Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

[Lemuel81]

horizontal. Gear in FFXIV is way to over simplified. Gear is very boring imo

[Gamer3427]

Damn, people just can't ignore debate bait can they?

Tis the nature of mankind. If anyone notices that someone has a different opinion than them, then they'll jump at the opportunity to explain why the other person is wrong. And no amount of debating back and forth will change either of their minds on the matter.....

[Reinha]

Hybrid. A higher item level piece should be the best choice outside of raids and extremes, which means vertical progression for leveling and the easy max level content. Once the player reaches a sufficient item level to start raiding there should be more options and sources for gear and each set should be the best option for some encounter.

Highest obtainable item level should rise a little every or every other patch, but there should be several ways of getting that max level gear and they should have different secondaries and bonuses. For example: piece A with crap secondaries but it contributes to a set bonus that helps with bosses X and Y, piece B with best possible secondaries and piece C with a situational bonus like elemental resistance, an AoE proc, mp gain or a self-heal proc that activates at a certain hp %. That way, depending on the content you're doing, it could be worth getting all the options of the same item level so you can use them in different situations. Casual players could aim for the best looking or the easiest to obtain instead of farming them all.

[kyuven]

For horizontal to be a viable thing, you'd need more viable stats.
Each class has a limited number of stats that are worthwhile:
1) Their primary damage dealing/healing stat (STR for melee, DEX for NIN+BRD+MCH, MND for healers, INT for offensive casters)
2) VIT
3) PIE (only viable for healers and SMN, marginally viable for BLM since they need a LITTLE bit...that usually comes from their base stats.
4) DET
5) CRIT
6) Spell Speed/Skill Speed

Games with "horizontal progression" often have more stats than that, or the stats they DO have do more than what XIV's do.
For example: EQ1 has 7 base stats (as opposed to FFXIV's 6) that all play into something for EVERY class.
STR affects all melee damage
DEX affects things like proc rates and crits
AGI affects defensive abilities.
STA is still HP (like VIT)
INT and WIS, in addition to being the go-to casting stats for specific classes, also increase the rate of skill gains (fairly useful til you cap em)
CHA affects merchant prices as well as the success/failure of certain abilities like charm, bard songs, etc.
And this is before getting into stats like "Mana regen" or "DoT shielding" or "Haste" that that game also has.
Unless that happens, you're just mixing and matching to get the best stat array possible. And there's not much room for argument due to the low number of stat dependencies.
The only way horizontal progression has any value is if armor sets are shared like they are between multiple classes.
There's also the risk with horizontal progression creating useless items, something that already exists for some classes (SMN, SCH, and BRD get the shaft when it comes to certain i130 pieces.)
Add to that, vertical progression MUST happen. It is inevitable.

[Gilthas]

Horizontal progression has two big problems for me:

- gear overbloat, where you are forced to carry around several pieces of gear for every slot because each is situationally better at something, which is an inventory management nightmare for anyone that likes to play more than one job.
- and far more serious, horizontal progression ultimately means that gear upgrades will come at a far slower pace, which usually means crap drop rates and severe lockouts

Vertical progression mainly has the problem that your gear lasts roughly 6 months.

Between the two systems, I'd rather have a vertical gear progression.

[Felis]

Why is it always horizontal or vertical?
Is the concept of diagonal too strange?

Example:
with every update the max. ilevel increse by 10 (vertical) + 5 complete sets with the same ilevel but different stats every update (horizontal) = diagonal

[Warlyx]

u cant change gear once combat starts , so options are meaningless , u have a BiS or 2 items that are good for single or aoe , or this boss ect

How its now, vertical with 2-3 gear option is "ok" , i would love to have more options , and a way to customize the gear somehow but i understand that is hard to implement something like that .

[Peachy]

Vertical, because this is a MMO and balance > everything. The community giving others crap for not having something that gives +2 crit is old. Vertical where everyone comes out the same, or horizontal where everyone demands that you be the same? same end result without the harassment.

Keep in mind, Options are not options when there is a right and wrong answer. Just like its an option to put 30 points of INT on my war. The community will collectively decide what is best and everyone will be expected to use it.

[Renik]

I'm sorry to break the OP rules, but i can't just stay quiet looking how the same people keeps criticizing the horizontal system with reused arguments, as a FFXI player i have never been discriminated for not having certain piece of gear, and once i became the sub-leader of an endgame LS i never asked anyone to have certain piece and have always welcomed everyone into bosses, raids etc... and i can say the same thing about other MMOs, except for wow which i have not played for long. This discrimination caused by horizontal progression is a myth, i have only seen it once in FFXI and it was caused by bad design choices on SE's part, who decided to place procs on bosses to weaken them or enhance the drop rate, and the only way to proc those effects was by wearing a relic, a mythic or an enphyrean weapon.

The only discrimination you'll see in this game with one system or another will be the 1 mistake=kick on party finder.

If you hate the system vote against it, but stop trying to make it invalid, you are just confusing people with lies.

Also note i prefer a hybrid mode.

[Peachy]

If you hate the system vote against it, but stop trying to make it invalid, you are just confusing people with lies.

"Online experiences may vary". Im not sure when you played XI but for my 7 years worth from NA launch I saw this A LOT. Class stacking and gear discrimination was rampant at some points. So Ill pretend like you arent calling me a liar and agree to disagree. I certainly could not join a group wanting to be a dps ninja and I doubt you accepted many into your end game groups. (FYI nin was not originally designed to be a tank)

The only way to make horizontal progression worth having in the game is to give us reasons to use that gear. Like places we need elemental resist gear, or higher def because this boss has insane accuracy etc etc. So if the game had those situations, you literally have to be selective about what gear your members have because if they dont have the right gear they will hinder the group. In the same sense you wouldnt let me fill in for your main tank as an INT spec war with dex accessories. (false options)