More Horizontal Progression please

[Ibi]

People who claim FFXI's horizontal progression failed obviously have no true recollection of actually playing the game.

That depends on why they think it failed, if failed is even the correct word to use.

There were dozens of examples of great items which stood the test of time, and plenty more which people kept for macros to swap items in and out.

I don't think anyone who played FFXI (or didn't play but has done their research) would argue this. It's a factual statement.

The thing that turned people off (and I'd say that's a more accurate portrayal than failure) was that most of these items required luck, massive time investments, or more commonly some combination of the two, in order to obtain them.

Take the events that rewarded long-lasting gear during FFXI's 75-cap era:

Kings (or world HNMs in general): Very long respawn timers with extremely high levels of competition (and frequently botted). Randomly generated loot pools, with the better drops (Defending Ring, for example) being quite rare. Some jobs had very little in the way of usable loot here, especially those added in ToAU and WotG.

Dynamis: Very low drop rates, combined with large loot pools, meaning you could frequently go months without even seeing a specific drop. Competition over zones, since only a single instance of each zone existed.

Sky: Reasonably competitive, particularly against RMT for long stretches of the game's existence. Random loot pools and drop rates, meaning it was possible for the culmination of your work (Kirin) to drop nothing but a wind crystal. Several hour respawns on the pop item NMs. Lots of travel time necessary to get to some of the pop item NMs.

Sea (Jailers): Abysmal drop rates from NMs, with some of the NMs (Jailer of Temperance in particular) being time consuming to even reach.

Limbus: One of the rare events that actually hit loot distribution pretty well, though the boss fight chips limited the frequency with which you could attempt to get the better loot.

Salvage: Even worse drop rates. Frequently possible to do multiple runs in a week and see no drops.

Nyzul Isle: Lots of RNG in terms of what you'd be up against. Smaller loot pools, but most of the drops weren't that good compared to other options.

Einherjar: RNG again. Getting to the Odin fight, where most of the worthwhile drops were, took a minimum of two weeks per attempt, if you had enough mules to quickly farm the feathers from the earlier chambers. If not, it was one attempt per five weeks, assuming you beat every chamber every time. Some jobs had no worthwhile loot here.

ZNMs: Loot was good, but drop rates weren't particularly good, and farming up pop items for higher tiers was extremely time consuming.

I've probably left some events out here, but the general themes should be pretty clear.

[Evtrai]

That depends on why they think it failed, if failed is even the correct word to use.

That's a good write up, sure, I'll admit, FFXI had a lot of range, FFXIV had a LOT of range, I was so incredibly unlucky with drops that I cleared two coils cycles, and while we farmed the subsequent weeks, I NEVER got to see what I wanted, I never got the Monk weapons EVER before the next raid dropped, Heavensward did improve on something, adding these tokens from Alex Savage, and actual good improvements, very good for them.

But you automatically dismiss all those events you listed in a sense that FFXIV should regress and not improve over those examples you listed, sure Kings where the true hardcore content as only super dedicated players did it, it doesn't mean that if they go back to Dynamis, they are gonna have the same Range, range is range, you could get all the drops you wanted on one night in dynamis, or you wouldn't at all, that's luck, but it absolutely doesn't mean the content was bad or was boring.

[Sandpark]

There is room for decent optional horizontal upgrades. The CoP ring was a good example of horizontal done right because the ring scaled vertically as you gained higher levels. Gear made in this nature also helps item bloat lower tremendously. For a horizontal method to work in 14 it would have to do three things.
1.Stat attributes would scale by level Lvl30=Str+X,Lvl40=Str+X,Lvl50=Str+X,Lvl60=Str+X.
2.Ilvl upgrades would be unlocked by special spiritbonding in specific ilvl content. To upgrade ringX=Spiritbond in dungeonX/specific ilvl combat.
3.More content to flesh out pacing at lvl 50,60,70,etc.

This would also give people another reason to want to run older content for more than xp/achievements or tomes helping newer people advance through the dungeon treadmill. They would want to upgrade their items before proceeding to the next wave of ilvls.

[Iagainsti]

Errm... plenty? The CoP ring reward was still one of the best in the game, even after ToAU and WotG were released.

People who claim FFXI's horizontal progression failed obviously have no true recollection of actually playing the game. There were dozens of examples of great items which stood the test of time, and plenty more which people kept for macros to swap items in and out. Granted, we can't do the latter here in Heavensward, but I think there's still a lot of room to work with some decent optional sidegrades which aren't mind-crushingly dull or simple secondary-stat swaps.

Leaping Lizard Boots- on my Nin & Thf from lvl 7-75; still used in macros fro WS from 75-99.

[Ibi]

Leaping Lizard Boots- on my Nin & Thf from lvl 7-75; still used in macros fro WS from 75-99.

And FFXIclopedia indicates that the Leaping (now Bounding) Boots are a <7% drop rate.

People lament the pain of RNG in instances that guarantee 2 or 4 drops every time they're killed. What do you think their reaction to drop rates like that would be?

[karateorangutang]

Errm... plenty? The CoP ring reward was still one of the best in the game, even after ToAU and WotG were released.

People who claim FFXI's horizontal progression failed obviously have no true recollection of actually playing the game. There were dozens of examples of great items which stood the test of time, and plenty more which people kept for macros to swap items in and out. Granted, we can't do the latter here in Heavensward, but I think there's still a lot of room to work with some decent optional sidegrades which aren't mind-crushingly dull or simple secondary-stat swaps.

Leaping Lizard Boots- on my Nin & Thf from lvl 7-75; still used in macros fro WS from 75-99.

Alot of this gear was very difficult to obtain. Can you imagine what a zone would look like in this game if there was that kind of drop rate on a mob that spawns once every 1-2 hours? It would be ridiculous. I remember keeping a tally board next to my gateway PC in my room. I went 0/54 on that drop. 0 for freaking 54!!! Thats almost 80 hours of wasted time. I gave up and bought the leaping boots because it was faster.

Even if they implemented it another way you'd cheapen gear obtained in raids, or if its craftable and the mats arent easy to obtain (once again cheapening raid gear) then it would be outlandishly expensive. These kind of gear options that work for the entirety of the level spread would be game breaking here. The crafting community is already having a hard enough time dealing with the MB, the flood of stuff going to the MB would be a nightmare.

Don't even get me started on gear swaps too, that was a poorly designed mechanic that became unfixable due to the state of the game at level 75.

[Nekodar]

Horizontal progression just means people will stop doing content because they're not really getting any stronger...
It also means you get more gearsets to keep track of if you actually go for what's BiS and BiS varies by content...

Vertical progression means you get stronger over time even if you don't go for BiS... And older content becomes much easier to complete normally.

[zcrash970]

No horizontal progression please

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I would rather have vertical progression mixed with horizontal and proc gear.

[jomoru]

You can choose to wear glamour gear or old gear that's horizontal progression right? But you say "those are clearly suboptimal choices." Well that's the problem with supposed Horizontal Progression, there will always be optimal choices and suboptimal choices. THere's no such thing as Horizonal Progression just Vertical Progression with the illusion of choice and more effort put in by the Developers to lie to you.

I prefer transparency as a rule and not people tricking me.