Originally posted by Sengi(your points might be true in some games but not all)
Now onto the 10 reasons why is vertical progression bad in a MMO: (thats your opinion)
1.) It keeps players from enjoying the game content:
(maybe so but it also lets people enjoy the conmtent whos going to help with the cities rat problem if everyone goes right to dragons if dragons are starter mobs theyre not very epic now are they ?)
Vertical progression reduces all game content just to a means to an end. You are not doing it in the first place because you enjoy what you’re doing but because you want the reward.
(for some people yes)
2.) It splits the player base:( False theres a thing called alts, and many games allow mentoring)
Everyone likes to play with his friends, but you can’t do that if they are on another level then you. If there is no vertical progression everyone can join everyone else no matter how long he is already playing.
(and no one knows who knows how to play at least with levels you have some idea)
3.) It often leads to boring content:(i dont know what games you played but i had a blast in everquest killing rats gnolls and skeletons, dragons and giants are for the big boys and i wanted to be one but you got to earn it theres no accomplishment if its given to you)
4.) It leads to linear content:(mostly fase it doesnt have to be that way eq had several major routes to level and many other lesser known options), but theres nothing wrong with linear)
5.) It creates problems for pvp:(only if the developers are dumb its called instanced arena combat go look up nwn online no one fights anyone much higher, open world pvp sucks anyway)
6.) It lends itself to exploitive game design:(skinner box what in the name of marr is that ?)
As you might know, many games rely on skinner-box-mechanics to force you to grind through boring content. If the developer wants to force the players to grind, this is done much more effectively when the player needs to level up to see the rest of the game, instead of having him grind for a skill that won’t make him more powerful and is not mandatory.
7.) Levelling up does not change the gameplay:( false comepletely false i played a mage in eq when we got rageing servent it comepletely changed my playstyle)
When you level up it may feel like you archived something, before you notice that the only thing that changed was that you now can pass on to the next location where you fight slightly stronger differed coloured mobs. The game has just switched some numbers around. Dealing 5 points pf damage to a mob with 20 hp, is not differed then dealing 10 damage to one with 40 hp.
Some people have told me that it is fun to them to go back to a low level zone and steamroller everything there. But c’mon how long is it fun, to torture virtual ants with a magnifying glass that don’t even run away, for 2 minutes maybe?
8.) It locks players out of higher level content: (quests or levels boith take timne and quests require more effort on the devs and doing this imo would lead to boooreing quests or just quests that take as long as leveling would anyway id rather camp what i want to)
Low level players can’t enter all the zones because they won’t last there very long. This helps to structure a storyline. The hero has first to fight the minions in the lower zones and gather xp and then he can enter the lair of the main villain.
(its called anticipation if i can see everything right away.../yawn)
9.) It creates a Dragonball-Z-problem:( dont make fun of dbz bro just dont go there)
With every level the mobs you fight get higher stats, so they need to look more menacing too. Therefore the game starts as low as possible with lame opponents like rats and then makes the mobs larger and larger until you end up with dragons. And once there is an expansion the game has to come up with something like Super-Dragons and then Ultra-Dragons.
Or the high level mobs look just the same and are mysteriously much more powerful than their low level counterparts.
(you offer no solution so i armed with my rusty dagger am supposed to be fighting dragons to levl ? no thanks)
10.) It makes the game unnecessary complicated for players and designers alike:
As you see in point 7, levelling up does not really change anything. In the end the level is just a label that shows what mobs you should fight at the moment.
So if the level is not much more then an achievement, why not make it an achievement. Display it to other players to show how much you have already achieved in the game, but don’t have it change your stats.
If there was no vertical progression it would just remove one unnecessary variable from the game. The player would not have to juggle with absurd high stat values; and all the content would be the same level of difficulty for everyone and therefore easier to manage. Instead of high and low level zones there could be zones that offer easier or harder content.
so once people are done with your quests preety much all they have left is pvp? bleh No thanks
Now dont get me wrong everquest became guilty of some of your points endless aas, super rats,gear inflation but the damn games been around since 1999, it should of been overhauled and rebooted along time ago
....Do you not understand what the OP is saying? I'm guessing you didn't even read his post.
What do you do in a vertical progression game once you're done with the "quests"? Nothing. The game is done.
What do you do when you've reached the max of your horizontal progression? You can go back and do the "newbie" zones all you want, because you don't level up to the point where content becomes useless.
Lol in vertical progression games you can reroll a new char and do diffrent newbie zones with a new class
why would you want to do the newbie zones with the same class ? just reroll a new class its more fun learning them + playing the newbie zones
Because people don't reroll new characters often. Newbie zones become totally barren and unused in vertical progression games. In horizontal, people stick around because there are things they find of use in the newbie zones, so areas of the game never get entirely deserted. Besides, it's a lot more fun to come back to old areas with a bunch of new toys to play with, rather than start from zero for the 20th time.
Hmm you might want to do the newbie zones 20 times but beleve me i dont, doing each newbie zone once or maybe twice is enough, i played GW2 and got to max lvl and went around the low level zones and as i did i was thinking wtf am i doing this low level stuff for ? answer nothing
Originally posted by DavisFlight Because people don't reroll new characters often.
Seriously...?
Originally posted by DavisFlight
Newbie zones become totally barren and unused in vertical progression games. In horizontal, people stick around because there are things they find of use in the newbie zones, so areas of the game never get entirely deserted. Besides, it's a lot more fun to come back to old areas with a bunch of new toys to play with, rather than start from zero for the 20th time.
Your point is moot, every content becomes boring after certain time and that is where the advantage of vertical progression comes in - less repetition.
Less repetition? Vertical progression is all about repetition. Every now and then you get new repetition for you to repeat, then the cycle repeats itself. End raid - repeat end raid - finally new raid - repeat new raid repeatedly - repeat.
Horizontal progression allows for content to be fully spread throughout and experienced at your leisure, such as dungeons in GW2. At max level you can still to any and all of them and have a challenge. It also allows for content to be released more quickly that can ignore things like new gear tiers and balancing, such as the two-week iteration cycle now in GW2 for new content to become available.
Vertical progression is nothing but repetition and the illusion of progression. You don't really progress... you get inflated numbers then a new raid built for those inflated numbers, repeat ad nauseum, all the while closing and locking the gate behind you to the older content.
Why is it so many people want to take achievement away? Is it that you cannot achieve what others do, so to make it more fair you just as soon take it away from everyone? Because you do not want to put in the effort, the work, or the time that somehow makes those that do lesser than you? Lets look at your points one by one and see how much of this answers these very questions.
