Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[CyrilLucifer]

and if the number of "former FFXI players" I've met in the last decade is any indication, while it was a wonderful world experience, it wasn't the best system for retaining player interest.

That's a horrible, horrible, absolutely abysmal reasoning.

FFXI is more than 12 years old. Do you honestly expect people to play the same game, with the same amount of love and passion, every day for 12 years?

Of course they are former players. I have absolutely absurd amounts of time devoted to XI and even I get bored of it, no matter how much I love my friends there and how long we've been together (I've had friends from XI for more than 10 years that I still talk to).

In fact, you've basically proven the opposite point: XI is still P2P and still retains a decent number of subscribers after so long. If anything, that shows that whatever it is doing, it's doing it right. I don't see modern XIV lasting even half as long as XI in its current state. That being said, a pure jump to horizontal is unrealistic, hence why I propose at least starting with something as simple as "more options" and "more variable stats." You know, like every other MMO in existence.

[Andrea]

That's a horrible, horrible, absolutely abysmal reasoning.

I agree fully with what you said, Honestly speaking if this games lifespan is anywhere near 11s I'd count that as a success but as you said I honestly can't see that happening.

No matter if people want to admit it or not 11 was highly successful and the fact that its still going speaks for itself.

[Gunspec]

That's a horrible, horrible, absolutely abysmal reasoning.

FFXI is more than 12 years old. Do you honestly expect people to play the same game, with the same amount of love and passion, every day for 12 years?

I said "of "former FFXI players" I've met in the last decade" as in I met people ten years ago who had already stopped playing. Throughout the last 10 years, I've probably met two or three dozen "former" players who all started and stopped at different points in the game's life cycle, while in that same decade I never met an active subscriber. Maybe its just the circles of people I meet, but something is clearly a bit strange there.

No matter if people want to admit it or not 11 was highly successful and the fact that its still going speaks for itself.

Runescape is still going after 15 years. It has to do entirely with the strange little communities that develop around a game, and I honestly can't say that any single factor in an online game is responsible for creating or destroying such a community.

[Andrea]

Runescape is still going after 15 years. It has to do entirely with the strange little communities that develop around a game, and I honestly can't say that any single factor in an online game is responsible for creating or destroying such a community.

Runescape in its own way was also successful. Obviously to a smaller scale than 11.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Runescape in its own way was also successful. Obviously to a smaller scale than 11.

I think runescape may be more successful than XI actually.

[Xtrasweettea]

I said "of "former FFXI players" I've met in the last decade" as in I met people ten years ago who had already stopped playing. Throughout the last 10 years, I've probably met two or three dozen "former" players who all started and stopped at different points in the game's life cycle, while in that same decade I never met an active subscriber. Maybe its just the circles of people I meet, but something is clearly a bit strange there.

It could just be the circles of people you have met. People quit playing for many reasons. I had real life friends who quit because of how slow leveling damage dealers were back before Abyssea came out. I played support and mage type jobs before the days of Abyssea, so I didn't have that problem.

I did quit FFXI for mainly two reasons
1) I was spending way too many hours playing it
2) When Seeker of Audolin came out (the lastest expansion), the game went from a Horizontal Progression to a hard Vertical Progression [I will be calling Vertical Progression "VP" for the rest of my post] (not VP from leveling your character, rather VP for gear). This may not seem like a big deal in FF14, but when you go from a system where it took months to get gear that you could use for almost the entire career for multiple jobs for years, to suddenly that gear become worthless in an instant, that was too much for me. I didn't mind the gradual incline type of VP like Abyssea and Voidwatch provided. Those events did not completely made the hard earned but still viable gear worthless. Seekers made it to were almost all gear was irrelevant overnight. I decided if I was going to play in a game where it was mainly VP, I would rather play FF14.

I believe some people would have the same reaction if FF14 went from VP to Horizontal Progress without any gradual flattening of the curve that FF14's VP has.