WKR. Better gear is always going to make a difference, but even Yum/Hurk didnt need delve gear to beat it. Just a mass of bodies thrown at them.

This game has had a growth issue since I cant remember in ToAU. It's only gotten worse since. WotG is a great example too. How long was it before we got an update? A year? Sounds about right.

But to might point, a game is meant to challenge you. If the devs challenge is to get the newest gear to make you feel stronger, then eat it up. Otherwise, you might want to look somewhere else. Cuz essentially, vertically or laterally, you'll be doing the same thing anyways, right? Unless you just want the gear to look pretty... go play IMVU haha.

[Damane]

vertical gear progression is fine, it just shouldnt be done this quickly. haveing vertical gear progression every 9-10 months is good while you fill the inbetween months with outstanding horizontal gear progression.

[Mostfowl]

In all honesty for all the defending I have done for xiv, the game is just boring at this point. They released it without enough challenge or content and all there is to do is log in > cap your tomes > log out. Even the ridiculous method they implemented for getting crystals and shards to craft (by mining and harvesting) makes it so crafting isn't even a viable option. I mean who wants to craft when you need to slowly farm shards and you need 11 of them to make 1 item.

That being said I resubscribed to ffxi to see how things went (albeit I did this on my alt account since there was so much talk of accounts be hijacked on other sites and I didn't want to risk my main) and not only is there nothing to do, there was no gusgen mines or other lower lvl pts going on, the worm pts consisted of so many underskilled/equipped and low lvl chars that exp was a crawl and since my char is so far behind, I have barely touched SoA content, I cannot get anything done. So whats the point of xi or xiv right now?

Its so sad, xi was so great and no matter the content it was always busy years after release. I mean look how hard it was to get into dyna before they changed it. There were always salvage groups, MMM groups, Nyzle groups, Limbus groups, einherjar groups, etc etc. Now its crickets everywhere. Even most aby zones have maybe 1 person in them if that.

Vertical gear progression was just not a good idea. Sidegrades made the game and taking that away took away ffxi. If sidegrades were so bad, as some ppl imply, how come content was still buzzing 5 years after release? This was my first and only mmo for a long time and its sad to see it die but that's exactly what this new method is doing.

Sad days

[predatory]

In all honesty for all the defending I have done for xiv, the game is just boring at this point. They released it without enough challenge or content and all there is to do is log in > cap your tomes > log out. Even the ridiculous method they implemented for getting crystals and shards to craft (by mining and harvesting) makes it so crafting isn't even a viable option. I mean who wants to craft when you need to slowly farm shards and you need 11 of them to make 1 item.

That being said I resubscribed to ffxi to see how things went (albeit I did this on my alt account since there was so much talk of accounts be hijacked on other sites and I didn't want to risk my main) and not only is there nothing to do, there was no gusgen mines or other lower lvl pts going on, the worm pts consisted of so many underskilled/equipped and low lvl chars that exp was a crawl and since my char is so far behind, I have barely touched SoA content, I cannot get anything done. So whats the point of xi or xiv right now?

Its so sad, xi was so great and no matter the content it was always busy years after release. I mean look how hard it was to get into dyna before they changed it. There were always salvage groups, MMM groups, Nyzle groups, Limbus groups, einherjar groups, etc etc. Now its crickets everywhere. Even most aby zones have maybe 1 person in them if that.

Vertical gear progression was just not a good idea. Sidegrades made the game and taking that away took away ffxi. If sidegrades were so bad, as some ppl imply, how come content was still buzzing 5 years after release? This was my first and only mmo for a long time and its sad to see it die but that's exactly what this new method is doing.

Sad days

You should have read the forums before you resubbed, you would have seen my complaints and I'm from Bahamut. SE managed to kill this game, and they did it with an expansion

[Zhronne]

I understand and support the OP's constructive criticism, but it's too late now.
They couldn't raise the level cap past 99 so they had to do it through ilevel.
Real question is: did the game really needed to increase the level cap? FFXI stayed at level75 for like what, 7 years? I guess a few more years of level 99 wouldn't hurt, would they?

It seems things are getting better, they are trying to adapt SoA's model (vertical, linear progression) to make it more similar to what it used to be before (horizontal progression, sidegrades, lots of different events).
The final result will probably be a compromise but it will be better than the SoA launch.


With the AF revamps and incoming relic and then empy revamps, RME revamps, more gear to be added, more fractures, more skirmish, more "new" events and I even expect some small revamps to old events.
With all of this going on I feel a bit more positive concerning the future of FFXI compared to how depressed and frustrated I felt when SoA came out.



We really have to realize and accept the fact that it's too late for them to press the reset button and completely reset all the several changes (which we didn't like) that happened with SoA.
But trying to slightly tilt the direction and find a common ground between the 2 game models is a good sign imho, I want to be optimist for once.