Yoshi-P on Character Growth

[MomomiMomi]

Not sure why people would have multiple gear sets with the addition of horizontal progression. Is this an FFXI thing?

Probably because a lot of people see ideas such as that and think that there's only one way for it to be implemented.

[Morningstar1337]

Not sure why people would have multiple gear sets with the addition of horizontal progression. Is this an FFXI thing?

Yes, from what I gathered, XI allowed you to change your gear during combat. The result being that players would make multiple gearsets for spefici purposes and then swap them in the middle of a fight. Say there was a Boss which phases based on the elemental wheel. You'd start with Fire-aspected gear for the Ice phase, then when he switches to say...Lightning, you'd whip out your earth aspected gear and fight him there.

And XI has plenty of gear that affects certain skills, in another example lets say there 3 Gearsets with these as set bonuses: once that increases enmity for Fast Blade, One that increases enmity from Savage Blade and one that increases enmity from rage of Halone. If this kind of gear swapping was permitted in XIV then the PLD would be able to change gear almost every GCD

[Jynx]

Yes, from what I gathered, XI allowed you to change your gear during combat.

The main use of gear swaps were for your big attacks (Weapon skills) Tanking (Def or Evasion sets) or Elemental resistances for spells (Blackmages would carry around a large pile of staves for each element to reduce resistances and capitalize on critical hits.

So let's say I was playing Thief (Burst damage based) I had my haste and accuracy gear as my "TP" (Resource you gained to use big weaponskill attacks) So I would attack fast and accuratly, when I used my buffs and weaponskill I would switch over to my weaponskill set to maximize damage.

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Theoretically it was pretty cumbersome but it gave you a large variety of gear to work towards and always new things to try and obtain. It was rarely dull looking for gear unlike another MMO we all know.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Not sure why people would have multiple gear sets with the addition of horizontal progression. Is this an FFXI thing?

Aurora summed it up nicely. If different gear influences boss mechanics, you'll have to change it based on the fight. But say they just put special effects on gear. What generally happens is players figure out which is most useful, then recommend only that piece. Say one piece of armour had a chance to make Blood for Blood cast with no cooldown (like how Healers get a free Cure proc) while another piece offered a straight 10% STR buff. The latter piece is likely to win out as the default because it's consistent. I guess you could add it, since it won't hurt. I just don't, personally, see the point.

[MomomiMomi]

My SCH carried 58/60 pieces of gear at all times. Come at me.

[Auteur]

Yoshi's right in terms of the big picture, think of a MMO like running a casino: you don't give comps to the shark big-time winners, you give comps to the casual big losers. Why: because they are much more in need of something to keep their interest (and give you money) than the sharks (the sharks already will stay because they win).

Consequently, there's not enough marginal benefit from attempting to pander the "raiders" or whatever other designation you give to the hardcore folks. Even if they burn through content real quick (cause they hardcore), they are going to do that no matter what and they'll come back on a fairly regular basis. On the other hand, focusing on the hardcore risks a total collapse: the hardcore people (borrowing someone else's quote) burn through content faster than normal human levels no matter what and there will be high attrition from everyone else (because they're going to get gated hard). Hence you lose the "hardcore bored" people AND everyone else, a classic double negative.

[Kaurie]

Yeah I don't like the sounds of the FFXI system. Swapping gear in combat just sounds cumbersome. I don't think that multiple gear sets is a necessity with horizontal progression, that said I am also not opposed to (or for) the idea of having multiple gearsets - FFXIV has a system already in place to pretty easily change your gear.

Yoshi's right in terms of the big picture, think of a MMO like running a casino: you don't give comps to the shark big-time winners, you give comps to the casual big losers. Why: because they are much more in need of something to keep their interest (and give you money) than the sharks (the sharks already will stay because they win).

Consequently, there's not enough marginal benefit from attempting to pander the "raiders" or whatever other designation you give to the hardcore folks. Even if they burn through content real quick (cause they hardcore), they are going to do that no matter what and they'll come back on a fairly regular basis. On the other hand, focusing on the hardcore risks a total collapse: the hardcore people (borrowing someone else's quote) burn through content faster than normal human levels no matter what and there will be high attrition from everyone else (because they're going to get gated hard). Hence you lose the "hardcore bored" people AND everyone else, a classic double negative.

I agree with your post, but I don't see how providing character progression beyond max level counts as designing content for raiders. That would be content for everyone, and I am confident some raiders would love it, some would hate it, some non-raiders would love it and some non-raiders would hate it.

Interestingly, from my perspective, this game already designs pretty heavily around raiding. Once you are max level there is very little to do (combat-wise) outside of raiding. Most non-raiding content is non-combat related (gold saucer, mini games, crafting, gathering, housing etc.)

