Will they ever stop with constant Vertical Progression?

[Ragology]

I'm not sure how to fix this. Even if all the numbers inflated, they'd just up the mob stats and we'd still be playing the same game.

[LineageRazor]

I think they've said already that they won't be doing this, because no matter what, there will always be a "best of" build that everyone will flock to, making all that development time pretty much wasted. I, too, wish they'd do *something* but I'm not sure what that something is.

The answer is situational traits. Stuff that's good in some fights, and worse in others. As an example, let's go back to the days of Turn 2 before enrage farming was an option and folks actually had to deal with Allagan Rot. Now, let's introduce a piece of armor with terrible stats, but reduces the recast for Blunt Arrow to two seconds. Suddenly, you have a BRD that can silence High Voltage every time - even if you kill the Quarantine Node to disable Allagan Rot, which makes the boss SO much easier. Now you have two pieces of desirable gear - the normal vertical progression gear for damage, and the Blunt Arrow gear for instances where things frequently need to be silenced.

Of course, this means that every BRD will be expected to obtain BOTH pieces of gear, but it does introduce gear variety - and it also introduces a piece of gear which remains useful for a long period of time, as that Blunt Arrow enhancement remains useful regardless of the other stats on the gear.

It bears mentioning, though, that this makes BRD pretty much indispensable for stuff where Silence is needed - and making one job indispensable is one thing SE is hoping to avoid. It's a tradeoff, and as someone who came from an MMO where jobs cycled through "flavors of the week" nigh constantly (some jobs must-have, others practically ignored, and which was which could change every patch) I know how bad this can be. It does make things more INTERESTING, though, and to me that's more important than ensuring that every job is included, always.

[Ibi]

It does make things more INTERESTING, though, and to me that's more important than ensuring that every job is included, always.

Is that really more interesting though?

You're still not having to even think about what piece of armor to equip in any particular situation. If you need to silence frequently, you put on the low recast armor, and go about your business. If you don't, you wear your normal armor, and go about your business. The only real difference between what we have now and what we'd have under those conditions is that if you want to do the content that requires frequent silencing, the group must have a bard with that piece of equipment. It's additional constraints without adding any real depth.

In general, there are a lot of advantages to a vertical progression system (and I'm aware I'm focusing on the pros and not the cons here):

1. Your character gets noticeably stronger over time. In addition to being able to feel a sense of progression, this (in theory) allows the difficulty of older content to be eased without the need for extensive manual adjustments by the developers.
2. The pace of rewards can be fairly frequent, since they're not intended to last for very long periods of time.
3. Balancing a simple vertical progression system is much easier. Players never have to worry about being excluded because you've had poor luck obtaining a rare but extremely powerful item.
4. You don't have to keep running old content that you may have mastered months ago and completed dozens of times, just because its rewards remain relevant.
5. Even if it's not by much, rewards from new content can be clearly better than rewards from old content, meaning there's always an incentive for everyone to run new content.

[MomomiMomi]

In general, there are a lot of advantages to a vertical progression system (and I'm aware I'm focusing on the pros and not the cons here):

I see 1, 4 and 5 as cons.

[Dzian]

I feel the OP. this ia why my sub often lapses for months at a time. I don't care about gear it's not worth making the effort to get as a you'll get it anyway regardless and b you know you'll be tossing it in a couple of weeks. so I often let my sub lapse come back a few months later catch up with the story and let my sub lapse again..... gear is worthless so it's not worth going out of your way to get it.

I quit end of ARR came back to heavenward about 3 monhs ago and in a couple of weeks had my main class to 60 and kitted out at i207 skipped several tiers of useless gear that a lot of people spent hundreds of hours getting...

Also, there is so much to do!

And yet nothing to do at the same time.... there is tons of content undeniably, yet for so many people its pretty much do dailies / weeklies and log off as there's nothing else to do... or nothing "worthwhile" at least which stems directly from vertical progression making 98% of the games content obsolete...

I think they've said already that they won't be doing this, because no matter what, there will always be a "best of" build that everyone will flock to, making all that development time pretty much wasted. I, too, wish they'd do *something* but I'm not sure what that something is.

This depends heavily on "content" if the content is varied enough then there won't really be a "best of" build at all. because while a particular build maywork great in one content it might lack in another.

if you were a tank in 1.0 you'd have seen this. there was no best of build even with the incredibly limited content available in 1.0 a tank build that was amazing for chimera was far from great against miser or coincouter or even garuda.

healers saw it to where there builds focussed either on enhancing magics and maxing regens/ stoneskins, or healing magics and maxing your cures. which was better often varied according to situation.

blms saw it a little bit with shiting there stat priorities around based on wheter they would be using thunders or fires, and juggling accuracy, crit etc.

if the content is diverse enough there will never be a "best of" build.

[Xlantaa]

I don't undestand what's the problem with this. I prefer have vertical, more adn more stats every time, than have 56032345342 armos at level 100 only. I think it is logical every patc hadd more item level. If not ,we're still using level 50 weapons.

[Fyce]

I see 1, 4 and 5 as cons.

Why do you even play this game if the core fundamentals it's built on don't appeal to you?
This game is made from the very beginning (at least 2.0) to make older content trivial while forcing you to keep playing in order to reach the required iLv of the newest content. This is exactly why the current patch cycle is what it is and that we get new content on a regular and frequent basis.

Maybe you have nostalia glasses on, but there's no way a game company running a MMORPG in our day and age will ask their players to continue playing years old content on a daily routine.
SE tries to add some stuff to make us go queuing in old content from time to time, but that's clearly dedicated to help new players grow.

... I mean, complaining about vertical progression in a game specificaly built on it seems a bit off.

[MomomiMomi]

Why do you even play this game if the core fundamentals it's built on don't appeal to you?

I actually take 3-6 month breaks quite often from this game. Why bother doing x when in 6 months, x will take me 1/10th of the time because it's no longer relevant, or will soon be phased out? I can take a 6 month break and then catch up in a week. This is a result of vertical progression. It doesn't even require me to play often. The thing is, I want to play. That's why I sub.

Apparently the game doesn't want me subbing often, though.

[Ibi]

I see 1, 4 and 5 as cons.

If you see those as cons, that seems to imply:

1. You prefer that your character not get stronger over time.
4. You prefer that you're still incentivized to run content you've already completed dozens of times.
5. You prefer that the rewards from new content not be superior, meaning there may be no reward-based incentive to run it.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but I'd concur with Fyce that this seems like a weird game to choose to play if that's the case.

[MomomiMomi]

If you see those as cons, that seems to imply:

1. You prefer that your character not get stronger over time.
4. You prefer that you're still incentivized to run content you've already completed dozens of times.
5. You prefer that the rewards from new content not be superior, meaning there may be no reward-based incentive to run it.

1. You can still get stronger over time with horizontal progression. I was specifically talking about this though:

"this (in theory) allows the difficulty of older content to be eased without the need for extensive manual adjustments by the developers."

I don't think that older content should be eased. It should remain challenging, and it should remain relevant.

4. Again, older content should remain relevant. Just because it's "old" doesn't mean it should be useless. Old content is new content to new players. For old players, they've likely already gotten what they need from it. And if they haven't, they probably haven't run it dozens of times.

5. The incentive to run content should always primarily be fun. Although you say that this leads to incentive to run new content, it also makes it pointless to run old content. I point you again to 1 and 4.