Item level / vertical progression query

[Jerbob]

I would like to take this opportunity to more formally request a developer response to the concerns held by a large proportion of the playerbase regarding the new item level and vertical progression model. It is increasingly apparent that a significant proportion of the population is very much against these changes - a lot of the more popular threads at the moment involve discussion on the topic - but as of yet there is no official recognition of this discontentment from SE. Server population levels are falling rapidly; this is a subject that needs to be dealt with, and soon.

On a personal level, my future participation in the game hinges upon this factor and, judging by other people's feelings as expressed on this forum, I am not alone. In order to secure our continued subscription to your service, these changes need to be either revoked or significantly altered. To that end, we would appreciate developer insight into these questions:

1. Is there any developer recognition of the lack of player support for the new game direction?
2. Do the developers acknowledge that recent changes in game direction are at least in part responsible for the game's decline, or do they consider this exclusively due to the recent release of XIV?
3. Are there any plans to modify, reduce or remove the influence of item levels and vertical progression from the game?

Any response would be appreciated. Ultimately, I am tired of subscribing to a game that I no longer play just so that I can participate in forum discussion and hope that things will change. Thank you.

[Zumi]

I for one disagree with you. I like having actual upgrades and actually getting better gear and the ilvl system is more modern and works better because they don't want to raise the cap past 99. It feels like the power of your character goes up as you get higher level gear and you actually see noticeable performance increases. Every mmo these days uses a ilvl system because it just works for gear progression. I don't mind replacing all my gear because it means I actually get to do something, work toward farming another gear set.

Sidegrades like they done in the past seemed pretty pointless when all this gear was released that wasn't much of an upgrade. Often players would avoid doing a lot of new content because they were sidegrades and didn't offer any advantages over what they have now. Limbus 2 / Odin 2 is an example of sidegrades that most of the community ignored.

[leorez]

I for one disagree with you. I like having actual upgrades and actually getting better gear and the ilvl system is more modern and works better because they don't want to raise the cap past 99. It feels like the power of your character goes up as you get higher level gear and you actually see noticeable performance increases. Every mmo these days uses a ilvl system because it just works for gear progression. I don't mind replacing all my gear because it means I actually get to do something, work toward farming another gear set.

Sidegrades like they done in the past seemed pretty pointless when all this gear was released that wasn't much of an upgrade. Often players would avoid doing a lot of new content because they were sidegrades and didn't offer any advantages over what they have now. Limbus 2 / Odin 2 is an example of sidegrades that most of the community ignored.

Your one of the very few, he is correct, its crazy how many threads come up about disliking it...and the giant sudden drop off of players when they started it is just proof of that. You play 14 and enjoy Ilevel, let it stay there and you can enjoy it there.

[predatory]

I really would like to see some input from the dev team as well. I want to know how they can justify destroying the game for so many dedicated players? Why would they cobble together an expansion that outdated everything before it, without any regard for it's player base, and brushing aside all the complaints about the new system? Does SE have any plans on making the old content relevant again, or do they think we will stand idly by and pay for a game we no longer wish to play?

[Jerbob]

I can respect that. I think that the playerbase is varied enough that we're going to have lots of different likes, dislikes and expectations, and it's not always going to be possible to appease everyone at the time. The problem here lies in the fact that the game has changed so completely without any warning, and changing something so fundamental as level progression in a way that is so utterly opposed to the status quo is gong to upset a lot of people. With a game that has so little in the way of new players, it's going to be a dealbreaker.

A lot of people played XI precisely because of the progression model. I never realised it before, having little experience with other MMOs, but it probably did a great deal to keep me interested. I'm not a fan of working towards something that's going to be worthless before I even finish getting it, no matter how fun the event may be. Not saying that your opinion of vertical progression is objectively flawed by any means, just that I don't think it's suitable for XI.

When it comes down to it, this whole mess is the result of someone at SE deciding that it was time for another level cap increase. That in itself is a flawed premise - I'm not sure why that was necessary. They argued that vertical progression was a requirement simply because the existing system had "run out of scope" or some such. In other games perhaps there is not the variety of equipment stats and the system of equipment swapping on the fly to accommodate horizontal progression, but I would argue that equipment system is one of XI's strengths (despite the lamentable macroing system and inventory restrictions) and should be held to as a foundation.

