Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Well. You shouldn't have to carry around an extra set of gear to beat content. The gear is simply more of a play-style choice.

Defensive Gear offers more threat+tankyness.
DPS Gear for tanks offered more dps, but less threat.

The downsides are obvious. However, they both had the same amount of health and armor. However the defensive gear had more threat and parry/block and accuracy.

They have the Same Resists, they have the same vitality, they have the same base armor.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

In Every Horizontal Game I had, I always had one set to my character, and I just grouped with people to balance out MY playstyle and my set. I had their effects and gear stack well with mine. None of us switched gear.

Since we played with OUR gear so much, we were much more skillful with that play-style.

[Ultimatecalibur]

In Every Horizontal Game I had, I always had one set to my character, and I just grouped with people to balance out MY playstyle and my set. I had their effects and gear stack well with mine. None of us switched gear.

Since we played with OUR gear so much, we were much more skillful with that play-style.

That is build specialization, not horizontal progression. Horizontal Progression is needing a dark resist set to tank undead bosses, a holy set to tank angelic bosses, various elemental sets to handle elemental damage enemies in addition to a baseline neutral set.

[SDaemon]

I just grouped with people to balance out MY play-style and my set. I had their effects and gear stack well with mine. None of us switched gear.

Since we played with OUR gear so much, we were much more skillful with that play-style.

Random grouping system (Duty Finder) says hi!

[Muchmidget]

I'd have to say 90% vertical with 10% horizontal (though I'll throw out here very quickly that I think they could have done fine with smaller jumps in iLvl/power creep). Take vertical progression with different classes/jobs/profession...etc. and you've got enough play-style differentiation for me.

With strict horizontal growth for gear, I find myself getting bored with my own character very quickly because I can build one set that will work everywhere, forever. Sure, I could go after new pieces for vanity or to deal with gimmicky content (I'm looking at you, resist sets), but those don't really increase the character "strength."

The horizontal progression change I'd love to see in FFXIV, however, would be to add small special effects of your choice (special materia slot or something) to weapons/chest pieces. Just enough for one offensive and one defensive boost, but not enough to upset game balance.

[HorrorStory]

Vertical, imo.

[Nutz]

Hybrid.

Not exactly what was talked about in the OP, but I'd prefer a slower vertical progression with more interesting and potent stats that don't necessarily appear on every piece. For example, most pieces would probably have more stats to them and some of them very potent like double attack, or at least interesting like enhanced regen/ refresh such that something with 'good' stats at ilvl 200 isn't necessarily outclassed by i220, but almost certainly is by i240 or so even if it doesn't have preferred stats.

EDIT: numbers given don't mean too much, essentially I'd like for some pieces of gear to be relevant longer rather than 99% of things being tossed when new gear comes out because it's unilaterally better.

[Gunspec]

I'd like for some pieces of gear to be relevant longer

I hear this a lot, but it worries me. When people say they want slower progression with gear, it occasionally hits me as people wanting a slower pace of content. I know that isn't what you are saying, but I hear it all the time in these threads.

When people complain about vertical progression,there are lots of comments about "letting the game sit and mature before adding more", and they are talking about both the ramping ilevels AND the content with ramping challenge. For a game that has a $15 subscription fee that I've been playing for almost two straight years, I LOVE the rate of content being added, and don't want it to slow at all.

So, I guess the big question is whether or not NEW CONTENT can be added without a jump in ilevels. Could they introduce a new raid with more ilevel 130 gear and not lose player interest? Max ilevel in FFXIV has gone up only twice in almost two years.

[Synestra]

Could they introduce a new raid with more ilevel 130 gear and not lose player interest?

Ah the good old TBC era where you had 6 diffirent raids from day 1 not to mention that ilvl from bottom to top was only in 20-30 range, each upgrade was marginal at best but it was still a upgrade and it kept gear diffirences in check pretty well imo. This also kept old content alive as there was still BiS items in there for some classes even if you were already farming latest content thanks to extremely small ilvl diffirences.

[Lyndis]

Horizontal.

Community and fun gameplay should motivate players not steep gear grinds.