Are you happy with the current raiding structure in this game?

[Thalesia]

Maybe change the current like:

- No lockout
- first win you can see 2 items, after the first win you have a RNG to get another piece (or chance to be able to "unlock" and you could need/greed). So you could help and "may" have a chance to be able to loot. This reset after 1 week.

So, that way, content will be open for all, the loot will be restricted by a RNG after the first win for that player, and he can help others to complete and still have a chance to be able to have a loot.

All win.

[Fendred]

Maybe change the current like:

- No lockout
- first win you can see 2 items, after the first win you have a RNG to get another piece (or chance to be able to "unlock" and you could need/greed). So you could help and "may" have a chance to be able to loot. This reset after 1 week.

So, that way, content will be open for all, the loot will be restricted by a RNG after the first win for that player, and he can help others to complete and still have a chance to be able to have a loot.

All win.

Removing lockouts would make things worse. They'd need to change development from a vertical progression ladder to a series of alternatives. As stated above, we're dealing with an end game built around the false premise that vertical progression keeps the community growing, when the opposite is the case. If they removed lockouts, the mentality of "quick, we need to gear up before the next patch comes out" will have people leaving the game like an artillery shell shooting out of a cannon. It would turn the railroad into a rail gun because the threat of new tiers of equipment out-dating their current gear results in a race.

[StrejdaTom]

I like raiding in this game, only thing I regret is, that I wasnt playing for 6 months, so it was quite hard to kill T6 because of all the achivement/kill link groups. But I am not deuche, I understand that experienced people want to play with experienced people. (also this is not problem of game mechanics, its the only thing that I wasnt happy about previous month)

Fortunately after 1 month searching I finally have static and progress T7. Also this game has nice catchup mechanics, got i86-i100, atma and animus in one month. If there werent catchup patches I wont be even able to come back.

[Fendred]

Fortunately after 1 month searching I finally have static and progress T7. Also this game has nice catchup mechanics, got i86-i100, atma and animus in one month. If there werent catchup patches I wont be even able to come back.

They shouldn't be trying to do heavy vertical progression like this to begin with. It leads to a lot of commonly known issues that cannot be reasonably resolved without an over-bloated development budget. They should be fighting the urge to raise item levels and character levels as much as possible so they could focus on enriching their end game experience with more options. Plus, progressing horizontally forces the game to play more like an RPG because the thing that would keep you from raiding isn't your stats, but progress in some storyline. It makes a world of difference.

[Yukariko]

Thing is any arguments about loot and how hard/casual it is to get/earn have gone out the window with the introduction of hunts which hand out gear through mindless grinding.

As far as actual raiding goes, what we really need is
1) keep old content relevant somehow (maybe with updated rewards)
2) more horizontal progression. IE more different raids.

imagine if each of the 4 combat related beast tribes had their own raid quest line with their own themed armours.

[Fendred]

Thing is any arguments about loot and how hard/casual it is to get/earn have gone out the window with the introduction of hunts which hand out gear through mindless grinding.

As far as actual raiding goes, what we really need is
1) keep old content relevant somehow (maybe with updated rewards)
2) more horizontal progression. IE more different raids.

imagine if each of the 4 combat related beast tribes had their own raid quest line with their own themed armours.

What they should be doing is going full out horizontal progression until they reach the next expansion. Single player RPGs do this, and there isn't any good argument against this approach other than developers can't take the short sighted route of using a math equation to replace depth with unending upgrade oriented gear grind.

[skaterger]

What they should be doing is going full out horizontal progression until they reach the next expansion. Single player RPGs do this, and there isn't any good argument against this approach other than developers can't take the short sighted route of using a math equation to replace depth with unending upgrade oriented gear grind.

Now lets not get carried away. If you've played gw2 where its essentially entirely horizontal progression, you would know how absurd of a grind/time sink it is to do content for ascended/legendary gear which mostly are just for aesthetics and provide minimal combat benefits. The system has to be designed that way because that is the only way to keep players interested and playing. Instead of skill based checks which offer better gear from new content, it becomes a huge time/gold investment to work for that small upgrade. Why would I want to do content to get any gear when this piece of gear I got from 2 tiers ago is still useful? That is the reason I stopped playing gw2 cause at the end of the game there is just no reason to play anymore if you wanna progress.

Also gw2 has essentially no raids, they have open world bosses so the way the game is fundamentally designed is already different from ffxiv. They focus more on the living story and content is released much slower than here, which is also synonymous with horizontal progression. They need people to keep playing in the form of a grind so that they have time to released new content. This is fine since gw2 is b2p. FFXIV, being a p2p game, releases content at a much quicker rate so vertical progression makes sense here.

This is not to say that I don't want horizontal progression. I think adding materia slots to gear and having a few side upgrades from open world content is fine. What I don't want is to go back to the ffxi style where gear from 2-3 years ago is still the bis.

[Fendred]

Skaet, I'm fine with them raising the ilvl and character level as long as they tone it down. Right now they're going too fast in the vertical progression category. WoW's collapse was partly due to breaking the leveling experience by going too far with character level. It was a waste of a really good idea because people were out-leveling the zones before they even finished the quest chains in them. Additionally, constantly boosting item level causes the difficulty of content to decrease rather considerably with time. People get used to the easier difficulty so the game ends up becoming one step closer to a hack and slash style game.

What I want them to do is divide up the progression between the vertical and horizontal equally. Increase the max item level maybe once between expansions and once during the beginning of expansions, but then focus on making things more sideways at other times. It would give them time to add a lot more fun options to the game, prevent the rat race effect, and still reap the benefits of increased item level when they absolutely need to boost things. It would also give them time to figure out ways of keeping the old end game content desirable.

[Lethorian]

I would like to see a staggered unlock implemented to the current system. depending on the number of turns per coil, right now they have been sticking with 4 turns per coil tier (not including turn 3 from first coil, honestly who counts that?). So, after the first 2 weeks they make the first turn farmable, you can now run the turn as many times as you want but now you are drop locked, but the other 3 turns are still clear locked. After the next two week period is up the second turn is now drop locked and farmable. Do this up until roughly two months have passed until all four turns are farmable and I think you have a pretty balanced system while still giving people something to do such as helping other FC members through turns and keeping the community moving forward in terms of gear progression. If they keep the current system in place all they have to do is add 2 more turns and they now have a steady progression plan in place that will last until the next content patch without it feeling empty (for the people who have yet to see drops and are starting to wonder why they even bother) and will still have a ceiling to keep their subs from farming to completion and having nothing left to do.