More Horizontal Progression please

[lawlHT]

This game could definitely use some variation in its gear, through introducing more stats or amplifying job abilities through gear, and it would do a lot to make each piece of gear feel unique.

But a lot of people in this topic have some serious rosy tint to their glasses when they talk about ffxi. That game was just as much of a grind fest as this one, with the added bonus of sometimes going literal years without seeing certain drops. I'm much happier with this games loot system than I ever was with xi's

[Zumi]

This game could definitely use some variation in its gear, through introducing more stats or amplifying job abilities through gear, and it would do a lot to make each piece of gear feel unique.

But a lot of people in this topic have some serious rosy tint to their glasses when they talk about ffxi. That game was just as much of a grind fest as this one, with the added bonus of sometimes going literal years without seeing certain drops. I'm much happier with this games loot system than I ever was with xi's

One of the things that people forget about in FFXI was camping HNM. King Behemoth, Nidhogg, and Aspi dropped some of the best items in the game. On average they would only spawn once a week and sometimes would have upwards of 10 or more groups camping them. None of these HNMs were hard at all but getting the claim against everyone else in the zone was. So yes you had 1 chance a week and most of the time you didn't get to fight the boss because your group didn't win the claim.

This is why FFXIV system of instances is much better because everyone gets to fight the bosses and gets loot.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

One of the things that people forget about in FFXI was camping HNM. King Behemoth, Nidhogg, and Aspi dropped some of the best items in the game. On average they would only spawn once a week and sometimes would have upwards of 10 or more groups camping them. None of these HNMs were hard at all but getting the claim against everyone else in the zone was. So yes you had 1 chance a week and most of the time you didn't get to fight the boss because your group didn't win the claim.

This is why FFXIV system of instances is much better because everyone gets to fight the bosses and gets loot.

That is also why its boring because everyone gets everything. EQ2 fixed the issue by putting those bosses into large Open World Dungeons that took awhile to get to the bosses and if you just stood there the npcs would eventually overwhelm you.

So you had to get lucky and catch the bosses up, camping them was .. doable but you had a time limit before the room's enemy npcs over-ran you. Each NPC had their own unique skills/abilities they ran though and "strats" to kill them. With pathing/querky grouped mobs which had unusual social aggro.

Honestly. If they had a week spawn then they should be next to impossible to kill. Like harder then A4 Savage. Those were Avatars, most raids even the best could not kill them and there were 7 and they spawned, and despawned if you did not kill them fast enough. Completely random spawn timers too.

[lawlHT]

snip.

None of that reflects anything remotely resembling player-friendly content. Random spawn timers mean that if you're not playing 24/7 there's a good chance you're going to miss the monster even spawning, let alone seeing any drops from it. Instanced content alleviated a lot of the down time spent doing absolutely nothing in game, and gives players the ability to tackle content at their own pace, whenever they're able to play. Yes we have to sacrifice some of the feeling that came with open world content, but it was a necessary step to make sure that players didn't have to abandon their real lives in order to progress in the game

[Nektulos-Tuor]

None of that reflects anything remotely resembling player-friendly content. Random spawn timers mean that if you're not playing 24/7 there's a good chance you're going to miss the monster even spawning, let alone seeing any drops from it. Instanced content alleviated a lot of the down time spent doing absolutely nothing in game, and gives players the ability to tackle content at their own pace, whenever they're able to play. Yes we have to sacrifice some of the feeling that came with open world content, but it was a necessary step to make sure that players didn't have to abandon their real lives in order to progress in the game

Why does content have to be friendly? If its too easy its done way too quickly. The content should be hard and rewarding so it feels like you have to slow down and appreciate the rooms and work they put into the dungeons. In EQ2 most raids could not pass the first 2 bosses of zones, but they were meant to be more casual and easier then the rest. However it made people feel like they were progressing in the zones because they got enough good gear and got better and then started to take on harder bosses. They just didn't sit in one boss and "DIE" to it over/over/over.

It rewarded you when you succeeded, and when you failed it didn't reward you at all.

In this game, if you fail you get rewarded, if you succeed you get minor rewards that will be outdated in a month. GG.