1) It keeps players from enjoying the content.
- Well, that would depend on what you definition of content is. Part of becoming the Alpha on a server is the journey. It is a journey where you learn how to play the game, how to use the plethora of skills you have, and how to use the items you have earned. Ever play with someone that just bought an account? Ever play with someone after a protracted hiatus where they had played several games in the interim?
- Your assumptions, that its just a slog to get through, indicates to me that you have never made it to endgame in any game, and if you did you didn't understand what you had just gone through. Furthermore that guild that powers its way through all of the content of a given game in the first week or two of its release? Yeah, they were in beta with me, had taken all the time in the world and now that they know the ins and outs of course they fly through. When you are on your 4th or 5th main just to make sure the guild has an extra heals or dps, if you haven't reached cap in a week, well you sound like a good alternate, temporary alternate.
2) It splits the player base.
- no, the players split the player base. There is a reason why the jocks sit at one table and the heads at another. Whether it be school or work people have a tendency to segregate themselves into groups of like minded people and others. If you are one of the others that is your problem.
3) It often leads to boring content.
- that isn't because of vertical progression, that's because there are only so many ways you can dress up a fed ex quest or a kill quest. I would suggest that vertical progression actually breathes life into the lackluster content created by programmers. Look, mathematics is one thing, literature is another. You wouldn't ask Albert Einstein for a fiction story marrying the fears of the past with the fears of the future any more than you would've asked Mary Shelley for a treatise on dark matter. Yet that is exactly what happens with many of these games, especially MMOs. I think the only MMO that was going to break this cycle would've been the Reckoning MMO with Salvatore doing the writing. Hell, LOTRO would do a helluva lot better if computer nerds didn't keep trying to improve on Tolkien. Peter Jackson couldn't do it, Turbine sure as fugg can't.
4) Linear Content
- this has nothing to do with vertical progression. This is entirely up to the design team. If you are grasping for straws this early this is going to be fun.
5) Creates problems for PVP.
- OMG, because someone is stronger than you, kicks your ass, you want to take that away? LOLROFLMAOWTFURAF. What a mealy-mouthed nonsensical statement. Sure the big kids might come down and start pking, either get a group or go somewhere else. You sound like the guys that get their butts kicked in UO, then went into tribes thinking they were all that and got smoked because it isn't the progression system of the game that kicks your butt, its your lack of skill or ability. You think this is some sort of great equalizer, there are no equalizers where humanity is concerned until you start handicapping.
6) exploitive design
- Exploitative is the word you are looking for. And you are wrong. LOL. The grind is there for you to keep paying a subscription fee. Take out the level grind and they will add in a gear grind, take out the gear grind and they will add in a skill grind. Furthermore, the only way you get better at something is through repetition. It is sounding more and more like you do not want to play an mmo, you want a shooter.
7) Leveling doesn't change gameplay
- you are playing the wrong games. When you go from some little nothing getting your butt kicked by the fauna you walk by into a inferno of rage hurling whirlwinds of fire and lightning as easily as someone may pick their nose your gameplay is changing. Do they throw harder monsters or harder zones? Yup sure do. Guess what kiddo, in the real world, when you first step into a square ring in some back alley for your first fight it isn't with the idea of oh boy next week I get to fight another fat hairy sumabeech, its with the idea of dinging and getting to move up to a place where they have running water and an actual medic on standby eventually hoping to reach the endgame and make your way to Mandalay Bay and a title fight. You are still punching, kicking, and grappling. If you talk to anyone thats competed before, they will tell you that every engagement is different. Might not feel that way in the game but that isn't because of vertical vs horizontal progression, its because of the designers of the game, and your own perceptions.
8) It locks players out of higher level content
- there is nothing prohibiting someone from putting in the time and effort to get to the higher level content. Oh that's the problem you say? Go eff yourself I say. You do not deserve the right to go in and stand toe to toe with GSP. You might think you are, and I would let you just so I could laugh at how fast you fail. Why do you even bother playing games? You would do better going off to pick daisy's in the meadow. Be careful though, mother nature still believes in leveling up.
9) DragonBall Z
- What the fuc%?! Dragon Ball Z? Isn't it nap time? Wtf
10) Complicated
- LOL, I am sure it is complicated for you.
Even checkers and chess have vertical progression, life is about vertical progression. Because you want a trophy for showing up doesn't mean you deserve it, you sure as fugg aren't entitled to it.
Originally posted by jalexbrown It's all nice and great that you can tell us what's wrong with the way things are being done right now (everyone can, or else this forum would be dead), but you don't propose anything as a solution beyond a simple definition of horizontal progression. Are you willing to outline and open to all of our critique a possible design plan built around horizontal progression?
Yeah pointing out the flaws in a system isn't very hard. We all do it The people who can actually come up with something better and trick people into trying it before they judge it bad..... are few and far between
Horizontal progression in a mmorpg is like getting a promotion at work that is a new title and more work but without a raise in salary!
Lol, vertical progression would be getting a 15% raise in work but also having your living expenses raised by 15% to make your raise absolutely useless. We can do this all day.
Spoken like someone who spends their time spending their parent's money. When you get a raise at work you get more responsibilities. Plus, not only are you working harder to maintain your new pay and to continue leveling up, you bought a new car, now have to wear better suits and instead of hanging with the crew on Saturday night you now have to go play 18 at the country club and join them for cocktails. Where now not only you but your significant other has to dress to the nines and maintain appearances.
Thats the trap, thats why the richest people in the world are sociopaths while the rest of us aren't. The more you have the more you must spend in order to maintain that which you have.
Lol, vertical progression would be getting a 15% raise in work but also having your living expenses raised by 15% to make your raise absolutely useless. We can do this all day.
Spoken like someone who spends their time spending their parent's money. When you get a raise at work you get more responsibilities. Plus, not only are you working harder to maintain your new pay and to continue leveling up, you bought a new car, now have to wear better suits and instead of hanging with the crew on Saturday night you now have to go play 18 at the country club and join them for cocktails. Where now not only you but your significant other has to dress to the nines and maintain appearances.
Thats the trap, thats why the richest people in the world are sociopaths while the rest of us aren't. The more you have the more you must spend in order to maintain that which you have.
Well, that's not entirely true. Though I do think there is something to be said about your last paragraph.
I just got a raise and I didn't get any added responsibilities. There are raises because your job title has changed and then there are yearly cost of living raises.
and of course the yearly cost of living raises are there precisely because living expenses rise.
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Less repetition? Vertical progression is all about repetition. Every now and then you get new repetition for you to repeat, then the cycle repeats itself. End raid - repeat end raid - finally new raid - repeat new raid repeatedly - repeat.
