Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

[HorrorStory]

Vertical, imo.

[Nutz]

Hybrid.

Not exactly what was talked about in the OP, but I'd prefer a slower vertical progression with more interesting and potent stats that don't necessarily appear on every piece. For example, most pieces would probably have more stats to them and some of them very potent like double attack, or at least interesting like enhanced regen/ refresh such that something with 'good' stats at ilvl 200 isn't necessarily outclassed by i220, but almost certainly is by i240 or so even if it doesn't have preferred stats.

EDIT: numbers given don't mean too much, essentially I'd like for some pieces of gear to be relevant longer rather than 99% of things being tossed when new gear comes out because it's unilaterally better.

[SDaemon]

I just grouped with people to balance out MY play-style and my set. I had their effects and gear stack well with mine. None of us switched gear.

Since we played with OUR gear so much, we were much more skillful with that play-style.

Random grouping system (Duty Finder) says hi!

[Gunspec]

I'd like for some pieces of gear to be relevant longer

I hear this a lot, but it worries me. When people say they want slower progression with gear, it occasionally hits me as people wanting a slower pace of content. I know that isn't what you are saying, but I hear it all the time in these threads.

When people complain about vertical progression,there are lots of comments about "letting the game sit and mature before adding more", and they are talking about both the ramping ilevels AND the content with ramping challenge. For a game that has a $15 subscription fee that I've been playing for almost two straight years, I LOVE the rate of content being added, and don't want it to slow at all.

So, I guess the big question is whether or not NEW CONTENT can be added without a jump in ilevels. Could they introduce a new raid with more ilevel 130 gear and not lose player interest? Max ilevel in FFXIV has gone up only twice in almost two years.

[Lyndis]

Horizontal.

Community and fun gameplay should motivate players not steep gear grinds.

[Anty]

i don't see many advantages in the current vertical progression we have.

1) it is way too fast, most of it can be achieved sleepwalking, it's only a matter of time (no gear piece really feels "great to have" since the initial 2.0 and the first relic).
The first relic at least involved the primals but since some people didnt get it right away they cried so much that SE decided to make it a pure timesink.
Sense of accomplishment? it's a lot higher after i clean my appartment... that is harder

2) the biggest problem is that content gets outdated incredibly fast, which is sad. 90% of the content we have is vanity content and essentially worthless - so sad all the development for this short time down the drain. Just imagine all lvl 50 content had something to offer... how nice... (ofc the difficulty would be a bit more similar but still better then running 3 dungeons all over and have 1 raid available - that matters).

3) the ilvl change should be with every major patch, not with (almost) every little content patch, that is idiotic and frustrating.
And it had nothing to do with casual. i would say the exact opposite. A causal that does have less time will never be able to enjoy more then 1-2 classes (how is that casual).

4) you cannot enjoy your gear for a minute since you are always behind. Making other content less valid since you dont wanna spend time in other content, cause you get this left behind feelign too fast.
(i never had that feelign in ffxi which was very horizontal, and i didnt play it from day one, i think i started after 3rd expansion, i had the feelign that i have so many things to do - in a positive way, now i feel like im having a 2nd job, only difference is that at my current job, the "achievements" actually matter longer....

5) why do i still play? i like the ffxiv franchise, i played since 1.0 and i still hope things slow down and get more enjoyable int he long run and get less focus on gearlvl.
if it doesnt change while 3.0 is going on, that is gonna be my last P2P MMO, since so far, a lot of F2P Mmo offer similar vertical progression and i dont have to pay for it (yes there are some that are enjoyable without spending millions in a cashshop - even though ffxiv has one of the most expensive mounts in a cashshop haha)

[Peachy]

I dont understand how gear being relevant longer is an argument. Why exactly? is glamour not good enough? I still glam the allagan casting set from first coil. Also Im questioning if people understand what horizontal progression is. Its adding stats to gear for other situations, Extra elemental or enfeeble resistances, increased regen potency, are just a couple examples of horizontal progression in a gear based game. They do not replace your primary gear but are used in places required. This game does not have elemental resists and is very well balanced because of stripping away these horizontal progressions. If added you will see demands for certain gear for specific content, and if you dont have it you will be left out, with good reason. You will also have even more inventory issues then you are having now, I see people saying they already use 4 retainers.

