Thread: The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

I liked the relic before with chimera, hydra, ifrit, garuda, titan with the mobs and dungeons. since then the relic quests have been kinda overgrind.

I believe adding certain aspects of FF XI could help the current state of XIV, not the negative things, progression that could greatly add to things, but in a way that there is both a sense of fun enjoyment and accomplishment.

For example the merit system really gave us a reason to log in daily, to xp with others so we worked towards that minor edge we had with a few stats a bit higher.

We don't have that anymore as end game a few stat dif means nothing anymore, same as race choices, but it's not like a galka or a taru vs race choices now.

The choco buddy is not really as fun as say taking out our own npc's like retainers, that would give me a fun reason to take them out and lvl them even if the xp was a long grind, being able to gear them out and watch them grow and go on adventures.

I don't consider logging in daily farming numbers in old content 24/7 entertaining or even fun, it's a mindless boring grind, it's finding that balance in the current mechanics system.

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

Stuff

Pretty much how I feel. vertical progression on the whole isn't rewarding and thus I spend a large amount of time inactive / unsubbed. I would kill for a decent amount of horizontal progression. where I know my time invested isn't going to be for nothing in a month when the next patch comes out.

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

horizontal progression would also allow for a greater variety of content as well, creating content where sword a is better than sword b but also content where sword b is better than sword a. and maybe content where sword c is better. this could be done any number of ways from something as simple as varying mobs a bit, have content full of mobs that hit hard and fast but have low evasion, then have content full of mobs that maybe don't hit as hard but will dodge like crazy, that's just one way of doing it.

in a way 1.23 demonstrated this quite well. at least as a tank, going against king mog or co-co my gear choices would focus on having enough hp to survive big hits. going against garuda or miser though my gear would focus more on doing as much damage as possible, and against ifrit / nael I tended to go more balanced and self sufficient. to free up other party members to do other things, and there wasn't really much gear that was the best piece in every situation. which kind of hinted at a degree of horizontal progression

Originally Posted by Dzian

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

While I agreed with your main point, this here is incorrect (in this game). There are plenty of situations where I have seen people do better damage in gear ~30 less than someone else.

Originally Posted by Dzian

horizontal progression would also allow for a greater variety of content as well, creating content where sword a is better than sword b but also content where sword b is better than sword a. and maybe content where sword c is better.

And then you play more than one class. Gearing (and inventory management) is now hell.

Horizontal progression isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's nothing but vertical progression along multiple purpose lanes. You still improve your gear vertically, except you now optimize independent gearsets for specific situations (such as specific skills, in the extreme case). The main difference to leveling (and equipping) multiple classes is that you do it all on one class.

Actually, the progression here is really quite similar. Sastasha might no longer be relevant for your monk/nature resistance gear, but still for your conjurer/fire resistance gear. And after that there are still a few good gladiator XP/ice resistance pieces there. But after running it through for all the pieces/classes, you're done with that content and never have a reason to visit it again. This goes up to the point where you have the BiS pieces for all classes/situations. That's the moment when you're "done" and can leave the game until better items come along. Which in a horizontal model might never happen. In a vertical model, it's guaranteed.

That said, putting both on top of each other quickly results in gear overload. Not to mention that you'd increase the effort of getting gear for off-classes by multitudes. Lockouts make it a pain already, that would probably kill off the whole thing completely.

I think people have actually mentioned two issues a lot of people have with horizontal progression.

Firstly additional progression that gives minor stat boosts over a long period of time ends up adding up to a substantial difference which creates a major obstacle to new players and alts. Catching up becomes extremely daunting.

Realistically Horizontal progression needs to mainly be either non combative or situational ie. bonuses work only against certain enemies and in certain content. An example of situational for example would be GW1 where the reputation with the Order of Whispers had a progressive bonus to damage and reduction to damage received from a particular group of enemy. Similarly they offered other horizontal progression where players gained access to skills that were potent but specifically against enemies of a certain type or in certain content. This way a new player only has to progress on content that they and their friends are doing now rather than scaling a mountain from the very beginning.

Second issue is multiple gear sets. While if you have one or two Jobs this probably isn't an issue. If you have all 21 however it quickly becomes an inventory nightmare. Further having to constantly switch around gear to do different stuff is annoying and requires a hell of a lot of time building up different sets. FF14 struggles with its inventory situation as it is. A multi gear set situation just sounds completely unfeasible.

Perhaps something they could work on going forwards, addressing the inventory situation would help in a lot of areas as well.

In the end I've played since 1.0 and as such have formed a degree of attachment to my character and as such I want my character to be the best it can possibly be. from an SE viewpoint this is a good thing as it means i'll likely resub at some point

the issue though is that with vertical progression any time I invest in that goal ends up being for nothing as the things i obtain end up being worthless. thus there is no point in obtaining them, from an SE perspective not such a good thing as it means i might only sub for 1 month in every year to catch up with the story and skip several junk tiers of gear.

which goes back to what fizzle and many others have said about how the game needs to feel rewarding and for many it doesn't when so much of your time ends up being for nothing. even when the most challenging of battles will be a cake walk in a few months, undermining the challenge many players had to overcome.

if the game had a degree of horizontal progression that allowed gear to have a much longer life span then I'd likely invest much more time in building up my character and thus in turn would have an active sub for much longer. (even better from SE's perspective)

For everyone here thats willing to contribute how do you guys feel about nostalgia dungeons? Like imagine how crystal tower and voidark are but more targetting final fantasy endgame dungeons from other games. The storyline can also be corny I wouldn't care like Biggs and Wedge find some sort of device that opens a dark portal and oops Kefka is in your face ready to cause destruction as he devours a few of the primals for powers or something like that? I truly beleive that would work and its giving back more than you think to the fans. Thats maybe a bit too much to ask since it will interrupt with the storyline but it would give this game another value aswell for the nostalgia. Could also be something nice for Sephiroth with the new FF7 remake and making it more enjoyable than just a silly fate like they did with lightning.