I see a lot of complaints against vertical progression and that it should be horizontal progression. As far as I can tell, vertical progression means that the stat numbers on the enemy are increased. So you either have to gain levels or gear or what-have-you to increase your numbers to be able to defeat them.
People dislike this. Fine. Let's take it away completely. So now no numbers ever increase. What then is left? The difficulty comes solely now from the AI. New content just has monsters with different AI, but the overall power level of everything stays the same. The end. Does this really change anything that much?
I don't think so. And I think that people who obsess over the so called "horizontal" progression have this illogical fantasy that their character will be non-stop transforming their skills into different skills in a never-ending skill customization system. At some point, your character's playstyle is defined. Horizontal progression has its limits. So when you say you only want horizontal progression and no vertical progression, all you're doing is taking something away from the game, and you're not really adding anything in return.
Comments
horizontal vertical.... how can you tell ?
Maybe for some, definitely not my style anymore.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I played GW2 a few years ago. It is a game with no gear progression.
For starter everyone have equal stats gear in PvP. So you don't need to grind gear to pvp. You don't have power gap between player just because of gear level.
For pve, people dont' check your gear score to see if you are fit to do the content. But still, people check your achievement point, if it is too low, people don't want to do content with you.
It is just much more enjoyable because you can just do the content and not the grind for gear. A big reason I never return to mmorpg is because it is too grindy and require too much effort to get gear to compete in pvp.
What you CALL the system for becoming more powerful is unimportant.
Players will always find a way to judge one another in terms of their relative power. "Babathet run. DPS spot open. Must have 500 skill points. " Same thing as levels.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
It is a very shallow description when you say a game that has no level increase is horizontal. It isn't though because even in EQ 2 AA is an increase in power.
He's saying there is no way "progression" can be horizontal, if it exists in a game it is vertical, period.
You are saying if it truly is horizontal, it can't really be called progession then, as you aren't making any sort of actual progress.
At least that's how I'm reading between the lines this morning.
Happy Friday.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What is left is a broadening of abilities over time, which increases character power, until the number of concurrently usable abilities are reached, and flexibility by being better able to customize which abilities you concurrently use out of a larger pool available.
Some prefer that difference in method, so for them it adds satisfying their preference in return, and through that their enjoyment of the game increases. That this enjoyment will likely lead to more fun for these persons provides inherent validation of it.
Those that dislike that method will find it less fun and thus choose to play games with the vertical progression they enjoy more.
I'm not seeing a basis for complaint here.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
It's like playing an alt without actually playing an alt in that mythical RPG with perfect balance: It still takes you 15.2 seconds to kill that elite mob but now you're doing it with a 2HD sword instead of a bow.
I think it's promoted as a better system by altoholics who don't want to level alts
PS - I play RPGs to progress and I don't mind leveling alts in the least.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
How about a mix of Limited Vertical Progression and Horizontal Progression?