Exotics in XIV: A Possible Answer for Gear that LastsFollow

Yo,

I don't start many threads on the official forums (not sure if I ever have, actually), but today I had a thought on adding some "horizontalness" to this game's vertical gear progression.

Figured I'd post it here, too, since this is my primary community. And also because I know we have some hardcore players here (and resident contrarians) who would probably love to comment on how this might be good or bad.

What do you guys think? Am I on crack, or could an exotic gear concept work in this game?

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A constant issue in this game is the concern that our gear is so quickly "obsoleted" by newer content and rising iLevels. Many have expressed a desire for more horizontal paths of character progression, though this is understandably difficult in a game built to be very much vertical.

One of the big obstacles is the lack of mid-battle gear swapping. I'm personally thankful that's not a part of this game. However, gear swapping in FFXI was a big reason why the horizontal progression was so successful -- players could literally spend years chasing different pieces of gear for each spell and ability.

Here's a way to bring that element of gameplay into FFXIV (to a lesser degree) without reverting to mid-battle gear swaps:

Introduce exotic armor pieces.

In the game Destiny, you can only equip one exotic gear piece at a time. I think this is how it should work in FFXIV, too -- or perhaps two at a time (one left side, one right side). And each job could have exotic armor pieces available for each slot.

The exotic armor piece could be either +5 or +10 above the current iLevel cap. It would have amazing stats. Each piece could also offer a unique bonus that would be great in specific situations (+20 det in Diadem, +10 physical resistance vs. Primals, etc.)

Even though players could only equip one or two pieces at a time (which would keep them from breaking the game), the concept is that players would still pursue them because a) each piece would be helpful in different types of endgame content, and b) with better stats/iLevels, these pieces could essentially have double the lifespan of a normal piece of upgraded tome gear.

And to please the hardcore raiders (and I'm totally not a hardcore raider), exotics could have a fairly high drop rate from the final bosses of the most currently difficult raid boss. These would also be available in other ways, though, such as through NMs spawned by pop items farmed in Diadem. Lots of options here.

If we wanted to borrow a page from FFXI, then these exotic pieces could also be upgradable in future patches through "Trial of the Magians"-style content. It could be a grind-heavy path that would essentially allow anyone the chance to keep at least one exotic piece up-to-date in the same way that relic weapons are enhanced between patches.

Anyway, that's my idea. Seems like exotic gear could bring some much needed persistent gear into the game without making existing options for obtaining gear any less desirable.

Plus, the methods for getting that gear could be a lot of fun.



Edited, Nov 13th 2015 2:02pm by Thayos

It would be just like the golden age of FFXI!

But yeah, I feel you. And I think that's the very think the development team has been trying to prevent through its design decisions. Unfortunately, the result is a game in which there isn't really any gear worth getting excited about.

We already have elitism... might as well have some cool gear options.

I haven't played since before the expansion but if FFXIV gear is anything like it used to be (which it looks to be identical taking a quick look at the lodestone) I'd rather see them work on the basics before shoehorning in an idea like exotics from another game.

In Destiny most pieces of gear have perks meant to work well with your current play style, not just exotics. Each weapon type, each archetype within that weapon type (for example, fast firing low impact weapons vs. slow firing high impact, etc.), quite a few selectable perks make for a pretty interesting selection of possible weapons. I carry tons of different weapons of the same type because they play entirely differently depending on the stats and perks. And that's only counting weapons of the same type, not even considering the fact that switching to a weapon of a different type changes your potential playstyle wildly. Armor also typically gives bonuses aimed at your class abilities and specific weapons, making it worth collecting multiple pieces for different situations. Exotics are the icing on the cake, they aren't the sole significant piece of gear on your character.

In FFXI I'd have also wanted multiple sets of equipment regardless of gear swapping, because different situations called for different priorities. As a thief I would want a set for max damage but I'd also want a set to include some heavy evasion for soloing. On Dragoon I'd want max damage but also some pieces for healing breath and high HP when taking damage (higher threshold for healing breath activation). A scholar would obvious want a healing set and nuking set at the very least. On many jobs I'd want +movement items because they were very useful at times.

In FFXIV gear is extremely predictable with barely any unique attributes. If what I'm seeing on the lodestone is correct it's still basically high item level = higher "main stat," higher vit, and two out of an extremely small handful of other passive perks that let you do X slightly faster or slightly harder. If it's like it used to be, it probably ends up boiling down to "pick the highest item level gear" unless you're doing end game stuff and are short on accuracy. There's hardly any uniqueness to any equipment in this game. A level 10 sword is the same as a level 30 sword, which is the same as a level 40 or 50 or ilevel whateverthecapisnow sword. They all function the exact same way, with that tiny handful of passive perks swapping around from time to time, and providing bigger numbers and that's basically it. To keep with the Destiny comparison, it'd be the equivalent of having one available primary weapon and every single time you get an upgrade it was basically just a slightly higher damage version of that weapon with very little noticeable variation. This would be outright horrid.

tl:dr If FFXIV wants some horizontal elements start by working on making the current equipment interesting to use, make it actually feel different and cater to different play styles. This could be a challenge if they intend to keep all jobs playing roughly the same with little gameplay variation, but if that's what they're going for they'll never have interesting equipment anyway.

