Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

[Anty]

i don't see many advantages in the current vertical progression we have.

1) it is way too fast, most of it can be achieved sleepwalking, it's only a matter of time (no gear piece really feels "great to have" since the initial 2.0 and the first relic).
The first relic at least involved the primals but since some people didnt get it right away they cried so much that SE decided to make it a pure timesink.
Sense of accomplishment? it's a lot higher after i clean my appartment... that is harder

2) the biggest problem is that content gets outdated incredibly fast, which is sad. 90% of the content we have is vanity content and essentially worthless - so sad all the development for this short time down the drain. Just imagine all lvl 50 content had something to offer... how nice... (ofc the difficulty would be a bit more similar but still better then running 3 dungeons all over and have 1 raid available - that matters).

3) the ilvl change should be with every major patch, not with (almost) every little content patch, that is idiotic and frustrating.
And it had nothing to do with casual. i would say the exact opposite. A causal that does have less time will never be able to enjoy more then 1-2 classes (how is that casual).

4) you cannot enjoy your gear for a minute since you are always behind. Making other content less valid since you dont wanna spend time in other content, cause you get this left behind feelign too fast.
(i never had that feelign in ffxi which was very horizontal, and i didnt play it from day one, i think i started after 3rd expansion, i had the feelign that i have so many things to do - in a positive way, now i feel like im having a 2nd job, only difference is that at my current job, the "achievements" actually matter longer....

5) why do i still play? i like the ffxiv franchise, i played since 1.0 and i still hope things slow down and get more enjoyable int he long run and get less focus on gearlvl.
if it doesnt change while 3.0 is going on, that is gonna be my last P2P MMO, since so far, a lot of F2P Mmo offer similar vertical progression and i dont have to pay for it (yes there are some that are enjoyable without spending millions in a cashshop - even though ffxiv has one of the most expensive mounts in a cashshop haha)