Is this the road they will continue to take with items?

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Originally Posted by Gardes

The point of some horizontal progression is keeping older content relevant longer, not making player use the same gear for years. Gear issue can be easily fixed with allowing those old items upgrade into something else, allowing the unique stats on those 'old' gears to be transferrable, etc. Players playing for a long time who already has the base items can essentially just keep going and might come back to older content because the drops can be used to start another item progression for another slot/class (note: i do not advocate atma/animus/novus level of grind/rng progression) while new players wont get to miss out on older content that SE put hardwork into simply because it's not 'hot' anymore and nobody else does them. Right now has a hotfix for this by enticing older players to come back to older content that new players have to finish by offering them a currency that has no cap anymore but has devalued by shoving that currency into any content they come up with and putting exorbitant prices on it (animus books, novus alexandrites, mats for flashy glamours).

An example is coil1. By expansion, there will be new players who will never see turn 1-4 and clear t5 once and have no choice but to move on to the latest gear progression. Might happen to coil2 too, by expansion. Having more content be available for new players is better than cutting out content due to obsoleteness without the new player's choice, I think. You dont even have to force them do all those content if they really want to 'catch up' asap when there's the latest tome gears.

It's exactly because everybody knows that SE is killing themselves over trying to push fast food style content at turbo speed that I and others want SE to think a bit longer and try to build a wider base for gear progression and grow up slowly (but surely) instead of stacking jenga as fast as possible and see how high they can go. Doesn't have to pure horizontal or pure vertical.

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The same content doesn't have to be relevant for too long either since that content won't disappear, it's always going to be there for people to do for the experience. People will always aim for the best gear so you could put 5 source of gear at max level with the same iLvL, people would just go get the one that's the best and ignore the rest.

So in the end you either have less content with people who have the best gear for longer or more content with people having the best gear for a shorter amount of time.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

The same content doesn't have to be relevant for too long either since that content won't disappear, it's always going to be there for people to do for the experience. People will always aim for the best gear so you could put 5 source of gear at max level with the same iLvL, people would just go get the one that's the best and ignore the rest.

So in the end you either have less content where everyone has the best gear for longer or more content with everyone having the best gear for a shorter amount of time.

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Fixed that for you to reflect current end game.

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Originally Posted by cryptic_angel

It sucks when you have to grind for gear non-stop. At least with other vertical progression games you can anticipate long content cycles with gigantic patches that reset all your work. This game is resetting the gear grinds and neck-breaking speeds. The pace of new content is nice, but does SE really need to invalidate raid content three months before your new raid patch?

It's like SE messed up 1.0's launch and hit the jackpot with an MMO reboot. Now that they have the successful Reboot, SE seems to be making rookie game design mistakes. Just look at Ramuh EX in contrast to Levi EX. No one care about Ramuh EX because the rewards suck. When Levi EX was relevant for 12 weeks or so, you could see dozens of pug groups in pf. How many Ramuh EX pugs do you see in pf? I have never seen a company trash it's own content as such fast speeds. It's like SE only wants content to be popular for two months or so.

SE spends months designing a fights that people will only care about for 10 or so weeks. Seems like they don't really know what they are doing.

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Since you seem to know so much about MMO design, why don't you apply to take Yoshida's place ? :rolleyes:

People will always do the fights that gets them the best gear and ignore the rest, whether it's horizontal or vertical progression.That's not so hard to get is it ? Making a horizontal progression somewhat works would require the gear to be difficult to obtain but you're against that according to your post.

Honestly, I'm sorry but with a post like this, I don't think you're in any position to criticize Square Enix.

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Originally Posted by cryptic_angel

Fixed that for you to reflect current end game.

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I meant what I meant and if you think you fixed anything, you're even more out of it than I previously thought.

I believe Yoshi did mention that the ilvls should stop at around 150 in one of the letters. What I would like to see is a novus style progression on a lot of the gear(maybe the next AF set)(with alternatives as well of course). Not grindy as such(novus to me was not grindy) but something like you buy the base item with whatever currency, then you work on getting specific drops - either from mysterious maps, a daily quest, hunts, trials etc... Each drop would allow you to upgrade one of your gears by one ilvl until the max ilvl for that gear piece is reached - but this really shouldn't involve materia(so let's say it would be 10 ilvls to reach that would be 120/130 drops to get). But you should be able to get atleast 2 drops per day with extras being possible by spending currency. I'd go for flat upgrades that scale the stats without customization(hence no materia).

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Originally Posted by Dwill

The same content doesn't have to be relevant for too long either since that content won't disappear, it's always going to be there for people to do for the experience. People will always aim for the best gear so you could put 5 source of gear at max level with the same iLvL, people would just go get the one that's the best and ignore the rest.

So in the end you either have less content with people who have the best gear for longer or more content with people having the best gear for a shorter amount of time.

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Already untrue. The best weapons in the game right now come only from coil now and that is the only choice. One choice. One choice out of three top weapons. Yet people settle for soldiery weapon or novus. A lot of these people are not actively seeking out HA weapons either. Just go out and check random players running around. You will easily find players who are in full soldiery gear when it's known that mix and match are BiS. You'll find lots of players running around in a lot of soldiery gear but no sands upgrade too. Most likely because they do not enjoy hunts enough to participate in that content to get the items needed.

