Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[Andrea]

@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.

The problem comes when people could literally finish the atma stage in an hour when it first came out and some poor person could be still on it and not seen one drop after a month.

That is not good game design. Its ok to make something that takes a while, but RNG is not good.

[Ibi]

@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?

As I said in the post directly preceding yours: "No one's suggesting that every time someone enters a piece of content they should walk away with one of the available rewards."

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.

The issue is not when it takes weeks to get a reward. It's when it takes person A one or two days to get the reward and person B two or three weeks to get the reward.

Having the connection between effort invested and rewards obtained being completely random is a really effective way to increase player frustration and drive them away from the game.

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.

Even if that weren't completely subjective, it's only true up to a certain extent.

Most people have thresholds beyond which the time applied ceases to worth the reward, and they stop putting the time in altogether or beyond which the continued time investment becomes so burdensome that even when they get the reward it no longer feels like a reward; they're simply glad that the grind is over.

[Taei]

Agree, a lot of people that I've known since 1.0 and 2.0 are quitting now. The game is getting boring. There is nothing to do. And patches are severely lacking in content. I may quit myself soon.

[Revenant9]

It's a sadly very bland mindless progression, to put it bluntly what we have is thousands of cookie cutter job toons running around or standing around, all mindlessly grinding their dailies to hit 210 left and right side, for the casuals they will most likely do VA and perhaps slowly upgrade their eso, by the time the next gear comes out they will have enough 210 eso upgrades and probably no weekly cap so will just end up with it anyway. It's sorta like hey lets all race for the newest gear this -i5-i10 gear is junk now or glamour, repeat every 6 months or year.

What I truly miss about xi was you never knew what variation or armor kit someone had when joining an xp party or doing sky or sea, yep typically people had their scorp harness or hauberk but that was needed, however there was room for macro gear for ws and so on, plus alternate builds that made tons of outdated gear totally viable at 75.

[Xellos2099]

It's a sadly very bland mindless progression, to put it bluntly what we have is thousands of cookie cutter job toons running around or standing around, all mindlessly grinding their dailies to hit 210 left and right side, for the casuals they will most likely do VA and perhaps slowly upgrade their eso, by the time the next gear comes out they will have enough 210 eso upgrades and probably no weekly cap so will just end up with it anyway. It's sorta like hey lets all race for the newest gear this -i5-i10 gear is junk now or glamour, repeat every 6 months or year.

What I truly miss about xi was you never knew what variation or armor kit someone had when joining an xp party or doing sky or sea, yep typically people had their scorp harness or hauberk but that was needed, however there was room for macro gear for ws and so on, plus alternate builds that made tons of outdated gear totally viable at 75.

Who really care what gear other people have as long as it does the job effectively? Actually i take that back. When I was hostign thordan ex pt last month i often check if they have all eso or pink gear. If all they have are those then I tend to get a bit worry.

[Seryl199]

This is purely anecdotal, but in my experience, ever since I fell out of raiding, there has been no pressure to keep my gear ahead of the curve. The predictability of progression reduces my motivation for getting upgrades in the first place, knowing that a superior version can be obtained for less effort in a future patch. This essentially put me in a backslide to the lower end of the gear spectrum where I benefit more from the numerous catch up options that are available.

Once I unlock the current tier of EX dungeons (I know, I'm pretty far behind), I'd have 4 sources to easily upgrade my 3.0 gear, with a very straightforward, intuitive sense of progression: new dungeon drops (185), Alex NM (190), Eso's (200), and Void ark (200-210). This is in pretty stark contrast to players that have kept up with the curve, who have played out Alex NM for 190 drops and geared out in Eso's by the time 3.1 landed. Their gear has already obsolesced the i185 dungeon drops and most of Void Ark. It confuses me that there is a nice, clean ladder of progression, but it's only there every other patch, and it's possible to outgear that progression before it even hits.

[Critical-Limit]

I like how people are unintentionally showing they find the content boring, but defend it by saying it's ok as long as it's fun 1-3 times and I get my drop.

I remember when games use to be "fun" and you didn't mind the grind because of the challenge that came with it. Oh well.

[Hix]

It's been 2.5 years since 2.0 launched. FFXIV will never become FFXI. It's time to accept that.

As for why the gearing is the way it is, it's to avoid the "Can't catch up" problem. Why are you worried about the jump from i40 to i110 in obsolete content? Do you think new players are going to want to be grinding through a year and a half of old content before they can join everyone in Ishgard? And you need 110 gear to survive Heavensward content, especially if you are new. So that's why the MSQ gives out 110 gear between Ultima Weapon and Steps of Faith, so new players don't have to grind AK for two weeks, then grind Tam Tara for two more weeks, etc, just to get to Ishgard. And that's why the tiers are always going to be the previous tier = uncapped tokens, current tier = capped tokens.

[Lemuria]

As for why the gearing is the way it is, it's to avoid the "Can't catch up" problem. Why are you worried about the jump from i40 to i110 in obsolete content?

And here we come to the crux of the problem. Why is content so quickly made obsolete? Why is the climb not as enjoyable as the endgame? As someone already pointed out, many of the equipment pieces in FFXI were still valid and valuable at high levels, because of the stats. There were unique and interesting stats across the board, and enemies of all levels to battle or hunt which could drop something of use.

Here, we have everything at one level, and all with the same statistics. The only way something is objectively better than something else is by an arbitrary number. Like I said, this issue runs deep, and SE need to start considering the future of the game, because this cycle won't keep people's interest forever.

[Zumi]

And here we come to the crux of the problem. Why is content so quickly made obsolete? Why is the climb not as enjoyable as the endgame? As someone already pointed out, many of the equipment pieces in FFXI were still valid and valuable at high levels, because of the stats. There were unique and interesting stats across the board, and enemies of all levels to battle or hunt which could drop something of use.

It was more due to the fact the power of an item in FFXI was not linked to a level of an item it could have over powered stats. For example Peacock Charm a neck piece which gave 10 accuracy and 10 ranged accuracy and it was a lv33 item. Now then on your way to lvl cap there were no better neck items that could give more accuracy so people kept using it. Was having 10 accuracy all that interesting? no not really its just FFXI had no rules that linked the power of an item to its level so you would get odd low level items that had a high level of power that couldn't be beat even by level cap gear.