My Opinion on XIV's Gear Progression

[Altena]

I actually had this conversation with someone in NN yesterday.. And you even used a similar point that was brought up. We are also on the same server.. Hmm not sure if related but anyways, thought it was worth mentioning.


However I absolutely disagree with you, and I am not "white knighting". I am saying this from the perspective of highlighting why the XI system was inherently bad, especially for games that aren't XI. Was the game fun in its day? Sure.. However I think people look at that game with rose tinted glasses.

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1. There should be no game (other than XI), where you can obtain a piece of gear all the way back in 2008, and it still be best in slot for doing "X" thing in 2018. Why? Because what happens when you get to the point where everything is best in slot for that job.. And there is nothing better in those slots for 5-10 years.. What do you work toward?

XI was a special snowflake in the fact that you could swap gear using macros between every action. This actually allowed for the customization of complete min maxing every ability just by getting situational gear pieces. What does this mean? Well it means that you have a much bigger list of situational gear that you can work towards.. And that those pieces of gear that "lasted for 10 years as best in slot for doing X weaponskill".

In a game like XIV? Yeah nah, wouldn't work. You shouldn't be able to equip something in a slot and forget about upgrading it for 5-10 years..

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2. Another issue was that when that piece of gear was finally replaced by something after years of holding BiS position, it similarly caused people to rage out because said item was easily replaced by some new item "after they worked so hard for so many years to obtain item X".

Salvage gear was one example of that, when they released Abyssea and stuff like Perle or Aurora gear was released.
Due to the level cap being at 75 for so long, people started stockpiling all of this amazing gear that took ages to farm.. Then once the level cap rose to 80, a bunch of it was inevitably replaced and people were furious.

An example of my point with this is at the start of every expansion so far, have you not felt a little heartbroken that your BiS raid gear from the previous tier will only last you 4 or 5 levels before being replaced? Well of course, as it's one of the comments in your OP.
Now multiply that by something that's been around for 5 years as your BiS..

The alternative to this is to have an item that continuously upgrades throughout the patch (like what we have with Relics). This causes an illusion (despite it just being an illusion) that our "hard work of obtaining item X" isn't going to waste.. And instead of replacing it we are "upgrading" it.. Blade & Soul did this fairly well in the sense that your starting level 1 gear was actually kind of like "relic" gear.. You continuously upgraded it throughout the game, while you still had the option to "replace" it with normal quality stuff if you couldn't afford to upgrade it for whatever reason.

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3. Your point regarding gear being pointless.. (no pun intended)

I mean at the end of the day, isn't that every MMO ever?
Why do you get gear?
To kill harder stuff..
Why do you kill harder stuff?
To get more gear..

Really.. Like is there any other reason to get gear from the hardest content in the game? You're already beating that fight.. So why do you need more gear? To beat that fight even harder?
Look at Ultimate.. Why do people actually do Ultimate? The weapons aren't any better than Savage. It's purely the achievment of it.

At the end of the day, people see gear as the "goal" and "purpose". They are quickly missing the fact that the gear should actually be the tool to the goal, and that goal is the achievment of beating a challenging fight, and having fun while doing it.

However removing any form of reward feels a little empty doesn't it? That's why cosmetic items exist. While I don't mean to highlight specifics - this is loosely what GW2 did.. (Despite it not being my cuppa tea.. I preferred some form of progression).

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Thanks for reading.