Providing more choices for the same level of weapon and gear with varying ways of acquisition, time spent requirement and skill check requirement will have players picking what fits their play style and cannot be a bad thing. Serious players will try to do everything and pick out the BiS while the less serious players will just pick what's reasonable to them, like what most are already doing. Fears about being ostracized for not having certain bis pieces also seems groundless. I have been in coil2 PFs with near i100+ requirement post 2.3 where getting an i110 weapon is incredibly easy and someone brings an atma weapon as a dps and nobody puts up a fuss. This isn't even about having some minor unique skill mod on your gear either, it's having way way less raw power than the player could have while still meeting the ilvl requirement set by the leader and the party didn't care.

No thank you. I don't want to spend months farming something that takes no skill that is a component of my bis subjected to a low rng drop rate. That kind of mentality belongs in a f2p mmo where grinding is an artificial blocker to progression because they companies cannot produce content fast enough because they spend all their resources on the cash shop and less on game development.

This is no longer the era of grind farm parties with exp chains where you finally get an item after 200 hours of farming that can last you for 2 years. if you can't keep up with the item progression, that its nobody's fault but your own. This game already provides you with alternatives that gives you same ilvl of gear as raids. It just asks you to wait for a catch up patch. No need to make raiding more worthless than it is at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Since you seem to know so much about MMO design, why don't you apply to take Yoshida's place ? :rolleyes:

People will always do the fights that gets them the best gear and ignore the rest, whether it's horizontal or vertical progression.That's not so hard to get is it ? Making a horizontal progression somewhat works would require the gear to be difficult to obtain but you're against that according to your post.

Honestly, I'm sorry but with a post like this, I don't think you're in any position to criticize Square Enix.

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You spelled out my point in your own retort. Simple to understand and yet look at Ramuh EX. SE making rookie mistakes.... blah blah blah go see my previous post.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

I meant what I meant and if you think you fixed anything, you're even more out of it than I previously thought.

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My point

"wooosh"

your head

The post had nothing to really do with your PoV in a negative way..... ;) but go ahead I enjoy some late night chuckles.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

Snip

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Already untrue, because relics are upgrade-able and 2.38 may see it upgraded to same IL as HA weapons. Previous LL said that the final form of the relic weapon will be the most powerful weapon too, but that would likely be in 2.5's time frame.

All the crying about HA being the best weapon is all moot. Because at a point or another, HA weapons will be the best. It has to be, because coil drops are rewards for beating coil. HA weapon is the sole reward for beating the toughest boss of the patch. How do you not expect it to be the "best" at certain points of the game?

If you want HA weap, beat coil. It is a weapon that befits the top players. Else you could settle for relic. It isn't that bad, in fact looking long term I'd prefer relic, because it is always upgradable. Unlike HA it is not a weapon you'd throw away when a new patch with new weapon makes it outdated - relic stays with you and keeps being relevant.

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Originally Posted by cryptic_angel

You spelled out my point in your own retort. Simple to understand and yet look at Ramuh EX. SE making rookie mistakes.... blah blah blah go see my previous post.



My point

"wooosh"

your head

The post had nothing to really do with your PoV in a negative way..... ;) but go ahead I enjoy some late night chuckles.

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I got your point, it's still a worthless one and you really don't seem to get it but hey, they do say ignorance is bliss so be my guest.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

Already untrue. The best weapons in the game right now come only from coil now and that is the only choice. One choice. One choice out of three top weapons. Yet people settle for soldiery weapon or novus. A lot of these people are not actively seeking out HA weapons either. Just go out and check random players running around. You will easily find players who are in full soldiery gear when it's known that mix and match are BiS. You'll find lots of players running around in a lot of soldiery gear but no sands upgrade too. Most likely because they do not enjoy hunts enough to participate in that content to get the items needed.

Providing more choices for the same level of weapon and gear with varying ways of acquisition, time spent requirement and skill check requirement will have players picking what fits their play style and cannot be a bad thing. Serious players will try to do everything and pick out the BiS while the less serious players will just pick what's reasonable to them, like what most are already doing. Fears about being ostracized for not having certain bis pieces also seems groundless. I have been in coil2 PFs with near i100+ requirement post 2.3 where getting an i110 weapon is incredibly easy and someone brings an atma weapon as a dps and nobody puts up a fuss. This isn't even about having some minor unique skill mod on your gear either, it's having way way less raw power than the player could have while still meeting the ilvl requirement set by the leader and the party didn't care.

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You make it sound like people who settle for Novus and Soldiery also have the choice of getting the High Allagan weapons but choose to just forego the weapon because they can, which is entirely untrue. People settle for the Novus and Soldiery weapons and the soldiery armor principally because most of them can't even get past T5 which makes it unable for them to even get access to High Allagan pieces of armor and the i115 weapon.

