Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Felessan]

I see way less people in mor dhona, I see way less combat activity in PF. Almost half of it is just merchant advertisement and coil static recruitment. Hunt is garbage tier content that the majority are doing because they're forced into it.

I'm... well-connected, so I see a lot of different people. People I'm telling about is just casuals/very mild hardcore. They don't go to raids and play generally limited amount of time. They have nothing to do in 2.0-2.1. Now they got their Zodiac weapon questline, sporadic hunting activity, rooms to decorate, all this keeps people in game.
On other hand I have FC full of people at/past T9. Those who wanted "get in pass content, go to next MMO" - already left, and last wave was around start of 2.2. Now only dedicated raiders left and they just do stuff they want - raiding, hunting hardcore, earning money.
And (as I said in all those "cry me a river" Hunt treads) party finders already starts to liven up, as people farmed/got bored with hunts and go back to usual activities. I already see 10-15 entries, ppl even start trying Ramuh in random parties.

I never meant to make his words what I want, Yoshida has a vision of what he wants in the future, and pretty deep into the future too from what I've heard. So with this in mind I thought about why he would want all these systems to be simple right off the bat.

You treat simplicity as something bad. Back from when I worked as some kind of designer there was a golden rule - KISS - Keep It Short and Simple.
Being simple does not means it lacks depth, board games have simple rules, but being a master in them is hard as hell. It much easier to organize depth and balance difficulty for simple things than for overcomplicated things.

I am moving to Destiny. It is not a real MMO but neither is XIV with all the instances. And I will actually get to explore the world!

You will be displeased.
Sans PvP (that just more or less clone to any other multiplayer shooter) it's the same theme park MMO with vertical progression and focus on dungeons and raids. Just look at leaked list of content - dungeons, hard mode dungeons and raids.

This is the defense that is always used when someone brings up horizontal progression and stat diversity and it really isn't true. For one, as stats get more complex, the less other people tend to care about your gear as long as it is level and job appropriate.

One of the problem with horizontal progression that it makes whole "ilvl or bust" goes beyond clouds. Every single situation will be min-maxed and people with non-optimal equipment will be shunned. And getting 5 sets of gear is a larger stress than getting 1 set.

[Kazama]

You treat simplicity as something bad. Back from when I worked as some kind of designer there was a golden rule - KISS - Keep It Short and Simple.

KISS is mostly recognized as "Keep It Simple Stupid" - And it is meant to be applied in relation to over complicating things for no reason. Regardless, to apply KISS to a game is often really bad practice. It results in things like FFXIII where the game pretty much played itself and you watched cutscenes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

One of the problem with horizontal progression that it makes whole "ilvl or bust" goes beyond clouds. Every single situation will be min-maxed and people with non-optimal equipment will be shunned. And getting 5 sets of gear is a larger stress than getting 1 set.

That is not at all true. I gave you two very good examples both of which min-maxing weren't required. In 7 years of FFXI I don't recall a single occasion where people said no you can't do this with us because you don't have X item, and trust me my gear was nowhere near stellar or BiS. Same goes for Aion, never was I shunned from a group or run because I didn't have the right gear or stats or asked what my stats were even. In fact, you could block people from examining your gear all together.

Now on the contrary, I can't even get into some Leviathan parties or even Brayflox speed runs because the ilvl is set to 93+ and I chose to craft and meld an entire set on WHM as opposed to buy soldiery since it is not my main. I've actually sent tells stating I have over 100 levi wins on healer and to drop their ilvl req or invite me and met with rejection. Gearscore, as many anticipated, is the pinnacle of judging and measuring. No longer does it matter at all if you have completed content as long as you are above the ilvl that is all people care about.

[Exstal]

Same goes for Aion, never was I shunned from a group or run because I didn't have the right gear or stats or asked what my stats were even. In fact, you could block people from examining your gear all together.

I would shun you if you didn't have the required DPS to warrant your spot. Unless you were a healer, then all you had to be is mildly intelligent. As for blocking your gear, I *hated* that to no end. What a completely, and utterly, worthless feature. All it did was make it so I had to ask people what they were using to join important instances.

You should have been on my server, I'd ask you for that!

Horizontal gearing only worked in Aion because of PvP. If you did anything other than the reasonable stats for PvE; if magic you used Magical Boost, and Magical accuracy; if you were melee crit/acc/attack; if you were healer, whatever you wanted to slot as long as you weren't stupid. PvP stats could be any myriad of stats depending on your playstyle. But even in that regard, some builds were far superior to others. You wouldn't see Clerics stacking HP for PvP lest they get melted by both melee and magic. Tanks wouldn't stack evasion because it was worthless as they couldn't pass natural accuracy on those who would hit them. So it worked in some sense, but only in one aspect of the game and not even remotely in the other.

