Item level compression in Heavensward?

[Waliel]

I just want to avoid being ilvl 200 by this time next year. Whatever they can do to alleviate that, like adding in horizontal item progress, would be very nice.

Seeing this, I remembered once asking what exactly is horizontal progress in similiar thread, but forgot about it. So I went through my history and saw I actually got an answer to it and I'll just adress it here. This is what I asked and got:

Sooo one set that you never replace? Random pieces that are good for only spesific fights? There's something about horizontal progression that I just can't wrap my head around. How does it even work?

These threads make me think that maybe Squenix should've just kept the ilvl hidden and a lot more people would be happier, I think.

It seems that FFXIV is your first mmo then, all fine friend I'm going to explain it a bit deeper then . There is an incredible amount of possibilities to make the gears armory working into an horizontal progression design like :

- adding partial and full set bonus on "named-gears" with skills/stats/jobs stats/etc,
- being able to improve your best equipements with specific enhancements (in this case it could be materia but why not something else too !),
- re-using your previous piece of gear into a specific craft as a base material to make it stronger or more specific (stats wise) into something you are aiming for,
- storyline achievement gears that are just "too good" to replace, like a ring or an earring (is Rajas Ring ring like a bell for everyone? xD),
- legendary weapons questline, no, I'm not talking about our current relic weapons , they actually missed the opportunity by making them a "catch-up weapon" before getting the last "top tier endgame weapon", it's lame, very bad design to me x.x, last coil shouldn't drop them directly, it could be mandatory to "beat the hardest boss" to improve them but nothing related to the system we have now.
- mixing endgame crafting material drops with non-tradable items in order to craft powerful equipements,
- funny armory with weird, bizzare, odd, untypical stats like enhancing your chocobo exp gain rate or your "skills" while watering your personal garden plants xD

To be honest, this is just a couple of exemples of what we could get, there is no limits to a game designer / developer creativity.
That's why the current gear treadmill is looking a bit pathetic to say the least :x, new major update : player n°9255478 will replace his full armory ilevel 110 for ilevel 130, the differences? more base stats number and that's it, see you in 3-4 months to do it again.

My first MMO was actually Earth & Beyond. I do say, however, that I never played XI.

From what I gather from that list, horizontal progression is either over powered gear or exactly the same as vertical, but crafted items instead. Is the point that most upgrades should come by somehow using old gear as base, applying some magic on it, and getting a shiny new piece of gear? How is that not vertical and making old gear obsolete when you finally get your new piece? I don't see how set bonuses or enchants have anything to do with either, as you can just apply them to both, and upgreadable Legendary weapon just screams vertical to me. Or am I just thinking too literally about the words?

Anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing crafting materials dropping from raids, though, and I don't have a problem random gear that helps with Chocobo xp and the like.

Help a cat out here, will you?

[kyuven]

Horizontal progression

From what I understand, or at least what I gleaned over my own time playing other MMOs, horizontal progression is NOT what the guy who answered your question. That's just vertical progression via different means.
Actual horizontal progression is when you're given more items with different stat allocations, such as one item having more DET but less DEX, or more defense but less VIT, and the like.
But it doesn't matter, because the BIS mentality will always exist. SE's devs realized this and simplified it. There will always be a "golden path," so wasting time making 20 different items for every class, 19 of which no one will ever, ever use, is a waste of resources.
Thus, vertical progression. Vertical progression is when one item you get in one area that is more difficult than the previous is fundamentally and unequivocally better than one from the area before it. The best example for "horizontal" i can think of is comparing the Nexus weapon to the High Allagan weapons, or the Augmented Ironworks gear with the Dreadwyrm gear.
Having played a game where the weapons actually DO require beating the hardest raids (sometimes multiple times), I will say that it's not something I particularly care for anymore. I've seen some pretty heated arguments over those things.

[Ultimatecalibur]

From what I gather from that list, horizontal progression is either over powered gear or exactly the same as vertical, but crafted items instead. Is the point that most upgrades should come by somehow using old gear as base, applying some magic on it, and getting a shiny new piece of gear? How is that not vertical and making old gear obsolete when you finally get your new piece? I don't see how set bonuses or enchants have anything to do with either, as you can just apply them to both, and upgreadable Legendary weapon just screams vertical to me. Or am I just thinking too literally about the words?

Horizontal Gear Progression is where gear increases the amount of content you can do without increasing the Character's overall power to much. Currently there are three pieces of content that you might seek to have BiS for: FCoB, i80 PvP and Uncapped PvP. All three have different secondary stat needs and limits. By collecting more gear you can enhance your capabilities in each, but do not grow more powerful. One gear set will not rule them all. If new content was added that needed different gear, but that different gear does not overshadow existing gear then you have horizontal gear progression.