People will pick what's best for their job, no whatever playstyle random person A decides. People will optimize their job as best they can with what you give them so if you give them the choice between two pieces of gear, they will pick the one that's the best, guaranteed. Because, honestly, who would pick something that's inferior if they have the choice ? By the way, do you know why no one is making a fuss about bad DPS in game ? Because even stating someone is doing terrible DPS will be a first class ticket to a GM report with the possibility of the ban hammer coming straight for your face.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

People will pick what's best for their job, no whatever playstyle random person A decides. People will optimize their job as best they can with what you give them so if you give them the choice between two pieces of gear, they will pick the one that's the best, guaranteed. Because, honestly, who would pick something that's inferior if they have the choice ? By the way, do you know why no one is making a fuss about bad DPS in game ? Because even stating someone is doing terrible DPS will be a first class ticket to a GM report with the possibility of the ban hammer coming straight for your face.

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Bolded is false btw. If you mention actual DPS numbers from a parser, or just mentioning the parser while doing so, then perhaps. But just saying someone is doing poor DPS? Nothing wrong there. Know why? Because saying someone is doing poor DPS isn't breaking any rules.

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Originally Posted by cryptic_angel

Fixed that for you to reflect current end game.

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So how many high allagan weapons do you have? You seem to think its very easy, even savage, which like 2 groups worldwide have cleared all of. Are you going to put up or use the "groups hold me back" excuse that convinces no one.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

Already untrue. The best weapons in the game right now come only from coil now and that is the only choice. One choice. One choice out of three top weapons. Yet people settle for soldiery weapon or novus

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It could be that most players in this game aren't great at difficult encounters and cannot do raid content before significantly overgearing it with nerfs. Or they only want gear on terms they're comfortable with like doing long grinds that only challenge their free time, something they have a suspiciously large amount of. It doesn't help that SE pigeonholes all challenge into a single raid and makes everything else a total face roll, being tolerant to a fault of their playerbase's aversion to learning their job.

I like collecting the armor sets for my main so I'm not too fussed.It is kinda disheartening that I grinded a 300 myth cap for like 3.5 months to get my full Wyrm set and this can now be obtained in a few hours but whatever. At the moment I'm doing CT and first coil for the pieces I missed.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

People will always do the fights that gets them the best gear and ignore the rest, whether it's horizontal or vertical progression.That's not so hard to get is it ? Making a horizontal progression somewhat works would require the gear to be difficult to obtain but you're against that according to your post.

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Just a little question like that, reading your other posts about how much you dislike horizontal progression...
I thought the point of horizontal progression was to give people choice. Yeah, there will be always an item that theorycraft will set as "best", but really, what's the point ?

Min-maxing is.... garbage for likely more than 90% of the players, as they don't play at a level where it really matter (not that it really matters at all anyway in a game where "have enough accuracy" is the only real condition to clear content). Also, unless coded by dummies, horizontal progression shouldn't release items flat out worse or better than the previous ones. They'll be more visually attractive, offer a few more bonuses but you'll lose the ones you had, etc... But, you will have the choice.


You think you don't have that choice because you are willingly ignoring that theorycrafting isn't the only way to go.
"Oh sorry you do 2 dps less that this guy according to my excel notes, can't take you in my group"
Hmm kay thanks see you around ? What about other options that are similar even though they are not the best, or even gear which look I like, and cuz their stats were on par (slightly under best, of course theorycrafting said it. Theorycrafting is life) I took it over the one everyone else want because someone said it was better ?


People that can't think out of numbers may not like horizontal progression because "it's only an illusion of choice" or whatever similar biased "argument" they may find, but it doesn't mean it's not a good way of doing. And noone forces you to say 6 month+ with the same gear. Get a new set, test it out, get an other, and so on. You're free. Free ! It's a MMO, it's your world, YOU decide what you want to wear, what you want to do, etc...

(on the other hand FFxiv forces you to get the best gear every time because, you know... The 2 new sets you have every other patch negate totally the previous ones. Your choice just disappeared, and all that remains is :
=> doing raid ? kay get your "BiS"
=> not doing raid ? np you still have that 2nd best set, just make sure to get enough accuracy for raid if you ever want to test it ! )


_______________________________________________________________________________________


On subject, I also find plain stupid to force feed players with the latest gear available. The hunt have made every dungeon before the last 3 totally useless. New players now have only to do simple steps to catch up :
=> reach 50
=> do story dungeons
=> do hunt a couple of hours to get i80 at least
=> farm your relic, atma, animus (atma may take a bit longer than the rest)
=> in the meantime, get full i100, even some i110 pieces thanks to syrcus tower
=> syrcus tower also allows you to skip relic process to get soldiery weapon, then a few more hunts to get it to i110

No need to do any dungeon other than the new 3
No need to even consider dungeon drops.
No need to even enter a dungeon if you like the hunt

New "progression" killed the progression. It's no longer progression if there is no middleground. FFxiv is now pretty much all about "start at lowest possible and go to maximum available directly".


How hard is it to make the next tier of gear require the old one + some stuff to exchange ? It's not like it is hard in any way to gather this gear (well, the new dungeons drops are hard to get due to crafting mats but that's an other story).

I refuse to think a new player would be forced out because he actually has to work a bit for his progression, instead of being forcefed with max tier directly.

