Quote Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion View Post
Stuff
Pretty much how I feel. vertical progression on the whole isn't rewarding and thus I spend a large amount of time inactive / unsubbed. I would kill for a decent amount of horizontal progression. where I know my time invested isn't going to be for nothing in a month when the next patch comes out.

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

horizontal progression would also allow for a greater variety of content as well, creating content where sword a is better than sword b but also content where sword b is better than sword a. and maybe content where sword c is better. this could be done any number of ways from something as simple as varying mobs a bit, have content full of mobs that hit hard and fast but have low evasion, then have content full of mobs that maybe don't hit as hard but will dodge like crazy, that's just one way of doing it.

in a way 1.23 demonstrated this quite well. at least as a tank, going against king mog or co-co my gear choices would focus on having enough hp to survive big hits. going against garuda or miser though my gear would focus more on doing as much damage as possible, and against ifrit / nael I tended to go more balanced and self sufficient. to free up other party members to do other things, and there wasn't really much gear that was the best piece in every situation. which kind of hinted at a degree of horizontal progression