Uh? Not the leveling part.
You go through leveling zones ONCE (per character). You do the quest lines ONCE (per character).
At end game, they run out of content .. so they ask you to repeat. But note that when you get to a new tier of gear progression, you get new content.
Repetition will be there for horizontal progression too .. just because content is expensive. No game can afford to ask the player for only one play through.
Says you. I enjoyed content when the story was interesting or when the boss fights were interesting, or at the very least I was playing with good friends. Once all three of those were eliminated then YES I viewed content as a means to an end. In otherwords, development was exceptionally mediocre. Thats not a fault of vertical progression, thats a fault of uninteresting content.
2. It split's the playerbase.
All it does is keep low levels from playing with high levels. However high levels STILL play with low levels. Thats where the term powerleveling came from.
3. It often leads to boring content.
Same problem as before. Firstly, again, says you. Secondly, thats not a fault of vertical progression, thats a fault of bad development. I can have horizontal progression in a game with quests and whatever, but if all the quests are literally kill X number of Y's then I'll get bored with it either way.
4. It leads to linear content.
In an unimaginitive game yes it does. Some games opt you to go back to old content to find something that is actually powerful throughout your levels. Other games simply level cap you in certain areas to give an added challenge. Don't confuse lazy design with vertical leveling being bad.
5. It creates problems with PvP
that it definitely does.
6. It leads to exploitive game design.
I don't think getting the people to play your content to get to more content is exploitive in any sense. In fact thats pretty much what MOST developers want. Most developers want you to play the content they made, and a lot of them are opting in to simply force you to do it, because otherwise a lot of their content doesn't get seen. That's not exploitive. Exploitive would be on the levels of candy crush, where the only way to progress is more and more tied to spending additional money for powerups because the levels just become that much more rigged.
7. Leveling up does not change gameplay
Most games give you skills as you level, not all up front. So, yes it does change gameplay.
8. It locks players out of higher level content
this is how all games work. You are always locked out of content the first time. You can't play mario and just warp to world 8-4 because you feel like it, you have to progress through the necessary worlds to do so. Likewise, you don't get access to all the fighters and skins in Mortal Kombat, you have to actually play the story to get them.
9. It creates a Dragonball Z problem.
Again, in LAZY design it does. Firstly, not every expansion has to increase level cap. Thats pretty much a WoW thing. Not every fight HAS to be more difficult than the previous iteration. Again, a WoW thing.
If you want to prevent the Dragonball Z problem, simply don't increase levels, don't let gear scale on absurd monsters, and gently tweak the new monsters that come in. This way, mobs only get slightly stronger thus keeping a constant challenge, and your gear doesn't get drastically better, ensuring that even IF you get the best gear, previous mobs aren't completely steamroll easy and new mobs aren't godlike in comparison.
10. It makes the game unnecissarily complicated for players and developers alike:
Actually developing Vertical progression is piss easy in comparison to horizontal progression. Vertical progression is literally just a numbers game. Horizontal progression, you have to take into account that people aren't going to go a planned path, and you have to accomidate for that. It's also harder to scale monsters as theres no actual numbers to base your new boss off of, which makes it harder to gauge and thus balance combat.
Less repetition? Vertical progression is all about repetition. Every now and then you get new repetition for you to repeat, then the cycle repeats itself. End raid - repeat end raid - finally new raid - repeat new raid repeatedly - repeat.
Uh? Not the leveling part.
You go through leveling zones ONCE (per character). You do the quest lines ONCE (per character).
At end game, they run out of content .. so they ask you to repeat. But note that when you get to a new tier of gear progression, you get new content.
Repetition will be there for horizontal progression too .. just because content is expensive. No game can afford to ask the player for only one play through.
Content is expensive? ANet is releasing new content every two weeks while developing bigger stuff with different teams on the side, which they may choose to release through Living Story as well (read: Free). Progression, the horizontal sort, is going to involved new traits and skills to unlock through a variety of means that utilize the older zones as well, which have not been made obsolete by the leveling process.
Now... I can see the progression content style getting expensive I suppose... after all there's that dead time between raids when there's nothing new to do, sales slump, etc.
Originally posted by jalexbrown It's all nice and great that you can tell us what's wrong with the way things are being done right now (everyone can, or else this forum would be dead), but you don't propose anything as a solution beyond a simple definition of horizontal progression. Are you willing to outline and open to all of our critique a possible design plan built around horizontal progression?
Yeah pointing out the flaws in a system isn't very hard. We all do it The people who can actually come up with something better and trick people into trying it before they judge it bad..... are few and far between
Horizontal progression in a mmorpg is like getting a promotion at work that is a new title and more work but without a raise in salary!
Lol, vertical progression would be getting a 15% raise in work but also having your living expenses raised by 15% to make your raise absolutely useless. We can do this all day.
Spoken like someone who spends their time spending their parent's money. When you get a raise at work you get more responsibilities. Plus, not only are you working harder to maintain your new pay and to continue leveling up, you bought a new car, now have to wear better suits and instead of hanging with the crew on Saturday night you now have to go play 18 at the country club and join them for cocktails. Where now not only you but your significant other has to dress to the nines and maintain appearances.
Thats the trap, thats why the richest people in the world are sociopaths while the rest of us aren't. The more you have the more you must spend in order to maintain that which you have.
dude thats a promotion lol. a raise is just an increase in salary, a promotion is an increase in work thus an increase in salary
Says you. I enjoyed content when the story was interesting or when the boss fights were interesting, or at the very least I was playing with good friends. Once all three of those were eliminated then YES I viewed content as a means to an end. In otherwords, development was exceptionally mediocre. Thats not a fault of vertical progression, thats a fault of uninteresting content.
well said. In fact, one of the fun part is to use your new found power (or gear) on content, assuming combat is fun.
I agree that adding horizontal progression is a good idea, but I don't think removing vertical progression completely is a good idea, and I don't understand why people argue it in such an either-or manner?
EVE has both vertical and horizontal progression with a lot of crossover, although its vertical progression elements are strong enough to keep people hyper-specialized. I wouldn't mind a game that had less vertical progression.
The most prominent example is probably Guild Wars 1. Reaching level 20 was quite easy, and plenty to do afterwards. I also think SWG was well done.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW Currently playing: GW2, EVE Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
I agree MMOs do not need vertical progression they just need other carrots and hooks.However MMORPGs do need vertical progression or they are just shooters or third person action games.One of the draws of RPG video games and even PnP has always been developing your character and making it more powerful,it's one of the cornerstones of the genre Massive or otherwise.
