IMO - If this game is to stay relevant - the gameplay needs a massive overhaul

[Craiger]

On the point of horizontal progression, it doesn't actually work very well with most players...

Unless you can make every gear piece special in some way, enough to make people care to get it, without actually making them better than what you already have... people are gonna get bored. I can already see the posts on here like: "what's the point of doing X content, when the drops aren't better than what I got?".

Better gear is what drives most players in the game, if you just make all gear equally good, then nobody will care about it anymore.

Why would you keep do dungeons and all other grind things if you don't really gain anything from it? And while you still might want to complete Savage, you would only do it once, then not care about it anymore...

Horizontal progression is brought in discussions for every MMORPG there is, but if someone finally implements it into their game, everyone will realize how extremely hard it is to keep players motivated for long.

One example for me would be GW2, which didn't have much PVE content at all to be fair (when I played at least), but a ton of players left early on in that game (me included), because all gear was pretty much exactly the same when it comes to stats... There wasn't any point in doing anything in that game. Doing content because it's fun, and not because of loot, sounds good, but isn't in reality.

[Alahra]

Horizontal progression is brought in discussions for every MMORPG there is, but if someone finally implements it into their game, everyone will realize how extremely hard it is to keep players motivated for long.

Personally, what I want to see is perhaps three or four sets of top item level gear per raiding tier, as opposed to the two sets we have now. That allows for more varied itemization and a greater number of paths for gearing up. I think the general 6 month pace for horizontal increases is fine, but I'd like to see a wider variety of gear at each "level."

[Craiger]

Personally, what I want to see is perhaps three or four sets of top item level gear per raiding tier, as opposed to the two sets we have now. That allows for more varied itemization and a greater number of paths for gearing up. I think the general 6 month pace for horizontal increases is fine, but I'd like to see a wider variety of gear at each "level."

That's something I could get behind. We certainly need more interesting gearing, and that could be one way to make it better. As with all sorts of horizontal thinking (not as extreme as real horizontal progression though), is that they would have to spend more time making those additional sets, and on whatever way you're supposed to get it... And they are extremely short on staff, so it won't happen until they hire more.

Horizontal thinking isn't bad IMO, it's when it comes to full out horizontal progression that it falls apart.

[Alahra]

Horizontal thinking isn't bad IMO, it's when it comes to full out horizontal progression that it falls apart.

I wouldn't say that it falls apart--FFXI maintained a sizable population, especially for a game of its age, for over a decade. It doesn't appeal to as many people as vertical progression, of course, which is why horizontal is so comparatively rare ever since WoW brought vertical to the mainstream.

In terms of workload, though, they already make 4 gear sets per raid tier: 8-man Raid, Tomestones, 24-man Raid, and Crafted. They could add a way to upgrade the 24-man gear (just like Esoterics really) and get another set. And if they moved Crafted gear back to a place where it's desirable, we'd end up with 3-4 sets without significantly increasing development time for the art team (they would, at worst, need to make sure that the 24-man gear had dyable patterns, if they followed the general trend of upgraded gear being dyable). Even three sets would be a significant improvement, though, in my mind.