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Originally Posted by ispano

Bolded is false btw. If you mention actual DPS numbers from a parser, or just mentioning the parser while doing so, then perhaps. But just saying someone is doing poor DPS? Nothing wrong there. Know why? Because saying someone is doing poor DPS isn't breaking any rules.

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also because you don't need a parser to see someone is doing clearly sub par dps

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Originally Posted by SeraviEdalborez

Welcome to a vertical progression MMO. Don't get attached to anything.

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^ This is the "standard", it's very very unlikely to change now.

I don't care if there's vertical progression as long as I can get myself geared through doing what I enjoy doing; PvP.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

I got your point, it's still a worthless one and you really don't seem to get it but hey, they do say ignorance is bliss so be my guest.

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You backed up my point with your own rebuttal.

I will just re-quote you real fast just in case you already forgot:

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People will always do the fights that gets them the best gear and ignore the rest, whether it's horizontal or vertical progression.That's not so hard to get is it ? Making a horizontal progression somewhat works would require the gear

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Your point here is brilliant! Nay! Exceptionally brilliant! Stupendous! Five Stars, would totally read again!

I agree 100% that most players will skip over content that lacks proper incentives. People don't do Ramuh EX because of poor incentives to do the fight.

It seems SE does not know how to put in proper rewards to entice players to do the latest EX primal. SE is making rookie mistakes! If I was yoshi, I would have put in ilvl 110 rings in Ramuh EX. Seems like a much smarter design decision to me. You can white knight it up all you like, but every patch comes with horrible developer mistakes.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

So how many high allagan weapons do you have? You seem to think its very easy, even savage, which like 2 groups worldwide have cleared all of. Are you going to put up or use the "groups hold me back" excuse that convinces no one.

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http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/3085650/ I have one

Yes, it is hard to even try brutal coil when your static does not want to do it! What am I supposed to do? Should I quit my static because they don't want to do brutal coil for some crappy titles that would be hidden most of the time anyways?

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Originally Posted by ispano

Bolded is false btw. If you mention actual DPS numbers from a parser, or just mentioning the parser while doing so, then perhaps. But just saying someone is doing poor DPS? Nothing wrong there. Know why? Because saying someone is doing poor DPS isn't breaking any rules.

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I'm assuming that whoever makes the claim usually as the proof to make up said statement but if you want to argue technicality, sure, just stating the words "x person is doing terrible DPS" won't get you banned. But if you ever make the statement, be ready to get asked by at least a person how you would know that information.

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Originally Posted by cryptic_angel

You backed up my point with your own rebuttal.

I will just re-quote you real fast just in case you already forgot:



Your point here is brilliant! Nay! Exceptionally brilliant! Stupendous! Five Stars, would totally read again!

I agree 100% that most players will skip over content that lacks proper incentives. People don't do Ramuh EX because of poor incentives to do the fight.

It seems SE does not know how to put in proper rewards to entice players to do the latest EX primal. SE is making rookie mistakes! If I was yoshi, I would have put in ilvl 110 rings in Ramuh EX. Seems like a much smarter design decision to me. You can white knight it up all you like, but every patch comes with horrible developer mistakes.

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The White Knight excuse, now with 100% more reason to use because you someone disagrees with you:rolleyes:

Your ability to just skip over the point everytime you quote this is astounding though, I'll give you that. Keep at it.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

snip

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Wait, if min maxing is not a priority, and gear is garbage aside from the accuracy cap, then is that really a lack of options or choices aka horizontal progression as you like to call it? What about gc company gear, crafted gear, event/seasonal gear, primal gear, dungeon gear, AF gear etc etc. All these are sufficient for everything in game if you don't plan to do coil. The point people don't bring it up is that they still want the best gear in game which brings us back to the point of what should constitute getting it? I would like to hear your suggestions, because all the games with them have either like I mentioned, an incredible amount of rng and grind like XI or lack of end game content (no raids like gw2). What is in it for players who look to improve their character? Where is the incentive to keep playing?

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Novus and Soldiery weapons and the soldiery armor principally because most of them can't even get past T5 which makes it unable for them to even get access to High Allagan pieces of armor and the i115 weapon.

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You make it sound like that's the only reason people dont do coil 2. There are people who, after being helped get past t5 still don't want to try coil2 while it's up to date. I've seen people claim in my random hunting ls that they don't even want to try t5 seriously yet after a couple tried because they want to do something else in the game. Mean while this same person is happily hunting everyday and buying up sands and oils to i110 his gear. Yes, people will ask for the gold axe when some random lady of the lake shows them a gold axe and a silver axe and asks them which one they want to be given. If BiS means that much to every player, they will be throwing themselves at twintania until they can start trying for the i110 bis pieces and reject the alternative soldiery pieces that are not BiS but they are not. They pick soldiery because it's more reasonable for them.