Vertical progression is everything that makes a character stronger:
Leveling up the character in a game with level based progression
Increase a skill level in a game that has a skill based progression
Gaining a higher tier skill
Archiving better gear
The opposite of vertical progression is horizontal progression. That includes everything that gives you more options but does not make the character stronger; it just gives you more tools.
To remove vertical progression at first seems like a radical measure, but as I see it, it is just the ultimate result of a trend in game design that is already there.
Guild Wars 2 for example has already made vertical progression irrelevant in many aspects of the game:
It does not matter in PvP, because everyone is set to the same level, and gear is only cosmetic.
It does not matter if you go to lower zone, you level is lowered to keep the content interesting.
It does not matter if you follow a high level friend to a higher zone, because your level is increased accordingly.
The leveling curve is flat, you reach max level fast.
You can craft top level gear with easily available materials. (There are legendaries that are hard to obtain but they offer only a tiny power boost.)
As I see it Guild Wars 2 is already 3/4 there to be a MMO without vertical progression.
The only thing that is holding it back is the preconception that RPGs are somehow about vertical progression and leveling. But that must not be true. A mechanic that works well in single player games must not work in a game that has some thousand players playing at the same time.
I believe vertical progression only holds back the genre and is rather a leftover from the way how mmorpgs have evolved from tabletop rpgs and single player rpgs. There is not much roleplaying in mmorpgs either, even though it’s in their name. (Unless the players bring it into it by themselves) Removing vertical progression would just free gamers and designers alike from unnecessary ballast.
Now onto the 10 reasons why is vertical progression bad in a MMO:
1.) It keeps players from enjoying the game content:
Not true, in some of the better MMO´s levels pass withouth players even noticing, they actually are surprised by the sound of the ding.
Vertical progression reduces all game content just to a means to an end. You are not doing it in the first place because you enjoy what you’re doing but because you want the reward.
It creates this power leveling mentality, where nothing else is important than hitting the level cap as fast as possible. Developers sometimes don’t even bother to make the leveling content interesting, because no one will care and just rush trough it to get done with the grind. There is no time to look the story connected with a quest or experience the game at your own pace; you have to keep up with other players that are forced to rush through the game as well. Since when are we playing games just to get over them?
2.) It splits the player base:
Does not need to be, GW2 has mechanics in place that keep all lower level zones challenging and fun for higher level players.
Everyone likes to play with his friends, but you can’t do that if they are on another level then you. If there is no vertical progression everyone can join everyone else no matter how long he is already playing.
3.) It often leads to boring content:
This is bad game design and not related to leveling at all
I often hear that no one would do the content if the game would not force him to do it in order to level up. That is only half the story. The players would still do well constructed quests and interesting storylines; but no one would like to kill 10 of x for the 100th time, and that is a good thing.
The quest grind has made these vast amounts of samey quest necessary in the first place. If there was no quest grinding the designers would be forced to create content that is interesting on its own.
4.) It leads to linear content:
Again bad game desing and not related to vertical progression at all
Having a steep vertical progression means that the player hast to take a predefined path through the game, always following the leveling content. A game without vertical progression would open up all content immediately and let the player choose in what order he wants to experience the game.
5.) It creates problems for pvp:
It depends on the PvP setting, if you use GW2 system it makes things actually quite ballanced. What you want is that all characters are totally ballanced from the start, with same gear and skils, even withouth vertical progression there would be power differences
Because characters are so different in power there are almost never fair fights in world-PvP and there needs to be a system in place that keeps high level player from just going to low level zones and gank everyone.
Even in battlegrounds players have to be divided into groups according to their level. Guild wars 2 has come up with a better solution and just makes everyone max level for PvP.
6.) It lends itself to exploitive game design:
Again bad game design unrelated to vertical progression
As you might know, many games rely on skinner-box-mechanics to force you to grind through boring content. If the developer wants to force the players to grind, this is done much more effectively when the player needs to level up to see the rest of the game, instead of having him grind for a skill that won’t make him more powerful and is not mandatory.
7.) Levelling up does not change the gameplay:
Again bad gamedesign, and if you look at some good MMos like EQ or even the new FF 14, gameplay chages every few levels till max level just because then new skills people keep getting every few levels.
When you level up it may feel like you archived something, before you notice that the only thing that changed was that you now can pass on to the next location where you fight slightly stronger differed coloured mobs. The game has just switched some numbers around. Dealing 5 points pf damage to a mob with 20 hp, is not differed then dealing 10 damage to one with 40 hp.
Some people have told me that it is fun to them to go back to a low level zone and steamroller everything there. But c’mon how long is it fun, to torture virtual ants with a magnifying glass that don’t even run away, for 2 minutes maybe?
8.) It locks players out of higher level content:
Which is okay, it gives players things to aim for, room to grow and when they are finally ready for said content and conquer it in the end it gives them some form of pride.
Low level players can’t enter all the zones because they won’t last there very long. This helps to structure a storyline. The hero has first to fight the minions in the lower zones and gather xp and then he can enter the lair of the main villain.
I believe it is often not necessary to lock new players out of some zones; and if you think it is, there can still be a lengthy questline that takes you trough whole game world to complete before you can meet the main villain.
9.) It creates a Dragonball-Z-problem:
This is bad game design again, you base this on what some games did, just to give you an example look at newer games like TSW, there even low level mobs are nothing like the rats and actually quite challenging, same goes for GW2
With every level the mobs you fight get higher stats, so they need to look more menacing too. Therefore the game starts as low as possible with lame opponents like rats and then makes the mobs larger and larger until you end up with dragons. And once there is an expansion the game has to come up with something like Super-Dragons and then Ultra-Dragons.
Or the high level mobs look just the same and are mysteriously much more powerful than their low level counterparts.
10.) It makes the game unnecessary complicated for players and designers alike:
The opposite my friend, it allows people to grow their classes from a few skills to a fullfledged arsenal of skills and abbiltiies, which they slowly learned during the vertical leveling process..
As you see in point 7, levelling up does not really change anything. In the end the level is just a label that shows what mobs you should fight at the moment.
So if the level is not much more then an achievement, why not make it an achievement. Display it to other players to show how much you have already achieved in the game, but don’t have it change your stats.
If there was no vertical progression it would just remove one unnecessary variable from the game. The player would not have to juggle with absurd high stat values; and all the content would be the same level of difficulty for everyone and therefore easier to manage. Instead of high and low level zones there could be zones that offer easier or harder content.
