Alienation of Dedicated and Skilled players

[Reinha]

The joy of a good horizontal system is that you wouldn't have just the one weapon to pick from, but perhaps dozens of different weapons that all played slightly different. One sword's auto attack might be a small AoE, another sword's attack might occasionally apply a dot to the enemy, another sword might funnel emnity from your party to yourself with each blow, another could have a small chance to summon a friendly Beastman to help you fight for 10 seconds every time you parry, etc. It wouldn't be one weapon that lasted, but a whole collection all with different strengths,

For example, if Bismarck dropped this cool cleaving weapon, Ravana dropped a dot weapon, Thordan dropped a threat weapon, Sephirot dropped a spawn weapon and Nidhogg dropped a weapon that radiates healing to everyone. If I like the idea of being a passively cleaving melee and obtain that weapon when it comes out in the first patch, what am I supposed to do in the next patches when there are no upgrades I like for a weapon? If you make one weapon better than the others and give a reason to run the next fights, it becomes vertical progression.

The nature of horizontal progression is that less people run multiple pieces of content, because they are only aiming for one or two pieces of gear out of many options, instead of obtaining each option to continuously increase their power (vertical progression). We can't swap gear in combat and we have restricted inventory space so people would feel discouraged to run all the content for rewards and get all the different pieces if they are the same strength. This means less groups running each piece of content, unless you make it take a very long time to obtain your desired piece (the same people would run that instance/content more which would populate said instance/content).

[Reinha]

For example, if Bismarck dropped this cool cleaving weapon, Ravana dropped a dot weapon, Thordan dropped a threat weapon, Sephirot dropped a spawn weapon and Nidhogg dropped a weapon that radiates healing to everyone. If I like the idea of being a passively cleaving melee and obtain that weapon when it comes out in the first patch, what am I supposed to do in the next patches when there are no upgrades I like for a weapon? If you make one weapon better than the others and give a reason to run the next fights, it becomes vertical progression.

The nature of horizontal progression is that less people run multiple pieces of content, because they are only aiming for one or two pieces of gear out of many options, instead of obtaining each option to continuously increase their power (vertical progression). We can't swap gear in combat and we have restricted inventory space so people would feel discouraged to run all the content for rewards and get all the different pieces if they are the same strength. This means less groups running each piece of content, unless you make it take a very long time to obtain your desired piece (the same people would run that instance/content more which would populate said instance/content).

No one in favor of horizontal progression has answered this yet. What to do when all you get every patch are just sidegrades instead of upgrades and you are already happy with what you have? A change that supposedly makes pve interesting actually gives us less reason to do content and leaves us nothing but vanity to chase.

[Lorielle]

No one in favor of horizontal progression has answered this yet. What to do when all you get every patch are just sidegrades instead of upgrades and you are already happy with what you have? A change that supposedly makes pve interesting actually gives us less reason to do content and leaves us nothing but vanity to chase.

There isn't any answer for that because not every piece of gear would be upgradable. Your gear would be situational at best if your example. But this doesn't have to be full blown vertical to horizontal progression as many people are trying to perceive it as. People see things differently. I personally want some variety in a DPS rotation. Some situation pieces could do that depending for example. Or say Nidhogg weapons have attributes to do bonus damage against Nidhogg(makes running him multiple times easier). It doesn't need to be huge or anything. There's plenty of ideas littered here. You just have to consider them and how it would work instead of outright disagreeing with it. Even then, it's not even solely based on horizontal progression or item customization. There's more issues with XIV than just that. This one just quickly becomes the hot topic each time.

I deny your suggestions because I just don't like them and you assume everyone needs to agree with you. Don't put your lot in with someone who is better at getting their point across than you without the "holier than thou" attitude your posts ooze.

Calm yourself. Your assumption of me assuming that is any better how? Which is far from the truth, but again...Perception. Clarification goes a long way. Tone down the hypocrisy a little bit. I have no qualms with people disagreeing and backing their statement with reasoning. But to say, "No it won't work because I don't like it" is a poor refute in any stance. You claim to be open minded but are quick to deny suggestions.

Now you can keep attacking me if you want or you can actually speak on a civil plain if you desire. I'll gladly combat you either way until someone wants to chime in.

[Zari]

P.S. Bourne has a point. If you think SE would rather change an entire system of the game to cater to a very small minority of the community rather than keeping the current system which the majority are fine with and/or enjoy, you are foolish.

[HeavenlyArmed]

P.S. Bourne has a point. If you think SE would rather change an entire system of the game to cater to a very small minority of the community rather than keeping the current system which the majority are fine with and/or enjoy, you are foolish.

The thing is, as I explained, it's very easy to make changes that would both please people like OP to some degree and not only not alienate the casual playerbase, but also not take a whole lot of extra dev effort. In fact, they're even making room for a new stat anyway if they end up deciding to remove accuracy like Yoshi-p suggested they're considering at a recent interview.

