More Horizontal Progression please

[Ibi]

Leaping Lizard Boots- on my Nin & Thf from lvl 7-75; still used in macros fro WS from 75-99.

And FFXIclopedia indicates that the Leaping (now Bounding) Boots are a <7% drop rate.

People lament the pain of RNG in instances that guarantee 2 or 4 drops every time they're killed. What do you think their reaction to drop rates like that would be?

[Kaurie]

And FFXIclopedia indicates that the Leaping (now Bounding) Boots are a <7% drop rate.

People lament the pain of RNG in instances that guarantee 2 or 4 drops every time they're killed. What do you think their reaction to drop rates like that would be?

I would rather kill something (on average) 14 times, than do the current method of Alex NM drops.

[Iagainsti]

And FFXIclopedia indicates that the Leaping (now Bounding) Boots are a <7% drop rate.

People lament the pain of RNG in instances that guarantee 2 or 4 drops every time they're killed. What do you think their reaction to drop rates like that would be?

#gross I actually recall writing a term paper over the weeks I spent camping that nm. #glorydays #FFXI #loldrg

[karateorangutang]

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.

Leaping Lizard Boots- on my Nin & Thf from lvl 7-75; still used in macros fro WS from 75-99.

Alot of this gear was very difficult to obtain. Can you imagine what a zone would look like in this game if there was that kind of drop rate on a mob that spawns once every 1-2 hours? It would be ridiculous. I remember keeping a tally board next to my gateway PC in my room. I went 0/54 on that drop. 0 for freaking 54!!! Thats almost 80 hours of wasted time. I gave up and bought the leaping boots because it was faster.

Even if they implemented it another way you'd cheapen gear obtained in raids, or if its craftable and the mats arent easy to obtain (once again cheapening raid gear) then it would be outlandishly expensive. These kind of gear options that work for the entirety of the level spread would be game breaking here. The crafting community is already having a hard enough time dealing with the MB, the flood of stuff going to the MB would be a nightmare.

Don't even get me started on gear swaps too, that was a poorly designed mechanic that became unfixable due to the state of the game at level 75.

[Ibi]

I would rather kill something (on average) 14 times, than do the current method of Alex NM drops.

Which would be less of an issue if it was, as you say, just a matter of killing it.

As that page indicates, "It can take anywhere from 5 minutes to several hours for Leaping Lizzy to spawn." Not to mention that when the population was high, even a Notorious Monster that dropped a level 7 item like that had competition at almost all times. Speaking from experience, you could easily dedicate an entire weekend to camping it, maybe get a handful of claims, and easily walk away from the entire weekend with nothing to show for it.

Finally getting the item was usually a feeling of relief rather than any kind of excitement.

And if you want an item to be relevant for a long period of time (which seems to be the crux of what people are looking for in horizontal progression), you either have to 1. make items incredibly difficult and/or time consuming to obtain or 2. make items ridiculously situational so that everyone needs a huge number of items to be competitive.

Otherwise everyone gets what they need quickly and then, since the items are designed to last a very long time, doesn't need any new items for a very long time. At that point, what's the point in doing any of the content, unless the content is enjoyable enough that it's worth doing for it's own sake (rather than for the reward).

And if the events are fun enough to do regardless of the rewards, it ceases to matter whether the rewards have vertical or horizontal advancement.

[Iagainsti]

Which would be less of an issue if it was, as you say, just a matter of killing it.

As that page indicates, "It can take anywhere from 5 minutes to several hours for Leaping Lizzy to spawn." even a Notorious Monster that dropped a level 7 item like that had competition at almost all times. Speaking from experience, you could easily dedicate an entire weekend to camping it, and easily walk away from the entire weekend with nothing to show for it.

Finally getting the item was usually a feeling of relief rather than any kind of excitement.

Lantern Shield, Thief's Knife are two others that almost made me cry, I recall I needed another rng drop even to get the nm to spawn for Thief's Knife.
Let's not even get into Abyssea #fml i believe there are charts to show how complex getting some NMs and HNMs to pop. FFXIV despite it's inflated ilvl system, is much better for ppl; gives us time to do other things instead of making gaming into another career/time sink.

[Zumi]

I would rather kill something (on average) 14 times, than do the current method of Alex NM drops.

Leaping Lizzy the NM that usually 3-5 people were out there camping and had 2+ hour spawn and could even be like 12 hours because it was a lottery nm and may not even show up. Its not 14 times you have to count all those times you didn't get the claim. I don't think anyone these days would find waiting around 2+ hours in the hopes to claim a weak monster to maybe get a 7% drop.

[Kaurie]

Ah sorry, I have never played XI. I simply was responding to the post about 7% drop rate vs Alex NM.

[Ibi]

Ah sorry, I have never played XI. I simply was responding to the post about 7% drop rate vs Alex NM.

Yeah, no worries.

I mean, don't get me wrong, if someone really does enjoy running the same content repeatedly in hopes that this will be the time that RNG works in their favor and they finally get the drop they were looking for, and that's the kind of game play that they find compelling, more power to them.

If they think that that's the kind of game play that FFXIV should have, in place of it's current system of being much more likely to get an upgrade, but also replacing that upgrade sooner, that's also fine.

But it's not the direction that SE's currently going in, and it's going to take some very compelling arguments to convince them to change that direction. "SE needs to do this or die", as the OP so eloquently stated, is not a compelling argument.

And while we'd certainly be seeing fewer "I'm bored" or "There's nothing to do" posts, we'd also be seeing considerably more "RNG sucks" and "I've killed x so many times and still haven't seen a drop FIX THIS NOW SE" posts instead.

[Nadirah]

Leaping Lizard Boots- on my Nin & Thf from lvl 7-75; still used in macros fro WS from 75-99.

And that's a pretty good explanation of why the "choice" thing sucks.

Not really a choice when you macro gear swaps to abilities.