Let me tell you this, i dare say that 95% of all game players like progression, and having their characters grow to power. its one of these things that makes non RPG games add more and more of this stuff to their FPS and RTS games... thats because people love to see the numbars that they are growing.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Could not agree LESS. Adding my comments in red below.
Vertical progression is everything that makes a character stronger:
Leveling up the character in a game with level based progression
Increase a skill level in a game that has a skill based progression
Gaining a higher tier skill
Archiving better gear
Yesss ... fun as a hell, main reason to play. :-)
The opposite of vertical progression is horizontal progression. That includes everything that gives you more options but does not make the character stronger; it just gives you more tools.
Oh, really? This is new to me. Because you are, like in Gw2, getting "levels" with various points to then spend in STRONG spells or abilities, to INCREASE your base stats .... so this is FALSE, you are actually getting stronger compared to same level player that have not invested anywhere his points.
To remove vertical progression at first seems like a radical measure, but as I see it, it is just the ultimate result of a trend in game design that is already there.
Guild Wars 2 for example has already made vertical progression irrelevant in many aspects of the game:
It does not matter in PvP, because everyone is set to the same level, and gear is only cosmetic.
Guess so as i do not pvp for very long time, lost all interest.
It does not matter if you go to lower zone, you level is lowered to keep the content interesting.
?This is true and love this. But on the other hand it is NOT the same as REWARDS are still LOW level, unusable. Speaking i.e. about "hearts" (we are still at Gw2 which is still best p2p game out there imo).
It does not matter if you follow a high level friend to a higher zone, because your level is increased accordingly.
This is true for groups, but nothing new for games with classic vertical progression.
The leveling curve is flat, you reach max level fast.
Nope. You are not, have leveled faster in i.e. wow or swtor then in gw2.
You can craft top level gear with easily available materials. (There are legendaries that are hard to obtain but they offer only a tiny power boost.)
Hmm... where is fun here?
As I see it Guild Wars 2 is already 3/4 there to be a MMO without vertical progression.
The only thing that is holding it back is the preconception that RPGs are somehow about vertical progression and leveling. But that must not be true. A mechanic that works well in single player games must not work in a game that has some thousand players playing at the same time.
Do not agree at all. After enjoyed mainly gw2 with so called "horizontal" progression ... I'm missing even more good old vertical. Btw ... do not be fooled by word "leveling". This IS PRESENT in gw2 as in ANY other game ... it is just called differently.
I believe vertical progression only holds back the genre and is rather a leftover from the way how mmorpgs have evolved from tabletop rpgs and single player rpgs. There is not much roleplaying in mmorpgs either, even though it’s in their name. (Unless the players bring it into it by themselves) Removing vertical progression would just free gamers and designers alike from unnecessary ballast.
Great majority of games are "vertical" and nothing looks this trend will really change. All reminds me 10 and 30 years old stories about how great will unix, linux, ... will be, killers of everything ... but ... meh, nothing happened. Windows is still very very solid first for home use.
Now onto the 10 reasons why is vertical progression bad in a MMO:
1.) It keeps players from enjoying the game content:
Vertical progression reduces all game content just to a means to an end. You are not doing it in the first place because you enjoy what you’re doing but because you want the reward.
Yes, this is the best part of it. And it is no different in Gw2 in any way.
It creates this power leveling mentality, where nothing else is important than hitting the level cap as fast as possible.
Yes, exactly the same as in Gw2.
Developers sometimes don’t even bother to make the leveling content interesting, because no one will care and just rush trough it to get done with the grind. There is no time to look the story connected with a quest or experience the game at your own pace; you have to keep up with other players that are forced to rush through the game as well. Since when are we playing games just to get over them?
Khm, you can not be serious? Do you really think that random events (that are not really so random, more like classic dailyes) and "hearts" quests are even remotely close to quality of great multistep quest chains in Wow, Swtor, War, Aoc, ....? The reason, despite I like gw2, I play only from time to time now gw2 is because get fast bored as hell. If i want to go to higher area I MUST progress ... so many times I will just jump from area to area doing local quests.
This is not even remotely example of better.
2.) It splits the player base:
Everyone likes to play with his friends, but you can’t do that if they are on another level then you. If there is no vertical progression everyone can join everyone else no matter how long he is already playing.
Many vertical games have adopted this so no problem.
3.) It often leads to boring content:
.....
The quest grind has made these vast amounts of samey quest necessary in the first place. If there was no quest grinding the designers would be forced to create content that is interesting on its own.
Real example of quest grinds is gw2. But still I enjoy combat with all my alts but less i would with classic progression.
4.) It leads to linear content:
Having a steep vertical progression means that the player hast to take a predefined path through the game, always following the leveling content. A game without vertical progression would open up all content immediately and let the player choose in what order he wants to experience the game.
Same here. You can not just jump in any higher content that your LEVEL permit you. Yes, you can join high level friends to have .... 1/5 of their spells available. Where is the fun? And if I rush at LOW level to HIGH level content areas ... what the hell I will be doing THEN? All this you are telling us does not make any sense.
5.) It creates problems for pvp:
Because characters are so different in power there are almost never fair fights in world-PvP and there needs to be a system in place that keeps high level player from just going to low level zones and gank everyone.
Even in battlegrounds players have to be divided into groups according to their level. Guild wars 2 has come up with a better solution and just makes everyone max level for PvP.
6.) It lends itself to exploitive game design:
As you might know, many games rely on skinner-box-mechanics to force you to grind through boring content. If the developer wants to force the players to grind, this is done much more effectively when the player needs to level up to see the rest of the game, instead of having him grind for a skill that won’t make him more powerful and is not mandatory.
I dealed with this above in other answers.
7.) Levelling up does not change the gameplay:
When you level up it may feel like you archived something, before you notice that the only thing that changed was that you now can pass on to the next location where you fight slightly stronger differed coloured mobs. The game has just switched some numbers around. Dealing 5 points pf damage to a mob with 20 hp, is not differed then dealing 10 damage to one with 40 hp.
Khm... and how this changes in gw2 compared to wow, swtor, ...? Bo.
.....
8.) It locks players out of higher level content:
Low level players can’t enter all the zones because they won’t last there very long. This helps to structure a storyline. The hero has first to fight the minions in the lower zones and gather xp and then he can enter the lair of the main villain.
And WHY they would have to enter all that high level zones???? And if they enter NOW what the hell will they will be doing LATER?? Going to play to low areas they have skipped at that time? This must be real nightmare of gameplay.
....
9.) It creates a Dragonball-Z-problem:
With every level the mobs you fight get higher stats, so they need to look more menacing too. Therefore the game starts as low as possible with lame opponents like rats and then makes the mobs larger and larger until you end up with dragons. And once there is an expansion the game has to come up with something like Super-Dragons and then Ultra-Dragons.
