Horizontal progression? In MY theme park?!

[Sotaris]

If it went horizonatal. There would be only 1 relic weapon. And then again how would that work? Unlock more materia slots? The weapon wouldnt get stronger just different in how it looks?

Same goes with leveling? How would that work for each expansion?

There are some serious problems and if they were to ever go the horizontal route it would take 2 years or more of development time to develop and implement.

Not that i think this will happen but they could use the +1-3 augment system where it get better over time with challanges quests. I don't think we ever will get horizontal as long they gonna cater casual before long term active players.

[Tracewood]

Maybe not so much horizontal, but maybe ways to grind to keep certain pieces of gear relevant like how some games let you "level up" gear pieces. Though it would almost eliminate the need for glamour would it?

I know FFXI let you do that for relic weapons and artifact gear. Thought they were on the right track when Eureka launched, but they hit the breaks on that idea.

[Linx0r]

I would love horizontal progression. Like a few posters have mentioned in previous posts, it would keep older gear relevant. I also would like SE to take this one step further, and keep older areas relevant. Having at least partial horizontal progression is great for longevity - expanding on what is available then incrementing upwards slowly. The current vertical method is not good for longevity and really not a good way to keep a quality game going for a long time. Hopefully some changes are made

[KaldeaSahaline]

TLDR: How could we have more gear variety in FFXIV

I've probably written 2-3 design docs on this exact topic before.

Speaking strictly personally, I think this idea should be handled by the Materia system. It goes without saying though, that some pretty robust changes to the core combat system would likely need to occur (such as balancing secondaries to a more reasonable degree, as well as assigning attributes that synergize with those traits, i.e. crit -> procs, cd resets, or skill/spell speed -> stacking a buff, etc.).

Materia will have 2 major functions:

1) Improve existing abilities in some fashion.

2) Improve general stats.

Different gear sets would have differing numbers of sockets as well as colors. Colors would dictate which Materia you could slot into it. The idea here is that savage gear would be more powerful than tomestone gear, but not necessarily by raw stats. It might have 3 Red Materia slots total in the set (whereas Tomestone would have say 2). This would give the left side Savage gear the unique ability to have 3 ability enhancing Materia, whereas Tomestone would get 2, but some extra stat buffing Materia slots.

A player would acquire Materia in a sorts of manners. Boss fights, quests, dungeons, side content, etc.

Ideally my design philosophy here would be that Materia could help offset tools your job lacks or to improve specific abilities used more frequently for specific content forms. Collecting Materia would be its own system and new Materia would be added at a decent rate. These would be switchable outside of combat.

There would be 3 Materia colors. Red (improve Job skills, or passives), Yellow, usually a generic combat effect, and Blue (+ stats).

Some examples for Red Materia might include (for PLD):

• Avenger's Shield - Your Shield Lob now hits 2 additional targets. The first target hit takes 50% more damage
  
• Heavy Shield - If Shield Lob hits a target more than 15 yalms out, it allows you to cast Shield Swipe next for free and it deals 20% more damage
  
• Shield Draft - Increases your movement speed by 30% for 3s after casting Shield Lob. Your next weaponskill deals 20% more damage
  
• Vacuum Shield - Shield Lob no longer interrupts the current combo and enemies hit by Shield Lob are pulled towards you
  
• Shield Mastery - You are able to Block while casting. In addition, Blocks generate double Oath
  
• Flourish - Passive MP generation increased by 40%
  
• Fervor - During Requiescat your cast speed is reduced by 50%.

These are just a few examples. The core idea is that they all are improvements. You lose nothing by equipping them, and some are more powerful in some situations or by player skill. I.e. if you're bad at managing MP, increased regen (which would normally lead to more Holy Spirits) would be less valuable to you than to a different PLD.

Yellow Materia might be something like:

• Frenzy - after landing a crit, you gain 10% skill/spell speed for x seconds. Stacks up to 3 times then expires
  
• Swiftness - Upon completing a combo, you gain Swiftness for x seconds which reduces the CD of any ability used by the # of hits in the combo

Blue would be basic + stats like we currently have now.

I think this solves the gear variety problem, adds some new collectible/horizontal progression, and also allows players to differentiate themselves.

[Remedi]

At this point you could just create a rune system for skills like D3 instead of relying on materias.

That said while I would agree that materias could be better, this doesn't really adds to gear variety.
Unless we start making materias slots color based and more complex.
More like FF7 perhaps at that point some pieces of gear could have some more interesting effects.

Maybe like linked materias slots where by taking your examples you could link avenger's shield, heavy shield and shield lob together

However as some have said we lack the variety on job skills to make it really work

[Dzian]

The funny thing is 1.23 actually had a good degree of horizontal progression even without endless gear swaps or macros.

The 1.23 whom for example had a multitude of options available. You could spec for mind and focus on your direct heals. Or you spec into vitality and have stronger enhancing magic. Stronger stoneskins and regen even stronger protect.

