Item level / vertical progression query

[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.

[Demon6324236]

Your tired of threads on a Forum saying we don't like things about the game, when the only thing we are allowed to post here is feedback, all of which is sure to be negative for the most part. They have no social area really from what I have ever seen, this is just where we come to post feedback, if you want to talk to the community there is FFXIAH.com and BG Forums, this is the place for SE to see our feedback, and since most people happy with the game have little to say, the complaining people stand out a lot more here. If people just quit without saying what their issues are, everyone would leave and nothing would change, people have to say whats wrong for something to be done so they enjoy the game and continue to play it, its a better game that way...

[Jerbob]

It's worth pointing out that the old horizontal system certainly wasn't perfect; a lot of the loot systems were terrible and things did get grindy at times. That's just because SE don't have a clue most of the time - it's not a fundamental flaw with the horizontal system. XI is constructed from the ground up around that style of progression and it's a much better foundation to work from simply because there are lots of supporting mechanics that make it work so well.

All the effort that they put into the item level system could have been spent on improving the supporting mechanics of the game to breathe new life into the horizontal progression system. Fundamentally, inventory space and equipment swaps through macros are the backbone that allows us as players to properly access the equipment variety that comes with the "old way"; the playerbase have made so many sensible and intelligent suggestions to improve these systems and work around the intrinsic limitations in XI's engine, all of which have been ignored in favour of item levels and "streamlining" gear variety.

Ultimately it just comes down to SE needing to put a bit of creativity and effort into development instead of blindly following the crowd and subscribing to the "just enough to keep them interested" paradigm. They have (or rather, had) a playerbase who are eager to put forward their feedback and make hundreds of novel suggestions, a lot of which are unworkable but most of which provide inspiration or insight into a game that they plainly don't play themselves. But no, they completely ignore everyone in favour of hastily blundering forward with ill-conceived plans that never actually see the light of day due to crippling resource mismanagement. This is why there are so many people complaining, and it's also precisely why there needs to be people who continue complaining.

[Zumi]

Totally agree. SoA, which we paid money for, should not have made us feel like our lvl99 gear was being the victim of a Scorched Earth policy. SoA could have arrived, with new battlefields, exotic new areas, missions, quests, new mobs, all which could have been enjoyed with our favourite AF3+2, Relic+2[aug], Woepath empys, Magian99s, RMEs of any 80+ stage, VW / NNI gear etc.etc. SoA did not have to be a destroying-all-your-existing-gear expansion.
It could have been a great expansion. What it should certainly not have done, is make players with full sets of AF3+2 which they didn't get from login campaign but actually farmed in 2010 when it was still challenging to farm Aby, make those players feel that those high lvl armors with really useful jobspecific stats, and relic+2 sets[aug] also with useful stats, were totally totally useless now. The idea of new expansion, is to make players happy. I could list you just dozens of close personal friends who have quit FFXI since iLvl arrived, and since their Woepath empys were $hit on from a great height, quit the game after playing it for nine years through good days and bad days, but finally SoA made them feel actually hated on by SE to the extent they quit the game. And they aren't going to 14 either. I myself went 1/130~ on Spurrer Beret, camped it from 2009-2012. But I didn't complain, even if there had been forums to complain on. Me and most of my friends ingame would never complain about anything in FFXI regardless of how difficult it was to achieve/obtain. But this is different. This is a slap in our collective faces. It is insulting.
New expansions should bring new mobs, areas, missions/quests, and yes lots of new armor/weaps. New expansion should make the paying customer happy, not make them cry and quit the game in horror. New expansions should NOT destroy the existing lvl99 armor and weaps that people have worked so hard to build. Real life thousands of hours building stuff in FFXI, is not virtual time, it is your actual real life time. For SE to suddenly announce that all that work you did meant jack $hit to them, in an expansion you paid them money for, it is like you are paying them to destroy all the hard work you did, and the items you loved so much and were so proud of. And also when the level-cap rose from 95-99 there was SE interview saying "ever since 2002 we had planned to eventually raise the cap to 99 gradually, and for 99 to be the absolutely final cap." So we all thought our lvl 90-99 gear was always going to be useful, for that reason alone. And those items were lvl99 on a lvl99 char, so WHY would they be gimp, why should they be outdated and retroactively nerfed and entirely transformed without any good reason.

Look at it this way, they didn't want to make a new UI maybe PS2 limitations who knows but adding 3 digits for your level they didn't want to do. However now we progress our characters with gear more so now due to the fact they won't want to raise the actual level cap. When you have 119 gear you can think of your character as being level 119.

