Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[xJimmehx]

I like pure vertical progression sometimes. I prefer horizontal though. I dont expect or want the entire game to be rebuilt. I just wish there was a reason not to destroy old gear so often. I dont even do dungeons and raids much anymore. Instead i play mini games at the Gold Saucer and fate/leve grind my classes and jobs to 60. It is not worth it to do any dungeon more than once in my opinion. Unless your desperate to get gear so you arent locked out of content, But whats the gear for? To make the dungeons easier? :|

[Zumi]

I just wish there was a reason not to destroy old gear so often.|

It is like 8 months from when gear is the best to when something better comes out. To me that is a long time. I wish the progression happened faster then that but what we been using the same gear since 3.0 came out. People complaining their gear gets outdated fast as it is now it takes 2 patches which takes about 4 months + 4 months so 8 months total.

[Zumi]

That's not what horizontal progression is at all. Horizontal progression as most of us want it would have gearsets that are variable based on the situation. The whole point of it is that there isn't one ideal BiS slot. What is BiS changes based upon the encounter or party makeup. People who want things like skill trees aren't really asking for horizontal progression, they're asking for more variability in ways to build their character.

If you look at FFXI there was a BiS tp set, a BiS WS set, a BiS damage reduction set, BiS Fast Cast spell set, plus you had to swap in all the pieces of AF1/AF2/AF3 gear that had ability enhancing gear when you used your job abilities. Macros were just used to swap between all these gear sets people would use up their whole inventory with gear swaps for 1 job. Also in FFXI people were very picky about joining parties if you didn't have a reilc/mythic/empyrean weapon you would not be allowed to join the group.

Having all these gearsets just lead to a bloated inventory and way more items that you needed to be good at the game.

For example in FFXI here is a pretty updated list of the BiS sets http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46...f-defense-v20/
If you actually went out and got all that gear inventory issues and the amount of gear you need to carry around seems a bit excessive.

[Alahra]

Having all these gearsets just lead to a bloated inventory and way more items that you needed to be good at the game.

Bloated is beyond kind. Back before they finally gave us expanded inventory options (FFXI now gives you the equivalent of like 5 armory chests >.>), I only had like 3 spaces in my inventory to actually receive drops because I carted around so much gear for NIN. Given that this game already has massive inventory problems, there's no way at present any sort of "gear for different situations" thing could really work. They'd likely have to at least triple the size of the armory chest just to start (if you assume like 3 sets of gear per job).

[Xtrasweettea]

[...]Also in FFXI people were very picky about joining parties if you didn't have a reilc/mythic/empyrean weapon you would not be allowed to join the group. .

This part isn't necessarily 100% true. The only time I have seen the demand for "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was towards the end of the life cycle for Voidwatch and when people where shouting for farming groups in Seekers zones. This demand did not come in any other era of the game when I played (I stopped playing within the first few months of Seekers).

The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was a way to filter out the hundreds of Damage Dealers out there. The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was not applied to Support Jobs or Healers. It was hard enough to find a Bard or Corsair let alone one with a Relic, Mythic, or Empyrean. Only those career Bards had a relic horn and/or the empyrean harp. Half of the bards and healers in FFXI during end of the Voidwatch era were dual boxed by some Damage Dealer player since they couldn't find a bard or healer within their play time.

The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was a result of the availability of the job market rather than Horizontal Progression. If there were an equal amount of Damage Dealers to Support Jobs, then "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" could applied to all jobs, but that wasn't the reality. The reality was that there was 30 Damage Dealers to 1 Bard, 1/4 Corsair, 1/4 Scholar, or 1/2 Red Mage (that knew how to play the job as Red Mage not as a "Pink Mage"). In order to get those rare support jobs, party leaders have to make it appealing to them. Since a party leader can't send a job application to each interested DD to see if they are skilled, using gear as the filtering mechanism was the best option. Support jobs had the luxury of being picky because of the demand versus availability. Again, this is not the fault of Horizontal progression, rather it was the result from the availability of the job market.

[Critical-Limit]

I have seen enough gears set swapping to know it is a bane of this galaxy. Do you remember the time where no one will invite you to exp pt unless you have so and so gear? I do.

I don't.

Why do people assume horizontal progression MUST be exactly like XI.

They could do horizontal progression PURELY through materia. Want to beat the new earth based boss guy? If you saved stackable materia you're already ready. If you need to farm maybe RNG from spirit bond, maybe super rare stats or high grade comes from hard fights.

Go fight titan EX, to get grade VI materia earth resistance. Make the new boss winnable without but make earth resistance materia make the fight eaiser in that you can make a few more mistakes.

No longer need that weapon cuz it's still vertical progression? Have the goblin rip it out for some kind of currency, or w/e.

[Alahra]

They could do horizontal progression PURELY through materia. Want to beat the new earth based boss guy? If you saved stackable materia you're already ready. If you need to farm maybe RNG from spirit bond, maybe super rare stats or high grade comes from hard fights.

There is no way FFXIV's general playerbase would be happy with that, given how people already dislike needing to grind various things to progress. People want to be able to quickly get into endgame content (to the point where even needing to gear up via Law tomes/Alexander NM already bothers some players), and adding materia-gates to end-game content would defeat the purpose of catch-up content like Hunts and 24-man Raids, which are meant to help people get into or progress through more difficult content.

WoW already did this and they ultimately abandoned it because it made the barriers for newer players too high.

[Loki]

Vertical progression....ok but i wish we weren't so much limited everywhere by week etc. One of the main lineaments of this game is to be able to play all jobs on 1 character. Gears become outdated so fast that idk why we are so restricted.

examples : we could be limited to 450 eso per week but per job too, in void arch we could be limited to 1 gear per week but per job too...etc

[Critical-Limit]

There is no way FFXIV's general playerbase would be happy with that, given how people already dislike needing to grind various things to progress. People want to be able to quickly get into endgame content (to the point where even needing to gear up via Law tomes/Alexander NM already bothers some players), and adding materia-gates to end-game content would defeat the purpose of catch-up content like Hunts and 24-man Raids, which are meant to help people get into or progress through more difficult content.

WoW already did this and they ultimately abandoned it because it made the barriers for newer players too high.

So you didn't read what I said.

I didn't say gate fights behind anything. It's just BiS if you need it. The fight can still be won w/o the earth resistance. It's just if you want a faster or "safer" run. That's a choice. Hence horizontal.

Will some people try to require you to have it? Only if they know you can't do mechanics

[Alahra]

I didn't say gate fights behind anything. It's just BiS if you need it. The fight can still be won w/o the earth resistance. It's just if you want a faster or "safer" run. That's a choice. Hence horizontal.

People will definitely require it if the fight is designed in any ways such that the resistances are actually significant until you can overgear the content. It's just another form of a VIT/HP check, really. For it to not be necessary, it would need to not be significant, and then you have a choice that has no impact (so why would anyone bother actually farming the resistance gear?).