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

[Gardes]

What a shocker, people use BiS gear!
It would be the same thing with a horizontal progression except the fact you'd keep the same set of gear for months/years. Not interested.

I like vertical progression models and the game is doing very well without the perma-bis nonsense that should stay dead and buried. Sorry this game moderates play and doesn't allow the people with no life who want to grind and camp 24/7 stay the kings of loot mountain forever.

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.

[Morningstar1337]

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.

In that case Desynth needs more than just Primal weapons if we are to have anything resembling Horizantal progression...

We should also make CT, ST and Coil gear Desynthabale too. and make like the Augmented ones (but with stats on par with the current high level gear)

[Gardes]

In that case Desynth needs more than just Primal weapons if we are to have anything resembling Horizantal progression...

We should also make CT, ST and Coil gear Desynthabale too. and make like the Augmented ones (but with stats on par with the current high level gear)

Doesn't have to be desynth. It's tied to crafting and yoship is against tying crafting too tightly to combat content and I'm not against that view. It can be simply having a quest where you need to get an ifrit bangle and take it to an npc to be converted into an ifrit core and you pile it with other fire related material to make a new ifrit body armor that is an alternate to the latest coil/tome gear.

But with how current ilvl progression is stacked so high and dps potential from coil1 gear to coil2 gear is something like 30%+ and the likelyhood of dps being able to hit 600+ dps with coil3 gear and and the existence of 25%+ echo, it won't work. New players would never get to see the fights properly, not just the dungeon run and cutscenes itself when they reach lvl 50. I'm already consistently seeing garuda HM dying right after the first set of chirada and suparna. I wouldn't be surprised if she dies right after reckoning in 2.4.

[cryptic_angel]

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.

Wish this could be translated and sent to Yoshida by hitting the like button so many times it breaks.

All the content of each patch feels like the same cheap grind masked by some sort of vanity reward. Then, SE exacerbates the situation by burning people out by adding grind after grind. To boot, these long gear/progression grinds are being invalidated so quickly.

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.

I really don't understand where Square Enix is going with that in mind.

I am expecting a lot from the Expansion, I hope it won't be as easy as it is right now. Luckily Ninja will sustain me a bit..

There is a limit to how much to cater to new players and thinking it's their first MMO.

First timers can research on this forum and even google for info about the game and gear and skill etc.. and if SE keep thing separated, they will get 2.x content, so they will be fine Yoshi. Trust me ^^

No point of making maps lvl 51-60 if we'll still obliterate them and not having a sense of danger from them.

Sigh.. Come on Devs, its a great game, now it's time to bring the polish and make it shine!

I would not hold your breath. I am holding out for the expansion too but I am afraid this game will continue to hold the hand of every new player and dump max ilvl gear upon them.

This game has no sense of progress, power, danger, or lasting difficulty. Even with brutal coil, the biggest challenge is finding 7 raiders who want to relearn four fights for "bragging" rights.

[Dwill]

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.

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

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.

Fixed that for you to reflect current end game.

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

[cryptic_angel]

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

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.

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.

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

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.

[Kuwagami]

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.

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.

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.

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

[Dwill]

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.

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.

[cryptic_angel]

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.

Fixed that for you to reflect current end game.

[Gardes]

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.

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.