More Horizontal Progression please

[Xatsh]

What is Horizontal Progression? How does it differ from Vertical Progression? Is there such a thing as Diagonal Progression?

Seriously I don't know. This is such an obscure term. It's a game not an elevator.

Well gona comment on the general. FFXI was not pure horizontal, it was a diagonal progression just not a step incline. Patches did negate gear overtime, just very very slowly. Example the BIS ROZ expansion gear was not the same BIS gear in ToAU for any class really.

In XI your jobs was not cut and dry. Each job typically performed between 2 and 6 roles in a party. Vs XIVs 1 role per job. For instance a blm in XI was many time in fights NOT A DPS(DD) it was crowd control or main stun, infact if that blm dpsed at the wrong time it would kill your whole allaince.

IN XI the horizontal system worked by playing on this. Each endgame event droped some BIS gear and Some not BIS gear. Note that each job role had a BIS gear - thus many jobs had 5-6 gear sets depending on your job. Meaning in XIV you have what 14 pieces... in XI each job could have near 70 BIS pieces of gear..

As patches came they slowly negated gear but never all of it. It is why Sky was still relevant 7yrs after it launched. 90% of the gear was negated. But about 4 of the pieces were still BIS for a specific job role. Since there was never pure negation people still had a reason to do all the content in the game. (abysea removed this... why you will also read some places that abysea killed the game)

It also was attributed to XI battle system. There was no True DPS checks in ffxiv. There were rage timers but you could beat the mob with more or less Basic Gear. A few exceptions being AV and PW (the 24hr group that was vomiting because they tried to fight the top tier Raid boss with garbage gear. Would be like attempting Savage A4 in Ilvl 160 gear. The fights also rarely required Exact numbers. Most raids were 18 36 or 60ish. But you could enter with any number. When you were more geared it was doable with less.

Example Limbus a group new to endgame would need 6-12 ppl to safely do a turn. But if you have an extremly overgeared Rdm and Blm you could actually solo a area within the timelimit. Same with dynamis you could take in 64 ppl starting at level 60, most groups with endgame gear could clear it with 18-24 lvl 75 people. Thus meaning having the BIS gear was not required to do the content but it assisted and made it more lowmanable.

Since you were always doing content from the whole game Yes the drop rates where low. But in an average week playing 4 hours a night and killing some HNMs and such a typical guild could pull in 30-40 drops a week. Each of those drops would be valid for potentially 4-7yrs. The typical dynamis run also droped between 8-15 pieces and 400-500 currency. These no drops in dynamis were Xarcabard/COP which were slightly different where you fought primarily boss monsters to spawn the zone boss without clearing alot of trash. (IF people killed normal mobs.... the drop rate is the same as other dynamis runs... very few groups were good enough to clear the zone with enough time to farm though... thus the crap drop rate)

AS you fought endgame you got gear that was marginally better alot, and people took it until they got their BIS gear.

This allowed XI to get absurd amounts of content to do. For example at the launch of RoZ XI's first expansion there was over 10xs the endgame content progression wise as there is now. Over 40 instance boss fights, Over 100 Open world boss fights (about 30-40 dropped a endgame usable piece of gear)and 5 Large scale instanced raids. VS 2 primals (both negated now btw), 2 dungeons, and 8 instance bosses (4 from Normal Alex and Hard Alex (these are not really raids by standard mmo definition)). Seriously this is why people want more horizontal it is just sad when you compare the two.

To note this will not work at all in XIV because it followed the WOW model. It uses the pure verticle progression model... which is also the main cause of the lack of progression based content.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

If they add a horizontal system, I'd hope they attach it to new / current content.

[Gardes]

We don't have to have extreme horizontal progression. We don't have to wear the same gear for 10 years. It can be expansion to expansion and level cap to level cap.

Imagine ARR with just i90 as the maximum ilvl cap. For coil 1 we could have i90 gear with general skill effects, for coil 2 we could have i90 gear with specific class effects on gear, for coil 3 we could i90 gear with set bonuses that require some gear from coil 1 and 2. Then come HW the ilvl cap is raised to is 110 and they can mix the gear effects up and rebalance them based on past experiences, instead of just shooting up from i50 to i130 at the end of 2.0 and then shooting up to 210 at 3.0 and possibly ending with 250 or more at the end of HW.

Sure you probably wont double your hp, tripple your dps, etc with each expansion but you're still getting stronger and the new players are more likely to see what a boss fight plays out like instead of it just getting destroyed in 1 minute in DF. Edit: It will probably get destroyed that fast with the progression I described, just not so soon.

[Waeksyn]

FFXI worked for horizontal progression for one main reason - the ability to macro change gear in battle on the fly. This allowed people to min/max gear to fit the specific action (although the blinking used to drive healers nuts). Swapped gear would often contain buffs specific to the actions performed - more so than changing primary or secondary stats. So, you would swap the gear in to do a buff (put up Sneak Attack for example) and swap it back for max damage when you executed your next attack. If that attack was a weaponskill, you would macro in the gear that affected that weaponskill, then swap back. You could easily be carrying - and using - 5 or 6 pieces of gear for every gear slot (the only exception being your main weapon as changing that would reset your TP).

