Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

[Firepower]

After 5 years (04-09) of FFXI and playing this since 1.0 and 2.0 alpha I can happily say I prefer the current Vertical system that FFXIV operates on, although I would prefer more options at the highest item level. I found FFXI's horizontal system and gear swapping a mess to my inventory. Plus the vertical progression has kept me far more interested in the game over FFXI's wait for Fafnir/Nidhogg every day for several years on the hope for an E.Abj body.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Hybrid /10char.

[Jynx]

Horizontal Please.

Gearing in this game is dreadfully dull and sets everyone into a singular path when the game should be branching out giving many people many goals instead of just the allmighty highest Ilvl set. There will always be min/maxers you can't escape that even currently, but more variaty is always nice but wether the current game structure could support that I'm unsure.

They can hardly make the jobs unique unto themselves let alone the gear.

[melflomil]

Left side vertical while right would be horizontal with materia slots. To get extra guaranteed materia slots we would have to do some difficult content.

[Sylve]

Left side vertical while right would be horizontal with materia slots. To get extra guaranteed materia slots we would have to do some difficult content.

Except thats Vertical + Vertical.
You do the harder content to gain ilvls for your left side .. Then you do harder content for the Materia to raise the stats on your right side. You just accomplished exactly the same thing as straight vertical but added even MORE RNG to it.

Making gear with effects everyone can acquire fixes that. There will not be "one best set" it will be trade-offs and play-styles.

If you have that-of an easy choice in picking gear then its already failed.

I don't see any balance concerns with the game, people can argue for hours for example about War/PLD but both jobs are good, both jobs can beat the game. The only job right now that isn't balanced, is for example SMN. It needs a boost. Its getting a boost.

No, It makes everything worse.
Since now you have to have a specific set for specific encounters because certain bonuses make those encounters easier.

Horizontal Please.

Gearing in this game is dreadfully dull and sets everyone into a singular path when the game should be branching out giving many people many goals instead of just the allmighty highest Ilvl set. There will always be min/maxers you can't escape that even currently, but more variaty is always nice but wether the current game structure could support that I'm unsure.

They can hardly make the jobs unique unto themselves let alone the gear.

Gearing in this game does exactly what its supposed to, give us the stats we require to defeat bosses in steadily harder content.
An ilvl 100 BLM doing a proper Fire rotation will do way more DPS than an ilvl 130 BLM spamming Fire III/Blizzard III.

The current system gives you the means (Stats/ilvl) to defeat the bosses, but its your own knowledge of the Job you're playing along with reacting to the encounter itself that clears content.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Except thats Vertical + Vertical.
You do the harder content to gain ilvls for your left side .. Then you do harder content for the Materia to raise the stats on your right side. You just accomplished exactly the same thing as straight vertical but added even MORE RNG to it.



No, It makes everything worse.
Since now you have to have a specific set for specific encounters because certain bonuses make those encounters easier.

Give me an example of a set like that, before you say: Nah uh! Because X! You kind of need to provide examples. Especially examples of said gear "You need for a specific encounter."

Stuff/but not bad stuff

You don't want it to be truley balanced, classes should be better at "some things" then others, its trade offs.

For example, make Summoner have the same overall DPS as BLM. However its downside is its damage over time and pet management. Its upside is all spells should be instant cast. Those are TRADE Offs. Completely different play-styles.


In most Vertical-Horizontal Progression games, I only had 1 set of gear for everything. I pretty much made the gear towards "My Playstyle" and I didn't carry any other sets. Why? I min-maxed my set to gear towards how I like to play. Most people who carry more bags are not fond of picking a play-style and are unsure of how they want to play. They feel like they need something for everything just to be 1% better. When even though they are statistically 1% better they play worse because its not their play-style.

[Craiger]

Give me an example of a set like that, before you say: Nah uh! Because X! You kind of need to provide examples. Especially examples of said gear "You need for a specific encounter."



You don't want it to be truley balanced, classes should be better at "some things" then others, its trade offs.

For example, make Summoner have the same overall DPS as BLM. However its downside is its damage over time and pet management. Its upside is all spells should be instant cast. Those are TRADE Offs. Completely different play-styles.


In most Vertical-Horizontal Progression games, I only had 1 set of gear for everything. I pretty much made the gear towards "My Playstyle" and I didn't carry any other sets. Why? I min-maxed my set to gear towards how I like to play. Most people who carry more bags are not fond of picking a play-style and are unsure of how they want to play. They feel like they need something for everything just to be 1% better. When even though they are statistically 1% better they play worse because its not their play-style.

The bold part is the whole problem...