[Alberel]

Horizontal Gear Progression is where gear increases the amount of content you can do without increasing the Character's overall power to much. Currently there are three pieces of content that you might seek to have BiS for: FCoB, i80 PvP and Uncapped PvP. All three have different secondary stat needs and limits. By collecting more gear you can enhance your capabilities in each, but do not grow more powerful. One gear set will not rule them all. If new content was added that needed different gear, but that different gear does not overshadow existing gear then you have horizontal gear progression.

This is also what makes horizontal gear progression so hard to achieve as well though. Many games take a lazy route and simply add a special stat to each gearset that you need to have x amount of in order to survive a specific piece of content. Doing it in this way can actually make it incredibly frustrating for the players because they essentially gain no benefit from the new gear besides meeting an arbitrary requirement that does nothing for their combat abilities.

Done properly, horizontal progression on gear does still improve your combat abilities but by way of versatility and utility instead of power. FFXI is a perfect example of this as many pieces of equipment had effects on them that modified your skills. The result was that changing from one gear set to another caused you to lose some effects and gain others, thus it balanced itself by nature of the effects being mutually exclusive and some content would require you to use certain sets over others. Unfortunately the gear-swapping in FFXI ruined the whole concept as everyone was able to gain the benefit of every set at once but the theory was sound.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Done properly, horizontal progression on gear does still improve your combat abilities but by way of versatility and utility instead of power. FFXI is a perfect example of this as many pieces of equipment had effects on them that modified your skills. The result was that changing from one gear set to another caused you to lose some effects and gain others, thus it balanced itself by nature of the effects being mutually exclusive and some content would require you to use certain sets over others. Unfortunately the gear-swapping in FFXI ruined the whole concept as everyone was able to gain the benefit of every set at once but the theory was sound.

Yes, unlimited in-combat gear swapping made FFXI's Horizontal Gear Progression system a Per Ability BiS Vertical Progression system though few are willing to admit it. FFXI also has some minor trouble with gear lifespan where some pieces ended up BiS for far to long.

[Alipoprocks]

FFXI also has some minor trouble with gear lifespan where some pieces ended up BiS for far to long.

That is not a problem, that is fabulous! Having gear that is valuable for a long time allows for being able to properly gear multiple jobs without having to play alts. Jobs in this game are quite basic to play well. But it is near impossible to gear more than a couple jobs well. Of course you don't need gear for dungeons or primals or hunts, but it's fun to play different jobs in coil too. And proper gear is necessary for coil.

[Hiruke]

That is not a problem, that is fabulous! Having gear that is valuable for a long time allows for being able to properly gear multiple jobs without having to play alts. Jobs in this game are quite basic to play well. But it is near impossible to gear more than a couple jobs well. Of course you don't need gear for dungeons or primals or hunts, but it's fun to play different jobs in coil too. And proper gear is necessary for coil.

It would be nice if it was not so difficult to properly gear more than maybe one or two jobs before gear became obsolete, but I think that's more of a loot system/lockout problem more than it is a vertical/horizontal progression problem for this game. The devs appear to have designed a multi-job game with a single-job loot system.

And when using FFXI as an example, having gear that is valuable for too long IS a problem. You literally used level 7 boots as a level 75 for YEARS because there was nothing better (for many dps roles). Level 7 boots. As a level 75. YEARS.

It would be nice to see a little more stat variety, and have specific fights tuned for a certain optimization. Like (using the current super limited stats to form a bad example that at least gets the point across):

Using MNK as an example because reasons:

1) Raid A favors skill speed set because you need to quickly ramp up to GL3 as there are a lot of mechanics that take the boss off the arena.
2) Raid B favors determination set because you have high up time, and need good dps over time.
3) Raid C favors critical hit set because boss ignores X damage from every hit, and only crits do effective damage.

Then you'd do something like have Raid B drop gear that's good for Raid A and C, Raid C drop gear that is good for A and B, etc. And continue putting in situations where maybe content can be cleared with a suboptimal stat allocation, but can be cleared much easier if you do use the right stats.

This is all probably way too high concept for most people who play this game though, since you still regularly see people i110+ who can't break 200 dps as a melee...

[Alipoprocks]

The devs appear to have designed a multi-job game with a single-job loot system.

Level 7 boots. As a level 75. YEARS.

It would be nice to see a little more stat variety, and have specific fights tuned for a certain optimization. Like (using the current super limited stats to form a bad example that at least gets the point across):

Using MNK as an example because reasons:

1) Raid A favors skill speed set because you need to quickly ramp up to GL3 as there are a lot of mechanics that take the boss off the arena.
2) Raid B favors determination set because you have high up time, and need good dps over time.
3) Raid C favors critical hit set because boss ignores X damage from every hit, and only crits do effective damage.

I agree. (Except about the boots. I loved those boots until I replaced them with salvage gear.) That type of example would add more depth and make this game fun again.