I don't know how people just read what I post (asking for more paths per ilvl increase that arent as extreme in stat increases, using older content as a spring board so that they are not completely junk) and then come to the conclusion that I'm asking 24+ hour spawn NM grabs with 1% drop rates or that I'm lamenting that HA weapon being the best weapon gained from the hardest content is unfair.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

So how many high allagan weapons do you have? You seem to think its very easy, even savage, which like 2 groups worldwide have cleared all of

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Very few even attempt it due to its shared lockout - Why do essentially experimental content for the same rewards when you can faceroll the easy versions you've been farming for a long time now? So it's hard to really use Savage Coil until they split the lockout when more groups will more than likely be willing to attempt it. It's like back in 1.x, few completed Relics but the reward was worth it because relics used to actually be...worth something:

http://i.imgur.com/i77bMhe.png

This was far more interesting itemization and was actually worth the time it took to do it - Since this game they're only going with Stat+x/second stat+x style itemization..there's really no room for anything special or true 'options", since the options we get usually replaces a stat with something you don't want.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

also because you don't need a parser to see someone is doing clearly sub par dps

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Good luck trying to convince me that you have time to watch your and 3 other DPS' damage output while doing mechanics in a 8-man and determine who is doing good and who is doing bad.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

You make it sound like that's the only reason people dont do coil 2. There are people who, after being helped get past t5 still don't want to try coil2 while it's up to date. I've seen people claim in my random hunting ls that they don't even want to try t5 seriously yet after a couple tried because they want to do something else in the game. Mean while this same person is happily hunting everyday and buying up sands and oils to i110 his gear. Yes, people will ask for the gold axe when some random lady of the lake shows them a gold axe and a silver axe and asks them which one they want to be given. If BiS means that much to every player, they will be throwing themselves at twintania until they can start trying for the i110 bis pieces and reject the alternative soldiery pieces that are not BiS but they are not. They pick soldiery because it's more reasonable for them.

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They pick soldiery because it's more easily accessible to them.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

I don't know how people just read what I post (asking for more paths per ilvl increase that arent as extreme in stat increases, using older content as a spring board so that they are not completely junk) and then come to the conclusion that I'm asking 24+ hour spawn NM grabs with 1% drop rates or that I'm lamenting that HA weapon being the best weapon gained from the hardest content is unfair.

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False. These two things that I've never claimed.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

I don't know how people just read what I post (asking for more paths per ilvl increase that arent as extreme in stat increases, using older content as a spring board so that they are not completely junk) and then come to the conclusion that I'm asking 24+ hour spawn NM grabs with 1% drop rates or that I'm lamenting that HA weapon being the best weapon gained from the hardest content is unfair.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gardes

Already untrue. The best weapons in the game right now come only from coil now and that is the only choice. One choice. One choice out of three top weapons.

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Which is what my post to your post is about. It is only natural that the best weapon is one choice. Simple isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Gardes

Providing more choices for the same level of weapon and gear with varying ways of acquisition, time spent requirement and skill check requirement will have players picking what fits their play style and cannot be a bad thing.

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You do have these choices don't you. Skilled with time? Coil. Semi-skilled with okok amount of time? Do CT, get the UAT and do some hunts for Sands, IL110 weapon, you got it. No skill at all (I am not hinting that relic is solely for non-skilled, but at the least the non-skilled still have an option for IL110 weapon)? Do your relic quest. These are choices according to variation of job skills and play time.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

I'm assuming that whoever makes the claim usually as the proof to make up said statement but if you want to argue technicality, sure, just stating the words "x person is doing terrible DPS" won't get you banned. But if you ever make the statement, be ready to get asked by at least a person how you would know that information.



The White Knight excuse, now with 100% more reason to use because you someone disagrees with you:rolleyes:

Your ability to just skip over the point everytime you quote this is astounding though, I'll give you that. Keep at it.

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So, then ramuh ex rewards were perfect?

Hunt rewards seemed properly tuned and the time to acquire the rewards was just right?

My point is that SE is making major mistakes. You say you disagree? Then, by your opinion, SE is doing a great job?

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I remember spending a decent amount of time on getting ilvl 80 gear back in january. Just recently decided to start playing again...

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It is great you want check back here again! Hope you got here again not only because the free login time event.

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...noticed there is a full set of ilvl 90 gear easily obtainable through a couple of hours of hunting.

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When any MMO progresses, it generally makes old gear more easily available, and makes old hard-to-do duties, less hard to do. You checked back after more than half year, you had to expect things like this.

Today i90 is a starting gear and i110 is the gear you have to work for, The Wall is no more, Pharos Sirius has been nerfed, and T1-T5 have echo.

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...i enjoy gearing my character with the endgame gear because it feels accomplished...

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After logging off and returning after almost one year, you really cannot think your gear is still top-notch. Want feel good? Go full i110, in game the people who have that is few, despite some player in forums says about how i110 is easy.

My big issue is tha VP slowly renders old dungeons obsolete, even to new players unless your doing glamor runs. With the ability to go strait to ilvl 90 and join expert dungeons, why bother with AK or WP at all? Armor is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to rendering older things usless.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

Wait, if min maxing is not a priority, and gear is garbage aside from the accuracy cap, then is that really a lack of options or choices aka horizontal progression as you like to call it? What about gc company gear, crafted gear, event/seasonal gear, primal gear, dungeon gear, AF gear etc etc. All these are sufficient for everything in game if you don't plan to do coil. The point people don't bring it up is that they still want the best gear in game which brings us back to the point of what should constitute getting it? I would like to hear your suggestions, because all the games with them have either like I mentioned, an incredible amount of rng and grind like XI or lack of end game content (no raids like gw2). What is in it for players who look to improve their character? Where is the incentive to keep playing?

