Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW!

[Lorielle]

Why 2 years?

Because that's what all the people from FFXI want when it comes to gear progression. /sarcasm

[Neophyte]

I would like a more horizontal progression with more interesting (special) stats.
Thats what i loved about FFXI.
In current FFXIV, gear is getting obsolete too fast. It's frustrating and boring.

What exactly is 'too fast'.

A Niddhog weapon (which is a filler one) lasts for 3 months, a 240 relic can be used for almost 5 months before you upgrade it again.
Lore gear will be replaced with new tomes after roughly 8 months.

I think I'll never get this 'gear changes too fast'.

How do you get new players into hard content, as soon as having left and right side in full uberduber 100 month lasting horizontal gear is the norm?

[Zafrei]

I would like a more horizontal progression with more interesting (special) stats.
Thats what i loved about FFXI.
In current FFXIV, gear is getting obsolete too fast. It's frustrating and boring.

Agreed. Gear treadmills have never been the most enticing thing for me. I'm the kind of player who likes the journey, I don't need a number or epic piece of gear to feel I've achieved something, just a new experience. Some games can release new gear and still achieve this. Rather than upping the tier each time, they just release a new variety of gear that's on par (read an optional alternative) to existing gear. GW2 and ESO are two good examples of this in practice.

Given how huge some of the achievements in game are, the frequent invalidating of gear items as happens currently feels like moving the goalposts too often, like jumping through hoops. Make it more about the journey and less about the gear.

[Dzian]

How do you get new players into hard content, as soon as having left and right side in full uberduber 100 month lasting horizontal gear is the norm?

So how do you get new players into hard content?

the current gear system certainly doesn't work which is a big part of why the raiding population is as small as it is. the speed at which gear is replaced destroys the motivation and incentive for many players to even try harder content. because the rewards are outdated so quickly they have no value. and because they have no value and will be replaced so quick it's just not worth the effort to try and get them...

and thus players don't bother with the harder content. it's just not a worthwhile investment of time or effort. and thus the raiding scene is as small as it is.

[Velhart]

I would like a more horizontal progression with more interesting (special) stats.
Thats what i loved about FFXI.
In current FFXIV, gear is getting obsolete too fast. It's frustrating and boring.

Let me ask. Lets say we go by FFXI's formula. You are a new player and you want to get to end game as soon as you can, you finally get there and turns out what is required out of you is gear that takes a horrendous amount of time to obtain to be even considered "caught up." Even if end game FC's let the person in regardless, it is massively overwhelming for a newer player to try to get caught up. This is something that will drive a newer player away very quickly.

In vertical progression, it is built up that anyone new jumping into the end game scene can get caught up and join with their friends. It is not to say that vertical has no faults, but with how this game's foundation is set up and the target audience SE's aims for, I doubt pure horizontal progression would be a thing.

I feel like I am the only one who thinks that gear is simply a means to take down the most recent content and preparation for the next tier of content. Not the central focus. Treat gear more like a novelty piece as opposed to a tool for taking down content. It is a video game, I care more about taking down all the content has to offer than caring about how shiny I can make my armor. That is what glamour is for.

More kind of realistic thing to ask for is variety of content to obtain gear. Like adding accessories to primals. SE already does semi-horizontal with their odd number patches, offering more variety on how you can get gear to catch up.

People should ask themselves again, "Is what I am asking for good for the player base as a whole? Or just good for me and my friends?" If it is good for the player base, then say how it works without harming the casual - midcore - hardcore fan base. Which is already in a iffy position with poorly structured raids and severe lack of midcore content.

FFXIV's current structure has issues, but the core foundation isn't broken or needs change. SE just needs to set their priorities and improve upon what they already have, then go into more new territory within their own established fundamentals.

[Zojha]

the current gear system certainly doesn't work which is a big part of why the raiding population is as small as it is.

Well...and the fact that raiding just plain sucks with a lot of pointless side processes nobody wants to do in their free time (recruiting/scheduling/organizing) and a difficulty that appeals to very few players. The more and better rewards a content needs to be played, the worse it is designed.

[Neophyte]

So how do you get new players into hard content?

I expected an answer and not a repetition of my question.

the current gear system certainly doesn't work which is a big part of why the raiding population is as small as it is. the speed at which gear is replaced destroys the motivation and incentive for many players to even try harder content. because the rewards are outdated so quickly they have no value. and because they have no value and will be replaced so quick it's just not worth the effort to try and get them...

and thus players don't bother with the harder content. it's just not a worthwhile investment of time or effort. and thus the raiding scene is as small as it is.

Gear/Reqard is and should never be the main incentive for raiding.

Did you ever ask someone "Why do you raid?" and he said "Because of the strong gear."?
"Why don't you attemp the hardest content in game, where you have to rely on/synergize with 7 other good players." - "Because the gear sucks!".
Yeah, sure.

