I guess it's time

[MagiusNecros]

FF14 was my first MMO somewhere during FF14 I played Guild Wars 2 and DC Universe Online along with other smaller ones. Never played FF11, but compared to GW2 they have fun fates with hundreds of people showing up. Loot drops from GW2 events fills up your inventory quick, recently I got a Ascended weapon (pink rarity) drop from a world boss. There were hundreds of people trying to kill a zombie dragon bigger than T13 Bahamut. The fight wasn't like our Boss fates or S ranks were everyone spams attack. we had objectives to complete. some people had to main the turrets and some attacked the boss and then we had to defend the cannons from giant snake monsters so that the cannons could shoot down the dragon when it took off. it was a blast. Had so much fun.

Yeah I had done a boss event where a bum was gonna summon something and we had to take down a bunch of adds to knock off his invincibility buff and then fight the wizard and you had ice tornadoes and crap everywhere like you were fighting a powerful foe and after you beat him and you see the thing he failed to summon crumple you got a big loot chest out on the overworld with like 6-8 rng based drops based on your current level. And every player that was there got all 6-8 drops. and it didn't matter if you were lvl 20 or lvl 80. Everyone got something that was worth it to them. And no rolls needed. And a ton of XP as well. Felt like a damn RPG boss encounter.

Meanwhile in XIV...you kill thing in static unchanging background...have some hoo hah tomestone/seal currency(hunts) and maybe get 50 gil and maybe like 400 XP for the boss and like then a small percentage of your level in exp(some silly fate) and if you didn't get there....? Rip you. You get nothing. Uh yay?

And that's just from an essential FATE on the overworld.

[Beetle]

Its really hard toget away with how the current game has been designed. Duty Finder & Tomes. Tomes are needed toget gear for helping players in duty finder. Duty finder is used to find a party.

If there isn't a duty finder/roullete system then its harder for these groups to find members. Probably end up going back to shouting/throwing PF for dungeons.

I think the best way to fix this issue is to add a completely different kind of currency into the game. Something like buying current patch dungeon gear with. (Like 215, kinda stuff) Also giving extra features for using the points. Like, melds, Sanction like buff, bcnm orbs. They could throw the ironworks set on there also. Exp battle scrolls. Probably remove how you would gain tomes by repeating fights or dungeons, like the only way to obtain the new points is to use roulletes and randomly que for different kinds of content. The new currency wouldn't be used to obtain best in slot. More like, help make money, catch up, make money with desynths with buying armor, buying self buffs like FC buffs.

[HideoKojima]

Lol gotta love this thread, its like chicken or egg story

[RLofOBFL]

Hey look I'd love if they made things horizontal but the reason gear is outdated so fast is bc patches come fast, which is something I do like, it would require a LOT of reworking to change gearing so drastically & add horizontal-ness, & it's a risk that the devs don't wanna take.

Despite all the complaints, this is the vocal minority. 80% of the playerbase don't even use the forums. So there is an extremely high chance devs will ignore anything unless it's within the confines of something minor they could change that wouldn't cause a massive revolution in the game, something they know people will appreciate as it would have no negative effects & won't cause subs to drop. Horizontal gearing might do this if they could even pull it off.

Wouldn't adding this horizontal stuff pretty much require changes from the ground up on the entire stat system? It might be an insanely large amount of work that could take a year of balancing without any other patch work distracting them. They said it took a year to balance the HW jobs & even then 2/3 of them STILL needed massive changes on release & up to 3.2.


To summarize, you guys might be asking for TOO MUCH.

[Kallera]

To summarize, you guys might be asking for TOO MUCH.

We are not asking for too much. The patches may be fast but they are predictable and bland. they are fast because it is not going anywhere new, and relies upon rehashed mechanics and dungeon layouts.

People are tired of the consequences of this. having a grind of THE SAME runs to do over and over for rewards that are not very special and become obsolete with the next patch. yeah many people do not post on the forums, but that doesn't mean things are alright. From the dwindling fc rosters to the pfs with just a smattering of clearsellers, the effects of lost interest in the endgame, for both casuals and hardcores, is becoming more and more apparent.

[RLofOBFL]

An interesting thought:

The catch up patches are an alternative to a level up potion for 60 content. They do it so everyone can gear up & no one feels left out or overwhelmed when they hit 60/come back to the game.

