Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[Zumi]

That's not what horizontal progression is at all. Horizontal progression as most of us want it would have gearsets that are variable based on the situation. The whole point of it is that there isn't one ideal BiS slot. What is BiS changes based upon the encounter or party makeup. People who want things like skill trees aren't really asking for horizontal progression, they're asking for more variability in ways to build their character.

If you look at FFXI there was a BiS tp set, a BiS WS set, a BiS damage reduction set, BiS Fast Cast spell set, plus you had to swap in all the pieces of AF1/AF2/AF3 gear that had ability enhancing gear when you used your job abilities. Macros were just used to swap between all these gear sets people would use up their whole inventory with gear swaps for 1 job. Also in FFXI people were very picky about joining parties if you didn't have a reilc/mythic/empyrean weapon you would not be allowed to join the group.

Having all these gearsets just lead to a bloated inventory and way more items that you needed to be good at the game.

For example in FFXI here is a pretty updated list of the BiS sets http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46...f-defense-v20/
If you actually went out and got all that gear inventory issues and the amount of gear you need to carry around seems a bit excessive.

[Alahra]

Having all these gearsets just lead to a bloated inventory and way more items that you needed to be good at the game.

Bloated is beyond kind. Back before they finally gave us expanded inventory options (FFXI now gives you the equivalent of like 5 armory chests >.>), I only had like 3 spaces in my inventory to actually receive drops because I carted around so much gear for NIN. Given that this game already has massive inventory problems, there's no way at present any sort of "gear for different situations" thing could really work. They'd likely have to at least triple the size of the armory chest just to start (if you assume like 3 sets of gear per job).

[Xtrasweettea]

[...]Also in FFXI people were very picky about joining parties if you didn't have a reilc/mythic/empyrean weapon you would not be allowed to join the group. .

This part isn't necessarily 100% true. The only time I have seen the demand for "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was towards the end of the life cycle for Voidwatch and when people where shouting for farming groups in Seekers zones. This demand did not come in any other era of the game when I played (I stopped playing within the first few months of Seekers).

The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was a way to filter out the hundreds of Damage Dealers out there. The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was not applied to Support Jobs or Healers. It was hard enough to find a Bard or Corsair let alone one with a Relic, Mythic, or Empyrean. Only those career Bards had a relic horn and/or the empyrean harp. Half of the bards and healers in FFXI during end of the Voidwatch era were dual boxed by some Damage Dealer player since they couldn't find a bard or healer within their play time.

The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was a result of the availability of the job market rather than Horizontal Progression. If there were an equal amount of Damage Dealers to Support Jobs, then "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" could applied to all jobs, but that wasn't the reality. The reality was that there was 30 Damage Dealers to 1 Bard, 1/4 Corsair, 1/4 Scholar, or 1/2 Red Mage (that knew how to play the job as Red Mage not as a "Pink Mage"). In order to get those rare support jobs, party leaders have to make it appealing to them. Since a party leader can't send a job application to each interested DD to see if they are skilled, using gear as the filtering mechanism was the best option. Support jobs had the luxury of being picky because of the demand versus availability. Again, this is not the fault of Horizontal progression, rather it was the result from the availability of the job market.

[Zumi]

This part isn't necessarily 100% true. The only time I have seen the demand for "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was towards the end of the life cycle for Voidwatch and when people where shouting for farming groups in Seekers zones. This demand did not come in any other era of the game when I played (I stopped playing within the first few months of Seekers).

The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was a way to filter out the hundreds of Damage Dealers out there. The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was not applied to Support Jobs or Healers. It was hard enough to find a Bard or Corsair let alone one with a Relic, Mythic, or Empyrean. Only those career Bards had a relic horn and/or the empyrean harp. Half of the bards and healers in FFXI during end of the Voidwatch era were dual boxed by some Damage Dealer player since they couldn't find a bard or healer within their play time.

It got worse when Delve came out because people started requiring bards to have the empy harp that did 3-4 songs, to get through the zone fast to do all 5 nms and the boss. There was like maybe 4-5 bards per server that had the harp some people did get it for their mules. So they were always getting tells because if they had no empy bard they didn't even want to go cause it meant not being able to do the zone due to having less buffs.

[Xtrasweettea]

It got worse when Delve came out because people started requiring bards to have the empy harp that did 3-4 songs, to get through the zone fast to do all 5 nms and the boss. There was like maybe 4-5 bards per server that had the harp some people did get it for their mules. So they were always getting tells because if they had no empy bard they didn't even want to go cause it meant not being able to do the zone due to having less buffs.

On Laskshmi, the "BRD Empy Harp only" limitation lasted for a few days to my knowledge when people were attempting to run Delve beyond farming. We had a shortage of BRDs on the server compared to demand. I knew of two Empy Harp owners. PUG runs were still done, though.

The LS I was in came over the lack of Harp by Bard Swapping (which should been done anyway, regardless of Harp or not) when we did Delve. We also did COR swapping on top of that.