Savage gear now lasts for about 8 months, making it last for for 16 won't change a thing.
The only thing it does is seperating raiding and casual game even more. By now everone has to do a lot pieces of content to keep you gear up to date (and you play more than 1 job), which is a good thing in my opinion.

If you incentive is gear... what is the incentive to do the next raid if you got super horizontal gear in the last one? Is the new raid gear better? Isn't this vertical progression 2.0 then?

[Mishari]

Let me ask. Lets say we go by FFXI's formula. You are a new player and you want to get to end game as soon as you can, you finally get there and turns out what is required out of you is gear that takes a horrendous amount of time to obtain to be even considered "caught up." Even if end game FC's let the person in regardless, it is massively overwhelming for a newer player to try to get caught up. This is something that will drive a newer player away very quickly.

I did not mean only horizontal. Keep the vertical progression but add some horizontal to that.
Maybe gear with a special stat. Firestarter proc rate +3%, -10 INT for example. (just an example! i don't know if that would work lol)
Put that behind a "long" grind or a quest chain or a NM (/shrug) or whatever. Everything but tomestones! D:

[lulunami]

The majority of players play for gear, to be honest. If the gear is not that good, people do not try. It is human nature. People try to do as little as possible to get the reward wanted.

Look at Savage Second Coil. Only the top groups attempted it and fewer managed to complete it. It was very difficult. There was not much gear reward other than a Title. Other groups looked at Savage Second Coil and gave up because it was too difficult and not much material gain.

Not many people do stuff just for the love of it. For example, not many people go to work without material rewards (i.e. money). That is probably why the raid population is shrinking.

[LineageRazor]

Let me ask. Lets say we go by FFXI's formula. You are a new player and you want to get to end game as soon as you can, you finally get there and turns out what is required out of you is gear that takes a horrendous amount of time to obtain to be even considered "caught up." Even if end game FC's let the person in regardless, it is massively overwhelming for a newer player to try to get caught up. This is something that will drive a newer player away very quickly.

Ah, but the thing is, up until the last couple years of FFXI's life, while these hard-to-get pieces of gear were desired, they were not REQUIRED. The content could be completed without it; it just made the ride smoother. Groups that demanded such-and-such gear or you can't join? All but non-existent, and the few who tried were generally laughed off the field.

I remember on my server (Leviathan), there was one Red Mage who demanded nothing but Warriors with Relic weapons (arguably the best DPS at the time) to join her party. She was an outright laughing stock, because there were maybe a dozen Relic Warriors total on the server (relics were INSANELY hard to come by; a worse grind than any ten grinds in FFXIV put together), and they weren't particularly interested in carrying a Red Mage whenever she wanted an exp party. In another example, the Scorpion Harness was among the best DPS body pieces in the game for a long, long time - it was crafted gear, and while terribly expensive any DPS could get one if they saved up for it; likewise, the Noble's Tunic the best healer piece. And yet, very few people would turn away a DPS or healer simply because they didn't have one.

I can't say for certain what the reason was. Was the content too easy? Was gear acquisition too difficult? Or was the playerbase simply less "elitist"? Or some combination of these. Whatever the case, in FFXIV, not having top quality gear was not a bar of any kind, for any content in the game, for most of the game's lifespan.

Admittedly, this changed around the time Adoulin was released. FFXI started adopting a model more similar to FFXIV's at that point, with gear ilvls and boss monsters that would make short work of anyone without top-notch equipment. FFXI was successful for many years up to that point, but MMO players were a different breed back then, much more tolerant of spending months or YEARS just to get a particular piece of gear (though, again, it helped that that gear was a luxury, not a requirement to complete content).

Whatever the case, it's unquestionable that gear itemization in this game is excruciatingly boring. Whatever piece of gear you obtain, no matter how difficult, challenging, or grindy, it's all going to look the same: another notch up in Primary Stat, with a sprinkling of the same old tiresome substats. It's not going to last you for years like a Scorpion Harness or Astral Ring would - you can expect, at best, a little over half a year of life to it. Even as a trophy, it's not going to be long before the hoi polloi are parading the same gear around as the content gets easier and easier (whether through nerfs or simple gear advancement).

It's not going to change, either; we're stuck with this model. We can't introduce things like interesting gear abilities, because every piece of gear, down to the tiniest accessory, includes Primary Stat. As ilvl marches on, that interesting piece of gear will by necessity be left behind. If SE had had the foresight to keep primary stat OFF the accessories, they could have left those slots free for progressive experimentation. Equip left-side gear for primary stat advancement, and use right-side gear for interesting stuff like "Raise cast time reduced by 50%" or "Adds 20 potency Fire Damage to auto attacks". Situational stuff that's more useful in some fights than others - and for those who cry out that inventory space is too limited to have situational gear, just how much free space do you have in your Accessory tabs? I see no issue with having a few extra pairs of earrings that I could swap in for certain battles where they're more useful.