I do like your post. I honestly just don't see the core of XIV changing though, which is why something like this could be a good idea. I think they could implement exotics without invalidating any other aspect of gameplay that currently exists, so I wouldn't necessarily call it "shoehorning."

And regarding my comparison to ToM, I'm not trying to be literal. But there could be quests in place where people can update exotic gear with each patch or iLevel update, similar to how people updated their relic weapons during the relic quests of the 2.x series. I did some ToM back in FFXI, and it was very much the same concept, only that ToM (back when I did it, anyway) offered different upgrade paths for different gear.

I think they're placeholder popped, personally. No popped NMs at this time, but that wouldn't be hard to implement now that the infrastructure is in place.

Think of it similar to Voidwalker from XI, where you had different messages based on how close/far something is from you before you pop it. Similar idea from the fresh tracks, which is why the general population seem to flood to the dinosaur island instead of the far better island for farming.

Yeah, it's generally the big central ish island with the sanuwa and trex where everyone floods.

I'm thinking keep it more simplified. Like +damage in Diedum, +physical resistance in Alexander, +elemental resistance against primals, +5 seconds to certain abiliites, etc.

The bonuses on these pieces could be generous because only one or two (at max) pieces could be worn at once. And also, this gear would either be "obsoleted" after a couple of iLevel increases, or it would have to be upgraded through a quest to stay relevant.

The idea would be to give people exotic gear that would benefit them in certain types of content -- not just small, ultra-specific benefits such as against only certain types of mobs.

That's why I'd position this gear to have higher stats or iLevels than anything else in the game -- including primary stats. That way, this gear would give you plenty of reason to wear it in any content, but the unique bonuses would also provide incentive to collect multiple pieces for specific types of content. Best of both worlds.

The idea is much like legendary accessories work in WoW. A single item that has increased ilvl and stats that grants a little something extra than your average gear. The downside is that where legendary items used to be rare(similar to relics in XI), now it's just an item that everyone has. I'm not against the idea, but the name exotic doesn't really fit when you consider that it's something pretty much everyone will have.

The rewards from the mini-expansions sound a bit more like what I would expect exotic gear to be, but since gear swaps aren't a thing it doesn't fit either. Honestly, I feel like this would be better executed in some sort of merit point system where you have limited access to traits, spells, abilities, ect. that might actually be different across players of the same job or class.

I don't feel like I'll ever see that from XIV. It's kinda locked into it's generic MMO safety blanket. I don't think you'll ever see anything in this game anywhere close to the uniqueness of something like a nuke ninja, chi blast monk or bard super tank.

The legendary cloak and ring in MoP and WoD were more like XIV relics. Powerful items that you work on across an entire expansion. Legion is making legendaries rare again by turning them into powerful super rare world drops. Though there's always the somewhat strange possibility of killing a buzzard and it coughs up the legendary boots of amazing. I'm not sure which is better really.

I guess I am the opposite, I like my whole world to remain relevant in my rpg worlds.This trend towards the endless engorging of new content is the reason why no mmos made lately can capture player's hearts and time anymore.Nothing new? Log off until there is. The alternate progression or easing difficulty is something needed, especially if it is content vital to moving forward. No one is asking for forever, just a world that they can reside in, the mileage varies depending on the player.

Should mobs outside starter cities still be important to max level players? Absolutely not in a game with traditional levels. But I would argue, why are there levels to begin with.Does a hunter become proficient at every type of wild game by only killing wild bears with a knife? Would that hunter become stronger and stronger to the point he can cough and kill wild bears close to his home but still die to a bear like a helpless child in the neighboring village? I think all the level capped zones are arbitrary and un-needed, very gamey. Levels are what keeps games from being relevant. If I were a designer and I could make an rpg. I would develop it with no global level, every content/zone has it's own creatures and fauna. And you become proficient at killing imps by killing imps, rabbits can still whip that butt if you have no practice. From that point on, If I encounter an imp of the same name and class group in a different zone, I am still good at killing that particular brand of imp. There would be a skill up system and level system for each piece of content, be it enemy or gathering, or traversing. Guild Wars 2 attempts something like this with masteries but everything is either too easy or too hard because of the level sync system balance. All forms of rewards are usually better in relevant level locales.

I love horizontal systems and deep open world content. But anyone who thinks that is going to take shape in XIV, is fooling themselves. It's been a couple years into the game's life cycle, and SE is not going to take or risk a 180 at this point in the game. They value people being able to group easy which takes balance, anything outside that makes their goal harder to achieve.

Edited, Nov 15th 2015 8:00am by sandpark

Edited, Nov 15th 2015 8:01am by sandpark

This was one of the main things that put me off from XIV. Having so many jobs and classes, I had expected them to spread things out more and make more use of the space. Instead you only really got familiar with the parts of zones where you went to complete a leve or the path you ran back and forth between the 2-3 FATEs you were grinding.

XI is still massive even by today's standards and if you were to consider all of the side quests, missions, exp and NM camps, fishing and gathering spots, daily crafting guild quests and all of the rest of the reasons you had to explore the world, it really dwarfs XIV. Sadly, I feel like that's something that is going to die with XI. Not sure if it's generational or just the current mentality, but it seems like players go out of their way to not go out of their way these days.


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