The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

[Dzian]

Stuff

Pretty much how I feel. vertical progression on the whole isn't rewarding and thus I spend a large amount of time inactive / unsubbed. I would kill for a decent amount of horizontal progression. where I know my time invested isn't going to be for nothing in a month when the next patch comes out.

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

horizontal progression would also allow for a greater variety of content as well, creating content where sword a is better than sword b but also content where sword b is better than sword a. and maybe content where sword c is better. this could be done any number of ways from something as simple as varying mobs a bit, have content full of mobs that hit hard and fast but have low evasion, then have content full of mobs that maybe don't hit as hard but will dodge like crazy, that's just one way of doing it.

in a way 1.23 demonstrated this quite well. at least as a tank, going against king mog or co-co my gear choices would focus on having enough hp to survive big hits. going against garuda or miser though my gear would focus more on doing as much damage as possible, and against ifrit / nael I tended to go more balanced and self sufficient. to free up other party members to do other things, and there wasn't really much gear that was the best piece in every situation. which kind of hinted at a degree of horizontal progression

[Kaurie]

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

While I agreed with your main point, this here is incorrect (in this game). There are plenty of situations where I have seen people do better damage in gear ~30 less than someone else.

[RiceisNice]

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

I'd disagree with this. The difference between a player who knows their job well and a player who simply knows how to play the job is miles apart. On the other hand though, even with gear upgrades it never does feel like oyu ever move up or feel empowered/stronger. All it gives is higher numbers.

[Zojha]

horizontal progression would also allow for a greater variety of content as well, creating content where sword a is better than sword b but also content where sword b is better than sword a. and maybe content where sword c is better.

And then you play more than one class. Gearing (and inventory management) is now hell.

Horizontal progression isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's nothing but vertical progression along multiple purpose lanes. You still improve your gear vertically, except you now optimize independent gearsets for specific situations (such as specific skills, in the extreme case). The main difference to leveling (and equipping) multiple classes is that you do it all on one class.

Actually, the progression here is really quite similar. Sastasha might no longer be relevant for your monk/nature resistance gear, but still for your conjurer/fire resistance gear. And after that there are still a few good gladiator XP/ice resistance pieces there. But after running it through for all the pieces/classes, you're done with that content and never have a reason to visit it again. This goes up to the point where you have the BiS pieces for all classes/situations. That's the moment when you're "done" and can leave the game until better items come along. Which in a horizontal model might never happen. In a vertical model, it's guaranteed.

That said, putting both on top of each other quickly results in gear overload. Not to mention that you'd increase the effort of getting gear for off-classes by multitudes. Lockouts make it a pain already, that would probably kill off the whole thing completely.