More Horizontal Progression please

[midnitdragoon]

You forget that EQ and FFXI also had the problem of *having* to put that many hours in it or you couldn't get anywhere or do anything.

I once dated a guy that played EQ1 in high school.

Court *took his computer away* because he refused to go to school, because otherwise he'd fall behind from his raid group.

You *had* to spend those long hours.

People don't have time for that and when they have a feeling of "well shit, I'm not getting anything done", the quit.

Thats really hardcore, prolly the reason why they put that message before you play ff11 each time you start up.

[lawlHT]

This game could definitely use some variation in its gear, through introducing more stats or amplifying job abilities through gear, and it would do a lot to make each piece of gear feel unique.

But a lot of people in this topic have some serious rosy tint to their glasses when they talk about ffxi. That game was just as much of a grind fest as this one, with the added bonus of sometimes going literal years without seeing certain drops. I'm much happier with this games loot system than I ever was with xi's

[Nadirah]

Raiders are all like that though, but raiding in EQ with 72 man raids was something else. You literally had to take *shifts* in your raid force because there were large lockouts and the zones took 3-4 days to clear.

And this is good for players how?

Seriouisly. Do you have any idea how effing stupid that even sounds? if you had to do that kind of stuff for RL jobs, your boss would be fired here in the US for running a sweatshop.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

And this is good for players how?

Seriouisly. Do you have any idea how effing stupid that even sounds? if you had to do that kind of stuff for RL jobs, your boss would be fired here in the US for running a sweatshop.

It doesn't sound right to me at all. I thought it was stupid. Developers did too is why they remade them to be 24 man raids and not take as long. =P However, everything else in that game. (sides OLD raiding.) was perfect. Pretty much perfect honestly.

I liked SWG a lot better with its multi-class multi-gear component, base component, sub-component, randomized loot, randomized resource randomized mission system.

Being able to make a house and place it anywhere and being able to make your own city and become mayor. No instances all open world.

[Gralna]

And this is good for players how?

Seriouisly. Do you have any idea how effing stupid that even sounds? if you had to do that kind of stuff for RL jobs, your boss would be fired here in the US for running a sweatshop.

Um, that's how all 24 hour stores work, and also most construction jobs that need be finished ASAP, people work their shifts, then get some rest, and come back for their next shift.

Only reason those super large scale, 8+ hour raids are no longer the norm, is the bad press SE got when a raid to take down a boss took over 18 hours and people started getting sick.

I however, do miss those large scale raids, where it took you the whole evening to finish it. Now it's just 8 hours bashing your head against the wall on the same boss, to get 1/2 a phase closer to the kill.

[Zumi]

This game could definitely use some variation in its gear, through introducing more stats or amplifying job abilities through gear, and it would do a lot to make each piece of gear feel unique.

But a lot of people in this topic have some serious rosy tint to their glasses when they talk about ffxi. That game was just as much of a grind fest as this one, with the added bonus of sometimes going literal years without seeing certain drops. I'm much happier with this games loot system than I ever was with xi's

One of the things that people forget about in FFXI was camping HNM. King Behemoth, Nidhogg, and Aspi dropped some of the best items in the game. On average they would only spawn once a week and sometimes would have upwards of 10 or more groups camping them. None of these HNMs were hard at all but getting the claim against everyone else in the zone was. So yes you had 1 chance a week and most of the time you didn't get to fight the boss because your group didn't win the claim.

This is why FFXIV system of instances is much better because everyone gets to fight the bosses and gets loot.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

One of the things that people forget about in FFXI was camping HNM. King Behemoth, Nidhogg, and Aspi dropped some of the best items in the game. On average they would only spawn once a week and sometimes would have upwards of 10 or more groups camping them. None of these HNMs were hard at all but getting the claim against everyone else in the zone was. So yes you had 1 chance a week and most of the time you didn't get to fight the boss because your group didn't win the claim.

This is why FFXIV system of instances is much better because everyone gets to fight the bosses and gets loot.

That is also why its boring because everyone gets everything. EQ2 fixed the issue by putting those bosses into large Open World Dungeons that took awhile to get to the bosses and if you just stood there the npcs would eventually overwhelm you.

So you had to get lucky and catch the bosses up, camping them was .. doable but you had a time limit before the room's enemy npcs over-ran you. Each NPC had their own unique skills/abilities they ran though and "strats" to kill them. With pathing/querky grouped mobs which had unusual social aggro.

Honestly. If they had a week spawn then they should be next to impossible to kill. Like harder then A4 Savage. Those were Avatars, most raids even the best could not kill them and there were 7 and they spawned, and despawned if you did not kill them fast enough. Completely random spawn timers too.

[LunaHoshino]

-snip-

I'd much rather spend a month learning a fight and progressing than killing the same mob over and over again and getting absolutely nothing to show for it. At least one of those two things is fun; the other is just mindless grinding. I would put on a TV show and then go spend a couple of hours camping a zone in RO and killing mobs when they spawned to farm for drops. There was no interaction, no skill, nothing other than mindless button-mashing.

I'm perfectly happy replacing gear every 2-4 months because it at least is tangible progress. It's not fun to go 2-4 months without getting a single mob drop, which happened to me and many other people I know who played RO. I'm not exaggerating when I say that drop rates on the most desirable items were in the .02% range. That's how they kept people coming back, as there was really no other reason to keep playing the game once you'd gotten the best gear.

In contrast, in FFXIV, gearing up is a result of running content rather than the ultimate goal. I never have to deliberately try to cap tomestones; it always just happens as a result of doing things with my friends. That is how gear progression should be-- part of the game, not the entire purpose of it.

[lawlHT]

snip.

None of that reflects anything remotely resembling player-friendly content. Random spawn timers mean that if you're not playing 24/7 there's a good chance you're going to miss the monster even spawning, let alone seeing any drops from it. Instanced content alleviated a lot of the down time spent doing absolutely nothing in game, and gives players the ability to tackle content at their own pace, whenever they're able to play. Yes we have to sacrifice some of the feeling that came with open world content, but it was a necessary step to make sure that players didn't have to abandon their real lives in order to progress in the game

[Nadirah]

Um, that's how all 24 hour stores work, and also most construction jobs that need be finished ASAP, people work their shifts, then get some rest, and come back for their next shift.

Only reason those super large scale, 8+ hour raids are no longer the norm, is the bad press SE got when a raid to take down a boss took over 18 hours and people started getting sick.

I however, do miss those large scale raids, where it took you the whole evening to finish it. Now it's just 8 hours bashing your head against the wall on the same boss, to get 1/2 a phase closer to the kill.

No, that's not how 24 hour stores work.

Your boss doesn't call you at 4 am to get your ass online to kill that boss.

That's how they kept people coming back, as there was really no other reason to keep playing the game once you'd gotten the best gear.

And this is the summary of that.

The only thing there was the gear chase. That's the only thing that kept it relevant.