I just don't get it.

[Shurrikhan]

The only issue is that special secondary stats, while certainly a step in the right direction, is a short sighted fix with our current combat restrictions (i.e. the inability to swap gear mid-combat). That's why I mentioned the example of WoW, and how despite having some alternatives in non-endgame during its earlier years, it is still the same BiS situation that we have right now here.

Player combat is not so intricate to the point that situational gear needs would be a thing. That is, unless fights were created under the basis of needing situational gear.. which, in all honesty, would absolutely backfire. Like mandating your mentioned TP/MP affecting equips because the boss has abilities that drain them. While that would be a new idea for this game (old school to any XI players), the fact they're required is where the backfire begins (and certainly does not end there). I mean, people here got into the biggest fuss over the idea that endgame raid tiers have the audacity to require better gear as you progress through them. At any rate though, as I said, the inability to gearswap is the biggest roadblock to having a prosperous means of horizontal gear progression.

Horizontal gear acquisition in FFXI is both a gift and a curse. It made that equip that you spent months or years (literally) trying to get worth the effort, but it also made endgame into more of an actual job than anything else (old school MMORPGs at their finest). It'd be best to not take that too far, but it's inevitable that it will at some point. I guess what they COULD do, however, is introduce a means to further raise your current gear with augments... sort of like WoWs version, but this will actually raise the ilvl of your current gear. I don't think that'd go over well though, assuming 1 year is too long for one set of armor to be worn lol. That is part of the point isn't it? To have your gear that you worked towards getting be useful for longer.

Let's not forget our current inventory woes though lol. There's a lot they need to adjust before horizontal gearing can be a thing really.

I'll admit straight-off that although I like the idea of horizontal gearing, the combat-gear-swaps doesn't seem remotely horizontal to me. It just seems like a snakier vertical path. If you don't have the gear set, even if of equal or lesser ilvl, that allows you to maximize a given ability, your overall stat-derived output is suboptimal. To say nothing of the idea of swapping outfits every 1-12 seconds--how does that work.. are we all just wearing stat-ed holograms?--aesthetically, it kill any actual sense of options or compromise even more than XIV's model. You either have the perfect manipulator, or you don't. And if you don't, you'd best go get it. Sure, there may be an average best answer for a particular fight even when able to choose your stats only before a fight starts, but at least that has a difference in dynamics. The alternative just slaps on bits and pieces until you have neither relative strength or weakness--just completion, within availability. If that's what horizontal gearing aims for, then I've no interest. I want meaningful stats, not niched ones.

If you want to see progressive, meaningful stats in action, (with little to no niche-ing) look no further than WoW's Hunters, Fury, Arms, Feral, Ret, Fire, etc. They were admittedly balancing nightmares, many of them starting weak early game and crushingly powerful later on as their proc-related secondary stats rose into serious percentiles, but your stats could actually influence your rotation or priorities. Some stats had particular plateaus, and others just messed with the gamble of the button flow, but either way they were noticeable. In XIV, the only real gameplay adjusters are Crit for Bard (gamble) and Speed for everyone else (plateau). That said, while XIV secondary stats certainly suffer from oversights (Skill Speed being split from Spell Speed, draining more TP for a lesser to near-equal dps contribution than Det/Crit, devaluing AAs and oGCDs, eventually preventing proper oGCD weaving), the lackluster stat-gameplay interaction has almost entirely to do with class design and internal mechanics rather than the stats themselves. I wonder if any changes might be made in that regard in the future, or if going from 3.4 to 4.0 will have changes merely on the level of a 3s-extended Phlebotomize and Demolish, again.

And indeed, before we can even think of amassing a horde of near-equally relevant gear, we would first need some solution to our inventory issues.