Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

[Kiara]

In an ideal world, HORIZONTAL.

But given the WoW influence and compromises, I think HYBRID (some Horizontal Gear Sets (same iLevel) w/ Unique Stats spread across 2 patches), and then item Level Increase) is fine. Example of Hybrid:

Instead of the current:

* Patch 1: i90
* Patch 3: i110
* Patch 5: i130

Hybrid would be:

* Patch 1: i90 (2 Sets of Gear)
* Patch 3: i90 (Alternate Set of Gear w/ Unique Stats)
* Patch 5: i110 (2 Sets of Gear)
* Patch 7: i110 (Alternate Set of Gear w/ Unique Stats)


It at least slows down the Gear / Stat Inflation in this game, and gives SOME feeling of your gear meaning something for a period of time.

[Cakekizy]

In an ideal world, HORIZONTAL.

But given the WoW influence and compromises, I think HYBRID (some Horizontal Gear Sets (same iLevel) w/ Unique Stats spread across 2 patches), and then item Level Increase) is fine. Example of Hybrid:

Instead of the current:

* Patch 1: i90
* Patch 3: i110
* Patch 5: i130

Hybrid would be:

* Patch 1: i90 (2 Sets of Gear)
* Patch 3: i90 (Alternate Set of Gear w/ Unique Stats)
* Patch 5: i110 (2 Sets of Gear)
* Patch 7: i110 (Alternate Set of Gear w/ Unique Stats)


It at least slows down the Gear / Stat Inflation in this game, and gives SOME feeling of your gear meaning something for a period of time.

Why do you wanna slow down stat inflation?

[Caraway]

Why do you wanna slow down stat inflation?

Because the exact same stats +5 is... Kind of boring.

I've already voted (Horizontal is something I prefer in general) but I should point out that horizontal wouldn't really work with this game as it's designed. As someone else pointed out, we don't have the stats to be able to handle horizontal without it being pointless. You need different kinds of stats with different affects to combat to really get horizontal progression. Or have equipted/activated effects.

To those people pointing to FFXI as an example of bad horizontal progression, I suspect a lot of that is because of the whole in-combat gear switching thing. If you couldn't swap your gear in-combat than the whole 'hoarder' thing would be less of a point. And let's get real here; who's going to change their pants in battle? That system never made sense to me... Swapping weapons I can understand, but changing out of your actually clothes while fighting an enemy just doesn't compute in my head.

[Sapphic]

In an ideal world, HORIZONTAL.

But given the WoW influence and compromises, I think HYBRID (some Horizontal Gear Sets (same iLevel) w/ Unique Stats spread across 2 patches), and then item Level Increase) is fine. Example of Hybrid:

Instead of the current:

* Patch 1: i90
* Patch 3: i110
* Patch 5: i130

Hybrid would be:

* Patch 1: i90 (2 Sets of Gear)
* Patch 3: i90 (Alternate Set of Gear w/ Unique Stats)
* Patch 5: i110 (2 Sets of Gear)
* Patch 7: i110 (Alternate Set of Gear w/ Unique Stats)


It at least slows down the Gear / Stat Inflation in this game, and gives SOME feeling of your gear meaning something for a period of time.

Patch 1. ilvl 90 Tomestone gear and Blinding coil.
Patch 3: Vertical progression otherwise there is no reason to do the content with the gear.

I'll stop there as 5 and 7 are just a repeat.

So Patch 1 we already had at launch and has been like that every other patch when we got new tomestones Second part, if the gear is needed to progress in the content it is put in, it's already Vertical progression as you are increasing effectiveness. If it's not needed, then whats the point of running the content more than once? If the unique stat gear is needed for the following content for progression, it is still vertical progression.

We update our gear once every 6 months. That is only twice a year. Which is exactly the same as the "idea" you put forward.

How long do you expect gear to last before replacing? 1 year, 2 years? 10 years? a 6 month turn around is perfectly acceptable.