Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

I say vertical just because of what happened with Steps of Faith. If people dont get a reward they won't do the content more than once, or at all. The only way horizontal would work IMO is if the drop rates were drastically reduced like in pre-abyssea ffxi. And we all know that wouldn't fly here.

EDIT: also I'm against any big changes for ffxiv, maybe some small additions but the game works well the way it is. I think overhauling it would be a huge mistake.

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Originally Posted by Caraway

Horizontal with meaningful options.

I, for one, don't give two gil for what other players consider the best or flavour of the month. As long as I can complete content and have fun that's all that matters.

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That's kind of where it gets tricky. The more 'horizontal' choices there are, the wider the gap between "choosing right" and "choosing wrong" gets. Suppose based on what gear set you're wearing, build A's maximum potential is only half that of build B. When designing content, where do designers set the bar? Do they set it for the lowest denominator so everyone can clear? Because that's fantastic, except that people who went with B are basically not even having to try while A are having to work their ass off. To create a challenge relevant to those players' capabilities, those who went with A have to be excluded.

And when you're in a build that's going to struggle to clear something others can do effortlessly... you're not clearing content, and you're not going to be having fun doing it either, because playing with other people comes with the fact that your choice of inefficiency is weighing them down. The existance of that horizontal progression either hinders your personal enjoyment or the quality of the content (and, in turn, your personal enjoyment)

And while it's a pretty extreme sounding example, the reality is that the more options there are, the wider those gaps become. The more variables in practice, the worse that gap becomes. When you specify horizontal with meaningful options, these are the kinds of gaps in capability that have to be created for it to actually feel meaningful.

Sandbox is amazing in its own right. I've enjoyed it plenty. But I've also seen it really suck because I am one of those players who will do crazy off the wall builds. I've been there, I've done that. XIV already has sufficient meaningful choice to me in playstyle through the hard locks of the classes, which are freely available, I can work to gear up and progress all of them, I can get stuff that's relevant to them while in other 'styles', and it's a small enough set of variables that even when content has 'ideals', the remaining options are still able to be tightly tuned enough to be reasonable.

Gods damnit... Lost my post when editing.

Anywho, gist of it was that the 'gap' between best and worst builds is a bit of a poor arguement. The Secret World is a good example of why that is, as even the 'worst' build is relevant in content that is still challenging for the best specs. It's a matter of how wide your endmarks are and any developer worth their salt is going to make sure the floor is not too low.

The only game I've played in recent memory where your build decisions can actually halt your progression has been Path of Exile and that's designed purpose built to be for a niche hardcore crowd. And even then, with enough patience and gear you can take something that shouldn't be viable and turn it into a map running success.

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

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And yet you could have done more damage if you played your class properly AND used the right build instead of just doing one or the other. Figuring out the proper build, using math, as you say with obvious disdain, is part of being a skilled MMORPG player. Hell, it's part of being a skilled RPG player in general. But when your ability to hit certain DPS marks affects other people they're right to expect you to be doing everything you can to maximize that DPS. Even if you're hitting the checks in a sub-optimal build, that just means if you'd quit stubbornly using it and use something good your group would down the enemy faster leaving less room for mistakes all around, less room for wipes, less room for healers to have mana issues, etc. etc.

EVEN IF you can hit DPS checks in a sub-optimal build you still shouldn't do it. You're making life harder on everyone.

And that's the issue with horizontal progression. Even in RO there were certain card builds that were miles ahead of everything else. Dozens that are viable out of hundreds, and 1, maybe 2 or 3 out of those dozens for every class that was actually competitive for top place. The reason people used (and use) one of dozens was just because of how completely awful the drop chance for cards were, and how much they sold for on merchants sitting around in town (assuming you could even find one selling one of the BiS cards), and they interacted with each other such that you needed the whole set up.

There wasn't choice because 12 builds were equally viable. There was choice because getting the BiS required the equivalent of getting a 0.01% drop (At least some of, if not most of, would be from bosses) for every piece of gear you have.

There's no real choice in horizontal progression systems. It's just a more complicated more mathy vertical progression where you don't get an upgrade available every time new gear releases that's a lot more effort for the Devs trying to balance a bunch of sets at the same gear level to make the mathing harder.

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Originally Posted by NadienKirisame

And yes you can follow the "meta" (not sure why I actually hate that word) or do your own thing as long and your own thing is over there... and away from this raid because they want you to have this because it is the best way to be set up for this... >.>

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I've always been curious why everyone has this attitude towards everything when it comes to games. The vast majority of people talk as though you have to do perfect, and have the perfect set up to run everything, and anything less than perfection means you're a "bad player", even if you're still doing well above and beyond what can work to accomplish the task at hand. Don't get me wrong, there are a few of us out there that actually play the game to enjoy it, and either help or at least tolerate people who are learning and testing how to play their way, but the vast majority of gamers seem to view the world in a black and white, "do it this way or you're doing it wrong", sort of way......

