Alienation of Dedicated and Skilled players

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

Say if 4.0 has a boost to level 70 (mostly to reset ilevels to a base marker) but everything at level 70 was horizontal instead of vertical. Wouldn't that require most fights after the initial gearing up point (Like Law tomes or the old Philosophy tomes) to be the same relative difficulty patch by patch, because they gear isn't actually getting any stronger overall? Would that be an acceptable compromise?

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Well, as someone who isn't as tired of the vertical progression model as OP, I'd prefer to continue on that path rather than go entirely horizontal. In terms of the arguments people make about rewards needing more longevity, I have solutions to that which I would prefer over removing vertical progression entirely in favor of pure horizontal progression, such as moving pre-upgrade tomestone gear down significantly in power so that raid gear from the previous tier remains relevant well into the next tier. But even that has drawbacks that I'm very aware of, and as such I personally prefer the idea of staying with our current system but making the stats within that system more interesting or adding things that can work within that system to make gear more interesting. Though this brings up another thing, horizontal progression and interesting stats aren't inherently the same thing. And there are also a number of different ways you can make horizontal progression work, from everything is entirely horizontal to more gear options in general to having a few ways to progress your character outside of raid that do make you more powerful but without increasing your item level. The last one is my preferred of those options, but there's definitely a debate that could be held on this whole topic, right back to adding gear longevity without any horizontal progression and actually making gear progression even more vertical.

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Originally Posted by coco1851

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Right, but just being better than others isn't what most of us want. We want the game to be the best it can be, and will give feedback to help it in that direction. I don't think XIV is dying by any means, but I see that it has flaws and I see solutions for these flaws that would only serve to make the game better.

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Originally Posted by HeavenlyArmed

Hello? Hi, I've explained numerous times that this claim is just straight up wrong, and it's an insult to the community that anyone believes it. As long as things are even slightly well balanced, more interesting stats and some sort of horizontal progression can absolutely exist in this game more than just superficially as you claim.

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Hi. No, you haven't. Your only proposal a few pages back was killing a specific mob in Deep Dungeon or Diadem will offer a slight boost you, yourself acknowledged was essentially negligible. How does that make stats interesting? 35 to 37 is utterly meaningless. As for granting some sort of benefit, you still run aground with people inevitably finding the most optimal approach and expecting it from you. Say Dragoons can customize their Anima to apply a 5% boost to any of their oGCDs. Cool. When people calculate which of Battle Litany, Blood for Blood or Blood of the Dragon offers the best overall DPS increase, that's what you'll be told to pick. Your mention of the Mastery stat from WoW falls into the same problem. While it's a nice idea, it doesn't change the paradigm all that much. You just have another stat that boosts one of your traits now. If it only applies to Gierskogul, then it's a static buff no one will pay direct attention to because you'll just pick it up along the way. If you can find multiple weapons, each with a unique effect... people will determine which is best and tell you to farm that particularly version of the weapon.

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Originally Posted by HeavenlyArmed

Well, as someone who isn't as tired of the vertical progression model as OP, I'd prefer to continue on that path rather than go entirely horizontal. In terms of the arguments people make about rewards needing more longevity, I have solutions to that which I would prefer over removing vertical progression entirely in favor of pure horizontal progression, such as moving pre-upgrade tomestone gear down significantly in power so that raid gear from the previous tier remains relevant well into the next tier. But even that has drawbacks that I'm very aware of, and as such I personally prefer the idea of staying with our current system but making the stats within that system more interesting or adding things that can work within that system to make gear more interesting. Though this brings up another thing, horizontal progression and interesting stats aren't inherently the same thing. And there are also a number of different ways you can make horizontal progression work, from everything is entirely horizontal to more gear options in general to having a few ways to progress your character outside of raid that do make you more powerful but without increasing your item level. The last one is my preferred of those options, but there's definitely a debate that could be held on this whole topic, right back to adding gear longevity without any horizontal progression and actually making gear progression even more vertical.

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I feel like, at this point, going pure horizontal would be next to impossible, but would it be worthwhile to add a new gear slot or two, entirely for adding effects? Like you can equip X item to give all your auto attacks AoE effects, or equip Y item to have auto attacks have a chance to heal you for a small amount like bloodbath. It'd give options for more effects without forcibly linking it to an item, meaning that the time spent earning it would actually be worthwhile, plus it'd never stop being worthless because it doesn't have to scale on it's own, it scales based on the rest of your gear.

