From Scratch: 6.0 Progression Systems

[Kabooa]

What would you like to see from 5.0 Progression Systems?
[*]Pretend for a moment that literally everything about progression, except perhaps that clearing encounters can drop loot, is gone. What comes to mind as a cohesive and satisfying way to fill the void and reformat progression as a whole?[/LIST]

We are consistently leaving lower end content in this confused, empty, myriad state, where nothing has relevance, unless something specifically has relevance.

Material bloat and checklist crafting is partially why the world itself loses relevance patch by patch without specifically catering to it.

FATES will never be useful outside leveling, which gives them a defined lifespan and puts them in direct contest with Dungeons, which are better simply because they are more convenient.

Leveling Syncing and Ability bloat culling consistently leaves jobs that aren't 'level capped' for that expansion set (ARR, HW, SB) not only incomplete, but in some cases, intolerably so (Dark Knight, Machinist).

New characters / Alt characters are forced to play though the MSQ, which isn't a terrible thing in itself, but it is a source of frustration. The MSQ gating everything turns New/Alt characters into this long session of just trying to rush through it so you can actually access things.

Solutions for the problems above.

1. Material trimming. We do not need 80 different types of Iron. We need only "Iron" and "Current Expansion Iron". Centralizing materials in this manner means new players not only have a way into the market, but also heavily reduces needless item bloat. This concept can be expanded to Materia, where Materia bonus potency is based on an Item's socket level. A Storm Bringer crafted Chest, for example, would have 2 +40 slots, 1 +40 overmeld, and 2 +12s.

This reduces materia and again, provides new players with a way into the market.

2. Fates become an alternative method to achieve Gil. Want to level, but need gil? Do Fates. Not only does it provide an alternative to Dungeons (Your "Dungeon" reward has a portion of it dedicated to repairs), having more ways to generate "New" gil is sorely needed in FF14. Perhaps even relegate it to the Challenge Log primarily, if botting is a concern.

3. Stop culling abilities and upgrade them instead. Remember when Warriors lost Brutal Swing, then got Upheaval? Warrior could have kept Brutal Swing, and that be traited into Upheaval. It still maintains the purpose of being a gauge spender / moderator, which in turn means a little more thought goes into using it, but now your pre-62 warrior doesn't feel like it's missing a button.

For Paladin, Flash traits into Holy Explosion, increasing its MP cost, but dealing high magic damage. It gains extra threat while in Shield Oath, and reduced Casting Time while in Sword Oath. It is a natural progression for Flash, but done in a way that doesn't require it to be removed until level 72.

4. Cut the MSQ up into segmented quest chains without requiring the previous to be completed. These can organically be based around unlocking main dungeons, or features, so that a singular quest itself feels much more weighted without feeling like it's just running you around for an hour. (Remember unlocking Leviathan?)

You then greatly increase the XP rewarded, while providing a significant reward of Gil. The MSQ is required, but chopping it up like this and providing a more substantial reward encourages players to do it, and rather than blindly completing fetch quest after fetch quest, the point of this particular MSQ segment is made readily known from the get go. A big ole reward, and an unlocked feature.

This also allows someone to focus entirely on X.0 MSQ quests when leveling up Alts, or for end game driven new players. The X.1-5s are not required for the most important roulettes (Leveling and Expert), so if one were inclined and didn't need an xp or gil boost, one could simply complete X.0 to move on to the next X.0 quest chains.

[Kalise]

We are consistently leaving lower end content in this confused, empty, myriad state, where nothing has relevance, unless something specifically has relevance.

FATES will never be useful outside leveling, which gives them a defined lifespan and puts them in direct contest with Dungeons, which are better simply because they are more convenient.

2. Fates become an alternative method to achieve Gil. Want to level, but need gil? Do Fates. Not only does it provide an alternative to Dungeons (Your "Dungeon" reward has a portion of it dedicated to repairs), having more ways to generate "New" gil is sorely needed in FF14. Perhaps even relegate it to the Challenge Log primarily, if botting is a concern.

I feel that the overworld as a whole could do with an overhaul (Hah, puns!). Currently, much of the overworld is pointless, enemies barely give experience and are only relevant for Hunts. FATES aren't worth the time invested into them, unless you're in a sizable party and smashing them out in a couple of minutes each (But even then, you'd probably only be matching the experience gain of a dungeon, to say nothing of tomestones, gil and even company seals (If you actually care about them) that you get more of from dungeons) - This is even with the Twist of Fate double experience bonus and the Forlorn ToF buffs...