[Auteur]

Interestingly, from my perspective, this game already designs pretty heavily around raiding.

Having not played a while, I am basically a new player.

Businesses only really care about two kinds of people: (1) new customers, and (2) the really big spending customers. Lets assume that a business can only devote sufficient resources (i.e. attention and service) to one group. Sub MMOs care most about new customers. Why? Because there aren't really any big spending customers; the sub model puts a natural cap on the amount you can get from one person. Hence, quantity is needed to profit. In contrast, F2P is all about getting and pandering to the whale hardcore players: you aren't getting money from a lot of people playing for free, so F2P has to pander to hardcore people dumping lots of cash.

Hence, for a sub game like FF14, there is just not enough upside to try to pander to the "raiders" and add more gates; if anything, SE should go drastically in the other direction if AS is as punitive as people make it out to be.

[Nalien]

Yeah I don't like the sounds of the FFXI system. Swapping gear in combat just sounds cumbersome. I don't think that multiple gear sets is a necessity with horizontal progression, that said I am also not opposed to (or for) the idea of having multiple gearsets - FFXIV has a system already in place to pretty easily change your gear.

I wouldn't even go that far... I don't think my inventory can handle multiple gear sets, I have one for PvP already and it hardly fits... Put unique stats on gear, but copy Final Fantasy IX instead, let us unlock those stats after using the gear... They recently gave PvP presets for the AP you can put into PvP actions, so something similar could easily be possible for PvE... You'd get gear, obtain stats from it, set AP into some of them, then have presets you can switch between... Gear becomes somewhat more valuable, albeit temporarily, but we'd have room for horizontal progression with that, with none of the drawbacks of having to lug around multiple gear sets for single Jobs... I don't think we have the inventory space for that...

Arguably that creates a divide where new players are left behind and need to grind up more stuff, but Final Fantasy IX let you set stuff just from equipping the gear with it on, and AP was limited such that you only selected a few traits, rather than using all the ones you've unlocked... As such, a new player in Scriptures gear could have instant access to enough traits to spend all their AP on, all SE needs to do is balance it such that tomestone stuff is generic and fairly useful for everything, while other stuff is more specialist... Then it's just a matter of going out and grinding this kind of thing to get slight bonuses, which is something that already happens with this game anyway... Someone who goes out and just gets a full set of Scriptures gear is likely to have too much Accuracy, and they're also not using Food or stat Potions, which puts them at a slight disadvantage to anyone who has min/maxed stats and used the best consumables...

I'd really enjoy such a system... I'd likely go out of my way to obtain gear I otherwise wouldn't just for situationally good stats to unlock... 3.4 isn't even out yet, let alone 3.5, but I can tell you right now that I don't give a sh*t about the gear that'll drop in the next 24 man raid... I just don't... I don't even care about Scriptures gear if I'm honest, item level has just ceased appealing to me entirely... Something like this has potential to get me interested in gear again though, I could maybe get a drop from a dungeon and actually want it for a change... Right now that gear just exists for desynthesis or turning in for Seals, with something like this I'd want it for a stat to unlock...

[Koujiro]

I wouldn't even go that far... I don't think my inventory can handle multiple gear sets, I have one for PvP already and it hardly fits... Put unique stats on gear, but copy Final Fantasy IX instead, let us unlock those stats after using the gear... They recently gave PvP presets for the AP you can put into PvP actions, so something similar could easily be possible for PvE... You'd get gear, obtain stats from it, set AP into some of them, then have presets you can switch between... Gear becomes somewhat more valuable, albeit temporarily, but we'd have room for horizontal progression with that, with none of the drawbacks of having to lug around multiple gear sets for single Jobs... I don't think we have the inventory space for that...

Arguably that creates a divide where new players are left behind and need to grind up more stuff, but Final Fantasy IX let you set stuff just from equipping the gear with it on, and AP was limited such that you only selected a few traits, rather than using all the ones you've unlocked... As such, a new player in Scriptures gear could have instant access to enough traits to spend all their AP on, all SE needs to do is balance it such that tomestone stuff is generic and fairly useful for everything, while other stuff is more specialist... Then it's just a matter of going out and grinding this kind of thing to get slight bonuses, which is something that already happens with this game anyway... Someone who goes out and just gets a full set of Scriptures gear is likely to have too much Accuracy, and they're also not using Food or stat Potions, which puts them at a slight disadvantage to anyone who has min/maxed stats and used the best consumables...

This is still one of the best ideas I've seen on this forum, by a wide margin. It makes older gear relevant (and thus older content), it allows certain customisation and depth AND it doesn't invalidate the vertical progression this game is based on.