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I'm not sure abut what you're trying to prove...

first, min maxing only applies to a similar range of gear. You won't min-max i40 gear with i110. But once at full i110 (ie, when min maxing becomes relevant), it is not a priority as you can't gain significant power with that. As I said, a difference of 4-5 dps won't matter much if you can beat the game already.

For your other stuff, well...
=> GC company gear is... like, irrelevant since they decided GC gear would be for vanity only and have no use in end game (you can't even enter their "casual raid" with the hunt gear)
=> crafted gear has been irrelevant since SE decided that having a relevant crafting system would help RMTs. Are they wrong, are they true, I don't care, but crafting is relevant in game only at the start of a new coil patch. Also, the prices. By the time someone gets enough money for that, they have i100 gear or i110. You could craft it yourself, but it would be the same, by the time you get it you can have at least a full decked i100 waiting. it will always be subpar to the "farm a week and get it" gear anyway.
=> event/seasonal gear was never intended to have any use besides glamour, I fail to see your point
=> primal gear was good for the 2.0-2.1 era, where you needed the weapons to go further (or find an overgeared group) now they are all... useless. Ramuh is utterly useless. Shiva will probably be useless as well if they keep making primals on par with previous patch instead of aiming for the current patch
=> AF is a joke. The supposedly "mythic gear" which is supposed to be the best for your job, coming from ancestors and all... was a joke, given in lv45/50 quests, with no difficulty whatsoever. So much for the "most powerful gear of all time".


Get real, the game itself throws you at the last tier of gear, which is currently i100/110, and will be i120/130 soon enough with still no connection at all with the previous tier.


As for your question, there ARE options, they are just totally ignored by the devs for now.

=> crafting. Never said enough, but relevant crafting wouldn't hurt. Adding new tier recipes which require dungeon/raid drops, that you can't faceroll at patch start. Sure it will have RNG, but it will give more options for itemization
=> new GC stuff, the i55 is really laughable now. the i70 from hunt is even worse, as it is only designed for glamour (why isn't it i1 ? who knows...)
=> make AF gear really relevant. We upgrade relic, why is the AF gear so dull ? Just give us quests to upgrade it as well.
=> rare drops from difficult dungeons. Like, for 2.4, having a dungeon i115 dropping with 2% chance a new i130 piece of gear. regular drop would be i120. Incentives to do it on a regular basis for i120, incentives to do it for the jackpot, win-win. Oh and yeah, actually relevant dungeon asking you to gear up to go in (people who stopped at 2.1 will probably still be able to enter new dungeons in 2.4... >_> )
=> For raiders, raid only drop allowing you to upgrade XX stuff giving it : a) a new stat, or b) slightly higher stats. Tadaam you got your shinies.



There ARE ways of progressions to make the game less "everyone wears the same stuff". They are just ALL ignored to follow the "Raid + new currency" model.


grind, craft, rng, regular drop and raid drop. that's 5 ways of doing progression, even if they would have a hierarchy. Yet we don't even have that (only grind and raid atm..)

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Good luck trying to convince me that you have time to watch your and 3 other DPS' damage output while doing mechanics in a 8-man and determine who is doing good and who is doing bad.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

also because you don't need a parser to see someone is doing clearly sub par dps

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I eased the reading for you, it seems you missed the point. There are things called enmity bars. A clearly sub par dps is easily noticeable unless they keep dying (but yet again, if you die at every single attempt, that's an other reason for you to get booted out of the group, isn't it ?)

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

I eased the reading for you, it seems you missed the point. There are things called enmity bars. A clearly sub par dps is easily noticeable unless they keep dying (but yet again, if you die at every single attempt, that's an other reason for you to get booted out of the group, isn't it ?)

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Summoners share their enmity with their pet so clearly the enmity bar is the way to go to determine DPS! Especially on multi target fight where you can keep track of everybody's enmity on every target!

Seriously though, try again but with a valid argument this time.

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Originally Posted by cryptic_angel

So, then ramuh ex rewards were perfect?

Hunt rewards seemed properly tuned and the time to acquire the rewards was just right?

My point is that SE is making major mistakes. You say you disagree? Then, by your opinion, SE is doing a great job?

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I actually agree that the rewards for these systems could have been better handled but turning this game in a horizontal progression is not the solution.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

too long

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Thanks, but I'm not stupid to think that seasonal/event gear is on par with coil gear, my whole point being that there is no lack of choices in gear. This game probably has more choices than a lot of gear out there, but most people will jump to the last 2 because its the most powerful. So lets put the lack of options to rest.

Now on to the 5 choices you mentioned

1) Some slots for crafted gear can be equally powerful/more powerful than i1oo/i110 gear with the correct melds. There is the option there, most poeple don't do it cause it's too expensive/difficult. Nevertheless its still an option.
2) RNG? Serious? Atma/Animus/novus is not rng?
3) Regular drop? So like 0.1% from open world? Back at grind and rng i see.

