Sallington wrote: »E-Peens and longevity
xoduspaladin wrote: »Honestly, Sallington does have a point. It really is just a way to keep people playing. It doesn't take much creativity, yet people gobble it up. From a developer's pov its perfect I would guess. Just wag a few expansions or DLCs here and there to keep the fanatics happy, and you got your typical MMO for the past 20 or so years!
xoduspaladin wrote: »Honestly, Sallington does have a point. It really is just a way to keep people playing. It doesn't take much creativity, yet people gobble it up. From a developer's pov its perfect I would guess. Just wag a few expansions or DLCs here and there to keep the fanatics happy, and you got your typical MMO for the past 20 or so years!
In exchange for making gear and content obsolete?
xoduspaladin wrote: »Honestly, Sallington does have a point. It really is just a way to keep people playing. It doesn't take much creativity, yet people gobble it up. From a developer's pov its perfect I would guess. Just wag a few expansions or DLCs here and there to keep the fanatics happy, and you got your typical MMO for the past 20 or so years!
Mostly it's simply a design that has been an RPG staple since pen and paper days. Some MMOs can play with 100% horizontal progression (The Secret World). ESO being based on a game series whose progression design is very heavily influenced by tabletop RPGs like D&D really needs vertical progression to keep the game in the spirit of the series.
HungryHobo wrote: »Longevity. If you have a game where the gear is tough to get, it takes multiple 100's of hours to get some of the best stuff, all the while you have players who are getting more money to buy the stuff they need along with earning it trough drops, not just trade.. they'll eventually reach their goals.
Now, when an expansion comes out, and if that player has everything of that level, if the new content/gear/skills are NOT interesting and not higher level, the vet player doesn't have any motivation to play. They are happy with where they are at. If you move the bar up higher (Vertical Progression) via higher levels or the such, it "resets" their standing. They will no longer be comfortable, and they will have a new goal to achieve.
Essentially, if you hit a plateau in your gaming, you've explored/killed/geared all you can, it gives you a higher level to explore/kill/gear (albeit the same content or not, numbers are generally bigger, players feel more powerful).
It is not a super creative way to go about things, and people don't necessarily like becoming "outdated", but it is by far the most efficient way to promote the longevity of any game.
Addictive, pavlovian reward systems.
But in all seriousness, if you want to play something WITHOUT vertical progression of any notable fashion, it's not like there aren't other options. A solid 95% of the market is games with zero vertical progression.
If you want PVP you've got Call of Duty and Battlefield and Chivalry and Worms and Street Fighter and Madden to fill your twitch shooter and tactical shooter and close combat and turn based and fighting and sports voids, along with god knows how many other options.
However, very few of those types of games attract enough reason to stick around to pay a monthly fee.
MMO's get (well, got) away with it in large part due to server costs and continual updates. That's fast becoming faulty reasoning though as more and more games go full on B2P or F2P offering optional subscriptions that, like ESO, barely offer benefit. Many games are now allowing players to sell subscriptions to each other in game (like WoW), trade in premium currencies (like Warframe or Guild Wars 2) or simply buy premium content straight up with in-game currencies (like Eve).
So I suppose the main reason that MMO's have vertical progression now is because it has an audience. Does it need more reason?
Just because you don't find it appealing doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who do. I see a lot of arguments towards changing the game to NOT have vertical progression. I doubt that will happen. It's not asking for a balance change or the addition of a feature, it's basically asking for the entire game to be rebuilt from the ground up for the convenience of that one guy who doesn't like the current system.
Thing is: that guy just doesn't like the game itself. Maybe he should play something else.
Vertical progression is also a way for developers to introduce challenge and overall difficulty to their PvE systems. Unless a game has an extremely intricate AI and combat system, then mechanics for fights can only go so far as to provide players with a necessary challenge. On the other hand, when you vertically progress the monster's power, then you introduce a challenge to the player where not only must they deal with the encounter's mechanics, but they must also grow in power statistically in order to overcome that challenge more smoothly.