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Originally Posted by Gamer3427

Stuff and things

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I personally don't don't care if you are a bit off and I never said you had to be perfect. But then it isn't me that is really going to take that other guy in better optimal gear over you... Most of the time I just go with it when I used to lead raids and as long as things got done it didn't matter too much but then again as I said I'm not the one that really cares much as long as people are having fun and stuff is getting killed.

And it isn't really that black and white though some groups will be that way... but in the end you are either pulling your weight and helping things die or everyone else has to pickup the slack and try to push through. If everyone is giving 100% but you are only giving 75% because you want to play this way with this gear set... is it right that the rest of the people in your group have to suddenly do more then 100%? Because if they do not you don't win the fight?

The cat is bemused =-.-=

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Originally Posted by Krylo

And yet you could have done more damage would be more then enough.if you played your class properly AND used the right build instead of just doing one or the other. Figuring out the proper build, using math, as you say with obvious disdain, is part of being a skilled MMORPG player. Hell, it's part of being a skilled RPG player in general. But when your ability to hit certain DPS marks affects other people they're right to expect you to be doing everything you can to maximize that DPS.

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Sorry, but ive never actually hit a mark where my performance was dragging down my raidgroup. Ive never felt the need to have stats boost me, as I've always preferred to rely on skill.

And no, I would not have performanced better as another spec perse. Because how well you perform depends in very large part on how much you enjoy playing that spec. If you dont enjoy the other spec you wont perform well.


Incidentally, obvious disdain? I would expect someone that considers ''the best'' to be the only viable option, to you know:
play the best.
For everyone that doesnt care to be ''the best'', I would think that simply doing well or decent (but importantly, have a good time) would be more then enough.

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Originally Posted by NadienKirisame

If everyone is giving 100% but you are only giving 75% because you want to play this way with this gear set... is it right that the rest of the people in your group have to suddenly do more then 100%? Because if they do not you don't win the fight?

The cat is bemused =-.-=

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Ive always disliked that line of thought. Perhaps its because Ive always given 200%. If people give it their best, or even better despite playing a subpar spec, what does it matter? They are still third on dps. They are still that healer that might not have the best healing output, but is the girl whos saving everyone just before they would have died.

Playing something thats bad is not the same as playing something thats good but not the very best. Trying your hardest has little to do with your spec either.


To me I've always seen it as hypocrisy. Extremely rarely has it happend that someone making that argument actually performed better then me (regardless if my spec was best or only decent). And im by no means a world class player.
If your going to make a super Elite argument, atleast play like godlike elite? (is what I was thinking in those situations)
That wouldnt make the argument right, but atleast make it understandable.



What I always say: (but did not think up myself, atleast the first sentence :p)
Bring the performance, not the spec, not the class.
If its good enough to down the encounter on paper, then we will make it work and have a good time doing so because we are all playing what we enjoy playing.

TBH, this is why Yoshi has the wrong idea about crafting. We need MORE stuff like Wootz/Kirimu that reward the hard-working DoH as well as the DoW/DoM for their efforts. 3~5 materia slots allows for a lot more customization thus we can make gear how WE want it without interfering too much with the actual gear curve (Wasn't there someone around here who had a different Wootz set for every element?). Maybe even allow DoH a "commision" system of some sort where they ask DoW/DoM to get mats for them and receive a money/alt currency/exp reward from the adventurer's guild as compensation.

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Originally Posted by NadienKirisame

Words.

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I will say, I wasn't trying to single you out in particular. I just used your quote as it was the most readily available example. That being said, I've met more than a few people in the community, (here in particular), who will stand for little less than perfect. Those who quit on the first failed attempt at a boss or trial, those who kick people if they don't already know the run, and those who will vote to abandon if something goes slightly wrong because someone slipped up and a wipe happens. I've met quite a few players like this in here, and a visit to the forums of most popular games will show you that it's not limited to this game. A lot of people are becoming more obsessed with speed running everything just to get the loot, rather than actually enjoying the content they're running through.....

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Originally Posted by Gamer3427

I know

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I figured you where not directing it at me. Though the issue you are seeing is not just from vertical progression... I have seen the same stuff in horizontal progression games as well simply because this item that they want drops from this area and it will probably take 100 runs to get it so the faster they do it the sooner they can find the next part of the set they are trying to build. The vote abandon and dropping at the first wipe are other things that annoy me and I have had a few groups that some of my friends would be with me in and we would reject the abandon and say hey lets do this one more time and just watch for this or this and such and we would end up winning that pull. Just how it goes though...

I have also seen it in other games like XI where someone joined our group and when they got to the camp the leader started asking him about his gear and when the guy didn't have certain things he was kicked... of course that didn't work too well for that leader because I left right after and I was their healer.

These games take all kinds though you just have to do what you can...

The cat is bemused =-.-=