Open World Content and Horizontal Progression

Both of these things have come up in several different threads, but rarely (if ever) do I see people offering suggestions of how they think these things should be implemented.

With that in mind, how would you like to see these implemented?

If your content would require changes to existing gameplay then you should include that as well.

Curious to see what the community has in mind.

There's been several well thought out threads with ideas that majority of the people that commented there agreed with. No devs will respond to them because they are never going to add this stuff. Yoshi loves the idea of standing around and queuing. He said there will be no NM like mobs. Just fates that you faceroll over and drop nothing. All this is to keep casuals from getting left behind /rollseyes

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

I am a casual player, and do not fear getting left behind.

The ironic thing is that with ONE way of being a class and ONE way of gearing your class, that is how people get left behind... its get the best or bust... i90 or you suck. I am a casual player and want horizontal gear progression because I feel like it will allow me to keep up while also having a sense of individuality we all want when playing an MMO.

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Oh trust me I'm not saying that's what casuals want. Because to me being casual doesn't mean you wanna log in and win it just means you dont want or dont have a lot of time to put into the game OR you just aren't "OMG I NEED END GAME NAO"

For whatever reason Yoshi thinks is what casuals want. Like you said his current way keeps casuals behind/left out, especially with weekly caps and weekly lockouts. Miss a week and you'll always be playing catch up.

make a hard event every 6 months(among other regular updates), that people get stuck at(like twintania), make this event drop a good weapon, that will be used for the side dungeons and activities.

These weapon should be multiple for each class... like some "Enhances Internal Release" which may increase the duration or the potency. Or even enhance traits like "Vitality Plus" which would increase the base VIT by a %.

Get Weapon 1: For Next 6 months - many other dungeons, activities and hard content would be released and players would use this weapon to do them.

This way i believe, players can "build" a gear set. a MNK that focuses on Skill speed Vs a MNK that focuses on Crits.. etc etc,... this will create many variety in a class.. not 2 MNKs are the same.


Get Weapon 2: This can just be an upgrade to first weapon or completely new stats.


There will be common weapons and gears and events released as normal. Just that the above event would be like a cap.

For the TL:DR version, look up Relic Weapons from LOTRO (i think thats what they were called anyway).

What I would like to see for horizontal progression (for weapons anyway) are weapons that you the player get to customize using a set of options available to you by class (job). To obtain these weapons, you would need the battered/tattered/broken/whatever version of the weapon, a seal dropped from a boss, and a crafter to put the two together.

Once you had the weapon, its only value would be its high base damage. The player would then do content that rewards abilities (in lotro they were called legacies) that could level from 1-10 or so. Each ability on the weapon would have a point value (think AP system in FF9) that would ultimately deplete and not let you put anything else onto it.

The abilities would buff/augment ones you already had. Reduce CD time, add additional effects to bland attacks, etc etc. The systems are already in place with the game... abilities can easily be replaced by materia. I can then make a 'build' or a 'spec' for my character... If I want to be a DRG that maximizes phlebotomize and disembowel bleeds, I would add those abilities to my weapons. If I wanted to make my jumps do insane damage, I could... you get the point.

There needs to be something in place that will put raiders, economists, and crafters in symbiotic relationships... also, theory crafting on which 'abilities' work better for classes etc. would finally be happening in game (as far as i am concerned there is no theory crafting to be had in game because it is too linear).

Im rambling now, but I think thats a good start.

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Originally Posted by Lumiin

There's been several well thought out threads with ideas that majority of the people that commented there agreed with. No devs will respond to them because they are never going to add this stuff. Yoshi loves the idea of standing around and queuing. He said there will be no NM like mobs. Just fates that you faceroll over and drop nothing. All this is to keep casuals from getting left behind /rollseyes

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I am a casual player, and do not fear getting left behind.

The ironic thing is that with ONE way of being a class and ONE way of gearing your class, that is how people get left behind... its get the best or bust... i90 or you suck. I am a casual player and want horizontal gear progression because I feel like it will allow me to keep up while also having a sense of individuality we all want when playing an MMO.

