Quote Originally Posted by Delily View Post
I honestly have to wonder where you get your information from. That is NOT horizontal progression. You've described a classless system, similar to what's present in UO, Darkfall, and the Elder Scrolls (offline) series. Horizontal progression occurs when developers put a limit your character's ability to grow stronger by gear or some form of leveling mechanics (Paragon levels in D3, Realm abilities in DAoC). Rather, the most traditional form of it is introducing a system where players earn abilities by content. Master levels in DAoC are an example of this.
Restricting your characters ability to grow with leveling and gear mechanics is the simplest definition of Vertical Progression. Horizontal Progression is increasing the power of the player's character and it comes in two forms open and closed. An Open Horizontal Progression there is no leveling and class system there is just an ability tree where Player Characters have a large arbitrary number of skill points to spend in categories of Melee, Range, Magic, Pet, Tank and Healing to build their Job it's entirely character progressive. Closed Horizontal Progression is like WoW where the skill trees are locked behind the classes and ESO is in between the two extremes. Horizontal progression is mainly used as an alternative to the leveling system and answer the end game gear grind that plagues every mmorpg.