Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[Cynric]

snip

Well the problem with this pacing was already discussed by Square in the last live letter. Thing is you can't go by Ilvl anyway.


If they hadn't introduced Thordan to help players get through A3S the highest weapon level a casual player could get right now would be 200, 210 if they have a lot of time to devote to the game with the relic questline, but that's time dependent. An average player with limited time won't have their relic before 3.2 with the current quest line.

So a player that has done absolutely no endgame whatsoever will be sitting at much less crit/det/speed/etc. than a player who has cleared A4S and farmed gear through savage.

I myself have not stepped foot in savage because it did not seem worth it and I've had limited time this raid tier. I'm sitting with the thordan weapon and fully upgraded everything at ilvl 208. I have one 210 ring as I've never been in savage even once. My weapon is 205 as I've never been in savage even once.

so the difference between zero raiding and going through the trial of raiding through A4S is currently, 5 levels on your weapon or 10 if you didn't even do thordan(0 if you have time to dedicate to relic) and 10 levels on your second ring. Along with the inability to customize your very unimportant secondary stats.

In the past the difference was exactly the same as it is now, however the raids themselves were more fun. Coil 1-13 if you cleared it when it was relevant the only thing you had over a player who did not touch coil was a single ring, and 5 levels on your weapon. However there was one small difference.

Currently players who have completed Alexander normal have full access to the (in my opinion terrible) style of gear that Gordias savage also drops, lacking the ability to dye it.

When we cleared coil, no one else was walking around with the same looking gear we had unless they also cleared coil, now that isn't the case. That's about the only difference between 2.0 and 3.0 I can think of aside from savage just being harder to do.

The current problems with progression seem pretty well known by Square.

1. Alex isn't worth it.
2. Relic questline was made to be similar difficulty due to weapon level of final step, however neither is worth the work.
3.Alex wasn't interesting
4. Normal mode killed the story progression of savage
5. Rewards from raids are too close to rewards from tomes
6. Older content isn't being done and newer content is dead on arrival
7. Jobs aren't fully balanced causing issues with progression of certain combinations(eg.PLD/DRK)
8.Lack of choice between upgrades. Either do the hardest content, or don't progress your character.
9. Lack of customization between our characters. Monk A is exactly the same as Monk B,

There's a lot of issues right now that goes hand in hand with progression

tl;dr : The reason to progress now is the exact same as it was in 2.0. Things just aren't balanced well progression wise to make those incentives as worth it.