Frankly, I don't miss this and wouldn't want to see it added to FFXIV.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

FFXI worked for horizontal progression for one main reason - the ability to macro change gear in battle on the fly. This allowed people to min/max gear to fit the specific action (although the blinking used to drive healers nuts). Swapped gear would often contain buffs specific to the actions performed - more so than changing primary or secondary stats. So, you would swap the gear in to do a buff (put up Sneak Attack for example) and swap it back for max damage when you executed your next attack. If that attack was a weaponskill, you would macro in the gear that affected that weaponskill, then swap back. You could easily be carrying - and using - 5 or 6 pieces of gear for every gear slot (the only exception being your main weapon as changing that would reset your TP).

Frankly, I don't miss this and wouldn't want to see it added to FFXIV.

That is bad game design honestly. When I say Horizontal Progression gear. I mean gear like this.

http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...9b0fcf037945cc
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...dce40f771d6f91
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...c84178c2e09dfd
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...2c928dbc478081
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...aa87b89b8b536b
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...145f5d94f205c6
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...ad614085382ef7
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...88d4d8fbbd1cfe
http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2i...9cfcbaaa75c6aa

Notice how they all have similar stats? This is the kind of gear you pick to your playstyle. You do not need to switch it out, you build your character around it.

FFXI was just a badly designed game where you needed things like different resistances per fight and such and you needed gear for different fights.

EQ2 also puts an internal cool-down on your character. If you try to equip a piece of gear all your spells and abilities go on a small GCD, for each piece. The items spell/proc effects are also removed from you when you take off the gear.

[Xatsh]

Never understood the want for 1 gear set for everything mentality.

It just leads to not having enough stuff to do at endgame.

[Iromi]

Never understood the want for 1 gear set for everything mentality.

It just leads to not having enough stuff to do at endgame.

Agreed. Add that to the fact of how quickly it goes obsolete and there goes motivation to acquire said gear lol.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I remember in EQ2 the "Fatal Lifetap" Jewelry dropped. (gives a lifetap proc) and has multiple stats. So its literally good for Mages/Scouts/Tanks and it was good for pretty much everyone. Although it benefited tanks a little more then the others it was still nice. However, there were also procs that warded mages when they casted spells or casted another small nuke.

Horizontal Gear can make it where you need less gear.

Say they revamped Jewelry and made Jewelry like this.

Soul Sucking Necklace
30 Vitality, Strength, Intelligence

Fatal Lifetap:
10% Chance on any hit to deal 584 unaspected damage and heal's caster for 584.
This is good for all melee, all tanks, all mages. Sure, it might be better for tanks overall. However it can still help mages and melee too!


Life Siphoning Earring of Energy
30 Vitality, Wisdom, Intelligence

Engorged
Slowly converts 500 Life into 300 Mana every 4 seconds.
This is good for all mages and casters. Some other classes may benefit more. However all classes can use it!


Bracelet of Stone
30 Vitality, Wisdom, Strength

Stoneskin
Reduces damage taken by 5%. Slows movement speed by 15%.
This is good for all mages and casters and tanks. Some other classes may benefit more. However all classes can use it!

There is no "BEST ITEM" if made well. All items are different and some have weaknesses attached to them. They just change your "Playstyle!"

[Reinha]

Soul Sucking Necklace
30 Vitality, Strength, Intelligence

Fatal Lifetap:
10% Chance on any hit to deal 584 unaspected damage and heal's caster for 584.
This is good for all melee, all tanks, all mages. Sure, it might be better for tanks overall. However it can still help mages and melee too!


Life Siphoning Earring of Energy
30 Vitality, Wisdom, Intelligence

Engorged
Slowly converts 500 Life into 300 Mana every 4 seconds.
This is good for all mages and casters. Some other classes may benefit more. However all classes can use it!


Bracelet of Stone
30 Vitality, Wisdom, Strength

Stoneskin
Reduces damage taken by 5%. Slows movement speed by 15%.
This is good for all mages and casters and tanks. Some other classes may benefit more. However all classes can use it!


There is no "BEST ITEM" if made well. All items are different and some have weaknesses attached to them. They just change your "Playstyle!"

This is a no brainer.

Fatal Lifetap for dps because it's the only one that comes with extra damage.

Engorged for healers because the other bonuses don't help them heal the group.

Stoneskin for tanks because a damage reduction is usually way more valuable (smooths out damage spikes, reliable, helps with tank busters, works against magic damage and doesn't interfere with healers) than an RNG-dependent heal (only activates after the damage has been taken and can be wasted as overhealing). Tanks are also the role which has to deal with the least movement/dodging, so that's another reason why it's good for tanks.

The only valid playstyle flexibility comes from the choice between Fatal Lifetap (dps, self heals) and Stoneskin (survivability) for tanks, and this option is already in game in the form of strength and vitality accessories. You say that horizontal options just need to be made well so there is no BiS, but without situational stats like elemental resistances people will always figure out the most optimal gear setup for their role. You can be a BLM with PIE gear right now, but everyone knows it performs sub par. Why on earth would a BLM go for the Engorged bonus when it's painfully obvious Fatal Lifetap is the better option?

Don't get me wrong, I would love some special procs and bonuses on gear. But there will always be a Best in Slot item at any point in time, unless they make boss mechanics which require stacking a certain stat. In which case we are in a lot of trouble with our inventory space. "Different but equal" gear is a nice dream to have but in most cases raw maths will prove one better than the other. That's why I prefer vertical progression with some variety in effects, sort of like "the new tome gear is better than the old no doubt but this time we get to have a damage proc instead of leeching". One way to do this is set bonuses, another would be weapon enchants limited by item level.