Stop Raising Item Level and build foundation with Horizontal Progression first

[Sapphic]

It's a bad idea to play an MMORPG. Let me ask you as a question:

Do people largely accept you going into Primal X or Coil 1/2 undergeared? Hm? No? Well then, there's no difference. People already require you to have certain pieces or they'll want you out, that won't change just because of other gear addition lol. Meeting requirements is a standard of any kind of raiding in MMOs, that hasn't changed.

I've been playing MMOs since EQ1. All that time have come to conclusion that choice is an illusion. By making it require exact pieces of gear amongst a myriad of choices adds more limitations than options. Let's use FFXI as an example. on paper the options are hugely varied, in what job combinations you could have, what gear you could have, but that was an illusion enforced by the player base. You needed a certaiin job/sub job combo with specific gear more often than not, otherwise GTFO for someone who does. Grinding hours upon hours upon months for a specific item did not add any form of "complexity" it added another timesink.

Gear needed for Ilvl requirements is accesible by everyone. Which is one reason it's more succesful than FFXI.

Accesibility is the key to a succesful MMO in this time.

I stated that adding more options to gear with choice of secondary stas I would be fine with, adding specific gear for specific fights and/or abilities, newp.

[Grizzlebeard]

I've been playing MMOs since EQ1. All that time have come to conclusion that choice is an illusion. By making it require exact pieces of gear amongst a myriad of choices adds more limitations than options.

As an old EQ player you should know better than this. Yes, while it's true content lasted longer in that game, it was by no means a horizontal progression. There were a myriad of cool items in EQ, however, that maintained a use years after it was released such as the Fungi Tunic or Cloak of Flames. Then you had all of the fluff right-click items that let you change your appearance (Inky mask, skeleton bracelet) or summon food and water, etc. There's really nothing like that in this game other than the minions which are more of a status symbol than anything else.

[LineageRazor]

Gear needed for Ilvl requirements is accesible by everyone. Which is one reason it's more succesful than FFXI.

Bit early to be coming to that conclusion, I think. FFXI has stood the test of time - it's lasted for more than eleven years and people are still playing it. Even if FFXIV currently has more players than FFXI did at any point in its lifespan (I don't know whether this is the case or not), that says nothing about where it'll be a decade from now.

Part of the fun of FFXI, imo, was building "Ultimate X Builds". You could look into an Ultimate Enfeebling Build for your DRK, which might require obtaining bits of armor from all kinds of different events. Or an "Ultimate WHM melee build" - sure, no one would use a melee WHM in a serious event, but that sure didn't stop people from hunting Shen, now did it? Being able to obtain these different sets of armor was part of the charm - and actually being able to USE them due to the ability to change equipment mid-combat meant that they could even be useful from time to time. "RDM's down, and we really, REALLY need to sleep the add on this boss! No worries, while a normal DRK might not be able to sleep that add, I have the Ultimate DRK Enfeebling Build!" The day is saved!

In FFXIV, there's much less option as far as Ultimate Builds go. If you're a DD, you build for damage. You don't even really have choices like "Skill speed vs Crit rate vs Determination", because it can be mathematically proven which of those stats is superior. If crit is the clear choice, and you show up with the "Ultimate Det Build", all you get is funny looks. Tanks and healers have a little more versatility; both can look to emphasizing dd roles in certain situations as needed.

Once you have your ilvl X gear from Dungeon Y, there's little incentive to go farm Raid Z for different ilvl X gear - especially if the piece you have is mathematically superior (and if it's not, you'll likely never even bother with Dungeon Y). On the other hand, if one dungeon gives your BRD a great dd body piece, and another gives your BRD a piece that's only average for dd but reduces the recast of Blunt Arrow by half, are you going to go for both pieces? You'd better believe it.

[AzakaTonnerre]

Gear needed for Ilvl requirements is accesible by everyone. Which is one reason it's more succesful than FFXI.

Having 2 million players for 9 months (FXIV) versus having 500,000+ players for 10 years (FXI).

Not too sure which one you would call more successful than the other, so you might want to tap the breaks a little bit with that assessment.

[odintius]

I would sugguest an actual useful materia system be added to end game gear and not the lame str/dex etc bs but materia that affect current job skills/traits what we got know is a joke and that just sad. Shoot even add relic materia something this vertical progression is getting pretty stale imo fast.

[chrillix]

Couldn't agree more. I don' think I've seen content go obsolete as fast as I have in FFXIV in any other game I've played. The other problem is "new content" being useless at release. We seriously don't need any more level 50 dungeons with i70-i80 gear. ST should have been released before SCOB, or at least at the same time.

[Zarzak]

Couldn't agree more. I don' think I've seen content go obsolete as fast as I have in FFXIV in any other game I've played. The other problem is "new content" being useless at release. We seriously don't need any more level 50 dungeons with i70-i80 gear. ST should have been released before SCOB, or at least at the same time.

Yes to all of the above.

"Hey guys this content we spend months developing? Lets get rid of it in 3 or 6 months sound good?" /praises all around.

And the fact that new dungeons are being released that are STILL below the ilvl of the 1st dungeon gear in the game... Lol?

At this point in the game we should be seeing something like.

ilvl 70 = 50 dungeon gear
ilvl 80 = CT1 gear
ilvl 90 = CT2 gear
ilvl 100 = Coil 1 gear
ilvl 110 = Coil 2 gear

With primals scattered throughout the 70-100 range.

[Akiza]

I do not want horizontal progression because in the end that changes nothing because it is all about the quantity of progression. I would rather have Square do interesting progression like being able to evolve and change the effects, appearance and animation of our spells which represents the quality of progression. They can even add an ability tree for each of our abilities that we can augment.

[silentwindfr]

i begin to think that the horizontal progression can be a good idea actually. the vertical progression is nice and all, but it suffer a big trouble, the fact that older content are simply destroyed by this.

[Saccharin]

i begin to think that the horizontal progression can be a good idea actually. the vertical progression is nice and all, but it suffer a big trouble, the fact that older content are simply destroyed by this.

Great now tell us what this horizontal progression is. It just seems to be a buzz word people like to spew these days.