More Horizontal Progression please

[Kaurie]

That is what XIV does already... There are 2 different gear sets at max ilvl each cycle. Now if only the group gear didn't totally replace raid gear each content cycle we could actually GAIN content instead of replacing it.

I guess I meant in a way that matters

[Kaurie]

You can, but in addition to having to either reuse art assets or invest more time developing new art assets (and you'll get people complaining with either choice) that means you're either:
- increasing the loot pools of existing events (which has its own issues), or
- adding more content from which to obtain items (and if they were capable of generating content faster, they already would be, and we probably wouldn't be having this conversation).

Legit concern. I'd rather this than any of Gold Saucer bth tho

[Iagainsti]

Actually, your gear really didn't matter when it came to Valkurm invites (or lack thereof). THF itself was a joke in early levels, even with SA and BiS gear. It didn't get any sort of attention from players until Viper Bite, and that was assuming you bothered leveling your dagger skills instead of sticking to the much more superior 1h swords until ~30, which is when dagger started to becoming a little better (mostly due to the type of mobs you fought for that level range).

#smh you stated it, THF was a joke so you needed the gear to make up for it. SA didn't unlock till 15 so your blind/paralyze blts for pulls+ your WS were the only thing you brought to a party, without the stats to back it, your WS's were garbo.

btw, this was just an example, why am I explaining my "pull out of my ass example" and why are you ripping on it?

[Iagainsti]

During my tenure at FFXI. . . I don't recall the grouping requirements being so tight for THE MOTHAFUCIN VALKURM DUNES LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.
I left around the start of WotG if you're wondering.

Again an example sheesh

[Shinsaki]

You crazy. Leaping boots were necessary for many classes, example THF SATA, only replaced by Hecatomb boots(good luck, we could start another thread about how hard it was to get these at 72). you mustve played when journals came out or something, because if you were a level 12 thf/rng/insert other class trying to get a lvling group in valkurm without proper gear in slots for WS's, #godspeed and hope some JP party takes pity on you for a carry through the grind.

Cant tell if this guy is high or trolling?

Why not throw in No Astral Rings = No party as well..............

[Iagainsti]

Cant tell if this guy is high or trolling?

Why not throw in No Astral Rings = No party as well..............

Kinda hurt, and I'm always high, I just saw the thread, posted my relevant experience concerning horizontal progression with the first example that popped in my head, ppl ren with the leaping lizard boots, and... here we are. I apologize if you do not like my points.

[Welsper59]

#smh you stated it, THF was a joke so you needed the gear to make up for it. SA didn't unlock till 15 so your blind/paralyze blts for pulls+ your WS were the only thing you brought to a party, without the stats to back it, your WS's were garbo.

btw, this was just an example, why am I explaining my "pull out of my ass example" and why are you ripping on it?

I'm a very literal person that's why lol. Wasn't intending to be mean or anything with it. It's just that BiS or gear near it really wasn't ever needed, at least not to some mandatory degree. Just like here, having better than necessary gear can save groups in very specific situations, but that's pretty much the extent that it goes, assuming you and the group met some sort of minimum requirement to do it at least.

[Sandpark]

Writing this post to try and clarify stuff because some people including myself are somewhat confused.

Here are a few links clarifying the differences between different types of gamers.

http://www.gamerheadlines.com/2014/0...y-they-matter/

Casual Gamer

The first, and possibly largest type of gamer is the casual gamer. These are the people that made the Nintendo Wii such a successful console this past generation. They tend to buy only one or two games per year, and sometimes not even that many. Mostly, they purchase party games, or simple time waster games. They have almost entirely moved to the mobile game market, with some still playing Facebook or Zynga games. The WiiU has almost exclusively been marketed towards the casual gaming market, most likely due to the riches Nintendo gained from doing the same with the Wii. This tactic doesn’t seem to be working this generation, however.

Why did this marketing scheme work for the Wii and not the WiiU?

