Quote Originally Posted by Gilthas View Post
And you know what I hate when people bring up FFXI's horizontal progression? That they always pretend like it was this spectacular and perfect system and completely disregard the major problems such a system brings with it.

If you keep gear relevant for years, they need to prevent players from getting all their gear rapidly and being "done with the game". This means poor drop rates and lockouts that would put FFXIV to shame. I'd rather have FFXIV's system where I get new gear periodically to FFXI's system where you got 1 or 2 upgrades per year if you were lucky. I spent 3 years on FFXI's endgame chasing a Ridill, Adaberk and Haidate. Only got the Haidate because they fixed Ullikummi. Don't want this crap ever again.
FFXI was not perfect, I can admit that, but Horizontal Progression at least gives players something to aim for. Even looking back to 1.23 there were multiple varieties for people to work toward, there were AF Sets, Meld Sets, GC Sanction Bonus Sets, Darklight sets, Militia Sets and so on - Gear still came out regularly, it's just that there were multiple choices at the level cap for what you wanted to specialise in. If I recall properly, BLM could either go for Crit Rate Set, Magic Attack Set, Potency Set, Recast Timer Reductions, Ability Buffs, Intelligence Set and so on - so there was possibilities there.