Or the high level mobs look just the same and are mysteriously much more powerful than their low level counterparts.
Have you actually played gw2?
10.) It makes the game unnecessary complicated for players and designers alike:
As you see in point 7, levelling up does not really change anything. In the end the level is just a label that shows what mobs you should fight at the moment.
So if the level is not much more then an achievement, why not make it an achievement. Display it to other players to show how much you have already achieved in the game, but don’t have it change your stats.
And again same question ... where is then all the FUN?
....
And we could go for hours this way .... without demonstrating why is horizontal leveling better in any way.
Originally posted by galphar Guilds Wars is a better example to use than GW2. You only had 20 levels, but you could still gain XP which led to you earning more Skill Points to purchase new skills. And if you didn't want to level up that way, you could just create a PvP only toon.
I agree, GW2 handed you progression on a platter just for levelling up, which wasn't very difficult at all. GW1 got you to max level pretty quick, but after that it was quite a feat to go around earning all the available skills, which gave a feeling of constant progression and new builds available to play with.
I am sure some douche will come in and say 'but people only used x build for farming'. Yes well people are sheep, its a game, you were meant to play around with builds and have fun, not number crunch the optimal farm build.
I remeber playing single player RPGs doing stuff like that. Scaling every mob with your power. I lost interest quickly. Where is the sense of danger if the danger scales with you? Where is the sense of achievement if you know the mob will just scale with you? I remember killing my first Heckler solo in AO. It took me seven minutes and was pretty close sometimes when my snare broke. After I did I felt like "Hell YEAH! I did it! I told you so, non-believers!" (I was 107 and everyone in my org told me "No way!"). What would that have been if the heck just scaled with me? "Wow... I killed a mob that was my level!".
Progression in any way should be part of an RPG. Many people (especially in PvP) that go against it have FPS in mind. Everyone is equal and no difference. I want to have a sense of accomplishment when I am able to leave a map and survive the next one. What good would the Dread Lord's castle be if I could just go there from Weenie Island? Where is my journey and my acievments (I don't mean those sensless tiltes that you collect)? I wouldn't even respect the "big ones" knowing that everything I do scales with me.
Another problem with scaling is that either you set levels for maps or scale according to highes or lowest levels around, which brings up major problems (everyone who played Sacred and logged into a gamewhere a highlevel just logged in as lowlevel knows my case).
Give us options, worlds, sense of danger, accomplishment, something to aim for and loads of options from camping named mobs, going into instanced missions (which can scale with you), going into uninstanced dungeons, crafting to socialising. Taking away from this wont make things better. Design is the main problem nowadays, not progression.
Vertical progression ..... my 2 biggest issues is that it builds the game like a pyramid.. Eventually you run out of space at the top.. and secondly it makes older content obsolete, leaving ghost towns behind.. GW2 adjusting level mechanic is a big plus in my book and something that should exist in all games.. The one thing I wouldn't mind seeing is how low level toons and play in higher level zones.. If a group want to attack a higher level toon, they should.. Current mechanics normally keeps those low level toons from even hitting the mob, let alone do any damage..
When WoW dies and all the games that try to copy its success by "cloning" die with it, then companies will finally begin to take risks with other type of progressions..... its sad something like that needs to happen for them to really do something different.
Let me tell you this, i dare say that 95% of all game players like progression, and having their characters grow to power. its one of these things that makes non RPG games add more and more of this stuff to their FPS and RTS games... thats because people love to see the numbars that they are growing.
Agreed. That is why ARPGs like Diablo are popular. They are nothing but progression + fun combat.
Even FPS, and action adventures are adding progression elements (like Dishonored), because it is something players enjoy.
Having only horizontal progression in a role-playing game makes absolutely no sense. It completely kills any sort of immersion and coherence an RPG could possibly have. Why should a plate armor crafted by a master blacksmith using the finest of ingredients be equal to a plate armor crafted by an amateur using crude components? Why should a newly-formed trapsmith be able to disable traps of the same difficulty as a veteran trapsmith? Why should a warrior who has gone through great lengths to train his body have the same power as another who has never even defeated a venerable opponent? Why should a novice wizard be able to cast spells just as incredible as a mighty and wise mage?
With every level the mobs you fight get higher stats, so they need to look more menacing too. Therefore the game starts as low as possible with lame opponents like rats and then makes the mobs larger and larger until you end up with dragons. And once there is an expansion the game has to come up with something like Super-Dragons and then Ultra-Dragons.
Or the high level mobs look just the same and are mysteriously much more powerful than their low level counterparts.
I suddenly had an image of Deathwing and Trakkanon dueling, both with shock yellow hair standing upright, and a power aura surrounding them both...
Nice read though, OP..
..because we're gamers, damn it!! - William Massachusetts (Log Horizon)
With every level the mobs you fight get higher stats, so they need to look more menacing too. Therefore the game starts as low as possible with lame opponents like rats and then makes the mobs larger and larger until you end up with dragons. And once there is an expansion the game has to come up with something like Super-Dragons and then Ultra-Dragons.
Or the high level mobs look just the same and are mysteriously much more powerful than their low level counterparts.
I suddenly had an image of Deathwing and Trakkanon dueling, both with shock yellow hair standing upright, and a power aura surrounding them both...
Nice read though, OP..
LOL ... and shouting "ka .. me ... ka ... me" ...
There is a simple solution to a Dragonball Z problem. End the game and make a sequel.
Comments
Hmm you might want to do the newbie zones 20 times but beleve me i dont, doing each newbie zone once or maybe twice is enough, i played GW2 and got to max lvl and went around the low level zones and as i did i was thinking wtf am i doing this low level stuff for ? answer nothing
Less repetition? Vertical progression is all about repetition. Every now and then you get new repetition for you to repeat, then the cycle repeats itself. End raid - repeat end raid - finally new raid - repeat new raid repeatedly - repeat.
Horizontal progression allows for content to be fully spread throughout and experienced at your leisure, such as dungeons in GW2. At max level you can still to any and all of them and have a challenge. It also allows for content to be released more quickly that can ignore things like new gear tiers and balancing, such as the two-week iteration cycle now in GW2 for new content to become available.
Vertical progression is nothing but repetition and the illusion of progression. You don't really progress... you get inflated numbers then a new raid built for those inflated numbers, repeat ad nauseum, all the while closing and locking the gate behind you to the older content.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Why is it so many people want to take achievement away? Is it that you cannot achieve what others do, so to make it more fair you just as soon take it away from everyone? Because you do not want to put in the effort, the work, or the time that somehow makes those that do lesser than you? Lets look at your points one by one and see how much of this answers these very questions.