[Afania]

I for one disagree with you. I like having actual upgrades and actually getting better gear and the ilvl system is more modern and works better because they don't want to raise the cap past 99. It feels like the power of your character goes up as you get higher level gear and you actually see noticeable performance increases. Every mmo these days uses a ilvl system because it just works for gear progression. I don't mind replacing all my gear because it means I actually get to do something, work toward farming another gear set.

Sidegrades like they done in the past seemed pretty pointless when all this gear was released that wasn't much of an upgrade. Often players would avoid doing a lot of new content because they were sidegrades and didn't offer any advantages over what they have now. Limbus 2 / Odin 2 is an example of sidegrades that most of the community ignored.

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.

[Afania]

I can respect that. I think that the playerbase is varied enough that we're going to have lots of different likes, dislikes and expectations

Those who disliked FFXI model would leave XI for WoW years ago, and those who wanted FF in WoW mode would leave for XIV too. Current XI playerbase are players liking old XI, mostly.

There's no reason to please WoW model fans, they're not coming back to XI even if XI changes to WoW model. Change XI back to the way it was, a game with gear complexity, immersion and longevity, that's the best way to keep current playerbase.

[Anjou]

Change it back to a rabbit kicking your ass at lvl 75, god it was embarrassing but seeing a pack of Moss Eaters charging at you in the tree struck fear in me...

[Afania]

Its the way I farmed the original bayld WAR and DNC armor sets 5/5 and auged them 5/5, then the very next week along came Gorney and Shneddick sets, identical looking armor sets to the ones I farmed the previous week, but slightly different colour and with slightly better stats, and slightly higher bayld cost. So I farmed those 5/5 and auged those 5/5. And threw away the two 5/5 aug sets that cost me like 100k bayld lol. I farmed some skirmish armors too but only for certain slots. And now they announce further bayld armor sets, which will probably look the same as the other sets, sets which I will /toss again, and farm the new ones lol. And all this armor-set /tossing in a few months time frame. Tbh I wouldnt get the new skirmish or new bayld armors anyway if theres lvl99 artifact armor on the horizon. But built-in obsolescence is a problem especially if you quite liked the old game system of having a 'favourite armor build' which you had got used to and liked, to have to toss that every four weeks just to stay uptodate feels sort of wrong. Once a year to upgrade armor sets was fine imo.

I've been tossing AK/DL gears in XIV for past 1 month too, shit just takes inventory and 0 sense of accomplishment after getting them because they're piss easy to get and doesn't last long. Whoever enjoy tossing gears weeks after you got previous gear should play XIV, for real.

And leave XI the way it was before SoA, ty

[leorez]

I've been tossing AK/DL gears in XIV for past 1 month too, shit just takes inventory and 0 sense of accomplishment after getting them because they're piss easy to get and doesn't last long. Whoever enjoy tossing gears weeks after you got previous gear should play XIV, for real.

And leave XI the way it was before SoA, ty

i was never used to chucking gear like that, but i did realize hanging onto the AF and stuff was pointless. The even worse part was that the gear in that game are all the same stats on them, just slightly higher of the same 4 stats. It was mind numbingly simple and i was never excited for the next piece because it was more of the same shit but a new look.

This is why i missed 1.23, stats were different and meant more, they had specialized stats like there were on the Relics/AF/Primal weapons..ect that they tossed out completely, AA is now useless because you spammed your skills all day in a brainless rotation, all the content that was challenging and took groups for it all went out the door (remember when AF in 1.0 was actually not handed to you?) Group grinds were an actual option (not purposely made to not be one in 2.0 via the devs saying they didnt want it to) Combat in general was way more fun and strategic, it went from lots of positional and reactionary skill/combo to braindead rotations.

1.0 where it ended was shaping up to be a great game and something FFXI players could change into, but of course they threw that shit all out when they decided they needed to "fit the standard" as they talked to MMO devs, mainly Blizzard's WoW team which they admitted they took most of their plans from.