IMO - If this game is to stay relevant - the gameplay needs a massive overhaul

[Stanelis]

When you're tiring of a game or genre, you're probably going to have a lot more success trying a new game or genre than requesting that the developers of the game or genre you're currently playing redesign it from the ground up.

Yet he is right. The reason we don't see as much AAA MMORPG released these days as we ve seen a few years ago is mostly because the wow style gameplay is getting old and studios can't come up with decent innovations (wildstar kinda tried that but it didn't end up as fun as it should have been).

[Recaldy]

The combat bores me and its the most common activity in the game. Can tell me to level another class but its the same damn thing with maybe 1-2 more (or less)things to click or do. Veterans rewards is what is keeping my subscription going atm sadly. I'm at that stage where I'm performing CPR on my interest in the game through a recent Fantasia or an occasional glamour change. Not going to throw myself at 4-5 fights for about 156 dollar for a year of play either.

[Craiger]

On the point of horizontal progression, it doesn't actually work very well with most players...

Unless you can make every gear piece special in some way, enough to make people care to get it, without actually making them better than what you already have... people are gonna get bored. I can already see the posts on here like: "what's the point of doing X content, when the drops aren't better than what I got?".

Better gear is what drives most players in the game, if you just make all gear equally good, then nobody will care about it anymore.

Why would you keep do dungeons and all other grind things if you don't really gain anything from it? And while you still might want to complete Savage, you would only do it once, then not care about it anymore...

Horizontal progression is brought in discussions for every MMORPG there is, but if someone finally implements it into their game, everyone will realize how extremely hard it is to keep players motivated for long.

One example for me would be GW2, which didn't have much PVE content at all to be fair (when I played at least), but a ton of players left early on in that game (me included), because all gear was pretty much exactly the same when it comes to stats... There wasn't any point in doing anything in that game. Doing content because it's fun, and not because of loot, sounds good, but isn't in reality.

[Alahra]

Horizontal progression is brought in discussions for every MMORPG there is, but if someone finally implements it into their game, everyone will realize how extremely hard it is to keep players motivated for long.

Personally, what I want to see is perhaps three or four sets of top item level gear per raiding tier, as opposed to the two sets we have now. That allows for more varied itemization and a greater number of paths for gearing up. I think the general 6 month pace for horizontal increases is fine, but I'd like to see a wider variety of gear at each "level."

[nickx]

Changing the game to an Action MMO might be going too far, but I don't see why they can't add their own flavor to the game to keep it from being so similar to WoW. They were innovative with the support role in FFXI, and I'd personally like to see this make a comeback in the near future, to make jobs more unique and dependent on one another. I know this would require going back and changing some things, fine-tuning dungeons, and add/removing certain abilities from each job, but I think it would give the game a breath of fresh air. It still seems awkward to me that we'll have Red Mage as a DPS role in the near future.

Even as a Bard, I'm considered "support", yet the job is still a DPS role. I know I'll get backlash for this comment, but if they added a true support role in the future, I wouldn't mind if they changed Bard to this role, sacrificing damage, but increasing my support abilities and utility. And to compensate, they could add the Ranger job again for those Bards who'd like to remain pure DPS.

Skillchains were a neat concept as well, but I'll keep my comments on that out from this post for now.

[Craiger]

Personally, what I want to see is perhaps three or four sets of top item level gear per raiding tier, as opposed to the two sets we have now. That allows for more varied itemization and a greater number of paths for gearing up. I think the general 6 month pace for horizontal increases is fine, but I'd like to see a wider variety of gear at each "level."

That's something I could get behind. We certainly need more interesting gearing, and that could be one way to make it better. As with all sorts of horizontal thinking (not as extreme as real horizontal progression though), is that they would have to spend more time making those additional sets, and on whatever way you're supposed to get it... And they are extremely short on staff, so it won't happen until they hire more.

Horizontal thinking isn't bad IMO, it's when it comes to full out horizontal progression that it falls apart.

[Alahra]

Horizontal thinking isn't bad IMO, it's when it comes to full out horizontal progression that it falls apart.

I wouldn't say that it falls apart--FFXI maintained a sizable population, especially for a game of its age, for over a decade. It doesn't appeal to as many people as vertical progression, of course, which is why horizontal is so comparatively rare ever since WoW brought vertical to the mainstream.

In terms of workload, though, they already make 4 gear sets per raid tier: 8-man Raid, Tomestones, 24-man Raid, and Crafted. They could add a way to upgrade the 24-man gear (just like Esoterics really) and get another set. And if they moved Crafted gear back to a place where it's desirable, we'd end up with 3-4 sets without significantly increasing development time for the art team (they would, at worst, need to make sure that the 24-man gear had dyable patterns, if they followed the general trend of upgraded gear being dyable). Even three sets would be a significant improvement, though, in my mind.

[Ibi]

None of this was true for FFXI.

That being said, I do want more horizontal progression, but don't argue for it via falsehoods.

Pretty sure Gilthas was being sarcastic, hence his referring to horizontal progression as the "Messiah". Horizontal progression does get brought up a l-o-t on this forum as a solution to many of the games woes, and a lot of the time the downsides with how it's frequently implemented (like terrible drop rates and items that are obsolete as soon as they're added) are ignored or pushed off to the side.

[Zeonx]

The only thing this game needs is just a few new idea's on how to do things.

Oh and paladin should be able to raise in battles. someone said its locked and sometimes paladin is alive alone could be a difference changer.

[Calypsx]

Seeing heavy armored characters and mages rolling around has always looked silly to me. Regardless I enjoy action games but is it too much to ask at least one of my favorite series refrains from becoming one? Every new mmorpg these days are being made into an action mmo and I'm actually kind of getting tired of it. Let me enjoy the closest thing we have to a traditional final fantasy rpg besides XI