Horizontal progression? In MY theme park?!

[LineageRazor]

I don't want gear that will last me for years. Then I'd have nothing to work toward, no goal. I don't want a static character that can't grow anymore. I'd have no reason to play the game.

That certainly wasn't a problem in FFXI. Gear there lasted for years AND there was always plenty of other gear to work toward.

That said, this was largely because gear could be swapped mid-combat in that game, meaning a given slot could have three or more useful pieces of gear in a single fight (for example, haste gear to build TP, STR gear for the actual weaponskill, defensive turtle build to weather unavoidable damage, etc).

Horizontal progression CAN be done in such a way that there's always something to work toward - but I'm not sure that it would work in THIS game, given that pretty much all a player does is try to max out one, single stat. They COULD have left room for horizontal progression if they had left Primary Stat off of the accessories. This would have left room to put interesting stats, or even special abilities onto the accessories. Alas, it was not to be; accessories are just as important for maxing out Primary Stat as any other piece of gear.

[SendohJin]

That certainly wasn't a problem in FFXI. Gear there lasted for years AND there was always plenty of other gear to work toward.

yes, it was. people used Haubergeon+1, Byakko's Haidate for years with nothing to upgrade.

it didn't get replaced with AdaBerk only because they never got to claim the mob or it never dropped for them. neither of which you wish on this game, insanely low drop rates or rare spawns that less than 1% of the playerbase get to even participate in the fight for an entire week.

instance all those things so everyone can fight them with weekly tokens like Savage and FFXI expansions are all completely done in a 3 months.