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

[Duelle]

That problem is why FFXI had more relevant content then any other mmo ever made with literally hundreds of hours of week of relevant (non-vanity) content at endgame.

Actually, the fact the game was stuck with a lv75 cap for years is why it played out the way it did. Tanaka's team obviously didn't want to deal with the balance issues the subjob system created as the levels went up (non-ninja jobs having access to Utsusemi: Ni, DRK being able to do THF's hate-transfer gimmick better than a THF ever could at lv60, etc). Even the stuff they ended up making "main job only" seemed to be more concessions to game mechanics and exceptions to whatever rules they set out when they designed the battle system.

That said, it isn't something that should be emulated. Inability to move forward because of misguided value placed on gear isn't something that should be encouraged. And I say that as someone who has done numerous gear grinds.

The problem with the current item progression... there isn't any flavor, any texture or any sense of choice to it. As it stands, a player simply makes the choice whether or not he or she will continue the ilvl grind. If they do so, the options is either coil drops or tome gear. Whoop-dee-doo!

This points more to the lack of content from which the gear can come from. Granted, in beta I proposed that the primal's loot pools be expanded beyond weapons to actual gear to compliment stuff found in Coil, CT and so on. So you could have something like a breastplate dropping from Garuda with a similar ilvl to CT or tomestone gear as an alternative. Alternatives usually tend to be close to or at the same item level (ie: 3 chest pieces at ilvl110 rather than just 1). This hasn't happened to far which is why some of you feel funneled towards specific pieces, BiS notwithstanding.

However, in order to create that horizontal progression, they will need to make changes to the current class/job system. There needs to be valid reasons why a job would want to have stats outside their job's usual. Obviously, vertical progression needs to stay, but providing a variety of ways to attain a large variety of iLvl 110 gear would be best.

You'd essentially have to split the jobs into specs to give them a reason to go outside of what currently works. That would only work with those jobs that have multiple facets, and in doing so you're creating a bunch of balance issues. You also have the high risk of inviting drama and discrimination (my old "STR DRG vs Crit DRG" example comes to mind).

Now if you were asking for more pieces of high ilvl in the relevant tier, I'd get behind that because I agree, giving everyone one single item per slot can get on the nerves of certain individuals. I'm not particularly bothered by it, but that's because SE was smart and implemented Glamours as early as they did.

As it stands, there is very little to differentiate multiple players of the same jobs. They have the same abilities, will have pretty much the same stats and play identically for the most part. We need ways to further expand our jobs on an individual level and that needs to be reflected in the gear variety.

So my question is, why is it so important that you be mechanically different from the next player? Aesthetics give you enough individuality without putting game balance on the line. Sure, you might feel special if you were that Crit specced DRG but the moment the theorycrafters figure a STR DRG still does better DPS, you're going to get the boot and all DRGs will just stack STR because that generates the best DPS. The reverse scenario might play out but does not undo this type of problem in class balancing. The devs decided to avoid that problem entirely with the current design, which is why I find it odd some have chosen to demonize it instead of seeing why that decision was made.

There is a reason FFXI pretty much maintained its subs even through WoW and most every modern MMO release where others declined.

FFXI peaked at around 800K subs, and the numbers have gone down since then. It's still stable, but has also been around long enough that all that sub money is profit to SE.

WoW lost subs post cataclysm after making a bunch of changes that pissed off people (they made raiding in part exclusive after making raiding since Ulduar in WotLK inclusive, made a mess of PvP, changed classes that needed relatively few changes and further followed the loreLOL decline). Pandaria didn't help because the masses were convinced they were ripping off Kung Fu Panda (despite Pandaren being around WAY before that movie was a twinkle in the producer's eye). So you have questionable decisions and public ignorance/stupidity. Neither of which have anything to do with vertical progression.