Thread: From Scratch: 6.0 Progression Systems

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

What current issues do you perceive, generally or in the technicals alone, with current progression?

Regarding items, Vertical Progression is over emphasized, which leads to a number of sub-problems:
- Stat creep (You can feel the gap between each item tier growing even if we're resetting to a reasonable level from expansion to expansion. We're getting to a point where a stat squish is going to be necessary sooner or later, lest SE's oneshot mechanics force their damage calculator to add over a dozen trailing zeroes)
- Item Bloat (materia I-VI, X/Draconic/Max Potions of Stat Grade Y, and recipes to nowhere, with even more useless materials, and all the beast tribe currencies that are going nowhere)
- Limited Shelf Life Endgame Content (Normal Raids, Trials, most catch-up content like 24-mans/Relic that are mostly glamour at this point)
- Limited Endgame Alt Progression (Weekly Lockouts literally prevent you from maxing out more than two character classes per tier unless they all happen to share armor)

That said, there isn't much reason to get gear other than for alts, because Secondary Stat optimization doesn't vary much per class. And in the few cases that it does, it's rare that it offers any meaningful benefit. In the case of skill/spell speed in particular, it almost always hurts the class instead of helps, due to specific issues within each kit.

I'm mostly fine with the levelling progression. It needs a second pass to ensure there's enough to do at the lower levels to carry players through ARR for sure, and I think we're going to need to see at least two traits per class instead of one if possible. Stormblood did some good (if reductive) things with trimming but ultimately we need more of it going forward.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Pretend for a moment that literally everything about progression, except perhaps that clearing encounters can drop loot, is gone. What comes to mind as a cohesive and satisfying way to fill the void and reformat progression as a whole?

1. Add a third form of gear progression catered towards the casual player as an alternative to savage. Make it focus on the overworld.
Implement this a combination of Beast Tribe Dailies, FATEs, and/or Leves.
To this end, we will need to see some FATEs that only spawn in certain conditions, such as doing a level 80 Leve specific to the relic quest, or a beast tribe daily that increases the spawn rate of that fate significantly. I'd like to use Relic as the questline for this and work it into the world. Preferably drawing on what Eureka brought with it and enabling some logogram slots in the overworld within these fates.

It's probably akin to world quests but we could use a reason to be in the overworld far more than in another instance, honestly.

2. For content that drops role/class-specific gear, exclude gear for any classes/roles that are not present within the party, or that all players of that role/class already have.

This speeds up Savage gear progression significantly, and requires people to actually play their alts if they want that gear to show up. This benefits non-standard parties more than standard ones, but they have to contend with the LB generation penalty in a lot of cases, which can matter a bit.

3. Make Secondary Stats more Nuanced and less frustrating via systemic combat changes:

- Implement WoW's clipping mitigation. Whenever you refresh a buff or debuff, add any remaining duration onto the new iteration of it, up to a cap of 150% of their normal duration for the most part. This minimizes the skill speed penalty from using these abilities. Apply this to role action debuffs even if they're used by different players. This interaction already exists in the form of Armor Crush and Huton, so it is absolutely possible within the bounds of XIV's engine. It doesn't need to be applied to all buffs, as there are certainly melee classes that don't need it (Samurai) or that would be actively hurt by it (Monk), but all Damage Over Time effects should have it, bare minimum.

- Allow specific oGCD Abilities to be treated as weaponskills or spells with an independent 'global' cooldown on a few classes that could be improved by doing so (RDM/MNK, Potentially MCH depending on the rework) or are at least harmless (Mutilate/Mug on NIN, melee/tank gapclosers in general).

- Rework Piety as part of the MP/TP consolidation changes into a pure healing stat, and allow all DPS classes to provide some form of sustain via role actions, each with their own niches. Melee keep 'goad' as a resource over time. Casters get an instant ally resource restore with no cost unlike Mana Shift, Ranged get a significantly weakened version of Refresh that sustains the whole party but for less than the caster or melee would do. Add more self-sustain into each class along the way.

4. Make Materia part of your progression, not a gil sink.
Remove Overmelding. Remove Main Stat materia.

Instead of adding Materia VII, add a new form of materia that outright lets you override a secondary stat with one that you wanted. Tie this to the new form of relic progression and let the player earn the stats that are applied to the materia in a secondary log similar to how Light farming worked, just applied only in the overworld.

5. Consolidate Currencies
Allied Seals and Centurio Seals should be combined by now
Same goes for all the old expansion specific beast tribe currencies. Treat it like poetics, it needs to shrink.

6. Relax the item progression a bit.
We should be able to reasonably gear two different roles each tier, with three requiring more investment but still being attainable.