Quote Originally Posted by Osias_Qol View Post
In my opinion Horizontal progression will never be able to work in this game the way people from say XI remember it working in that game.
Well no, of course not. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that. The point being made, as far as I'm interpreting it, is simply to add in horizontal elements and features. Not a full overhaul into being FFXI-2.

Trying to implement a full horizontal model at this point wouldn't mix well with what's already here. It would be like tossing a bucket full of spiders onto a person with arachnophobia. It wouldn't go over well.

In this game the stats are so streamlined with no way or need to change gear mid fight. What would they do to add horizontal progression that is meaningful?
Indeed, but it really wouldn't matter though. As a bit of preliminary planning before entering a fight could solve that issue. Although I would imagine there would be certain gear pieces at some point (that due to their aspects) would be considered "must haves" and would ultimately end up seeing a lot of use. Either way, the great thing about this is that it gives a whole new level of variety to the game. In that there could be multiple ways of going about tackling content versus just equipping BiS, and then following some youtube guide.

They can add some kind of ability enhancements or set bonuses to make you consider raw stats or bonus but that is about all I can see with such a stream lined system.
They can start to bloat the game with new stats like double attack but some how I think they want to avoid that.
To be honest that's all they would really need though. All they need to do is basically find a sweet spot for item levels, say 200-250 (just throwing a number range out there). Beyond that just add in ideas that you just mentioned.

The benefit to this is that whenever a new expansion hits we can always keep the starting item levels for those expansions at a roughly standardized number. After that people can just progress as normal to the item level sweet spot, and use unique ability enhancements or special set bonuses to give the gear relevance. In this way the "catch up curve" for new incoming players is virtually non existent. All they need to do is play the main story line quests from the first game, and then progress into whichever expansion they want. The benefit to the veteran players is obvious in that we don't have to play the eternal treadmill game for gear that only gives a bland and uncreative stat boost.