Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW!

[Zojha]

Certain gear acquired earlier could be relevant all the way to the level cap.

Which is equivalent to Sastasha normal randomly dropping (wearable) i190 gear. You realize that?

Plus, that's entirely irrelevant to the scenarios we were discussing! You compared two scenarios, one in which a player gets progression capped in 3 months and has that gear become obsolete in 3-6 months and then another who takes ~9 months to be progression capped and have the gear become obsolete much later. So I raised the question: What does the latter player do in that long period where his gear is top?

The answer is simple: Nothing. And now you switch the topic to point out that the power budgets of items were completely arbitrary, which made older content relevant. Not only is that a somewhat questionable design choice in its own right, it is, again, not relevant to the question:"What do you do in the long time of no/marginal progression AFTER getting the items?" You say:"Do long lasting content." What for? You already have the stuff, that was the premise!

[Sandpark]

So I raised the question: What does the latter player do in that long period where his gear is top?

The answer is simple: Nothing. And now you switch the topic to point out that the power budgets of items were completely arbitrary, which made older content relevant. Not only is that a somewhat questionable design choice in its own right, it is, again, not relevant to the question:"What do you do in the long time of no/marginal progression AFTER getting the items?" You say:"Do long lasting content." What for? You already have the stuff, that was the premise!

Answer is simple but not nothing like you said.Easy, get gear for another job! Or add a merit/champion/open world system offering more than GEAR

And what I said is actually relevant. This is a "Make XIV like XI thread and less like WoW"

Also when content is really fun, the carrot is not always the major point of enjoyment. You ride a bike to enjoy riding a bike not the ice cream you eat after the ride. And before you flip it and say then quick recycled Ilvl or longer lasting tier gear shouldn't matter then.

I would say there that ilvl is like needing a new bike every three months or your speed dives downwards. Where as longer tiered progression is not needing the new bike as often but just adding amenities and sidegrades to it overtime.

[Zojha]

And what I said is actually relevant. This is a "Make XIV like XI thread and less like WoW"

Oh what you said is relevant to the thread - just not to the point I was making.

Gearing another job is already what people can do right now, "if" they do it - many don't and that's exactly why we have so many people complaining. We could have six additional months between upgrade patches and it would allow you to gear most of your jobs with the current tomestone system. Great, right? Except people who only play one job moan and unsub for that time because "there's nothing to do!"

The bottom line is, the progression treadmill needs to keep running, because people enticed by progression stop playing if it doesn't. And whether you regularly replace gear or progress otherwise doesn't really matter. We could also just keep increasing the level cap and work off XP. Gear is just easier to handle.

[Shurrikhan]

Which is equivalent to Sastasha normal randomly dropping (wearable) i190 gear. You realize that?

I imagine it'd be more alike to getting gear from a challenge mode (e.g. with achievement) of a given 40-59 boss that either scales with you or just has some percentage bonus effect. Sadly no such things exist.

"What do you do in the long time of no/marginal progression AFTER getting the items?"

That said, while "do it all again, for alt gear!" would be the obvious answer, I personally wouldn't want to go through all that for every alt. Worse, if the gear was actually that huge a bonus, I wouldn't feel like I'm really allowed to play my alts until I've done so. The latter is due to personal issues, a fear of being asked "where's you're god mode gear?" especially if followed with "are you joking? Get on your real job." So therein lies the ultimatum, do I want to grind for a year just to feel like I have the same options to me I had before, just to make a particular gearing task extra long both initially and finally (in which case my luck with RNG will make the process all the more exasperating) or do I want something that rewards more frequently, so I can less painfully bring my jobs (or at least my recent favorite of them) in line, although having to maintain them more frequently as well...

Ideally, I'd like for the initial task to be truly difficult, but undertakeable in steps, the RNG to be less the issue, gear usable across multiple jobs, and (and here's where the pipedream gets really obvious) the content to be enough fun in itself to run even after getting my loot. At worst, have a longer optional task thereafter, such as for an upgrade item. Running Levi Ex as a solo-queuer during the mirror farm time of night did that for me. Sure, the mirror drop would have been nice, but in the end I really liked the fight itself. I enjoyed coming home from university and just PuGing it for an hour straight to a playlist setup just before.

[Zafrei]

"What do you do in the long time of no/marginal progression AFTER getting the items?" You say:"Do long lasting content." What for? You already have the stuff, that was the premise!

This is where I disconnect from the whole 'we need new gear/levels regularly' argument. I play games for the experience. Likewise, in the mmos I play, I run dungeons, or do quests or whatever, for the experience.

If there's no new gear tier then it doesn't matter to me. I try something purely to have fun experiencing it. If I ding a level or pick up the new hotness which is 10 levels higher than the old hotness really doesn't add to my sense of achievement - purely completing whatever it was does that all by itself.

I'd rather they keep to the same tier - expand it horizontally if needs be. Just bring in alternatives to current equipment (mix and match the stats a bit) to create horizontal progression so it's optional while still providing reward.

[Zojha]

[...]If I ding a level or pick up the new hotness which is 10 levels higher than the old hotness really doesn't add to my sense of achievement - purely completing whatever it was does that all by itself.

And then you have completed it and...then you need more content to complete. That would work really well, if the devs could actually create content as quickly as players can consume it. Unfortunately, what takes a week or more to create takes 30 minutes to consume, a few hours at best.

The only way out is repetition - which depreciates your experience/enjoyment of the content depending on its replay value. At some point, you're not going to bother anymore, because it's no longer fun. Normally no problem, except that other players depend on players doing that content to experience it for themselves - take the crystal tower raids, nobody did them anymore before the Anima and wait times could easily go to the cap and beyond, so newbies were unable to experience the content. In order to allow them this experience, SE needed to provide an incentive, because people didn't feel like doing it again, seeing as they have experienced it already.

I can see that attitude working out in PvP games, where every game is different and replay value is high - but in a PvE multiplayer game, it doesn't work quite as well, as every PvE encounter necessarily is scripted to a degree.