Obviously I would consider two things required for this. First, have a simple basic item be available so that the slot doesn't stay empty (based on role, so healers can get a small boost to healing/DPS get small boost to damage/tankers get small boost to defense and enmity) and second would be that they would require actual time to put in (While high tier raids could drop them, I would say more they drop a piece for one, while dungeons drop various pieces that could be stacked into one). The issue is, right now there's not much in the game that I am aware of that would make for a good option for this (That wouldn't just feel like the relic grind) but obviously something could be added in 4.0 to work with it.

Mostly I'm just tossing out ideas. I feel like something you can equip and switch out for something else would be best, but as something not attached to the gear we currently have as slots. Maybe as the levels go higher you get the ability to slot more, but it wouldn't be too many at once.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Hi. No, you haven't. Your only proposal a few pages back was killing a specific mob in Deep Dungeon or Diadem will offer a slight boost you, yourself acknowledged was essentially negligible. How does that make stats interesting? 35 to 37 is utterly meaningless. As for granting some sort of benefit, you still run aground with people inevitably finding the most optimal approach and expecting it from you. Say Dragoons can customize their Anima to apply a 5% boost to any of their oGCDs. Cool. When people calculate which of Battle Litany, Blood for Blood or Blood of the Dragon offers the best overall DPS increase, that's what you'll be told to pick. Your mention of the Mastery stat from WoW falls into the same problem. While it's a nice idea, it doesn't change the paradigm all that much. You just have another stat that boosts one of your traits now. If it only applies to Gierskogul, then it's a static buff no one will pay direct attention to because you'll just pick it up along the way. If you can find multiple weapons, each with a unique effect... people will determine which is best and tell you to farm that particularly version of the weapon.

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Nice of you to completely ignore the part of what you said that I actually replied to. You know, where you claim that players will only take people who do the mathematically best thing in all cases into content? Remember that part? The bit I quoted? You wanna try responding to the thing I'm talking about? No? Okay. But if you did, you'd understand that the rest of your post here fails for the same reason the last one did. Yes, there will always be a mathematically best thing. But as long as things are even slightly well balanced, you will not be discriminated against for being slightly below optimal. And just so you can see that, yes, my original post on page seven did have this, here it is again.

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Originally Posted by HeavenlyArmed

Okay, so what does Wildstar actually teach us about people's claims in here? Oh right, that the "if you're not 100% optimal no one will do anything with you" idea is completely false. Not that we even have to look that far, as I'm sure most of us who've raided can say we've run with some less-than-perfect players in our time but kept running with them because they were fun to have around and didn't hold us back to the level where replacement was necessary. But even in terms of having multiple possible builds for a class. In Wildstar, I ran a suboptimal build for many months. Even when new builds became possible that made my own more and more outdated, I kept using this build. How many complaint did I get? Zero. Why? Because the difference wasn't anywhere near the difference you'd see in, say, taking a BLM who uses their full level 60 rotation vs one who role plays an ice mage. And that's the key thing to having some horizontal progression in the game, as long as it's balanced even slightly well, the issues people keep suggesting as inevitable will not actually exist outside of applying for a group trying for server/world firsts. The fact that the dev team in XIV keeps claiming otherwise is infuriating, and frankly, an insult to the amazing community this game has built around it.

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You also misunderstand the potential of a Mastery-like stat. It's not just a direct buff, because something like that can change how you play. If I manage to get my Gierskogul penalty below 8 seconds or something maybe I can do an extra one per minute or something. Or with the Fire IV suggestion it may not be enough to be worth stacking early in the expansion, but then with values available later on take a very big lead over other options if you stack it. These are interesting gear options. That is my point. And if it's a standard stat on gear, it will be treated like any other standard stat on gear as long as it's properly balanced. No one will be discriminated against, and an interesting stat will exist.

If they want to add horizontal progression bring back the Elemental Wheel & Damage types. With that type of progression though comes Job & Gear alienation. Pros are that it would give armorers and weapon makers a purpose again. Cons are that we don't have inventory to handle having items for "Every Occasion".

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Originally Posted by HeavenlyArmed

Nice of you to completely ignore the part of what you said that I actually replied to. You know, where you claim that players will only take people who do the mathematically best thing in all cases into content? Remember that part? The bit I quoted? You wanna try responding to the thing I'm talking about? No? Okay. But if you did, you'd understand that the rest of your post here fails for the same reason the last one did. Yes, there will always be a mathematically best thing. But as long as things are even slightly well balanced, you will not be discriminated against for being slightly below optimal. And just so you can see that, yes, my original post on page seven did have this, here it is again.