1) It keeps players from enjoying the content.
- Well, that would depend on what you definition of content is. Part of becoming the Alpha on a server is the journey. It is a journey where you learn how to play the game, how to use the plethora of skills you have, and how to use the items you have earned. Ever play with someone that just bought an account? Ever play with someone after a protracted hiatus where they had played several games in the interim?
- Your assumptions, that its just a slog to get through, indicates to me that you have never made it to endgame in any game, and if you did you didn't understand what you had just gone through. Furthermore that guild that powers its way through all of the content of a given game in the first week or two of its release? Yeah, they were in beta with me, had taken all the time in the world and now that they know the ins and outs of course they fly through. When you are on your 4th or 5th main just to make sure the guild has an extra heals or dps, if you haven't reached cap in a week, well you sound like a good alternate, temporary alternate.
2) It splits the player base.
- no, the players split the player base. There is a reason why the jocks sit at one table and the heads at another. Whether it be school or work people have a tendency to segregate themselves into groups of like minded people and others. If you are one of the others that is your problem.
3) It often leads to boring content.
- that isn't because of vertical progression, that's because there are only so many ways you can dress up a fed ex quest or a kill quest. I would suggest that vertical progression actually breathes life into the lackluster content created by programmers. Look, mathematics is one thing, literature is another. You wouldn't ask Albert Einstein for a fiction story marrying the fears of the past with the fears of the future any more than you would've asked Mary Shelley for a treatise on dark matter. Yet that is exactly what happens with many of these games, especially MMOs. I think the only MMO that was going to break this cycle would've been the Reckoning MMO with Salvatore doing the writing. Hell, LOTRO would do a helluva lot better if computer nerds didn't keep trying to improve on Tolkien. Peter Jackson couldn't do it, Turbine sure as fugg can't.
4) Linear Content
- this has nothing to do with vertical progression. This is entirely up to the design team. If you are grasping for straws this early this is going to be fun.
5) Creates problems for PVP.
- OMG, because someone is stronger than you, kicks your ass, you want to take that away? LOLROFLMAOWTFURAF. What a mealy-mouthed nonsensical statement. Sure the big kids might come down and start pking, either get a group or go somewhere else. You sound like the guys that get their butts kicked in UO, then went into tribes thinking they were all that and got smoked because it isn't the progression system of the game that kicks your butt, its your lack of skill or ability. You think this is some sort of great equalizer, there are no equalizers where humanity is concerned until you start handicapping.
6) exploitive design
- Exploitative is the word you are looking for. And you are wrong. LOL. The grind is there for you to keep paying a subscription fee. Take out the level grind and they will add in a gear grind, take out the gear grind and they will add in a skill grind. Furthermore, the only way you get better at something is through repetition. It is sounding more and more like you do not want to play an mmo, you want a shooter.
7) Leveling doesn't change gameplay
- you are playing the wrong games. When you go from some little nothing getting your butt kicked by the fauna you walk by into a inferno of rage hurling whirlwinds of fire and lightning as easily as someone may pick their nose your gameplay is changing. Do they throw harder monsters or harder zones? Yup sure do. Guess what kiddo, in the real world, when you first step into a square ring in some back alley for your first fight it isn't with the idea of oh boy next week I get to fight another fat hairy sumabeech, its with the idea of dinging and getting to move up to a place where they have running water and an actual medic on standby eventually hoping to reach the endgame and make your way to Mandalay Bay and a title fight. You are still punching, kicking, and grappling. If you talk to anyone thats competed before, they will tell you that every engagement is different. Might not feel that way in the game but that isn't because of vertical vs horizontal progression, its because of the designers of the game, and your own perceptions.
8) It locks players out of higher level content
- there is nothing prohibiting someone from putting in the time and effort to get to the higher level content. Oh that's the problem you say? Go eff yourself I say. You do not deserve the right to go in and stand toe to toe with GSP. You might think you are, and I would let you just so I could laugh at how fast you fail. Why do you even bother playing games? You would do better going off to pick daisy's in the meadow. Be careful though, mother nature still believes in leveling up.
9) DragonBall Z
- What the fuc%?! Dragon Ball Z? Isn't it nap time? Wtf
10) Complicated
- LOL, I am sure it is complicated for you.
Even checkers and chess have vertical progression, life is about vertical progression. Because you want a trophy for showing up doesn't mean you deserve it, you sure as fugg aren't entitled to it.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Spoken like someone who spends their time spending their parent's money. When you get a raise at work you get more responsibilities. Plus, not only are you working harder to maintain your new pay and to continue leveling up, you bought a new car, now have to wear better suits and instead of hanging with the crew on Saturday night you now have to go play 18 at the country club and join them for cocktails. Where now not only you but your significant other has to dress to the nines and maintain appearances.
Thats the trap, thats why the richest people in the world are sociopaths while the rest of us aren't. The more you have the more you must spend in order to maintain that which you have.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Well, that's not entirely true. Though I do think there is something to be said about your last paragraph.
I just got a raise and I didn't get any added responsibilities. There are raises because your job title has changed and then there are yearly cost of living raises.
and of course the yearly cost of living raises are there precisely because living expenses rise.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Uh? Not the leveling part.
You go through leveling zones ONCE (per character). You do the quest lines ONCE (per character).
At end game, they run out of content .. so they ask you to repeat. But note that when you get to a new tier of gear progression, you get new content.
Repetition will be there for horizontal progression too .. just because content is expensive. No game can afford to ask the player for only one play through.
1. It keeps players from enjoying the content.
Says you. I enjoyed content when the story was interesting or when the boss fights were interesting, or at the very least I was playing with good friends. Once all three of those were eliminated then YES I viewed content as a means to an end. In otherwords, development was exceptionally mediocre. Thats not a fault of vertical progression, thats a fault of uninteresting content.
2. It split's the playerbase.
All it does is keep low levels from playing with high levels. However high levels STILL play with low levels. Thats where the term powerleveling came from.
3. It often leads to boring content.
Same problem as before. Firstly, again, says you. Secondly, thats not a fault of vertical progression, thats a fault of bad development. I can have horizontal progression in a game with quests and whatever, but if all the quests are literally kill X number of Y's then I'll get bored with it either way.
4. It leads to linear content.
In an unimaginitive game yes it does. Some games opt you to go back to old content to find something that is actually powerful throughout your levels. Other games simply level cap you in certain areas to give an added challenge. Don't confuse lazy design with vertical leveling being bad.
