[Shujin]

I have often looked at SL2 and have been pretty unhappy with how the progression system works, or well where it doesn't work.

I feel work in a character should be rewarded, to motivate people to stick to said character but SL2 has two things where progression boils down to.

1.) Level cap 60, which is eaisly reached (a bit longer if you plan to LE but its not a huge difference.)
2.) random RNG with loot that is also skipable via friends trading it to you.

While a level cap raise might bring its on share of problems, I thought Equipment might be the better thing to tackle and at the same time, make a grind less frustrating.

Final Fantasy 14 does it, and its frankly a great system for casual and hardcore players alike.

Boss Tokens:
 Keep the loot system as it is, but add a special NPC somewhere that trades specific Boss Tokens(untradeable) for the 10* items or other rare drops they might have. For example:

Necromancer: Always drops one Necromancer Token. Even if you are unlucky and beat him..Lets say 50 times, without ever dropping his 10* you got 50 Tokens. You can use those fifty Token at said NPC and just trade it, fair and square. You worked for it, so you deserved it! but there is also still the chance you drop it randomly and save yourself the Tokens, so mayhaps he could also sell something else for those token? Maybe crafting material (rotwood?) or other things that are not entirely easy to get by.

This way the staff isn't the only thing you grind him for, and you don't have to pray to RNGesus alone.

the 50 tokens were an example and the exact number is up for debate.

If all bosses have an equivalent to that, it becomes much more reasonable to grind for something and we could add a new tier of items/Equipment all together.

I think all bosses lv45+ could drop atleast 1, maybe 2 on levels 80+. it would also serve as an alternative material grinding chance. 

Higher Rarity Items (Untradeable):
Following the above system of working for you shit, on a specific character, we could add items or crafts that purposefully stronger than 10* for example. 11*+ items, with the golden stars turning red. 

Since they are untradeable, you will always only get them on the Character you worked them up for. Higher raid tier bosses could have differnt strength items and the whole game could progress, without touching the level cap, but instead getting higher tier equip with work, similar to FF14 Item Level system.


I am not going to work that out here, but I think having things like that would make both: The game funner in the long run in the progression area and make things more fairly acquired.

Taking a page from successful games might be a good idea.