SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[Xatsh]

I agree SE needs to get off the gear and content treadmill it is just really horrible. That and lowman lockout content which is a cancer for any guild trying to run as more then a social.

As for gear swapping, alot of people want it back for what is allowed content to do. It was the key to keeping all content relevant for almost ever. Until SE killed off the game with Abysea. And I would bet over 50% would love content that is never negated. (NOTE THIS DOES NOT MEAN NOT GETTING ANYTHING NEW!) That is the misconception ppl have with horizontal content. We can get as much content as we get now. but none of the old stuff becomes "Vanity Only/Desynth gear".

[Jynx]

The progression blocking with nothing else to do once you hit endgame makes things like Free companies glorified chatrooms in the end.

Crafting and gathering are relegated to generally glamor content as progressive content is locked away behind the hardcore lockouts. All I suggest is for SE to start branching out your content instead of having one linear path of progression.

[Namasu]

Hmm it's been long said that Yoshi wants to reboot FFXIV with 2.x being a simple foundation to support more complex ideas that could be implemented in the future. Yea I get that it's been over a year and the treadmilling is getting a bit stale but it's been confirmed that they plan to factor in user feedback to add unique gear stats/abilities (during the fanfest). Yoshi is just playing a very safe first year for FFXIV relaunch and don't want to break the balance when he and his team can't afford to.

Having stuffs on the level of leaping boots and emp pin from FFXI that was more relevant and ridiculously camped more than other gears 60 levels later is just not what Yoshi and us as players should shoot for. However, now that lvl1-50, story mode, and a lot of endgame progression is established, they have more room to work in unique items/gear set effect come expansion.

The expansion will also feature more dangerous zones that so many old school MMO-ers were clamoring for (confirmed in interview). I won't say that we shouldn't be impatient and not critique the quality of the current gameplay but just know that a lot of good ideas that most of us want in game have been heard and will most likely be implemented by expansion. Oh and let's not forget that 2.45/2.5 will feature a lot more social friendly side-games with the introduction of the gold saucer. So let's at least look forward to it a little longer?

[Hayward]

Honestly, I don't agree with this type of idea at all. Whenever I hear the phrase "Horizontal Progression" I hear "Gear Swapping". I hear people bragging about have gear for every little situation that makes them parse .0001% higher. There's no way that should ever find its way into XIV.

To an extent, this is being done with Novus Relic weapons and I'll agree that the idea should be tried with weaponry to fit individual gameplay. As a "one size fits all" philosophy, not so much.

[Obysuca]

Honestly, I don't agree with this type of idea at all. Whenever I hear the phrase "Horizontal Progression" I hear "Gear Swapping".

When I hear horizontal progression, I think of having multiple options (more than 2) to gear your job and not just a single set or two (tomes/coil), giving more variety in what to get, which would usually come from having a variety of content, instead of the 2-3 extremely underleveled dungeons we get to spam for 3-6 months or coil

The expansion will also feature more dangerous zones

For some reason I have a feeling by "dangerous zones" they mean level 51-60 mobs that will only be dangerous until we hit the new cap...in 2-3 days, then we'll be back to what we have now lol

[BlaiseArath]

Honestly, I don't agree with this type of idea at all. Whenever I hear the phrase "Horizontal Progression" I hear "Gear Swapping". I hear people bragging about have gear for every little situation that makes them parse .0001% higher. There's no way that should ever find its way into XIV.

Well you need to clean your ears then. (joke obv)

But in all seriousness, FFXIV has improved its "More stuff to do" problem considerably. You can now do Hunts for Soldiery/Marks, you can do CT for Oils/Sands, you can do Dungeons primarily for tokens (why is dungeon armor so worthless?), you can craft for 110 gear, or you can do Coil. However, I think the problem people are having is that theres only 1 method to obtain the highest available armor... Coil. So while you have all this variety, the gear it offers is sub par. Now I do agree the hardest content should give the best gear, but perhaps then we need more "Hardest" content. Some examples:

"Extreme" mode dungeons - Think Coil "Savage", harder forms of Dungeons we know and "love". Theres 3 Different dungeons selected as "Extreme" mode, one dungeon drops Weapons, Off hands, and Head gear. The second dungeon drops Body, Rings, Earrings, and Neck armor. The last dungeon drops Legs, Hands, Feet, and Wrist armor. You now have 3 dungeons each with different items to obtain and aim for. Each dungeon still rewarding you with appropriate tomes. My problem with dungeons is that they're just a means to obtain tomes for better gear. Dungeons should reward you with good gear, I.lv appropriate gear, the tome should be a bonus for slots you didnt get lucky with the drops on. So add more difficult dungeons, with better drops. And for those who wonder "Then why not do coil". Dungeons are longer, and have more chests... Coil is short, and 1/2 chest... they are different in that way. In a dungeon you have a chance for ~4/5 pieces of armor, Coil is just 2, and dungeons are 4 man, coil 8. They are different enough that Extreme dungeons with good drops can work.

"Crafter" Dungeons - Dungeons whos primary drops are hard to obtain or exotic crafting materials, not just outdated sh*t they couldn't figure out what to do with after they removed tomes. Normal dungeony things, maybe instead of side chests here giving alchemy things, they could include less rare but still needed synth materials. This gives people who enjoy crafting a means in which to obtain more expensive material and still be able to gear up their jobs through their crafting.

