Alienation of Dedicated and Skilled players

[Draginhikari]

I loved XI to death while I was playing it, but I think a lot of people forget how sadistic it was in regards its progression for the vast majority of the game life and only in the several years did it finally cut people a break.

The Horizontal progression came with huge drawbacks of its own, with heavy dependence of longer content roadblock timers where you could literally go months without getting a single thing in some cases due to these strict requirements and dependency on large group functionality which was usually forcefully dramatic because of the way the content was designed, extremely low drop rates to extremely frustrating levels, and an in game economy that was pretty brutal and difficult to succeed in for newer players.

I think people are also misrepresenting the amount of content that FFXI had. This content came very very slowly over very long periods of time. This is one of the real reasons for the Horizontal progression. It was intended to draw out the content for much longer then originally intended to make up for what they could afford to develop by literally making the situation as unfair to the player as physically possible. This even often reflected in the Development Team attitude towards the Player which was not a very friendly kind of relationship to say the least.

I just can't see something like that working in today's market and I'm not sure I want it myself. If they tired to create like it in XIV, it would have to be far more toned down and far far less brutal on the player's time.

[HeavenlyArmed]

First and foremost, knock of the massive presumptions of what I do. You are not me, and therefore have no idea how I choose to spend my time.

I am well aware of the content in this game, and have participated in virtually all of it. What I seem to be missing, however, is a semblance of any point in this rant outside you taking potshots because I happen to be on Balmung. Nothing you said has any relevance to the debate in question. You finding the game boring does not inherent mean the game is flawed. At no point have I said people shouldn't do xyz, but merely disagreed horizontal progression will have the perceived impact the OP believes. Then elaborated on why I feel that way. Now we're back to "raiders find the game boring after this finish x content." To which we circle back to where they make up a very small fraction of the community. Hence why SE isn't making content directly catering to their preferences outside a new tier of Savage every six months. That isn't an opinion, but fact. If FFXIV had the mass exodus you're insinuating, then it wouldn't remain among the most popular MMOs.

Okay, so let's start with the "just because you find it boring doesn't mean the game is flawed." This comment is dumb on the basis of literally every game is flawed in some way, but besides that, the flaw has been clearly pointed out and agreed with. Stats aren't interesting and while there may be non-raid content available, players who enjoy raiding often can't justify running it due to not rewarding anything and not being challenging enough to entertain them. While I agree that it's not the catastrophe that some people often imply, it's still a problem and unlike what you claim in your original post, there are ways to fix this that would not require a drastic refocusing of resources. And not only that, but these changes would have, as I've explained already, no actual drawbacks. On the topic of that first post, btw, Wildstar did not fail because its content patches only appealed to raiders, and you'd know that if you knew any of what was in a Wildstar content patch. See my big post on page 7 for full details.

[Ilenya]

Thank you for understanding this concept. I don't want less for those interested in other content, just more for those that do. (for the love of god don't twist my words or offer some baffling nonsensical counter argument)

Honestly, I would love it if SE could get more groups working on different things. I have no idea if this was changed for Midas Savage, but I recall some of the playerbase having an issue with Gordias Savage that the fights seemed less interesting because they were forced to do the normal Gordias first. Now I know they did this so more of the playerbase could see the story (Coils taught them that one), but I would imagine that something better would be to keep the story, but actually have different fights altogether for the savage fights, instead of similar fights with extra mechanics. I have no idea if that would be workable (Probably not, since I assume right now one group works on dungeons and balancing), but that would at least prevent people from burning out on similar fights just gearing up for the Savage fights.

Also, weren't the 24-man supposed to be the middle route for gearing up for the hardcore content? Whatever happened to that beyond "LotA not ready for 2.0, put in BCoB, quick!"

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Who is even saying anything about a slow multi month grind. Please Direct me to where someone has said this. Referring to FFXI seems Taboo here in that when someone merely mentions it, it is instantly viewed as someone WANTING that grind. NO THEY DON'T. We just want meaningful stats. It could take maybe a day or a week to get said items depending on which route you take. NOWHERE IN THIS THREAD does ANYONE say they want a yearlong grind to get one item and NOWHERE in this thread does anyone actually want a system where only one way of playing is optimal. If the Dev team actually works on making stats differentiated then we could have some faith in them that they would make them interesting enough and balanced to a point where they are all viable.

Fair enough. Let's cut out the grind aspect. Being able to fully customize your weapon/gear sounds amazing, but the issue remains people will eventually math out the most optimal stat allocation and expect you follow along or you won't get into a static. No amount of differentiation will change that because of how damage is calculated. The most you could possibly see is some sort of elemental or status effect on your weapon. But then Black Mage and Summoner lose a bit of their arsenal if Dragoons can tag thunder procs.

Well from your older post in this thread it seems like It. I'm not trying to attack you, but you give me (maybe others) a vibe that it's only fine to have fun aka RP or sit around doing almost nothing but chatting to people. I'm sorry if you feel I attacked you, which wasn't my goal at all. But I still stay on what I said, you do preach of and make it sound like ''just because I don't like it, we shouldn't have it'' sorta attitude.

