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

[Tadacho]

FFXI has a very loyal fan base who have been playing the game for its whole 11+ years. For 10 of those years, XI featured horizontal progression. Now, with the latest expansion, it has changed to vertical progression.

And you know what? Their 11 year old loyal fan base, who you think would be outraged at such a drastic change to their beloved game, is not complaining.

[Duelle]

If you think the problem people had with Cata was raiding and the problem with Pandaria was because of a 'Kung Fu Panda' hatred...man you have a very skewed view of reality.

Raiding was part of the major issues WoW had at the time. The raiding community that Wrath created shrunk considerably between the gating used for Cata content and how the raids were tuned. That's why they eased up a bit with Firelands and ended up giving the pony away with the deathwing heroics + raid. There were other issues, including PvP and class changes that were poorly implemented or there for the sake of change (while Blizzard brushed off the criticism by saying "l0lz peepl3 h8 ch4ng3").

They also completely stripped any ounce of customization of your character and their class from the game to make it so you effectively have zero choice in how you play. Some people claim there never WAS a choice to begin with(but I beg to differ since I usually played outside the 'meta' builds and did far better than those that stayed within because it fit my style).

Yeah, I'm sure you rocked raids as a shockadin or a lolsmite priest. Perhaps you were one of those who was specced dual wield shadowfrost when that was the OP death knight spec. Or protribution for PvP.

Regardless of how you try to deny it, there was no choice. You specced into whatever the theorycrafters decreed was best and if you were not, any raiding guild worth a damn was going to first ask you to spec properly and then start giving you hell over it or simply bench you. Certain classes and specs did have some amount of leeway (ret paladins had 2-3 talent points they could put anywhere, arms and prot warriors had 2 points that could go anywhere), but let's not delude ourselves into thinking there was choice. The devs weren't lying when they said the changes to talents basically gave you everything you already specced into as you leveled while making the actual talents utility. All they did was give the theorycrafters one less thing to do.

[Magis]

FFXI has a very loyal fan base who have been playing the game for its whole 11+ years. For 10 of those years, XI featured horizontal progression. Now, with the latest expansion, it has changed to vertical progression.

And you know what? Their 11 year old loyal fan base, who you think would be outraged at such a drastic change to their beloved game, is not complaining.

I hear different. The population dropped drastically with the release of that expansion, with many people leaving and pissed that their work got invalidated in one patch. Most people I talked to when I bring up FFXI called Abyssea a big mistake that "ruined" the game.

[Kiara]

Yes, sadly as others have said, this is the garbage progression that Yoshi P has chosen.

There were plenty of us that gave feedback and constructive answers during Alpha and Beta of 2.0 on NOT going with a pure Vertical Progression model, but it fell on deaf ears.

I sincerely hope the Dev Team changes this (or least strikes a BALANCE of having some decent, interesting Horizontal Progression and letting our gear be more relevant than just a few months, before it's overwritten again by the next patch).

It doesn't have to be as extreme as XI with years of relevancy (pure horizontal extreme), but it certainly doesn't have to be as silly as it is now (every few months, item Level increases, all previous gear worthless). There CAN be a balance.

[Taban]

Yes, sadly as others have said, this is the garbage progression that Yoshi P has chosen.

There were plenty of us that gave feedback and constructive answers during Alpha and Beta of 2.0 on NOT going with a pure Vertical Progression model, but it fell on deaf ears.

I sincerely hope the Dev Team changes this (or least strikes a BALANCE of having some decent, interesting Horizontal Progression and letting our gear be more relevant than just a few months, before it's overwritten again by the next patch).

It doesn't have to be as extreme as XI with years of relevancy (pure horizontal extreme), but it certainly doesn't have to be as silly as it is now (every few months, item Level increases, all previous gear worthless). There CAN be a balance.

Gear is generally only outdated every 6 months, that's a decent time IMO. How long are you wanting to sit on the same gear? I remember having BIS in ffxi, quitting for 2 years, coming back and still being 99% BIS. Guess what happened? A month later I had quit again because I had nothing to work toward.

[Gucci_Charms]

Yup this is the cycle of FFXIV gear lifecycle every major patch.

Weekly Tome X grind > Weekly Coil grind > Repeat for the next 6 months.

I hope they do another Primal extreme-like quests where those weapons actually meant something for awhile.

We apologize the inconvenience this may cause, we thank you for your understanding. Please look forward to it.

[Kiara]

Gear is generally only outdated every 6 months, that's a decent time IMO. How long are you wanting to sit on the same gear? I remember having BIS in ffxi, quitting for 2 years, coming back and still being 99% BIS. Guess what happened? A month later I had quit again because I had nothing to work toward.

Hi Taban,

On a theoretical level, sure it's "6 months," but with Weekly Lockouts and a poorly-designed Massive Loot Pool per Chest, you may NEVER get those items for MONTHS. Our static was clearing Turn 4 consistently from early on (well before Echo), and we *never* saw the Tank Allagan Gloves drop. Ever. (No joke.) That's RNG.

Also, most groups lose about ~1 month or so learning and progressing to clear a particular turn, so overall, "No," the actual amount of time a player might have a "BiS" Item from Coil is far less than "6 Months."

[Exstal]

9~12 months is better time. 13~18 is pushing it. 19+ is ridiculous for gear to not be invalidated.

Basically, every other "hardcore" patch should invalidate the gear from 2 patches ago, or at least strongly discourage the use of it.

[Sonofbaldo]

Its called lazy developers making a lazy game for lazy gamers.

[Dwill]

Its called lazy developers making a lazy game for lazy gamers.

Yet here you are among the lot of us.