You also misunderstand the potential of a Mastery-like stat. It's not just a direct buff, because something like that can change how you play. If I manage to get my Gierskogul penalty below 8 seconds or something maybe I can do an extra one per minute or something. Or with the Fire IV suggestion it may not be enough to be worth stacking early in the expansion, but then with values available later on take a very big lead over other options if you stack it. These are interesting gear options. That is my point. And if it's a standard stat on gear, it will be treated like any other standard stat on gear as long as it's properly balanced. No one will be discriminated against, and an interesting stat will exist.

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Okay, I missed something. You can cut the attitude.

Nonetheless, we've now circled back to "what purpose does this serve?" You won't be discriminated against for being slightly below optimal, but you will be told what the best options are. Not choosing them at that point is you simply being stubborn for no reason other than to be unique. An example would be a tank wanting to meld Parry on their raid gear because they like the potential mitigation. It's passable in most content, but why would you do it once you know Crit/Det are better? The same applies to a buff on a weapon.

Yes, but we're still arguing optimization. People will always pick the best option once they know which it is. That doesn't necessarily mean you couldn't add an effect to weapons for some bit of flavor. It does, however, mean people will inevitably gravitate to whatever the community deems the best weapon.

*leans in*

To chime in on the whole optimal bit, I think the wow community used to do the same thing until the talent trees were reworked and redone to where there was no real 'optimal' bit and it simply became what you wanted to play. The major problem I can see with FFXIV having it and no talent trees is only really the elists pointing out issues with the gear of other people but even than, that is going to be really low.

I have to agree with Bourne though. As long as there is even the smallest optimal increase in any sort of area, the community will try to force it on other people if you plan on getting into the higher tier raids and what not. Its just how games are and how the communities in most of them work. I couldn't even get into most PF groups back before the VIT change because if I wasn't helping with DPS as a tank, I was seen as worthless (I was a warrior at the time and went full VIT).

There's always going to be a "optimal" route no matter what path you choose. But the "optimal" route can at least be much more interesting than what we have. Even obtaining that "optimal" route can be more interesting versus "Collect Tomes. Get gear. Raid. Get gear."

Can we give more reason to run our content outside of Glamour? I would certainly prefer that. Can we make our customization much more interesting than two stats? I would prefer so. And you are exaggerating beyond belief. It won't be THAT bad depending on what is available and how it is obtained.

I keep referring to XI because it is what I know most:

Samurai. It had numerous ways to do a 6-Hit Build. While there is a more "optimal" DPS 6 Hit Build, it was costly and not available to everyone. Therefore, alternatives were developed in place. The only time arguing erupted was when someone claimed to achieve more DPS on X set versus X set.

My quick dot point response:

1. The OP post suggests Yoshi's team are changing things in the game to make it different to what the OP has always enjoyed in FF14. That isn't the case. If anything they have been perhaps too true to their formula. Regardless, they never made any promises to change FF14's system to the one the OP wants so its rather unfair to accuse them of alienation. You don't go to a megadeath concert and then complain that they aren't playing One Direction songs.

2. Substantial gameplay and itemisation changes add a lot of addition cost in resources to development and have substantial risks that if fail can alienate everyone. No one likes playing a broken system regardless of its design. That means resources coming out of other things. Since we lack metrics to really fairly make a call on the popularity of such a change we can assume the SE (who does have more acturate metrics) has a much better idea on if such a change would benefit the majority of their playerbase to take the risk and the cost involved.

3. Just because a system isn't how you like it doesn't mean there aren't people who do like it. Likewise the system you like isn't necessarily a system that will be popular over all.

4. The fundamental issue that has lead to WoW's decline has been poorly delivered content, not its itemisation or difficulty. Infact WoW has actually been accused of making grindy 'optional' items like their quest chain legendaries that raid groups treat as mandatory for people to do mythic raiding. This makes it very difficult for newer players to join in in Mythic raids.

5. Horizontal progression systems have a lot of potential drawbacks. I personally am really not a fan of them. I find them frustratingly complex and they tend to be a nightmare to balance to high performance difficulties without forcing people into mandatory build anyway. When I play a game I don't like having to have to go reference a third party website just to know if gear is viable at all every time I receive a piece or if my build is still viable every time new content comes out. That's not even starting on having to have different armour sets for different content and all the space that takes up.

5. FF14 isn't FF11. FF11 is a different game in a lot of ways and was build quite differently. While it might have some ideas that are worth adopting and perhaps FF14 could benefit from more variety, FF14 isn't going to adopt FF11's gameplay. It hasn't been built for it and their development isn't structured for it and it would requires a much bigger overhaul on the back end than I think people realise to adapt 14's systems to be more like 11s. Just look how tricky things like allowing us to stack multiple dragonskin maps is.

Too much cake is a stomachache. Best to enjoy it in small, regular servings with plenty of time to digest in between.