I see no problem at all with gear progression and have no problem replacing my old empyrean and vw, nni, salvage2, stuff with new gear. Its just gear in a video game it has no sentimental value to me. It served me well in the 99 era. However in this SoA era were mobs are higher levels way beyond 99, we need new gear to combat so getting new gear to beat the new content is naturally the next step.

I don't see why anyone would be mad at gear progression. You get to play the game more and get some new gear kill some new mobs. Getting new gear is the natural step in the game.

Did you really want to keep all your old gear like 99 stuff sit around in town and use the game for a chat room because there was really nothing new to get in SoA. I mean I sure didn't want that.

Let me tell you a story about the 75 ToAU-WotG era. . .

There was a time in the when WotG in 2007 came out it only really brought campaign to the game most of the top end stuff was still gotten in salvage ToAU content which came out in 2006 with its 1%~5% drop rates on 35 pieces. People did campaign for solo exp but for the most part WotG for the longest time was ignored because there wasn't any gear or anything you could get out of it except solo exp. Even with the horrible drop rates in Salvage lots of people finished the sets, I too finished almost every salvage piece. The only thing I had to do in FFXI Was long in the game stand around in whitegate because well I was done with salvage I got all the drops in there for just about every piece of armor. We had LS members just paying for the game to use it as a glorified chat room because basically that is all it was, we beat end game in about 2007 had all the drops nothing else left to do.

Since WotG offered almost no gear or endgame progression from 2006 to 2010 the game pretty much stagnated. After a year or so of salvage a lot of groups including mine were pretty much capped out on all the gear we wanted. Yes it took about a year we went every day just about. There were other ToAU events like Einherjar and ZNMs which helped fill out other gear but all this came from ToAU. Players would still ignore WotG except for that 1-2 hours of missions they got every other patch.

From about 2007 to 2010 the game was left in stagnation. Almost quit because there was just nothing to do. All you could do was log in to show off your salvage gear and stand around in whitegate there was really no challenge left in the game. 3 years of no new gear progression or meaningful endgame. Game became a chat room because pretty much most end game players conquered endgame.

That all changed when Abyssea came out in 2010 added some new life in the game finally would could progress our characters past 75, reach 99 and get new gear for them.

See I actually like playing the game getting new gear progressing my character. I don't like expansions like WotG where all the new zones basically get visited once for story missions then get ignored because there is no new gear or anything to get there.

Honestly I do not get the complaining about gear progression, because it gives you something new to work for.

Basically stop complaining about old gear get getting out dated and play the game and have fun. The idea of the item level going up and up is intriguing to me because it will keep me busy getting new gear sets and give me something to do which is play FFXI.

[Afania]

Its just gear in a video game it has no sentimental value to me.

I don't think we need to argue about gear progression anymore, this sentence is the core difference between us. Gears in FFXI have sentimental value to me, that's why I'm paying $12 a month to play the game. Remove that sentimental value then I have 0 interest to play anymore or else it'd be a waste of money. There's tons of free MMO out if I just want another MMORPG with no sentimental value, but I will pick old FFXI over any of other MMORPG(FFXI isn't the only MMORPG I've played, I played other titles too). I've played many MMORPG, FFXI is the only game I have emotional attachment on gears, every other MMO I got bored after 1 month including XIV due to lack of sentimental value, lol.

[predatory]

SE had the chance to make two very different games, and very good games to their respective audiences, had they kept the two dev teams in different parts of the building, but they didn't, and this is the result. Instead of making an expansion like every other actual expansion this game has ever had, (I say actual because aby was 3 mini expansions), and added content, and areas and jobs, they went ahead and drew a line between aby and soa, and in effect made a new game out of ffxi, and destroying everyone's hard work in the bargain. Then to top it off they make an update months later that makes AF1 relevant (haven't used mine for rng since I leveled out of it, my empy looks so much cooler and has much better stats), and RMEs relevant again, and expect us to just eat that turd with a big grin on our faces. "Hey we took 50 things from you months ago, we'll give you a couple back, that should make you happy" Well sorry SE it doesn't, not one little bit, I'll be happy when you give back everything you fucking took from me, and make this newest piece of shit you polluted the internet with playable.

Oh one more thing about the ilevels SE you can stick them in FFXIV where they belong, or you can stick them up your ass, (I really don't care which), but you need to take them out of FFXI, they don't belong here, they aren't wanted here, and you lost a lot diehard players over it, but hey guess that's your job right? Customer unsatisfaction?

Edited to let you guys know I know unsatisfaction isn't really a word, but what the hell if SE can just destroy MMORPGs at a whim, I may as well destroy the English language

[Draylo]

Can you possibly cry any more?