More Horizontal Progression please

[Gilthas]

Not everything has to do with nostalgia, the idea might actually work if it was properly executed.

Yet it didn't work that way in FFXI.

The objective to do things in FFXI was getting better gear too. How many players only did RotZ until they got sky access? How many only completed RotZ and CoP after rewards were added? How many quests in FFXI were simply ignored if they didn't have a reward? More so if it required a group?

[Ibi]

Horizontal gear progression isn't some perfect system. It brings along its own set of problems, that in my opinion, are much worse than the problems with vertical gear progression.

Lets not forget how in FFXI:
- Real item upgrades were very rarely added to the game. It wasn't uncommon that new patches added nothing for your job.
- To keep players from getting their gear and being done with the game, FFXI had a mix of bad drop rates and lockouts that ensured that you rarely were able to get gear.
- Since we didn't get any real upgrades and items were so rare, we had to rerun the same stuff for years.

This post really nails the main issue with horizontal progression.

Many events in FFXI had abysmal drop rates.

I have the data from my old Dynamis LS that shows that we averaged about one piece of armor per hour in Dynamis - Xarcabard, and even when our attendance was trailing off toward the end, we were probably still taking 15-20 people there. There were also multiple 3.5 hour runs where we saw no armor at all.

We ran Salvage a few times a week, and I found an old post from the forums BG showing that we completed our 33rd piece of gear in July of 2008. That's nineteen months after the event was added to the game, so ~1.75 pieces a month.

There were countless NMs, ranging from Jailers to Kirin to KS99s to stuff out in the world, who "rewarded" us from time to time with loot pools completely devoid of any gear.

Horizontal progression necessitates low drop rates because that's the only way (or at least the only way developers seem to have found) to keep the events relevant for such extended periods of time.

[Lemuria]

Yet it didn't work that way in FFXI.

The objective to do things in FFXI was getting better gear too. How many players only did RotZ until they got sky access? How many only completed RotZ and CoP after rewards were added? How many quests in FFXI were simply ignored if they didn't have a reward? More so if it required a group?

Errm... plenty? The CoP ring reward was still one of the best in the game, even after ToAU and WotG were released.

People who claim FFXI's horizontal progression failed obviously have no true recollection of actually playing the game. There were dozens of examples of great items which stood the test of time, and plenty more which people kept for macros to swap items in and out. Granted, we can't do the latter here in Heavensward, but I think there's still a lot of room to work with some decent optional sidegrades which aren't mind-crushingly dull or simple secondary-stat swaps.

[Shinsaki]

No thanks fighting and camping the same bosses in FFXI for over 10 years wasn't fun. I like how they have new bosses to fight in FFXIV.

But you stuck around for 10 years........

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Because you aren't getting western players to run the same bosses for 7 years.

When they add new stuff, many, if not most of us prefer to not run the two things we just spent months running and getting bored of.

Especially when there's only so much gear variation that can exist with the current system.

The only game that ran horizontal progression for more than a couple years was FFXI. EQ2 did it a couple times, not increasing level cap. We stayed at 70 for two, and 90 for 3. Level cap went to 92 in a raid patch. 95 in the next expansion. We still didn't run the old stuff often because we were sick of it by then.

Especially with the epic weapon quests and then Epic Repucussions quest to extract the clicky buff from it. Holy hell.

Everquest 2 had buffs/procs that made people want to go back to old zones and a mentor system that is much funner then the mentor system here.

After awhile though they kind of gave up. They don't nore did they ever had a very big team and with 80% of it layed off or fired.. yeah.

[Nekodar]

Horizontal progression just means people will stop doing content because they're not really getting any stronger...
It also means you get more gearsets to keep track of if you actually go for what's BiS and BiS varies by content...

Vertical progression means you get stronger over time even if you don't go for BiS... And older content becomes much easier to complete normally.

[Arabian_Wolf]

Isn't that what heavensward is currently about and what we are destined to do for about 5-6 months? Or you mean to say you don't run Fractal/Neverreap to get tomes?

At least here patching have 3-4 months cycle, not running one single dungeon for a year or more.

[zcrash970]

No horizontal progression please

[Evtrai]

At least here patching have 3-4 months cycle, not running one single dungeon for a year or more.

Patching 3-4 months to just switch of the scenery you are doing, it's pretty much stated that that you'll be running two new dungeons so basically just 2 different things to cap from, but doesn't change the essence that there's nothing else to cap from or to do, it's 3.0 again with a new coat of paint, you will do absolutely nothing different in that patch, other means of capping perhaps a broken PvP, which myself I actually do while I read a book or do something else, since the queue times are abysmal.

Quantity=/=Quality

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I would rather have vertical progression mixed with horizontal and proc gear.