The biggest problem I have is that unless SE can do something no company has been able to do before, that is perfectly balance the game such that each route has its own bis gear (you can argue that bis isn't important but it is for me personally as it gives me a sense of completion), the gear is going to overlap in some way. Now I have played games like maple and RO with pitifully low drop rates so it wouldn't bother me that much, but looking at how people complain about atma, this route won't go down with players well at all. They just don't realize it yet. Right now I'm doing hunts even though I don't enjoy it so that I can get my bis. The fun it will be if I also have to craft, grind and farm open world mobs to do so! And all these because SE decides they need to artifically lengthen their content so they can keep old content relevant. Yay!

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Summoners share their enmity with their pet so clearly the enmity bar is the way to go to determine DPS! Especially on multi target fight where you can keep track of everybody's enmity on every target!

Seriously though, try again but with a valid argument this time.

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I will let you think that quelling strikes really makes a difference in enmity in a 8 mins+ fight and go ahead. oh and yeah every fight in current end game isn't a single mob with sometimes a few adds coming (T6, T8, every primal but the mog, T9, T5... sigh).

Also, you're trying to prove me wrong with bad arguments. Sure summoners share enmity with pets, but it's still easily noticeable if they do a good work or not. especially in 8 men fights where you can easily check if their DoTs are up or not.

But heh, if you can't, that doesn't mean noone can. I have had no use of a parser, and yet I have met my share of horrible dps who can't perform at all at their job (not totally their fault though, the game throws them at max level/ilevel without them ever having to perform their job at all...). You can tell when a player is bad just by paying attention to the screen and the infos it shows you. no need of a parser unless you want to rub their face with actual numbers.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

Thanks, but I'm not stupid to think that seasonal/event gear is on par with coil gear, my whole point being that there is no lack of choices in gear. This game probably has more choices than a lot of gear out there, but most people will jump to the last 2 because its the most powerful. So lets put the lack of options to rest.

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When the game throws you at the max tier, vanity gear is no longer a gearing option. I see what you mean, truly, but it won't work until SE decides to make people work for their gear rather than to use the "play 2 weeks before I give it to you" trick.

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Now on to the 5 choices you mentioned

1) Some slots for crafted gear can be equally powerful/more powerful than i1oo/i110 gear with the correct melds. There is the option there, most poeple don't do it cause it's too expensive/difficult. Nevertheless its still an option.
2) RNG? Serious? Atma/Animus/novus is not rng?
3) Regular drop? So like 0.1% from open world? Back at grind and rng i see.

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1) there is no way crafted gear is equal to i110 gear in any way due to the boring stat system (main > all). I would give you that correctly melded accessories can be more useful than i100 though. Not necessarily more powerful, but more useful, true. yet, it's trashed away the day you get the i110 counterpart instead of giving you the option
2) Animus is no RNg at all, Novus can be slightly, but seriously, it's more of a grind than a RNG factor. Atma is RNG dependent, but it's not really what I mean by RNG. See my example about the i115 dungeon with RNG involved, or rare ingredients for craft recipes.
3) regular drops as non raid drops, aka dungeon stuff. Noone is dumb enough to say that dungeon drops are relevant (unless you're grinding desynthesis, I guess) Your example would be open world RNG, if we had more mobs per map that we have now or open world dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

I actually agree that the rewards for these systems could have been better handled but turning this game in a horizontal progression is not the solution.

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Horizontal progression works well with games that have very hard to obtain rewards such as ff11 in the zilart-treasures era.

This game would have to be changed in a fundamental way to allow for horizontal progression.

Is it smart to do for ff14? Probably not.

The game could use more depth to gear such as set bonuses, on use effects, and passive traits on gear. You can have an amalgamation of both horizontal and vertical progression in a game like this.

I liked the horizontal progression DAoC had, they never raised max lvl thus allowing max lvl gear to be relevant for years to come.

To get around the whole BiS nonsense they did a combination of stat caps, and putting so many stats that affected your characters performance it was nearly impossible to cap them all(each class had roughly 15 stats including elemental/physical resists that affected them) And after a few expansions there was so much gear that could fit together to give you stats you wanted that a few people just created calculators to assist with gear builds, instead of relying on BiS since there was no true BiS. Also crafted gear while not as good as most end game drops, was still relevant to most builds.

Personally I'd like to see SE add set bonus to items which drop from raids. If you were wearing 2 or 4 items from the same set then it would give give a nice bonus. Make it so that the stat boost from going from (for example) 110 with 4 set bonus to 120 with no bonus wouldn't be worth it unless you sacrificed a 4 set 110 bonus for a 2 set 120 and a 2 set 110. That way the older content would still be run so that people could either get item number 4 for their bonus or go to the new content and try to get the new pieces.

What would also be nice would be a scaling mechanic whereby the damage dealt and healthier of enemies in the raid varies dependent on the average level of gear in the party. Obviously not at the same rate (20%>ilvl requirement would not be +20% damage etc) but it might add a bit of challenge to older content.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Vertical progression should have died when WoW showed that it falls apart later on. Horizontal progression is best progression.

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Because that's working so well for Guild Wars 2...a game with no subscription that most people won't play because there is no way to advance your characters.

Vertical progression is great AND horizontal is great. You need both to make a really good system. Bland, direct upgrades that require no thought aren't very exciting...but when you have a multitude of options to pick from as you upgrade, now you add more depth and the ability to customize how you want to play. Right now, this game doesn't have any of that.

