Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Zantetsuken]

snip

Too many of the game's problems lie in ARR's myopic vertical progression strategy.

Purely vertical gear (iLvl) translates to "Required" gear for parties... "iLvl XX or kick". As there is virtually no ability to compensate for bad players in endgame, group demands on, and scrutiny of each member's iLvl are further increased.

No matter how you try to add 'options' to gaining the vertical gear, people will just find the most efficient path to the highest iLvl and zerg it (see Hunts). If they can't get it in quick enough fashion, they'll complain... loudly, if they get it too quickly, everyone else will complain... loudly.

The purely vertical gear system has to go if this game has any chance of surviving long term.

The best way to do this is to have gear branch out at the level caps and grow in variety until the cap increase. At that point, it should become mostly vertical again until it reaches the next cap (eg lvl 60).

Of course, in order to make this worth it, lvl caps need to stay where they are for a long time. or some other method of upgrading the most lucrative pieces of horizontally designed gear needs to be in place. (FFXI was able to maintain gear value by locking the level cap at 75 from 2003 to 2010.. 7 years!) There was a TON of rare stuff in that game, but working towards it was totally worth it because you knew it would last... then Abyssea/FFXIV 1.0 happened and a large portion of the population left because they had effectively lost 7 years of work.

So there are many support systems and development rules that must be adopted in order to foster a more horizontal system. It's lots of work to design and balance, but it needs to happen if ARR is ever going to cultivate a sustainable player base.

[Kazama]

So there are many support systems and development rules that must be adopted in order to foster a more horizontal system. It's lots of work to design and balance, but it needs to happen if ARR is ever going to cultivate a sustainable player base.

I think you snipped my original post that I was editing into a manifesto before I decided to move it for now lol. Regardless I agree completely. Also, yeah I was one of the players from 04 to 10 that bailed when the cap blew a hole in my boat.