Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[Preypacer]

All games go through a Honeymoon period. Almost every game I have played had it. For the first month or two when Wildstar launched people were talking about it being the best game ever. Clearly since the game almost tanked that wasn't the case.

I'm not talking about a honeymoon period, though. I'm talking about specific complaints from people about specific content that they find to be repeated over and over, patch after patch, without variation (beyond what it's called), even straight into 3.0. That's not "honeymoon" period. That's people saying "Okay, we've had 1-2 years of this now, and it's becoming tiresome. Can you give us something new and different next?"

FF14 isn't FF11 2.0. Its not going to be FF11 2.0. Wether that is a good or bad thing is beside the point. They aren't going to reinvent the wheel at this point. That's just an unrealistic quantity of work. Sure they could allow more than they have now but its not going to be a massive overhaul regardless.

Err... I'm not asking for FF11 2.0. Neither is anyone else, from what I've seen.

People have given specific examples of systems that FFXI had, which were fun, varied and interesting, and provided additional ways to obtain gear, aside from other means which already existed. We're saying "Hey, here's some interesting ideas they implemented in this other game, and people tended to enjoy them. Maybe you can adapt something like that to FFXIV as well, and give us more options, and ways to obtain equipment".

The desired result here is "More Variety".

AnimaAnimus summarizes it nicely in the first sentence of this post.

There's a vast difference between that, and simply wanting FF11 2.0. Please don't conflate the two.

Personally I find most horizontal progression models become annoying and problematic. I don't want to spend a lot of time tweaking builds to try and find something that works. I hate having to look up guides to figure out how to make a good character, particularly if they are third party. If there is a bad option then I'm of the view that option shouldn't exist other wise its just annoying. I want to play the game, not screw around with a calculator trying to figure out optimal builds. I hate having to have multiple gear sets for different situations and I hate having to get out a calculator to figure out if a new piece of gear with a special stat is better than what I already have.

Nothing of what you just said is necessarily tied into horizontal progression. What you're describing is more Min-Maxing behavior, and that exists in any MMO where numbers are in play.

Put another way, people pull out calculators and fuss over every last digit, or the specific order of their rotations, etc, in this game. They use parsers to gauge how well they're doing, or where they have to improve to hit their absolute best numbers.... and this game most certainly doesn't have horizontal progression.

You don't have to min-max in a MMO with horizontal progression, either. I never did, in XI or any other MMO I've played. It's a choice of play style.

There is a 'what's best for players' trap that developers can fall into when designing games and that is a serious issue.

Agreed, and SE seems to be falling into that trap (again).

There is also a 'we understand what is feasible in building a game' trap that players can fall into when it comes to their expectations of what devs can and will do.

I certainly hope what we've seen from SE with this game does not represent the extent, or even close, of what they're capable of thinking up or implementing. If so, then, well... my concerns are even more valid.

There is also a habit of people assuming that the majority shares their view. Without accurate metrics this is often a flawed assumption.

No more flawed than assuming the majority doesn't share their views. Further, at no point have I ever claimed to speak for a majority here.

The point is, there's a large number of people in the FFXIV community who have been voicing the same concerns, in myriad places and formats. The concerns are there. And that's just the ones openly speaking about it. I've seen plenty of people saying similar things in FC and Party chat, or even in the chat of other games I play. They're not here on the forums saying it, but they still feel that way.

More over Yoshi P isn't simply saying nope. He by allowing people to play a large number of different Jobs they allow a variety of play styles through that and rather than try and build different versions of the same job it would make more sense to him to spend the resources on building an entirely new Job that felt different again and so felt like a real alternative.

Are you presuming to speak for Yoshida? I'm not sure you're qualified to do that.

And, he has absolutely said "nope", to a number of things, in Q&As, in Live Letters, in interviews, etc. Reasons he's given have ranged from "he's afraid it would stress out the players" to "it's not how he envisions people playing the game", and various other rather weak (IMO) explanations. Regardless of his explanation, the answer still amounts to "Nope".

Now I'm not completely against Horizontal progression but from what I have heard of FF11, I don't think I want to see FF14 end up like that.

Well, again, per your explanation above, you seem to be conflating "min-maxing" with "horizontal progression", and the two are not at all the same, nor are they even mutually exclusive. Min-maxing exists in any MMO, regardless of what progression model it uses.


And from your other response to me...

Gah!

That sounds even worse. That's one of the reasons I left GW2. I want to play the game content, not screw around with builds.

Yes, when you cherry-pick that bit by itself, and quote it out of context, it would sound pretty bad.

If you're going to quote me and then respond, please have the courtesy of quoting everything, and not just the bit you want to pick apart. Thank you.