And, honestly, it has me bored out of my mind because of it. There is just simply no reason to actually work towards upgrading gear when I know in a couple months the gear will be handed to me anyway.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Horizontal progression is stupidly difficult to balance

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Fixed.

WoW's mistake was creating the massive jumps in item level between expansions to create a placebo effect to help the player feel powerful at higher levels. The main problem is that when you see the ilevel jump from vanilla to TBC, instead of making quest greens that trashed naxx gear stat-wise, it should have stayed within 3 levels over/under said gear. The massive jumps is what forced Blizzard to consider and then implement the stat crunch rather than vertical progression itself.

And in case you want to try to refute the quoted claim, FFXI's lv51 elemental staves that made close to all mage weapons introduced thereafter obsolete and irrelevant (before they were even obtained by the player!) say "hi".

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Originally Posted by Gramul

It's far easier for Square to make content that they have high control of through scripted dungeons and rigged party roles.

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Considering the potential for trouble in the alternative, that isn't a bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

And in case you want to try to refute the quoted claim

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You also forgot context. Not only did it not make other mage weapons obsolete, it was mostly used because it consolidated the need for carrying multiple weapons, in some cases multiple wands and shields - The main reason to use an Elemental/Prism Staff was the 10-15% bonus to x element, however a certain stick aside, your relic/mythic/empy weapon was far superior. You also forgot to mention it was created to meet the need of people stating there were no mid range options at the time because it went from typical weapons > nothing > end-game stuff. Horizontal progression isn't difficult to balance, vertical progression tend to be the hardest to balance because they have to obsolete everything usually by next update, which throws off the curve dramatically for newer players.

So people want Grand Company type equipment? That if you wear a X ammount of gear you will gain a bonus? Get the class specific Ramuh weapon and ring to turn the weapon to ilvl120 and ring to ilvl130. This is just an example.

As an example of PSO's gear:

http://i.imgur.com/cX2wJ5O.jpg
Good regular attack power and had a special attack that was fairly inaccurate, but could cut an enemy's HP by 3/4.

http://i.imgur.com/KOizww3.png
For half the day, this gun's special would fire purple death lasers that could hit a number of enemies in the room (I wanna say either 12 or 14?).

http://i.imgur.com/weEVWKD.jpg
Freezes things.

http://i.imgur.com/YNuFxQo.jpg
Reasonably good general attack power and useful for most classes, especially as a secondary weapon

http://i.imgur.com/ErXPHSc.jpg
Fires like a shotgun (so it has a 5 bullet spread), but at a much faster speed. Excellent for multi-enemy encounters or for enemies with multiple, targettable "parts".

http://i.imgur.com/t7gsO1A.jpg
High attack power.

Granted, everything wasn't completely balanced and some stuff did end up wrecking pretty hard... And you also had the much-more-common 'rare' items like the Varista et al. which were a definite step down, but at a certain point, you could be pretty well effective with any 'Rare' and it didn't feel like you were super-gimped or anything.
Plus, the way the system was designed, each weapon felt awesome and collectible; there was never a point where I wasn't thrilled to get a new rare I did not yet have.

THAT is what I want again. :-(

PSO/PSO2 honestly has no balance issues, it's more like there's a very noticable difference in someone who is new/low level and someone who is a vet and geared to the teeth. On hardest difficulty content things still wreck you even if you're "godly", as it should.

The simple fact of the matter is, Yoshida just wants everything universalized to try to prevent a problem that happens no matter what in an MMO. Just look at PF sometimes, take note of what DPS slots people tend to go with and tend to lock off, the problem he wanted to prevent already happened.

"But it doesn't happen with Duty Finder!"

Yeah, good luck clearing certain content there.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Fixed.

WoW's mistake was creating the massive jumps in item level between expansions to create a placebo effect to help the player feel powerful at higher levels. The main problem is that when you see the ilevel jump from vanilla to TBC, instead of making quest greens that trashed naxx gear stat-wise, it should have stayed within 3 levels over/under said gear. The massive jumps is what forced Blizzard to consider and then implement the stat crunch rather than vertical progression itself.

And in case you want to try to refute the quoted claim, FFXI's lv51 elemental staves that made close to all mage weapons introduced thereafter obsolete and irrelevant (before they were even obtained by the player!) say "hi".Considering the potential for trouble in the alternative, that isn't a bad thing.

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Those ilvl jumps in WoW were a gear reset, there wasn't anything placebo about them. They didn't want the game to be horribly trivialized by old gear in a new expansion and by extension not making it impossible for anyone new without that gear. They also wanted the next raid tier to be useful even to the high end. What made stat crunch ever get looked at was years of adjusting stat budgets every expansion to address PvP survivability over 4 (soon 5) expansions.

I hear what you are saying op. I am sure i am not the only one that remember first trying to gear up with myth, it had taken me weeks to get that i90 Gear.
Back then it felt like you really accomplished something for your efforts, now it really requires very little effort, example being hunts.
I guess SE wanted to fast forward it for new players to get the same gear as some veterans so that they may join end game content, dunno