Maybe you are okay with never having any progression in the gear, but I'm sure at least 90% of the community wouldn't be okay with it... And I know that many people have said they want Horizontal progression, but trust me, most don't know what it really entails and/or just don't know how it will play like once it's a real thing. People might even like it for a while, but then suddenly everyone will grow bored and leave, and I predict FFXIV would've been Free-to-play and nearly dead by now if it had horizontal progression.

I would maybe okay with gear staying relevant forever, IF you have to upgrade it somehow, by doing new raids... That way you keep your gear and special effects, but still have something to play for, and not just glamour.

[Sylve]

Words.

The Jobs themselves have trade offs.

Monks have the best continuous DPS, but it takes a lot of time to get that DPS flowing, any mistakes cause a restart to the whole rotation.
Dragoons deal damage in larger chunks than Monks but have a spikier output.
Bards are incredibly mobile, able to DPS at range while moving while providing TP/MP regens at the cost of personal damage (mitigated through proper use of cooldowns)
Black Mages deal the largest chunks of damage in single blows but they suffer from either HUGE damage or NO damage.
Ninja DPS strong all round, but suffers from a bit of a setup time, falling somewhere between the Monk and Dragoon.
Summoners can maintain almost full DPS on multiple targets at once, but suffers in shorter fights where the DoTs can't do their work (like adds and trash mobs).

Theres your tradeoffs.

I only had 1 set of gear for everything.

Congratulations on successfully ignoring the greater majority of the games you played then.
MMOs are about loot. Even the much vaunted FFXI. Hell, moreso there. No one did NMs because the fights were fun. They did them because of that 1% chance to drop something they needed to finish out a set.

So you're happy to get 1 set and never upgrade again? Congrats, theres games out there just for you. Why don't you go play them if you hate XIVs gear so much?

PS, Error processing your request: Examples cannot be given because your hypothetical sets and bonuses do not exist, thus a very general example was given.

The bold part is the whole problem...

Maybe you are okay with never having any progression in the gear, but I'm sure at least 90% of the community wouldn't be okay with it... And I know that many people have said they want Horizontal progression, but trust me, most don't know what it really entails and/or just don't know how it will play like once it's a real thing. People might even like it for a while, but then suddenly everyone will grow bored and leave, and I predict FFXIV would've been Free-to-play and nearly dead by now if it had horizontal progression.

I would maybe okay with gear staying relevant forever, IF you have to upgrade it somehow, by doing new raids... That way you keep your gear and special effects, but still have something to play for, and not just glamour.

Except that in your example the gear is NOT relevant forever, as you would be going into newer, harder content to raise the item levels. Which is what we do right now .. But without set bonuses to anchor us to old gear.
In such a world gear would be even more bland than it is now, because everyone would have one set, and one set only that just got a number buff every other patch.

[Craiger]

...

Except that in your example the gear is NOT relevant forever, as you would be going into newer, harder content to raise the item levels. Which is what we do right now .. But without set bonuses to anchor us to old gear.
In such a world gear would be even more bland than it is now, because everyone would have one set, and one set only that just got a number buff every other patch.

Fair enough.

I didn't really think it over much, I just wanted to make it known that I'm not against all forms of horizontal progression... but not 100% Horizontal, so more of a hybrid.

I'm perfectly fine with how the game is right now in terms of vertical progression. We could still have more diversity and options for gear, but there should still be an increment of ilvls IMO

[Allyrion]

Except that in your example the gear is NOT relevant forever, as you would be going into newer, harder content to raise the item levels. Which is what we do right now .. But without set bonuses to anchor us to old gear.
In such a world gear would be even more bland than it is now, because everyone would have one set, and one set only that just got a number buff every other patch.

I don't agree.
One set should be upgraded through various achievements and possibly reverted like how we'll be able to glamour any version of the relic.
It should be customizable in terms of looks as well as stats, with the augmented stats being more interesting than what we have now.
Most of the FF series and SE games don't even let you equip a full set, you add special effects aren't just bigger numbers through accessories.
There will always be BiS, but things like WoW's talent system shows you can still give empowerments that are balanced but contain play style differences.

One of the best parts of FFXIV is that you can play all the classes on one character.
You can change Jobs at any time (outside of combat) and you'll have different animations and gameplay.
Everything you accomplish is saved to that character and nothing is ever really lost.

That's what I want for gear. To be able to customize it a little, and the item level would increase through certain conditions.
If RNG is needed, maybe you have a chance for your gear to be powered up equal to what would've been the drop chance before.
There's much more fluidity and freedom there and nothing is ever lost.

It's very similar to the current system but the sets are consolidated and, thus, gear becomes an extension of your character (which is what I think it should be).
I don't really care for the whole wanting to kill this boss to get a new pair of pants that randomly appears in a chest.
It's conceptually different that you defeat a powerful enemy and your gear is empowered with that victory
The focus changes to empowering your character instead of basically going shopping in a raid.