Discussion on the future of Final Fantasy XIV content & variety

To be fair, FFXI was not the only game with horizontal gear. EQ had tons of gear variety and it was really fun. It's hard to compare this to EQ, which had SO many viable raiding options at one time... but that was also because the gear dropped was still viable from those raids.

Sure, EQ was a grind, but the raids weren't.. (well unless you count lots of raid trash - I'm looking at YOU- PoTimeB!).

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Originally Posted by Savagelf

sound to me you want ffxi time gear. which not a good ideal. basic your post is more please make ffxiv into ffxi-2 which won't happen

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Originally Posted by Drazzan

Even looking back to 1.23 there were multiple varieties for people to work toward, there were AF Sets, Meld Sets, GC Sanction Bonus Sets, Darklight sets, Militia Sets and so on - Gear still came out regularly, it's just that there were multiple choices at the level cap for what you wanted to specialise in. If I recall properly, BLM could either go for Crit Rate Set, Magic Attack Set, Potency Set, Recast Timer Reductions, Ability Buffs, Intelligence Set and so on - so there was possibilities there.

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Not exactly what I said or want, it was just an example.

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Originally Posted by Drakeos

Acually i LOVE the idea of random bosses per run (aka one could be using mechanics to defeat the boss or one could be spank and tank ? then switches around with different rare bosses (or unique final boss if they ever get it) for newer future contents

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I really enjoyed the 3 paths that Toto-Rak had in 1.23, with 3 different final bosses. It was refreshing at the time.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

The way you phrased this makes it sound like you think Vertical Progression does not give anything to aim for. Could you elaborate on why you think that's the case?

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I didn't mean this in such a negative way, more so that horizontal progression gives people a wider range of things to aim for, rather than just a single tier upgrade path.

Thanks for linking those comments.

When they try something different though people start whining like steps of faith god forbid we actually have to use teamwork and coordination and nerf it to the ground cause casuals had their feelings hurt

I liked Coil story. Having something totally new at the top of the end-game, with great story and the best cut-scene hidden in it was a great world enhancer. I think it made Eorzea better even if you didn't do it, just cause it was there (like me until nearing the end of 2.0). Compared to getting the best loot from a re-work of the content i've already seen; there is no comparison. 2.0 did it better.
I mainly wanted to comment here on the artwork. I have to say that the countdown 3.0 artwork, and the new loading screen art for new areas, pales in comparison to a bowel movement from Yoshitaka Amano. It all looks like less-than-stellar Deviant Art stuff. All of which seems to be closer in style to Blizzard WoW art than Amano art. Just pay Amano the dallaz!! Or find someone else with their own style that utterly destroys the imatataz, and then pay them the dallaz. =)
If you can get Amano art as craftable housing paintings, do eeeet!
Lasty, the game is fun.

There are alot of FFXI haters in this thread who 1. Failed at acheiving stuff in FFXI and they gave up 2. Just for some miracle reason assume everything Yoshi P servers you with his SE spoon is accepted because eeemergad finoool fantasy best game evur bro.
I agree with the OP. Again no one wants FFXI but some FFXI elements wouldnt hurt since this vertical wow progression is all they do and they want balance keep the horizontal players happy too. Stop catering to casuals only and giving out handsouts left to right.

I think that more of the same on the existing areas of content - by which I mean more new content in those areas, not simply re-works of existing content - is a perfectly sound foundation. One thing I would like to see is a co-op meta-game. The PvP game allows us to play a meta-game fighting each other. I'm not big into PvP, but I like co-op play where you face waves of enemies that gradually get more difficult, just to see how far you can go. Someone started a topic about having something that they described in a way that sounded like the Tower of Souls in Soul Calibur 4, although they might have been thinking in terms of the 100 floor vertical challenge in SAO. Not sure.

However, taking that idea and blending it with things like the old Mines of Moria, or Rogue, or even Nethack games might work nicely. I think we could have a co-op meta-game in the form of a dungeon that is 'procedurally' generated floor by floor as a party progresses. You cannot revisit the exact same floor again, if you leave and re-enter the configuration and enemy present will change. Difficulty scales with each floor so by floor 50 (perhaps) we see enemies in the 50-55 range, and by floor 60 they are in the 60-65 range ad so on. The enemies need not even be different from the normal ones we see in-game, just scaled up in terms of HP, attack and damage dealt so that whatever we face on each floor is appropriate to the 'level' of the floor.

Since it's procedurally generated, there is no need to have a huge team working on design, the enemies are all re-used from existing content, and the treasure chest rewards could be similar to what is on the venture reward table with a single treasure chest reward (per player) every five floors and half decent gil drops along the way. The chest reward triggers after you complete 5 consecutive floors, they are not simply placed on every 5th floor, or else you could simply re-run the same floor for the drops over and over.

I'm not suggesting that it would be a massive hardcore feature, but it would allow players to form parties and grind the game for the heck of it Seeing how they stand up to whatever the RNG can throw at them. Of course you'd unlock each floor as you go, so you can't just jump in at floor 60. It would make a nice place to farm XP for alts too...

I'm thinking that each floor could have a limited maze of corridors and rooms with trash mobs along the way, and a boss room at the end with whatever the RNG wants to throw at the players inside. This just seems like a simple way to provide relatively open ended co-op gameplay for groups of players without having to worry about story, or somehow tailoring the dungeon to a specific location or story element.

Another thing that could be done and would be quite nice would be to have 'extended mode' versions of the leveling dungeons, extending them with additional rooms and paths, and of course more, and higher level, enemies. Optional content to be sure, but as always additional content is nice to have.

Some form of horizontal progression would be nice, but in this game horizontal progression at the same level as the top tier gear would create balance issues. On the other hand, for gear that is well below the top tier, I see no reason why we could not have more horizontal options, perhaps in gear between level 30 and 50. For example, a caster set that is physical armor, or gear that boosts alternate stats, or even gear that applies specific skill buffs and debuffs to alter how a job/class plays. The gear would be pretty well useless with higher level content because of it's lower level, but it would allow players to experiment and play older content for fun using alternate builds or unconventional party combinations.

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Originally Posted by SkizzleofRagnarok

Again no one wants FFXI but some FFXI elements wouldnt hurt since this vertical wow progression is all they do and they want balance keep the horizontal players happy too. Stop catering to casuals only and giving out handsouts left to right.

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Horizontal progression, by its very nature, caters far more to a casual audience than vertical progression.

In order to maintain horizontal progression each item can only be, at best, a situational upgrade from the other alternates. As a result, someone who plays slowly and casually can easily acquire a gear set that performs with 5% of the most optimized set possible while only doing a fraction of the content.

I would like to see some group content where the entire group isn't punished when one or two people mess up and instead punish just the people that messed up.

I will leave the details to SE.