[Seraphix2407]

P.S. Bourne has a point. If you think SE would rather change an entire system of the game to cater to a very small minority of the community rather than keeping the current system which the majority are fine with and/or enjoy, you are foolish.

I actually think Yoshida desveres more than this. I mean, he saved their asses (for a while, until the cow stops). One day, just one day, when he actually get more money, resources etc for a lot more content, then most RPer will bat an eye and whine about they didn't get the new fashion vanity, but instead they have to do battle content. I pray this day come, because It will put a smile on my face. Not because I can get more stuff to do, but sitting back and see how they struggle and then say they gonna quit game because there wasn't enough vanity lol.

[Ilenya]

I actually think Yoshida desveres more than this. I mean, he saved their asses (for a while, until the cow stops). One day, just one day, when he actually get more money, resources etc for a lot more content, then most RPer will bat an eye and whine about they didn't get the new fashion vanity, but instead they have to do battle content. I pray this day come, because It will put a smile on my face. Not because I can get more stuff to do, but sitting back and see how they struggle and then say they gonna quit game because there wasn't enough vanity lol.

Funny. Most RPers would just...Do the content. Shocking.

...Wildstar flopped. A lot due to failures in marketing...

Gee, NCSoft being a failure at marketing. How surprising.

I'm not bitter.

[Seraphix2407]

Funny. Most RPers would just...Do the content. Shocking.

Translation: "I want more content that only 5% of the server population can do and exclude jobs that cannot do optimal damage."

What does this say to you?

First and foremost, knock of the massive presumptions of what I do. You are not me, and therefore have no idea how I choose to spend my time.

Well from your older post in this thread it seems like It. I'm not trying to attack you, but you give me (maybe others) a vibe that it's only fine to have fun aka RP or sit around doing almost nothing but chatting to people. I'm sorry if you feel I attacked you, which wasn't my goal at all. But I still stay on what I said, you do preach of and make it sound like ''just because I don't like it, we shouldn't have it'' sorta attitude.

[Ilenya]

What does this say to you?

It tells me that he isn't talking for me with his translation?

I feel like I should make my actual stance known before someone takes anything I say way out of context.

I do not personally run high tier things. I don't savage, and I have yet to actually be in an Ex fight when it was actively the highest tier primal (except maybe Shiva? I dunno.) My reaction to Coils locking the 1.0 story behind the high tier raid was basically to hold off on it, since I knew I wouldn't be very good at it, and wait until I could get a chance to actually run it (I think I went into T1 before echo, but nothing afterwards, just as an example. Also, still haven't finished it, but mostly due to not knowing the fights at all at this point.)

I get why people are complaining about the lack of content designed for horizontal building as opposed to vertical, but at the same time I personally am not worried. If they get it in, cool! More power to the people who run it. If not? I'm not worried.

That said, trying to set this up as an "Us vs. them" in regards to what is being released is basically trying to break up the playerbase for no good reason whatsoever. It is entirely possible for multiple things to be worked on at once, so potentially SE could set up a group of people who only work on the more hardcore-style aspects, and I would be perfectly okay with it, even if I don't run it myself.

Also, though I am sure this has been mentioned before, if they do add horizontal gearing they'd have to do it carefully, mostly because the playerbase would latch onto "X effect is best effect!" and basically make the other options relatively pointless.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Who is even saying anything about a slow multi month grind. Please Direct me to where someone has said this. Referring to FFXI seems Taboo here in that when someone merely mentions it, it is instantly viewed as someone WANTING that grind. NO THEY DON'T. We just want meaningful stats. It could take maybe a day or a week to get said items depending on which route you take. NOWHERE IN THIS THREAD does ANYONE say they want a yearlong grind to get one item and NOWHERE in this thread does anyone actually want a system where only one way of playing is optimal. If the Dev team actually works on making stats differentiated then we could have some faith in them that they would make them interesting enough and balanced to a point where they are all viable.

Fair enough. Let's cut out the grind aspect. Being able to fully customize your weapon/gear sounds amazing, but the issue remains people will eventually math out the most optimal stat allocation and expect you follow along or you won't get into a static. No amount of differentiation will change that because of how damage is calculated. The most you could possibly see is some sort of elemental or status effect on your weapon. But then Black Mage and Summoner lose a bit of their arsenal if Dragoons can tag thunder procs.

Well from your older post in this thread it seems like It. I'm not trying to attack you, but you give me (maybe others) a vibe that it's only fine to have fun aka RP or sit around doing almost nothing but chatting to people. I'm sorry if you feel I attacked you, which wasn't my goal at all. But I still stay on what I said, you do preach of and make it sound like ''just because I don't like it, we shouldn't have it'' sorta attitude.

Considering I made no mention of RP nor has anyone else, I don't see how you reached that conclusion. Nevertheless, my stance isn't, "you shouldn't have this," but that SE won't overhaul a system that their larger audience prefers simply to appease a much smaller crowd.

If they can find a way of catering to everyone, fantastic. But I doubt we'll ever see horizontal progression of any kind in this game.