Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[Dzian]

You honestly believe that people will follow a BiS formula for -certain situations-?

Honestly? Nope,

What I do believe though is that if gear was more meaningful and more worthwhile then more people would be more motivated to get it.
I also believe that the problem with savage isn't the difficulty, it's just that the rewards aren't worth it.
much the same with relic and the sheer volume of time it takes makes it not worth it.

seems most of the issues recently stem from people getting really fed up of the treadmill. It's hard to motivate people to go after "junk"

[Velhart]

What I do believe though is that if gear was more meaningful and more worthwhile then more people would be more motivated to get it.

How are people not motivated to get gear right now? If anything, a lot of players like getting gear on multiple jobs.

I also believe that the problem with savage isn't the difficulty, it's just that the rewards aren't worth it.

It has the best gear in the game, it is very much worth it. People wouldn't be going in there every week completing it even to this day if it wasn't.

seems most of the issues recently stem from people getting really fed up of the treadmill. It's hard to motivate people to go after "junk"

You look at it all wrong. The only real reason that people were not motivated for Savage was due to it's over the top difficulty level that the average casual/midcore group could not handle. You went from hold my hand Alexander to brutal over the top Alexander. There was no in between, a level that could be worked on to be properly ready for Savage.

It is the game's pacing and ill placement of content and gear distribution that has caused most of the mess. People don't mind treadmill style MMO's if the quality of the content is high. Right now SE is not meeting those quality standards is why you or someone may think the formula is getting stale. If you want horizontal so bad, you are going to just be facing the same issues and will be much harder to recover from.

I do wonder where people think systems like horizontal progression and multiple gear sets on one job does not come with it's horrendous need for constant balance. I won't say vertical is perfect and has it's own issues, but making things horizontal is just jumping over a pothole just to fall off a cliff.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

How exactly did Atma help the game? If people weren't complaining about the grind itself, it turned Fates from a mindless zerg to an even more mindless zerg that newbie players may get pushed out of.

[Starbirth]

You were never required to do the atma grind. You could have just done primals for weapons or gotten your 110 through raids.

[Lilith_Merquise]

You were never required to do the atma grind. You could have just done primals for weapons or gotten your 110 through raids.

Exactly! There are other and honestly better alternatives to relics, go do Savage Alex or Thordan EX. But if that content isn't for you and your a casual who only does roulettes, dungeon, and leveling grinding. Why is this system a bad thing? You literally can accumulate the atmas on any class, which you're going to do anyway by grinding that over doing more End Game Content?

There isn't even content in this game that makes that weapon even necessary, the fact that a stage 2 completed relic (just fates and dungeon grind, can be done in less then 3 days tbh) gets you an i200 weapon which is your eso weapon but with better stats and not costing Eso? Like how is that a negative. You don't even have to get the weapon because there isn't challenging content enough to require it outside of Alex Savage and Thordan EX, which you're not doing anyway if you are concerned about Relic weapons lol...

[Starbirth]

Exactly! There are other and honestly better alternatives to relics, go do Savage Alex or Thordan EX.

The problem is these alternatives are less accessible than their 2.0 counterparts.

[Belhi]

The problem is these alternatives are less accessible than their 2.0 counterparts.

This is something they addressed though in the last live letter. Midas Savage will have its difficulty tuned down and its rewards tuned up.

[Lilith_Merquise]

How exactly did Atma help the game? If people weren't complaining about the grind itself, it turned Fates from a mindless zerg to an even more mindless zerg that newbie players may get pushed out of.

so you're saying that people actually DOING HW Fates is a bad thing? Because did you see the zones before and after Atma Grinds? On top of that there are fates that are gated behind doing other fates in a chain or just doing fates at all in that zone to spawn them? Also the people that wanted to que up for a dungeon but had to choose that or put your chocobo out to heal yourself because you were the only one out there doing fates and if you couldn't keep yourself alive it was one or the other (DPS ques I'm looking at you).

Saying that "Atma Grinds" were bad for the game couldn't be further from the truth IMO, it put people in an unpopulated places, and honestly made people discover things that thy wouldn't otherwise know about the zones because nobody did them.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Don't dodge the question, Starbirth.

And Lilith, noticed how I said Atma and not Animus. I think the only reason people say Amta pre nerf was a good thing was because it helped them out grinding Fates if they weren't doing the Atma grinds themselves and this was before the devs made EXP grinding easier as 3.0 was coming close to launch. Fates could have been something more, more variety in them would have been nice. Heck, the whole reason a lot of people were up in arms over the relics then and now was rehashing old content time and time again. That can only keep people reeled in for so long until they just say screw it and wait till the relic steps get nerfed before doing them again. That in the long term won't help anyone.

[Lilith_Merquise]

@milessaintboroguh
Got confused because both require "Atma" an figured nobody would be discussing useless 2.x content when current 3.x content makes it irrelevant... And stating a gripe about something that by all accounts is improved in 3.x just seems like a non-starter for debate. If you're expecting intense stuff from fates, keep in mind people have to do it for leveling, if you want challenging fights, do EX primals or Savage Alex, looking for challenge in fates is just preparing yourself for disappointment. Personally I want to see more out of Diadem bing that it is an innovative system FOR THIS GAME, but also new systems especially ones that harken back to 11 times Salvage, Assaults, and Nyzul Isle. That would make my life in this game.

@Ibi then you plug away? Whats wrong with spending time on content when there is nothing else to do? What are people in such a rush for? The content you get isn't even required to do anything in the game anyway. So why does it matter if it takes you a week or a month? At least you have something to do that you want. And if that isn't appealing to you, then you will tend more towards games that are action and achivement based rather then MMOs that are Time Applied = Reward Appreciation. You appreciate more what you put more time in.