Improved Treasure maps - Add higher level I.lv treasure maps. These maps will be harder to come by, but can reward players with valuable and useable gear for the current I.lv, however the enemies attracted by these maps traps will be considerably more difficult than the ones we currently face. This will be our first look at open world content granting end game armor. Making these difficult to obtain and difficult to complete should be balanced to not make Coil-like and Dungeons seem irrelevant. Perhaps keeping the "Random" factor of drops, but not to such open extremes. Make these maps designed with the idea you will have a focused party of 8 people who are of a certain Item Level.

Improved Hunts - Add drops to hunts (like Blood-Logs, except actual direct armor drops), everyone who participates and receives credit has a chance to obtain a piece of this armor or weaponry, higher the participation reward, the better chance. Allow Hunt Marks to be used to purchase this armor. Each NM could have a drop that reflects the NM killed, which makes it useful for both wearing and vanity if you're into that. This armor however, I don't believe should be of Coil-equivalent I.Lv unless hunts are considerably reworked. But it would be a nice touch.

Now i don't think all of these ideas should be added, because if all of these things dropped Coil-level gear, you'd easily cap out on "Max I.lv" because theres so many choices. At the same time, I think there should be more than just 1 outlet for Max I.lv gear...

[Namasu]

When I hear horizontal progression, I think of having multiple options (more than 2) to gear your job and not just a single set or two (tomes/coil), giving more variety in what to get, which would usually come from having a variety of content, instead of the 2-3 extremely underleveled dungeons we get to spam for 3-6 months or coil




For some reason I have a feeling by "dangerous zones" they mean level 51-60 mobs that will only be dangerous until we hit the new cap...in 2-3 days, then we'll be back to what we have now lol

They implied that they want it to be at least different and that players can't just casually stroll along because one moment they look away and they would be dead. They also say they don't want to go the route of FFXI with the hardcore sneak/invi pot so there will be some middle ground,

[Duelle]

But in all seriousness, FFXIV has improved its "More stuff to do" problem considerably. You can now do Hunts for Soldiery/Marks, you can do CT for Oils/Sands, you can do Dungeons primarily for tokens (why is dungeon armor so worthless?), you can craft for 110 gear, or you can do Coil.

This isn't working as flawlessly as some think. Hunts were the only way to improve gear while creating a worse grind than anything seen in 2.0-2.2 (really, the only woprse grinds than hunts was Atma), and I fear we'll see more of this come 2.5 when World of Darkness is introduced and the upgrade mats for Ironworks gear are added to hunts rewards (which means we'll go back to spamming hunts and not doing dungeons again).

Crafted gear is stupidly difficult and expensive to create. What should ideally be stepping stones instead aren't realistic alternatives (of course, on the flipside they allow stat allocations not seen in any other gear in the game, hence why fully-melded i90 accessories are still BiS for certain jobs, so in that way they at least justify the cost to craft them).

However, I think the problem people are having is that theres only 1 method to obtain the highest available armor... Coil. So while you have all this variety, the gear it offers is sub par.

......

Now I do agree the hardest content should give the best gear, but perhaps then we need more "Hardest" content.

What we need is bigger loot tables and progression within raiding tiers. Instead of one breastplate from Coil there should be 3 or 4 breastplates, including the Dreadwyrm breastplate being the best of the best. Of course, current raid content doesn't have enough bosses nor scale to actually allow for that sort of thing.

[Ryel]

Crafted gear is stupidly difficult and expensive to create. What should ideally be stepping stones instead aren't realistic alternatives (of course, on the flipside they allow stat allocations not seen in any other gear in the game, hence why fully-melded i90 accessories are still BiS for certain jobs, so in that way they at least justify the cost to craft them).

What we need is bigger loot tables and progression within raiding tiers. Instead of one breastplate from Coil there should be 3 or 4 breastplates, including the Dreadwyrm breastplate being the best of the best. Of course, current raid content doesn't have enough bosses nor scale to actually allow for that sort of thing.

I feel like crafted gear could fill the void of end game gear if they allowed it to, personally i would love to see a set of THREE endgame raids that come out at the same time.

One raid that follows the trend that coil does currently, a second raid that gives gear sets with stats that are an alternative to those offered by the first raid, and a third raid that offers Abjurations that can be used on crafted sets to fill out a third set of gear.

This of course in addition to the standard gear bought with Allagan Tomestones of Tradology, that we can upgrade via the new ST / drops from the current top 3 raids.

[Yumi_umi]

Almost everything in this game requires you to gear up in some sort of way lol..
Wanna craft? Get some gear
Wanna do endgame stuff? Ofc you gotta gear up.
Raiding? Ofc.
Probs the only thing that i did and had some kinda fun that required no treadmill of any sort was the sightseeing log and housing features.
I just feel like im paying for the same old thing which was reskinned and sold a a flat price lol. Cough CoD
Same old game with new graphics and story/ weps.
Most ppl will go thru the multiple generations till they burn out.
Hopefully goldsaucer will be worth the resub lol