FFXIV has an endgame problem and it needs to be changed

[Cybralisk]

Problem number 1. The gear. Ok i'm just going to say it the gear just plain sucks, Every single piece of gear is exactly the same with different numbers and slightly different stat allocation. This makes getting new gear extremely unsatisfying. Why should i bother with progression when all i am going to get is a piece of gear exactly the same as my old one with +5 more to every stat.

Problem number 2. Stale progression. Every new patch that adds progression is the exact same formula as the old one, cap tomes by running the same two dungeons over and over to get the same gear with slightly higher stats and a different look, maybe a new primal. We have been doing the same exact progression for 2 years now and its getting boring.

Problem number 3. Nothing to do with exp once your job is max level. FFXI had the merit point system in which after you hit the max level your exp gained after would go towards merit points in which you could use to enhance your stats and abilities.

[Seiichi]

I'm all about "Prestige" levels when gaining XP at 60. Maybe even more if they can give some small rewards.
About the 2 first points in your post the only thing i can say: Welcome to MMO-world where Vertical prograssion is the rule, and at every patch you'll restart from the begining, no matter what you accomplished in patch-1.
More specificly about your 1st problem, i think new AF for Jobs are pretty amazing, and Alexander gears looks cool, but this is a personal opinion, we can't realy debate on this.

But again, the "Merit"/"Prestige"/"Parangon" levels at 60 should be a thing, i adds a sense of progression for 60 characters.

[shanian]

the merit system would actually be cool, it would let us make each job better linked to one's play style. (ff11 merit system was pretty cool), add that to the 3.2 meldings their adding and we wont have each job be a carbon copy for all players.
the gears... the gears could be a little more interesting, sadly, one does feel like each piece of the same dungeon just had a small change, be it color or lenght, for each job, instead of making each job have a UNIQUE thing in their set. their not horrible, but personally i have yet to seen one that makes me go "omg i would go through hell and fire to get that piece"
progression wise, i feel that its fine. its a mmo, there will always be new content (hopefully) and small upgrades on gears each time, but since our gears are about gear level and not actually job level, i dont mind it as much.

[Belhi]

I think I have an inherent negativity the moment people say 'FFXI had'.

Anyway I think new gear types, new progression and alternate advancement systems could be cool if done well. However if there are alternate gear types I don't want it to mean you have different types of gear for different situations for each class since the storage issue isn't likely to be resolved soon and my bags are already overflowing. Personally I'm not too bothered with 1 anyway as I find incremental stat advancement satisfying.

On 2, I think their efforts with new content like the Sky Island Exploration are at least an attempt to shake things up a bit. The future Materia changes likely will too, particularly in it's effect to make crafted goods more relevant in endgame. It's a delicate balance because if they work on a new type of progression and its unpopular it is going to cause a pretty big hit to content levels and therefore player satisfaction so I understand them not taking huge leaps.

As for 3, as much as I like alternate advancement systems they are tricky things. They can easily make it difficult for new players to get up to endgame as groups will discriminate against people who don't have alternate advancement that gives them advantages in certain content. For balance sake, if they effected things I would say it should be things like harvesting speeds, run speeds out of combat, recovery rates on things like GP or health and Mana out of combat, etc. rather than combat stat or combat ability boosts. Games with progression systems like FF14 naturally have power creep but it needs some measure of control and it needs to not cause the climb to endgame become unreasonable.

[Nalien]

Gear itself has two problems IMO;

We only need one main stat, for the most part. The fact that tanks can go for Vitality and Strength is something I like, though I dislike all three being identical, and I wish that applied to all Jobs... Bring back having two main stats from 1.23 and adjust them somewhat... Strength, Dexterity, Mind and Intelligence all do one thing, and that is raise a specific stat by 1, which seems redundant to me (for example, on Ninja 1 Dexterity gives me 1 Attack Power), Vitality and Piety at least change it up by giving you more than 1 HP/MP per stat, but that's still all they do... Sticking with Ninja, I'm also fairly annoyed that Intelligence (or Magic Attack Potency) does nothing for me, when skills that increase magic damage (Foes Requiem) do... With each Job having two main stats, that's something you can work in, but instead every Job just has <main stat> and Vitality... Dark Knight, for example, could have Vitality and Piety, with both now increasing defense (physical for Vitality, magical for Piety) and attack power to a degree. Vitality is the default tank stat, Piety because Dark Knight uses a lot of MP and seems to be the magic oriented tank. Warrior is very much about DPS, the existing Vitality/Strength set up works there. Paladin should be casting White Magic (Clemency was such a tease...), so Mind seems like it should work there...