One of the reasons is the mindset and behavior of casual gamers. Casual gamers don’t look up gaming news or seek out ads or YouTube videos to explain, in detail, what the WiiU is, so they have no clue. Many I have spoken to have never even heard of the WiiU, and the ones that have, think it’s a peripheral for the Wii. Two major things cause this problem. One, is that the title is too similar and nonsensical for the casual gamer to distinguish it from the Wii. The other is that Nintendo rarely talks about or shows the console itself, instead, they focus almost exclusively on the gamepad controller. Another reason is the price tag. The original Wii, when launched, was $249.99 in NA, which is affordable for the casual audience, whereas the WiiU was $299.99, which is just slightly too much for this group.

The Wii’s best selling point was it’s motion control. Casual gamers can be scared away by the number of buttons and complex controls of games on the competing consoles, but the concept of motion control, making their movements control the game, felt completely natural and intuitive. Significantly lowering the entry level into gaming, the WiiU gamepad doesn’t have that advantage. Instead, it’s more like a traditional controller, which pushes away the causal audience. Possibly the biggest flaw in Nintendo’s marketing plan is that Nintendo doesn’t realize the current state of the gaming market. With the casual market having moved to smart phones and tablets, the desired demographic simply doesn’t exist in that market anymore.

Softcore Gamer

The second type, and second largest group, of gamer are softcore gamers. They tend to buy two to six games per year, and most of those game are very mainstream, annual titles. They are the reason Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed sell very well year after year. They tend to purchase the “popular” franchises, stay in their comfort zones, and do whatever their friends are doing. Softcore gamers are often very brand-loyal, defending games or insulting others based on whether or not it’s a franchise they frequently play. They are typically teenage males, but are not exclusively so. Most gamer stereotypes are made about this group, and major media outlets mistakenly think all gamers are like this group. The Xbox One is marketed towards this community.

Given the size of this community, why isn’t Microsoft’s plan working?

It’s pretty obvious that Microsoft markets towards this group. Spokespersons from Microsoft at press conferences and in interviews talk a significant amount about TV and sports. The games most commonly marketed in advertisements along with the console are games such as Call of Duty: Ghosts, Need for Speed: Rivals, and Battlefield 4. Microsoft also uses aggressive marketing tactics, often directly insulting Sony’s PS4, much in the same way as fanboys attack opposing brands. All of which a highly mainstream, popular franchises. Identifying why this marketing ploy hasn’t worked is difficult without describing the next group of gamer.

Hardcore Gamer

The third group of gamers is the hardcore gamer. Hardcore gamers often buy a minimum of four games per year, and are frequently only limited by budget or availability. Hardcore gamers enjoy exploring possibilities, being the early adopters of new consoles or franchises. Hardcore gamers often spend more time than others watching YouTube “Let’s Plays” or watching E3 live streams. Sony is marketing the PlayStation 4 to these gamers.

Why is Sony’s plan so successful?

Sony markets the PS4 as, first and foremost, a game console. Games they show in advertisements are rarely popular titles such as Call of Duty, but unique, intriguing exclusives such as Driveclub, InFamous: Second Son, or The Witness. Sony understands that showing new, interesting titles such as these appeals to the hardcore gamer, making them want to buy the system for these games. The PlayStation 4 is more successful than others because it is marketed to the early adopters. Softcore gamers see that the PS4 is popular, so they buy it, or they know Hardcore gamers personally who tell them to buy the PS4 instead of the Xbox One.

Elitist Gamer

The final and smallest group of gamers is the Elitist. They are possibly the most annoying group. They are often hypercritical of games, and think that if you don’t like a game they enjoy, the only explanation is that you’re just bad at it. They tend to think games should just be difficult, with no difficulty settings. They also tend to be PC gamers, thinking consoles are inherently inferior in every way to the “Master Race” of gaming. They often buy several games per year, like hardcore gamers, but hardly play them, and just play the same two or three obsessively.

Steam machines are already being marketed to this type of gamer.

It’s impossible to be certain whether or not this marketing plan will succeed, but I don’t think it will. Steam machines will most likely cost significantly more than the PS4 and Xbox one, and most elitists can build their own PC’s, or at least know someone who can for a reasonable price. Many gamers who play console games do so because maintaining a high-end PC can be very expensive, and require a lot of knowledge about PC’s, but consoles are easier to use.

Those are the four types of gamer. I personally think only the hardcore and elitist gamer should be called “gamers,” after all, someone who only watches movies on occasion isn’t called a “film buff.”