Considering I made no mention of RP nor has anyone else, I don't see how you reached that conclusion. Nevertheless, my stance isn't, "you shouldn't have this," but that SE won't overhaul a system that their larger audience prefers simply to appease a much smaller crowd.

If they can find a way of catering to everyone, fantastic. But I doubt we'll ever see horizontal progression of any kind in this game.

[HeavenlyArmed]

Fair enough. Let's cut out the grind aspect. Being able to fully customize your weapon/gear sounds amazing, but the issue remains people will eventually math out the most optimal stat allocation and expect you follow along or you won't get into a static. No amount of differentiation will change that because of how damage is calculated.

Hello? Hi, I've explained numerous times that this claim is just straight up wrong, and it's an insult to the community that anyone believes it. As long as things are even slightly well balanced, more interesting stats and some sort of horizontal progression can absolutely exist in this game more than just superficially as you claim.

[Seraphix2407]

If they can find a way of catering to everyone, fantastic. But I doubt we'll ever see horizontal progression of any kind in this game.

It's not only about the progression but also about how content comes out from each patch. This isn't only about ''most of the playerbase'' why it's like this, it's also because they decide to use our sub money on other project as well, which I find super stupid on their side. This game could make alot more money if they only spent more money into it. Also few in this thread already stated they would rage if they spent time on more hard content, but we all know why they rage .

[Ilenya]

Hello? Hi, I've explained numerous times that this claim is just straight up wrong, and it's an insult to the community that anyone believes it. As long as things are even slightly well balanced, more interesting stats and some sort of horizontal progression can absolutely exist in this game more than just superficially as you claim.

Honest question, what does that make the Strength tank meta for people who preferred Vit tanking?

[HeavenlyArmed]

Honest question, what does that make the Strength tank meta for people who preferred Vit tanking?

Poorly balanced due to Vitality having very minimal benefits at the time. That's why it was fixed. You can still min-max for a little extra damage by using certain Strength accessories, but Strength doesn't have benefits that massively outweigh those of Vitality anymore. Back then because the balance was so poor, and due to the content necessitating it due to absurdly high dps checks, there was no competition for a serious raider. You went Strength as much as possible or you didn't raid. However, the fact that VIT tanks existed in other content at the time despite this only serves to strengthen my argument. You had some players who would be jerks about it, but outside of the highest level of content this was the furthest thing from the norm. And even in that highest level of content it only became the norm because the content of the time necessitated it.

[Ilenya]

Poorly balanced due to Vitality having very minimal benefits at the time. That's why it was fixed. You can still min-max for a little extra damage by using certain Strength accessories, but Strength doesn't have benefits that massively outweigh those of Vitality anymore. Back then because the balance was so poor, and due to the content necessitating it due to absurdly high dps checks, there was no competition for a serious raider. You went Strength as much as possible or you didn't raid. However, the fact that VIT tanks existed in other content at the time despite this only serves to strengthen my argument. You had some players who would be jerks about it, but outside of the highest level of content this was the furthest thing from the norm. And even in that highest level of content it only became the norm because the content of the time necessitated it.

I would like to point out, then that the fact that we already know some people will abuse the meta in that way means that any horizontal changes would have to be carefully thought out. Well balanced is fine, but if any option gives even a slight boost over the other, we know that it could be an issue.

Granted, the simplest option would be to just report the idiots doing it, but still.

Also, the main issue I think that happened with Strength tanking in general wasn't the end-game issues (With people who were prepared for it and knew what they were doing), but the fact it became such common knowledge that people who didn't know what they were doing were trying it and failing miserably (I healed some of them, I remember it.)

If the horizontal building was entirely end-game, then this wouldn't be a major issue, because at that point players would (hopefully) understand their roles well enough to work with the system properly instead of playing follow-the-leader with everything.

One more quick question, if you can answer it. Say if 4.0 has a boost to level 70 (mostly to reset ilevels to a base marker) but everything at level 70 was horizontal instead of vertical. Wouldn't that require most fights after the initial gearing up point (Like Law tomes or the old Philosophy tomes) to be the same relative difficulty patch by patch, because they gear isn't actually getting any stronger overall? Would that be an acceptable compromise?

[coco1851]

Well after reading these posts, complaints, whining, etc. there is no way I can respond to each individually, so I'm going to try to sum this up. Even though I'm embarrassed to list these games I played before coming to this game the other mmo's I played were: dcuo, onigiri, & swordart. Swordart was boring, onigiri was a lagfest with a casino style marketplace with horrid customer service, dcuo was a lot of things: a never ending monthly gear grind, horrid customer service, constant disconnects, rancid elitist community,really really bad membership rewards, top tier gear drops in raids that people couldn't get after thousands of runs, spending rl money to run anything more than once, Devs not fixing anything, the only thing they focused on was milking the customers, etc. etc. etc. I'm sorry but for those people that think this company is not doing enough, that the game is so to speak 'dying' due to lack of content, specific gear, etc. I challenge you to go play other mmo's because the folks at SE are far better people than the other companies I have ever dealt with by a longshot weather it is trying to accommodate to the vast majority of player base, customer service, keeping things fresh, or anything for that matter.