DPS as well where against some bosses they'd want to stack more attack potency to break through high defece. On others they could go full int raw damage.

And tanks. Could have low up high offence for some bosses. High hp for others. Or maximum enmity.

All of these things helped make gear feel valuable and important. A big difference to xiv where gear is worthless and trash

[Shurrikhan]

Serious Talk:

Fundamentally, I like the idea of somewhat horizontal progression. It makes the world feel a bit more fleshed out, if within reason. But let's not pretend that it doesn't have fundamental drawbacks.

I like that I could have some portion of the game I care about more than other portions, and most of my gearing will therefore be aimed at that, while I may fall behind on others, so long as the gap isn't so significant that I'm unable to progress seriously in a given sector of content . Or, alternatively, I kind of like that I may have to play different sorts of content in order to get the gear that most capitalizes upon my playstyle, so long as (1) my playstyle really is allowed for and (2) I still enjoy each of those pieces of content enough to be at least as happy for the variance as I would be if I were permitted to play only the content type I liked most, or there's still enough exchange between content types that I don't have to play the content types I don't care for.

But, that's essentially all horizontal progression is. It's exclusivity, by design. It might not be felt enough to generate divides in the playerbase in practice, but that really is what makes horizontal progression horizontal -- specialization. Vertical progression may end up devaluing the majority of its content because it has less impact on gearing, and thus contribution balance is essential in order not to waste resources, but so long as there's only one real progression series, at least it applies to everything, allowing you to swap between content types however you please. The pace at which one progresses is the only thing capable of splitting up a group of friends at all, not where they choose to spend that progress.

it keeps old content relevant and that makes people feel like there's more to do. i don't particularly care for it but usually it does do that.

It doesn't necessarily accomplish even that, though. The only way to make a given piece of content last longer is to make it particularly difficult or less rewarding, such as through drop rates. That piece of content won't face obsoletion until there's a better way to get the progress it provides, but people will still finish the content and never look back just as quickly. The largest bonus possible is that, say, more content will be available to someone upon reaching level-cap if they'd fallen behind previously or only just started the game with the latest expansion. But the amount of content simultaneously available probably won't much be affected if at all. Consider what a player could do to gear up if they hit their first 70 at level 4.35. They can do that new Aquapolis thing, the new Palace of the Dead, dungeons within their item level, 24-mans within their item level, normal mode raids, Frontlines, Feast, or technically even Savage Raids to gear up. That's your breadth of content, right there.

That they all form a pyramid leading to a single peak, whereupon one is "done" is not a unique issue: one could still finish and find there to be nothing left to do if there were six or more separate spires instead, one for each sector of content: they'd just feel less connected, such that if you prefer dungeons and your friend prefers Heaven's Tower you're forced to split up once the gearing disadvantage moving across from one to the other becomes too great.

_________________________________________________________

But, let's say XIV for whatever reason turned their philosophy about, 180-degrees, and decided that horizontal progression, as a buzz word, was just... the way to go.

To put it simply: I'd be opposed to anything that significantly breaks apart various content types. I'd be opposed to arbitrary by-gimmick gating like Elemental Resistance stats. And, honestly, I don't want to farm a given piece of content for an interesting piece of gear -- e.g. something that would augment an ability in a way that could actually affect my rotation, such as allowing a chance for Firestarter off of Fire4 and giving Fire3 an additional 40 potency. I'd much, much rather that seemingly be a part of a universal character customization system, to which a certain content type or encounter might better contribute, or might uniquely provide some small part, towards X customization/post-progression option. I'd rather a Relic or Regalia (think: some item set that allows for a unique playstyle) mostly be something you progress towards granularly (outside of a few burstier events to spice things up), not just bang your head against for 4 months and then suddenly acquire.

To put it even more simply: Reiterability of content >>> "Length" of content. Breadth of content simultaneously available >>> Breadth of content paths.

[Remedi]

I insist we need the inventory issue fixed first before we can have serious talks about horizzontal progression

[Ilyrian]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but why the need for it? Unless they fundamentally change how they make the high-end content there is nothing in this game that relies on being geared to the max.
The UwU bleeding edge didn't have to farm split runs for a couple of lockouts (as the Mythic raiders do WoW) to kill it within the first few days. Gear is used to balance the player base skill level over time, not to soft-lock bosses with DPS checks.
So unless the raid philosophy changes and starts emulating the WoW model with hard gear checks, DPS checks, set-bonuses etc - why create a division of the player base unnecessarily?
I believe one of the strengths of this game is the egalitarian approach to gear - nobody is left out because it really doesn't have too much of an effect on the content.
That said, having more stuff to do is never a bad thing - and I do love a gear grind.

[Dzian]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but why the need for it? Unless they fundamentally change how they make the high-end content there is nothing in this game that relies on being geared to the max.

That's part of the problem though. As It only serves to make gear feel even more worthless and even less rewarding.