Personally I'd rather work my way up from 150 to 250 bc I find it fun, but it seems people(from my experience & in general) would rather be handed their stuff so they can get to the meat of the end game only to realize there isn't much meat there..they expected a whole cow & got a rat leg.

[Alien_Gamer]

Wouldn't adding this horizontal stuff pretty much require changes from the ground up on the entire stat system? It might be an insanely large amount of work that could take a year of balancing without any other patch work distracting them.

I would disagree, they have the framework in place to do some horizontal progression pretty easily and with almost no extra work on their part.

Patch 4.0:
Release Tome of New Hotness
Tomes of New Hotness are capped.
Release Rowenas Token of New Hotness (requires 50 tomes)
Release Tome gear with certain secondary stats (crit/det for example)
Make all Tome gear bought with Rowenas Tokens of New Hotness.

Patch 4.1
Tomes of New Hotness remain capped
Release new Tome of New Hotness gear with the same item level but with a different appearance and different secondary stats (Acc/SkS)

Patch 4.2
Tomes of New Hotness remain capped
Release new Tome of New Hotness gear with the same item level but with a different appearance and different secondary stats (Crit/Acc)

Patch 4.3
Tomes of New Hotness Uncapped
Release Tomes of Uberness for higher item level gear
Release Rowenas Token of Uberness
etc...

With no increased ilevel you aren't penalized for waiting to get the stats you want, you get more options, ilevel bloat is reduced and overall pacing is slowed down. Because ilevel doesn't increase so rapidly you won't need to rush and get burned out and you can enjoy your gear longer.

The overall framework is the same. They're still doing the same number of gear appearance changes, the same number of different stat types, etc. All they wouldn't be doing is increasing the numbers. You can still have new dungeons, they just wouldn't have a higher ilevel; overall diffiulty would stay the same so there's not really a change there either.

Overall this would have more benefits than drawbacks.

[Xlantaa]

I don't undestand what's the problem with the vertical progression. If they put horizontal progression, why then we should keep playing, if after few patch, the game still stuck on the same item level? What's the point if my stats won't increase? For me, I'm happy with the massive item level difference beetwen patches, it gives pogression, while keep the same item level won't feel at all my character progress. Probably I won't be happy if I still have the 16000 HP from law gear level, compared to the 27000 from full 240.

Maybe you can add more options. E.G, there are 2 options for 230 gear (Lore and Weepng City), 2 ways for 240 (lore upgrade and Laexander SAvage). YOu can add more ways to get gear. three types of 230 for example, and 3 type of 240 gear.

But not stuck for years on the same item level.

[Zojha]

Wouldn't adding this horizontal stuff pretty much require changes from the ground up on the entire stat system?

Generally no - we do have "horizontal progression" already after all. Gathering gear for your Paladin when you normally play Ninja is not fundamentally different from gathering a set to improve a specific ability or gear for a specific resistance on your Ninja. The only difference is that your gameplay actually changes in the prior case, whereas it remains nearly or the exact same in the latter.

The pacing of patches however is tuned to accommodate people who only play one job. Ever noticed that pattern? It takes roughly 3 months to gear out one job in full tomestone equip and roughly every 3 months new upgrade options become available (via tomestones or weekly locked upgrade items). And why is that? Because not everyone participates in the "horizontal progression" we have, as it is considered optional (You do not need to enhance your alt-job gear/levels to participate in content). Plus, some people have a preference for keeping their gameplay the same, aka stale.

And when you add relevant "horizontal progression" on the single-job level to the point that single job players don't get bored, you kill off multi-jobs entirely. And all the while, you also need to keep in mind that you cannot make gear so tedious to obtain that casuals cannot make noteworthy progress in the little time they have or you'll lose that demographic.

I can't say I envy the devs here :3

[CookieMonsta]

An interesting thought:

The catch up patches are an alternative to a level up potion for 60 content. They do it so everyone can gear up & no one feels left out or overwhelmed when they hit 60/come back to the game.

Personally I'd rather work my way up from 150 to 250 bc I find it fun, but it seems people(from my experience & in general) would rather be handed their stuff so they can get to the meat of the end game only to realize there isn't much meat there..they expected a whole cow & got a rat leg.

I agree with catchup, I disagree with the current pace of catchup. Its ridiculous they present content for 3 months, then allow catchup immediately after. I think Catchup should only be possible after the whole 6 months of raid tier is over at the EARLIEST, otherwise, whats the point of bothering with difficult content?