5. It creates problems with PvP
that it definitely does.
6. It leads to exploitive game design.
I don't think getting the people to play your content to get to more content is exploitive in any sense. In fact thats pretty much what MOST developers want. Most developers want you to play the content they made, and a lot of them are opting in to simply force you to do it, because otherwise a lot of their content doesn't get seen. That's not exploitive. Exploitive would be on the levels of candy crush, where the only way to progress is more and more tied to spending additional money for powerups because the levels just become that much more rigged.
7. Leveling up does not change gameplay
Most games give you skills as you level, not all up front. So, yes it does change gameplay.
8. It locks players out of higher level content
this is how all games work. You are always locked out of content the first time. You can't play mario and just warp to world 8-4 because you feel like it, you have to progress through the necessary worlds to do so. Likewise, you don't get access to all the fighters and skins in Mortal Kombat, you have to actually play the story to get them.
9. It creates a Dragonball Z problem.
Again, in LAZY design it does. Firstly, not every expansion has to increase level cap. Thats pretty much a WoW thing. Not every fight HAS to be more difficult than the previous iteration. Again, a WoW thing.
If you want to prevent the Dragonball Z problem, simply don't increase levels, don't let gear scale on absurd monsters, and gently tweak the new monsters that come in. This way, mobs only get slightly stronger thus keeping a constant challenge, and your gear doesn't get drastically better, ensuring that even IF you get the best gear, previous mobs aren't completely steamroll easy and new mobs aren't godlike in comparison.
10. It makes the game unnecissarily complicated for players and developers alike:
Actually developing Vertical progression is piss easy in comparison to horizontal progression. Vertical progression is literally just a numbers game. Horizontal progression, you have to take into account that people aren't going to go a planned path, and you have to accomidate for that. It's also harder to scale monsters as theres no actual numbers to base your new boss off of, which makes it harder to gauge and thus balance combat.
Content is expensive? ANet is releasing new content every two weeks while developing bigger stuff with different teams on the side, which they may choose to release through Living Story as well (read: Free). Progression, the horizontal sort, is going to involved new traits and skills to unlock through a variety of means that utilize the older zones as well, which have not been made obsolete by the leveling process.
Now... I can see the progression content style getting expensive I suppose... after all there's that dead time between raids when there's nothing new to do, sales slump, etc.
Heh... quest hubs. Forgot about those things.
Oderint, dum metuant.
dude thats a promotion lol. a raise is just an increase in salary, a promotion is an increase in work thus an increase in salary
well said. In fact, one of the fun part is to use your new found power (or gear) on content, assuming combat is fun.
I agree that adding horizontal progression is a good idea, but I don't think removing vertical progression completely is a good idea, and I don't understand why people argue it in such an either-or manner?
EVE has both vertical and horizontal progression with a lot of crossover, although its vertical progression elements are strong enough to keep people hyper-specialized. I wouldn't mind a game that had less vertical progression.
The most prominent example is probably Guild Wars 1. Reaching level 20 was quite easy, and plenty to do afterwards. I also think SWG was well done.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
Let me tell you this, i dare say that 95% of all game players like progression, and having their characters grow to power. its one of these things that makes non RPG games add more and more of this stuff to their FPS and RTS games... thats because people love to see the numbars that they are growing.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Lack of vertical progression makes players lose a sense of purpose and improvement in the game.
Lack of horizontal progression makes a game shallow, linear and monotonous after some time.
You need a balance of both, really. Games like eve did this really well.
Do not agree at all. After enjoyed mainly gw2 with so called "horizontal" progression ... I'm missing even more good old vertical. Btw ... do not be fooled by word "leveling". This IS PRESENT in gw2 as in ANY other game ... it is just called differently.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
I agree, GW2 handed you progression on a platter just for levelling up, which wasn't very difficult at all. GW1 got you to max level pretty quick, but after that it was quite a feat to go around earning all the available skills, which gave a feeling of constant progression and new builds available to play with.
I am sure some douche will come in and say 'but people only used x build for farming'. Yes well people are sheep, its a game, you were meant to play around with builds and have fun, not number crunch the optimal farm build.
I remeber playing single player RPGs doing stuff like that. Scaling every mob with your power. I lost interest quickly. Where is the sense of danger if the danger scales with you? Where is the sense of achievement if you know the mob will just scale with you? I remember killing my first Heckler solo in AO. It took me seven minutes and was pretty close sometimes when my snare broke. After I did I felt like "Hell YEAH! I did it! I told you so, non-believers!" (I was 107 and everyone in my org told me "No way!"). What would that have been if the heck just scaled with me? "Wow... I killed a mob that was my level!".
Progression in any way should be part of an RPG. Many people (especially in PvP) that go against it have FPS in mind. Everyone is equal and no difference. I want to have a sense of accomplishment when I am able to leave a map and survive the next one. What good would the Dread Lord's castle be if I could just go there from Weenie Island? Where is my journey and my acievments (I don't mean those sensless tiltes that you collect)? I wouldn't even respect the "big ones" knowing that everything I do scales with me.
Another problem with scaling is that either you set levels for maps or scale according to highes or lowest levels around, which brings up major problems (everyone who played Sacred and logged into a gamewhere a highlevel just logged in as lowlevel knows my case).
Give us options, worlds, sense of danger, accomplishment, something to aim for and loads of options from camping named mobs, going into instanced missions (which can scale with you), going into uninstanced dungeons, crafting to socialising. Taking away from this wont make things better. Design is the main problem nowadays, not progression.
Cheers!
Vertical progression ..... my 2 biggest issues is that it builds the game like a pyramid.. Eventually you run out of space at the top.. and secondly it makes older content obsolete, leaving ghost towns behind.. GW2 adjusting level mechanic is a big plus in my book and something that should exist in all games.. The one thing I wouldn't mind seeing is how low level toons and play in higher level zones.. If a group want to attack a higher level toon, they should.. Current mechanics normally keeps those low level toons from even hitting the mob, let alone do any damage..
Agreed. That is why ARPGs like Diablo are popular. They are nothing but progression + fun combat.
Even FPS, and action adventures are adding progression elements (like Dishonored), because it is something players enjoy.
I suddenly had an image of Deathwing and Trakkanon dueling, both with shock yellow hair standing upright, and a power aura surrounding them both...
Nice read though, OP..
..because we're gamers, damn it!! - William Massachusetts (Log Horizon)
LOL ... and shouting "ka .. me ... ka ... me" ...
There is a simple solution to a Dragonball Z problem. End the game and make a sequel.