Item level / vertical progression query

[Zephrose]

But getting drops from salvage and what not WAS progressing your char. And content like salvage, dyna, einherjar, etc even repeated took skill. We had a ls that ran Dyna and salvage for literally years and it was always fun. Not to mention we helped countless ppl climb nyzle isle and again it was good times. Its not like XIV's AK or WP where you can burn thru with substandard gear and pay only 20% attn. to your screen or SoA content where you only have to really do it once or if you do have to spam it, you can afk or again give only 20%.

If you like gear progression there is tons of games out there for you but what ffxi unique and fun was the "grindfests". Sure you had to do content often but it was good content. And you want to talk easy when it came to nms after claim? Really? There were many many nms that were not easy even if you got claim, some even seasoned vets still had a hard time with and could wipe easily to. And if you enjoy new content your failing to realize your content is severely limited atm. with the introduction of the new progression your basically limited to a couple events and the myriad of other systems and content in the game is now null and void. Einherjar, Limbus, Nyzul, Salvage, MMM, BCNM, Sky, Sea, ZNM, HNM, Besieged, Campaign, to name just some of the content that was available. Now what do you have? A handful at best.

Really if you look at the sheer amount of ppl who have left and the rest who are departing or on here screaming at SE to stop this madness, you my dear are in the minority on this one

What are you talking about? NNI, HNM, Salvage2.0 and Dynamis gear is still useful... And still gives you that grinding feeling. To say you have less to do is not entirely true. Infact, delve only forced alot of those more recent events to be completed. With Mnks and Brd having to complete Dynamis augments. All light melee jobs need Thaumas gear. Paladins need twilight and ochain. I mean, really, to move forward, you still need to visit the past. How is any of this new content narrowing your content view?

I'm gonna have to side with Zumi, getting new gear and progressing your character is fun! And guess what!? YOU'VE BEEN DOING IT FOR YEARS! The new systems SE is introducing to FFxi is simply faster at getting it. Abyssea was the same. Then people complained that was too quick so they introduced VW... And gawd... did people complain how SLOW they got their gear. You see what I'm driving too? It's the same progression, different pace, yet again.

And to point out minorities, I believe most people on this forum are in it. Because the majority of players I see online at night don't give a F$#K about how they get their gear, just as long as they get it. And guess what, again?! I HAVE FUN GETTING MY GEARZ TOO!

[Afania]

You just said it, you're doing the same thing now as you were then.(In Bold) Granted, it's just easier to do now.

I do the same thing for a purpose. And my purpose of playing a mmorpg, is to have "OMGOMGOMG I FINALY GOT IT" feel after I get an item. With current SoA system, it's simply not offering the experience. The "OMG I FINALY GOT IT" feel doesn't come if it's too easy and fast.

It's like spending $5 and eat junk food, or spend $50 and eat in a 5 stars restaurant. Yeah, you're eating regardless of spending $5 or $50, but do you seriously think spending $5 on junk food is same experience as spending $50 on 5 stars restaurant food?

Easier to do doesn't make the experience the same, it kills the experience.

I think their goal is to move away from gear swaps, so you can actually play with in game macros like they intended.

What's the point to move away from one of, if not the only fun feature in this game though. And gear swap works just fine with current game macros.

And to point out minorities, I believe most people on this forum are in it. Because the majority of players I see online at night don't give a F$#K about how they get their gear, just as long as they get it. And guess what, again?! I HAVE FUN GETTING MY GEARZ TOO!

I wish SE send me mythics for 20 jobs and a D ring in my inbox because it's ZOMG SO FUN TO GET GEARS.

FFXI private server is that way------------------> you get as many gears as you want as possible.

[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?

[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.