Take something like that, and apply it to all Jobs, and you've got a situation where we can have more horizontal progression, because the difference between two pieces of same item level gear is greater than just which 2 out of 4 secondary stats does it have... Yes there is always going to be a BiS, but designing around that is just designing less content... It's the same problem with dungeons, yes people will speed run them, but having an entirely linear dungeon because of that? You're just forcing everyone to play that way, rather than giving players options... Plenty of people will not speed run, plenty of people do not care about BiS... Limiting our options because of the playstyle of a few is not good, IMO.

As for other stats... Final Fantasy IX got it right. Works as a merit system as well, have a new window in the Actions & Traits page, similar to the Actions & Traits page in the PvP Profile. Have AP based off your current level (you could also perhaps have +AP on gear, that would be an easy way to make the top gear obviously so), when you equip gear with Enhancement stats on them, you can now set AP to activate that "trait". Doing combat with that "trait" set eventually results in you unlocking it permanently, letting you throw away the gear the stat came from. Potential balance issues can be dealt with fairly easy by just being smart about what stats you put where... Tomestone gear, for example, would probably have the better stats, since everyone is going to get that stuff fairly easily. Meanwhile, something like Void Arks gear? That could just have variations of Demon Killer (a slight increase in your attack/defense/etc against Voidsent type enemies). This would potentially add demand for much of the gear in the game, rather than most of it just being passed over (dungeon gear, for example, which is really just vanity/GC seals to most...), while at the same time not locking you to using that gear forever. You'd want to set Demon Killer for Void Ark, but if you do a merit style grind to unlock the stat off the gear permanently, that doesn't mean you have to wear the gear for Void Ark.

It also wouldn't particularly be something people are forced to conform to... The only way one could tell if you have Demon Killer set or not is by breaking the ToS, it would be more like XIs original merit system, rather than the ability one... People could tell if a Dragoon didn't have Angon, because they couldn't use Angon and probably had Strafe instead for some odd reason, but they couldn't really tell which combat skills you'd opted to merit, could they?

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

This game will never have real endgame. Too many people complain when they even try to introduce something that takes any real time or effort. The tome system should be used as a catch up to get new players geared enough to participate in endgame stuff. But instead the tomes are the endgame. That's what you do when you hit 60. You cap tomes.

[anguel]

(sorry in advance for my bad english...)

many people gonna flame me ! But, if i recall properly in FF11 (oh no, not ff11 not again ...), there was the "dynamis", "sea", "sky" stuff,, that kinda forced people to play together in an organized way,
and when you got the chance to have something it was amazing !! (ex shadow ring http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_Ring )
but that stuff was HOLY GOD DAMN HARD to get !!
and when you had those you felt really proud !

in my opinion that is what is missing in FF14, "unique" item, with real instance (im sorry but you cant even compare a "dynamis" with our actual 24 raid stuff)

[shanian]

This game will never have real endgame. Too many people complain when they even try to introduce something that takes any real time or effort. The tome system should be used as a catch up to get new players geared enough to participate in endgame stuff. But instead the tomes are the endgame. That's what you do when you hit 60. You cap tomes.

completly true. hard contents dont stay hard for long because too many people complain, so they end up nerfed, its very depressing to see how many of the players keep complaing and even when something is just.. normal.. they qq and want it to become even easier... really a bit more and we are just getting hand outs the whole time.
SE needs to keep the Hard content, hard. dont soften it up, let the players get tougher and learn the fight and do better. if something was beaten once, then it is beatable, there is no reason to make it easier.

[Hayward]

The only problem with endgame are "pro" endgamers trying to cut themselves off from the "commoners" by yelping at SE to make harder content that everyone else can't do.

[shanian]

The only problem with endgame are "pro" endgamers trying to cut themselves off from the "commoners" by yelping at SE to make harder content that everyone else can't do.

this is a game that is supposed to apeal to everyone in one way or another, so you're saying its fair for the ones that actually enjoy a challenge be cheated out of it just because other people cannot do it? you have plenty of easy, and normal dificulty stuff around for casual players. theres no reason to remove the few hard features that exist nowadays.