Item level compression in Heavensward?

[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.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Did you not replace the boots because you liked them or was it because there was not an viable replacement until Salvage? The first is player choice and the second means that there were 68 levels of dead/unusable foot gear.

What I would like to see is something like the following for footwear:

3 basic footgear paths for each class:

1. Standard path with secondary stats as we have them now.
2. Fleet movement path which enhances movement speed. They might also boost the chance of dodging.
3. Traction path that reduces how much you get knocked back and forced movement. This path might also have greater vitality and or defensive secondary stats.

Each path would have multiple occurrences at different ilevels. (i.e. when best standard might be i130, best fleet would be i115 and best traction might be i125, but there would we lower level version available)