Adding horizontal progression to a game that is primarily vertical creates problems as well. You now have tons of false options just like our current stat allocations, there is a right and wrong way to do it, thats not a choice but more of a trick.

If they added horizontal progression to XIV I would rather have it entirely seperate from gear and make it into advanced skill trees where your choices and customization might actually matter. Keep in mind though the community will pick and choose favorite builds, and lazy players will just mimic it, once again creating a false choice.

I prefer XIV the way it is and when I crave horizontal gameplay I have plenty of games to do it in.

[Wizarus]

Horizontal with new content promoting meta shifts. Vertical is one of the main reasons why people not into crafting just unsub the moment they have top gear. Highest iIvl gear should be best in general not best in all situations.

[Gilthas]

3) the ilvl change should be with every major patch, not with (almost) every little content patch, that is idiotic and frustrating.

Um, what are you talking about? iLVL changes have only happened every TWO major patches, not every little content patch.

4) you cannot enjoy your gear for a minute since you are always behind. Making other content less valid since you dont wanna spend time in other content, cause you get this left behind feelign too fast.
(i never had that feelign in ffxi which was very horizontal, and i didnt play it from day one, i think i started after 3rd expansion, i had the feelign that i have so many things to do - in a positive way, now i feel like im having a 2nd job, only difference is that at my current job, the "achievements" actually matter longer....

I'm not sure how much you experienced FFXI endgame. But if anything FFXI was the game that felt like a second job to me, and it was a direct consequence of the horizontal progression of the game.

The thing that people that defend horizontal progression keep avoiding to address is that to achieve true horizontal progression we'd have to have several viable equipment sets that let your job perform at its best. FFXI's "horizontal progression" wasn't that. You still had BiS gear, you just had to lug around several pieces of gear for each slot and use equip macros to perform optimally.

But by far the worse consequences of FFXI's "horizontal progression" was:
- To keep gear relevant for years, gear upgrades came along very rarely. It sucked looking at the items added in each update and seeing only 1 or 2 usable pieces if you were lucky.
- To prevent players from gearing up quickly, we had a combination of poor drop rates and severe lockouts. Which basically meant that you'd be doing the same stuff for years to get drops.

But why did FFXI felt more like a job to me than FFXIV? Because to be able to lot on the rare gear I basically had to log in on all linkshell event days (5 days per week, every single day if a HNM was in our timezone) to make sure that I stayed on top of the attendance list.

Does FFXIV have things that feel like a job? Sure. I feel compelled to always get my CT item every week and to cap Poetics. But unlike FFXI, if I feel like taking a break for a few weeks and do other stuff, when I come back getting up to date is quick. If I did that in FFXI I'd fall behind on the attendance list.

And this is why I like FFXIV's vertical progression more. I get upgrades for my jobs a lot faster than I did in FFXI, and that's a lot more fun than spending a year without getting a single equipment upgrade. I prefer outdated content to be kept relevant through stuff like mounts and housing mats (though I really wish they'd add a token system and let us by these with tokens) or through stuff like the relic quest. Basically keep it optional.

[Reinha]

If they added horizontal progression to XIV I would rather have it entirely seperate from gear and make it into advanced skill trees where your choices and customization might actually matter.

I think a talent/attribute tree would be nice to have. This way raiding will stay just as accessible but you get extra customization. The talent tree should probably have no actual abilities to avoid getting too many of them, but instead bonus percentages to stats, procs, elemental attributes, regen and boosts to existing class abilities. The "tree" could be an extension of our current attribute point system: after spending some points during leveling on the low branches you could choose from new kind of bonuses at max level. The resetting of the tree could be done by a craftable item, for example a potion.

This kind of play style customization would probably please a lot more people than horizontal gear progression since no one has to start grinding extra gear sets.