If they did something like that here, then it would make some ground but this is a PvE game first, Vanity game second, PvP game third. They'd have to pull some FFXI stuff to make it work. I do not like FFXI, they let Ninja become a tank because balance is irrelevant.

[Kazama]

I would shun you if you didn't have the required DPS to warrant your spot. Unless you were a healer, then all you had to be is mildly intelligent. As for blocking your gear, I *hated* that to no end. What a completely, and utterly, worthless feature.

You should have been on my server, I'd ask you for that!

I am on your server Exstal and we have run stuff many times... but I usually lived in DPS Spec Cleric and only did PvP in the end. We didn't 6 man most of the endgame stuff like TS anyhow so in order to support 4-man farming runs yeah we had to hit DPS checks for a smooth run. If we are talking DLS sure you had to meet DPS checks there too but that was only one thing. What I meant is for 90% of players to run an instance they didn't need to do these things unless they wanted to run with the best players.

Also I agree - blocking people from viewing your gear was stupid.

Syn Kazama - Hyperion Server (Main FFXIV Account)
Synr - Tiamat Server (Main Aion Character)

[Exstal]

I am on your server Exstal and we have run stuff many times... but I usually lived in DPS Spec Cleric and only did PvP in the end. We didn't 6 man most of the endgame stuff like TS anyhow so in order to support 4-man farming runs yeah we had to hit DPS checks for a smooth run. If we are talking DLS sure you had to meet DPS checks there too but that was only one thing. What I meant is for 90% of players to run an instance they didn't need to do these things unless they wanted to run with the best players.

Also I agree - blocking people from viewing your gear was stupid.

Syn Kazama - Hyperion Server (Main FFXIV Account)
Synr - Tiamat Server (Main Aion Character)

Damn, I hated DPS Clerics. I was a firm believer that healers should have relatively low DPS, just above tanks..not close to or above sorcs >_>

Man, I lived in DLR. Then Bun got all his mithril medals and stopped playing so the static died D:

[Kazama]

Damn, I hated DPS Clerics. I was a firm believer that healers should have relatively low DPS, just above tanks..not close to or above sorcs >_>

You're just mad we topped the DPS on on forts and could solo damn near everything in the game :P
Aion's Cleric was so stupid broken though, the equivalent of a SMN's DoTs with BLM Burst, WHM heals and PLD defense... lolwhutbalance. When Violent Ends stopped being a PvP centeric Legion and started to die I pretty much quit.

I've strayed off topic. The three things that are killin me here in XIV are as follows:

The total lack of danger or challenge and mind numbing simplicity in 95% of the content.
Anyone who beat 1.0 story line will remember "United We Stand" which challenged players to make their way through Castrum Novum as a group. Fighting off strong mobs that could potentially wipe the group or knowing where to pull them to reset was part of getting there. At the end it culminated in a somewhat difficult fight for many people. If you failed, you were booted out dead and either had to wait for a skilled friend able to navigate the area solo to come raise, hope another party is there or run all the way back through causing it to potentially take hours. If you succeeded, it was a 20 minute endeavor tops. It really added incentive to understand your jobs, the content and proceed with a plan. In contrast 2.0's Castrum Meridanum is: Queue DF, run through it as fast as possible ignoring the fact half the players don't even know their jobs. One fosters lazy boring zergfests the other quality play with depth.

Total lack of intelligent itemization.
Case in point, what is better: i95 weapon with stats I like or i100 weapon with stats I don't like. Answer = i100 as ilvl trumps all else. So BiS for 100% of the game is as in depth as ilvl > All. We need bonus attributes or the ability to modify dropped gear through Materia or some kind of enchantment system. It wouldn't even need to bolster the item it could just be a feature where you use a rare item to swap 1 stat on the item. It may be illusion of choice but it is still choice. Which actually helps solve my final issue as well.

Horrible economy...
I think most people by now realize gil is a joke to earn. But aside from glamour there is nothing that consumes large amounts of gil with the one possible exception of Novus. Novus is a great example of what people need and want. The ability to improve our gear ourselves at our own pace with some cost or risk. Were armor and weapons able to be made augmentable by a crafter and later augmented by the owner it would create a lucrative market and a gil sink for every player type so long as obtaining them was relatively easy, say something like materia or augment drops in L50 dungeons. This adds incentive for the content, creates a sustainable market and an actual purpose for gil.

Crap, that last one won't work. SE won't allow any type of content that could possibly be leveraged by RMT. So we can count out anything lucrative or repetitive gil sinks, any kind of rare sellable world drops or the ability to low man farm content for rare instance drops, basically 1/4 of what makes MMOs fun and rewarding...