Raiders of the lost 280 weapon

[Kosmos992k]

Anyways, keep in mind this is a diagonal progressive MMO and stuff is going to get outdated. The only thing that remains is the satisfaction of completing something before the rest, and the achievement with the completion date in it.
I don't care if somebody that didn't touch Savage now gets a better weapon. Why does he need it anyway if he's going to skip Savage anyways? And if he plans to beat Savage with it, why should I bother?

Diagonal? Not sure. I think there is more vertical than horizontal, plus the progression revolves around one thing - ilvl. To me the progression seems almost lke an upward spiral with some horizontal movement, but unceasing upward progression.

[Zojha]

To me the progression seems almost lke an upward spiral with some horizontal movement, but unceasing upward progression.

All progression, by nature, is a straight one-way street, because if you don't progress, you can only either regress or don't move at all.

Similarly, any item in the game is either an upgrade, a downgrade or equivalent from your current standpoint. That goes for every slot and purpose equally - A new DEX ring might be an upgrade for your MCH, but it would be a clear downgrade for your WAR.

So if "Vertical Progression" is an increasing power level on one axis, "Horizontal Progression" would need to be an increasing level of "something" on a different axis and that axis has to be something that is related to, but doesn't affect power level. Basically a 2-dimensional coordinate system. That implies the potential for even more dimensional progression models that can't be graphically imagined anymore but can be described via vector spaces.

Curious to think about. Strangely enough however, most people who say "Horizontal Progression" really just mean a different mode of vertical (augments, bonus traits, glyphs etc).

[Llus]

All progression, by nature, is a straight one-way street, because if you don't progress, you can only either regress or don't move at all.

Similarly, any item in the game is either an upgrade, a downgrade or equivalent from your current standpoint. That goes for every slot and purpose equally - A new DEX ring might be an upgrade for your MCH, but it would be a clear downgrade for your WAR.

So if "Vertical Progression" is an increasing power level on one axis, "Horizontal Progression" would need to be an increasing level of "something" on a different axis and that axis has to be something that is related to, but doesn't affect power level. Basically a 2-dimensional coordinate system. That implies the potential for even more dimensional progression models that can't be graphically imagined anymore but can be described via vector spaces.

Curious to think about. Strangely enough however, most people who say "Horizontal Progression" really just mean a different mode of vertical (augments, bonus traits, glyphs etc).

I tend to think of horizontal progression as more about adding more utility or changing how some skill works or it's effects. For horizontal progression in XIV, the closest I can see is to remove your soul stone to get 10 cross-class abilities and really changing up your class completely; for example WAR crossing raging strikes and B4B as MRD in the old level 50 PvP content and becoming a super tanky dps or MNK dropping their soulstone and picking up defensive cross class skills and becoming a kind of baby tank, SMN or BLM dropping their stone and picking up cleric stance and crossing healing/shielding skills to roll a DPS/Healer. This is what I miss from the class system once you pick up your soul stone. Unfortunately, you lose a lot of vertical progression and role optimization when doing something like this; but it does make for some very unique and customizable play styles. Even if something similar were available under the current (or new stormblood) job system a penultimate combination would be found to compliment each job and it would still be another type of vertical progression.