Regardless of which sort of gamer you are, or how many of you there are, all gamers have an influence in the community, and game developers and console manufactures need to understand this as the gaming community continues to expand.

Mid-Core gamer explanation:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...ean_anyway.php

'Mid-core' in a few sentences

"When I think about mid-core, it's really about distilling what you'd consider a 'hardcore' game down to its core essence, without making concessions on production quality, themes and gameplay mechanics. To us, mid-core means making a great, deep game more 'accessible' - both in terms of time (keeping sessions to 5 to 20 minutes, as opposed to hours) and platform access (it should be on many platforms instead of just one at a time)." - Frederic Descamps, general manager of Team Solstice (Solstice Arena), Zynga

"Games that are easy to learn and allow advancement with short gaming sessions, but are more engaging, more competitive and more challenging than other social and casual games. This combination allows mid-core games to reach a wider audience than a hardcore game like an MMO while also attracting players who identify as gamers and are more willing to spend on gaming entertainment." - Janelle Benjamin, SuperData vice president of research

There are 3 classification of gamer in terms of time lifestyle patterns.
(1) Hardcore arranges their schedules around their gaming.
(2) Mid-core arranges their gaming around their daily schedule.
(3) Casual entertains self with games when time presents itself.

Vertical VS Horizontal Progression

Comparing Vertical and Horizontal Progression
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/05/m...l-progression/

More on Vertical Progression
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/11/t...stay-relevant/

More on Horizontal Progression
http://www.eqhammer.com/ask-druid/as...al-progression

[Nadirah]

@Sandpark, those articles are incredibly biased.

As a side note, I'm here *because* it gives the "old days of wow" vibe, from before the atrocity that came post Cataclysm.

Going straight into an old school horizontal system is going to end up alienating most of this games' audience. People are already tired of Alexander, much like they were tired of CT and Coil, and wow players were tired of Seige for 14 months, and y'all want release content to be relevant/borderline mandatory for years?

[JudgeN]

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 know this is a few pages back but when i came back to the game a month before heavensward. I did went 0/40 in World of darkness on bard body, like it didn't drop in 40 runs. So lets not say FFXI is the only game with RNG stupidness because this game has it as well. If I had to chose between spam a 45-1 hour world of darkness or camping leaping lizzy I would easily take lizzy any day of the week, far less tedious and the gear would last much longer.

Under vertical progression, the developer knows that the items a player is getting within any tier will be made obsolete in six months. As a result, they can set a drop rate such that a player will, on average, get all (or almost all) the gear they need within that six month period, because there will be something new coming in by the time they're done.

Under horizontal progression, the developer knows that the items a player is getting from any particular event could remain relevant for several years. If they set the drop rates the same as they were in the vertical example above, then their player base is done with that particular event in that same six month time frame. So far that's not, in and of itself, a problem.

In both cases, the developer is adding new content at around the six month mark. But where the vertical progression developer doesn't need to pay attention to the old rewards when creating their new event, the horizontal progression developer needs a way to add drops that serve some sort of purpose, while not making the old items obsolete.

If you make the items effectively equivalent, the players are effectively done with the reward from the new event before it even starts. If that's the case, the event needs to be entertaining enough to be worth doing despite the rewards, at which point the event would have worked equally well under a vertical progression system.

If you make the items better than the existing items in some situations, and worse in others, now the player needs to collect an entire second set of items and also hang on to all the old ones. In addition to now needing to carry around twice as much gear, the player isn't really getting any more powerful, they're just switching out one thing for another depending on the situation (and likely still not really having a choice in the matter).

The alternative to this is to make it take much longer to get all the items from any particular event, and then add parallel alternatives through which to (hopefully) obtain other items to fill in the gaps. Each event ends up with a much longer life span, but only because you need to run it more to get the same results.

The thing about FFXI people act like every event had a sub 5% drop rate. When you really analyze FFXI what really had terrible drop rates? The 3 things that come to mind are dynamis, sea, and salvage. The rest of the game didn't really suffer from massive bad drop rates, sure certain NMs had terrible drop rates (thief knife before the fix) but really the game wasn't really that bad about RNG.

Note i'm talking about 75 content as I quit before they up the level cap.