Suggestions, we can do that.

Crafted gear that is on par with darklight.
Crafted gear that is almost, but not quite as good as the Allagan set.
More variety with regard to materia:
- increased healing potency
- increased enmity
- decreased enmity
- increased combo damage
- increased DoT effects
- maybe have some of these lower the auto attack damage or something else to balance them out.
- increased mp regen but decreased hp regen and vice versa

There's a whole host of ways they can add horizontal progression and more customization, especially with regard to crafted gear and materia.

Open world content:
- higher level mobs in certain areas that add threat, but have rare drops or rare gathering areas
- some kind of open world dungeons or explorable areas
- random treasure chests (they don't seem to have a problem handing out gear like halloween candy, so this shouldn't be a big deal)
- random treasure chests that drop crafting items
- bring back the visible harvesting and quarrying spots (off-hand tools for miner/botanist). I LOVED these in 1.0 and would switch classes any time I saw them to gather some stuff.
- chocobo caravans could come back in some form
- hamlet defense could come back in some form to involve DoL and DoH jobs since we don't seem to have any real use in the game as it is currently.
- battle regimen could make a comeback for FATE's, that would encourage group play, and successful skillchains (or whatever term you want to use) could give you rare drops of gear, minions, crafting materials, etc.

There's a whole HOST of crap they could do that are small things but would add much needed depth and versatility to the game.

The way to add more open content is using systems like the one used for Treasure Hunting or Leves, aka, using an item to pop mobs or have them pop during a quest. Having roaming NMs that you have to camp and compete for claim is a crap mechanic that should never rear it's ugly head ever again.

For horizontal progression they actually have a good system in place for it in the form of materia, they just need to greatly expand the system by letting all gear be melded and converted and by adding new types of materia with special effects that enhance job traits or abilities.

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Originally Posted by Bufkus

A lot of people are throwing around the word horizontal progression without realizing what it actually means and how little benefit you actually get from it.

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This is certainly true. I remember the horizontal progression we had in FFXI, that is constantly lauded here by some, it consisted of minimal stat upgrades that never really gave you different builds, just more gear swap macros.

nty i like only needing 1 set and not 5 because it adds *depth*

it's simple if it's the best its all that matters, if they are good for certain situations lovely now you have to have multiple sets because it's better that way.

A lot of people are throwing around the word horizontal progression without realizing what it actually means and how little benefit you actually get from it.

1. Bosses are immune or take less dmg from ws after 3 or 4 rotations.
2. Healers lose MND during a boss fight.
3. DPS lose their primary stat during a period of time.
4. Random boss mechanics.
5. More one shot mechanics.
6. Bosses are less likely to drop loot if the same 8 (or w/e) kill the boss.
7. Epic soundtrack for Boss fights.
8. Crafting is kinda worthless so address it.
9. When blacklisting my name appears a different color so the person blacklisted knows.

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Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

char limit

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This times a million. Differentiated stats on armor and materia. Right now its a straight vertical shot
upwards, and even the side grades we have now arent really that different. "does it have acc? yes?
use for coil" :/

Overworld content, huge plus. Would love to see more gear drop form big NM fates, like behe/odin
that are actually useable (i75+)

HOrizontal progression is great but I don't think they should be dumping resources into it with an actual level cap increase in the not too distant future. Silly to create a plateau when the cap is going to increase. It would be like if they had made a crapload of horizontal progression at Level 50 in FFXI. Wait until we hit a level we'll sit at for a while.

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Originally Posted by Lithera

HOrizontal progression is great but I don't think they should be dumping resources into it with an actual level cap increase in the not too distant future. Silly to create a plateau when the cap is going to increase. It would be like if they had made a crapload of horizontal progression at Level 50 in FFXI. Wait until we hit a level we'll sit at for a while.

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However, with horizontal progression (if done correctly), there is a good possibility that your gear may still be useful even after a level cap increase.