Non-linear gear progression starting at ilv60

The worst feeling in an MMO for me is to have tons of stuff to do but no reason to do it. When leveling, there was always a reason to do something because everything moved you forward. But once you hit level 50, something odd happens where you're given a ton of content, all WAY more fun than the old stuff, but you quickly have no reason to do it anymore.



I'm talking about pretty much every endgame dungeon in the game that doesn't drop gear better than the Darklight sets. There's something odd about me having so much fun running HM Copperbell / Hakkue / Crystal Tower, but having the unique rewards feel like a NQ crafted item you know you'll just replace later.


The reason is, these armor sets are too linear in progression to keep them useful. I really want to hunt for all 3 HM primal weapons, but know it's pointless because Ifrit's is worse than Garuda's, which is worse than Titan's. So because I have access to HM Titan, there is literally no incentive for me to run HM Ifrit or Garuda anymore because their weapon is clearly inferior. There is nothing worse than seeing someone in a full set of awesome Odin/Behemoth armor, knowing they're wasting their time equipping it because it's ultimately useless.


There are tons of threads and reddit posts explaining how this could (and should) be implemented deeply into endgame before FFXIV gets too far and can't do it anymore. As much as I enjoy this game, I can see this really being the only thing that eventually stops me from wanting to log on anymore.


Fun stuff to do, with a linear system of gear improvement that encourages me against doing it. I have no reason to run most of the dungeons i have access too because their loot is useless, and i'm only ilv59.

You run them mostly for tomes anyways, or to gear up lesser jobs possibly. Why should dungeons drop better gear than raids? That is the progression, I thought. once you hit 50, you have WP and AK, followed by PS HK and CM. After that, or while running those, you get philo which turns into DL gear. That opens up more fights, like CT and finally Coil, which gives your endgame gear.

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Originally Posted by Jilse

You run them mostly for tomes anyways, or to gear up lesser jobs possibly. Why should dungeons drop better gear than raids?

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It's not about dungeon gear being "better", it's about it being "not useless". Even if you have lesser jobs, the equipment can only be used at level 50, and since the gear progression is linear there's still no reason to run the other dungeons, even if you are thinking of gearing another job.

For instance, the 3 Hm primal weapons look neat, have visual effects and all, but the only one worth wasting your time on is Titan's because its stats are ever-so higher the other 2, making them useless to hunt the moment you defeat the primal....but even that's made useless to waste your time on because HM Titan himself is just a stepping stone to your relic weapon, which is even yet again stronger.

But if you got some sort of functional benefit from equipping Ifrit vs. Garuda vs. Titan HM vs. Relic weapons (Element damage, skill upgrades, ect ect), then they'd still be worth having. Maybe not to be made better than your Relic, but worth not sticking in your armory chest.


This is the double-edged sword with Square Enix removing elemental damage/resistances from the game and keeping everything so linear. It removes the concept of options from approaching endgame content. So much so that it works against itself. Square is doing a great job IMO of releasing awesome content, but a terrible job of providing incentive for doing it.

It worked during 1~49 when your only real restriction was your level. But at level 50, your only restriction is OBTAINING the gear, which really has a straight-line effectiveness to it.

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Originally Posted by Jilse

You run them mostly for tomes anyways, or to gear up lesser jobs possibly. Why should dungeons drop better gear than raids? That is the progression.

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The idea of horizontal progression is to add complexity or interesting decisions to gear choice.
Example: i70 Boots 20str/vit +10determination vs i60 Boots 16str/vit +5determination Bonus effect: Increases Radius of Cure III by 10yalms

The i60 boots give a cool effect but less main stats so you have an interesting choice to make with your gear. It gives lesser level gear some pros even when higher level gear is available.

To an extent you are correct, however, we have had pretty solid confirmation that vanity is coming. Once that is in place, people will have even more incentive to hunt those items, strictly for the look and "progression" will no longer be a factor.

Yeah I agree. Some degree of horizontal progress is definitely a good thing. Choice is always great and I honestly hate the concept of "best in slot." I do not want to wear what everyone else wears because I likely don't play identically to how they play.

That said, there's extremes and from the sounds of things FFXI went a little overboard on horizontal progression (like EQ1) but there should be a good balance for it to give more variety to how classes play out and give more options of what to go after at end-game.

To the comment about the Primal items being neat looking, I hope they don't screw the Vanity system when it comes out because being able to use iconic equipment instead of what's the best (and looking like some rainbow jester in the process) is something that I don't think any modern MMO should launch without.