Like, in the current iteration, the overworld will only actually be relevant if they keep adding Limited Jobs like BLU that have to rely on it. But even then, as people showed, they'd rather just cheese past it by getting a buddy to powerlevel them (Made more tolerable by BLU's overinflated experience gains from overworld enemies, which, also happened to still make FATES worthless because it didn't extend to them...)

They really could do with rebalancing things a little. Increasing experience from normal overworld enemies so it's meaningful, not to the ridiculous extent of BLU, but enough where someone might actually care to kill something ever.

Increase the rewards from FATES, experience, gil, company seals. Heck, throw some Poetics in there too, let people farm fates for poetics instead of just dungeon spamming for all of these things. Maybe you could even put some Mendacity in current content FATES to increase their relevance past the initial leveling surge. Adding in Allied/Centurio (Also, any future Hunt currencies that may be added in future expansions) would also be a viable option.

Maybe even add in a chain bonus for FATES, so, much like with killing enemies for chain bonus, you can do a bunch of FATES in a zone for a chain bonus (Of course, don't put a timer on it, just have it reset if you leave the zone for whatever reason). If you put like a daily reward upon getting a specific level of FATE chaining within a specific zone (Randomly selected each day and the same across all players) you can also entice people to going back to older content and smashing out FATES like back in the old days when they actually were worth anything...

Even more so, if you add daily bonuses for completing a randomly selected Raid FATE too. So many of these, going to complete waste because they're just not worth it to do. Let them give Genesis upon completion with some nifty daily bonus for the first time completion too. Let people actually care about grouping up for Raid FATES in the same way people travel between zones announcing when S rank hunts have been spotted.

[Dmhlucky]

Low level content always dies in games like this, and unless there is a new wave of players, or released jobs, its never/rarely visited.

IN general i know i keep comparing to ffxi with this stuff (it was the first and only MMO i played) but there are some good aspects of it. This game is simplified, so there isn't a need for much of what XI had, and that's where XI shined in my opinion.

You have 1 weapon per job, whatever is the highest/most powerful that you can equip, and that's it. Aside from Glamour, there is no point to have an alt weapon. Don't get me wrong, i don't want to go back to 8 elemental staves and such, but that was a good source of "lower" content. NM drops.

Make elements mean something! Would require extensive revamping however.
Consumables that were actually sought after. Shihei anyone? We have none of this. I personally always use food, but i know a lot of players that don't. I keep some meds, elixers and such on hand for emergencies, i know most players don't. Could add something to the challenge log, like use 5 "medicine" items in instances.

Also allow for some choices in Challenge log. Gold/tomestones/seals/mgp etc, Some make sense to be limited, but some an option would be nice.

I'd like to see some kind of repair quest also, where you could do a repeatable quest, maybe available once a week, where you could repair all gear for free, or a reduced fee.

Add an NPC somewhere that tells you what an item is for. I have so much random crap and no idea what is for what. Want to know what uses a chocobo feather has, trade the item to them, or select if from your items and they display all possible uses for said item.

Also expand the challenge log. More things in lower areas. "Coupons" or some kind of item, that you could trade to ??? points in lower zones to spawn monsters for items/gold/tomes. Similar to Treasure maps, but more predictable. Could be purchased through Poetics/seals etc. Or that same concept where you would be a chance of augmenting an item with a materia. Same rate as normal melding, but not needing the materia, the quest would take its place. Some kind of cap would be needed for balancing.

I like the idea of expanding on Materia, Combo materia, Mnd + Piety on one, Vit + str on another. Int + Spell speed. The only problem is that tends to make the single materias obsolete if they are more powerful in any way, but make them too weak, and there is no point.

Simplified crafting would be Great. There are already a ton of items in the game, tho its better than 1.0 where you needed a tunic front, tunic back, arms, cuffs and string to make a tunic... Maybe alternate versions of the craft, where if you don't have the exact component, like if you have all yarn, and need a cloth, you can use 4 yarn, instead of 1 yarn and a cloth, but would be slightly more difficult to craft.