Vertical progression is also a way for developers to introduce challenge and overall difficulty to their PvE systems. Unless a game has an extremely intricate AI and combat system, then mechanics for fights can only go so far as to provide players with a necessary challenge. On the other hand, when you vertically progress the monster's power, then you introduce a challenge to the player where not only must they deal with the encounter's mechanics, but they must also grow in power statistically in order to overcome that challenge more smoothly.
Or they could tune the dungeon appropriately to existing gear and use the saved time (by not having to rebalance everything to a new level cap) to develop more content? With proper tuning the content can still be challenging...also I think you underestimate the limits of fight mechanics and human creativity.
Addictive, pavlovian reward systems.
But in all seriousness, if you want to play something WITHOUT vertical progression of any notable fashion, it's not like there aren't other options. A solid 95% of the market is games with zero vertical progression.
If you want PVP you've got Call of Duty and Battlefield and Chivalry and Worms and Street Fighter and Madden to fill your twitch shooter and tactical shooter and close combat and turn based and fighting and sports voids, along with god knows how many other options.
However, very few of those types of games attract enough reason to stick around to pay a monthly fee.
MMO's get (well, got) away with it in large part due to server costs and continual updates. That's fast becoming faulty reasoning though as more and more games go full on B2P or F2P offering optional subscriptions that, like ESO, barely offer benefit. Many games are now allowing players to sell subscriptions to each other in game (like WoW), trade in premium currencies (like Warframe or Guild Wars 2) or simply buy premium content straight up with in-game currencies (like Eve).
So I suppose the main reason that MMO's have vertical progression now is because it has an audience. Does it need more reason?
Just because you don't find it appealing doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who do. I see a lot of arguments towards changing the game to NOT have vertical progression. I doubt that will happen. It's not asking for a balance change or the addition of a feature, it's basically asking for the entire game to be rebuilt from the ground up for the convenience of that one guy who doesn't like the current system.
Thing is: that guy just doesn't like the game itself. Maybe he should play something else.
So are you one of these people who like the vertical progression and gear treadmill and grinding for the sake of dinging another number?
CFodder1977 wrote: »The only people who enjoy and demand vertical progression are PvE QQers.
I'm really struggling with this (as someone who has played mmo/mud/mush etc.... since the mid 90s.
What does vertical progression bring to the table that makes it a staple of mmorpgs?
Can anyone help me to understand?
So the objective for a horizontal progression system must be to provide players with that same feeling of power they get from a vertical system, only to give it to them via intellectual stimulation (pick the right skills for this boss) or encouragement to practice (this boss is level 20, you will never level past 20, now figure out how to beat him). The resulting feeling of power will be more real than the illusion that is given be the vertical system, and players will fall in love with that feeling and will come back wanting for more.
CFodder1977 wrote: »Go play Guild Wars 2 and see how enjoyable horizontal progression is after you're max level and new content is non-existent for months at a time. The only people who enjoy and demand horizontal progression are PvP QQers.
I'm really struggling with this (as someone who has played mmo/mud/mush etc.... since the mid 90s.
What does vertical progression bring to the table that makes it a staple of mmorpgs?
Can anyone help me to understand?
This will sound very harsh, so apologise beforehand, but I really do believe it is the truth.
A vertical progression system gives a player the ability to trade time for the illusion of success. This is appealing to people who have a hard time at being successful in real life, as in an MMO they can get more and more powerful, even if they are such slow learners that they never learn to play better.
And this caricature of a notoriously unsuccessful person who wants to feel powerful somewhere, can be found in every single person on the planet to some degree. Some people are closer to that caricature and some are farther away. And thus vertical progression is appealing to everyone to some degree.
So the objective for a horizontal progression system must be to provide players with that same feeling of power they get from a vertical system, only to give it to them via intellectual stimulation (pick the right skills for this boss) or encouragement to practice (this boss is level 20, you will never level past 20, now figure out how to beat him). The resulting feeling of power will be more real than the illusion that is given be the vertical system, and players will fall in love with that feeling and will come back wanting for more.
RazzPitazz wrote: »Carrots on sticks
As someone mentioned, it's classical and operant conditioning.
But it's also important in an MMO because you can't make any difference to the world, only your character. The world is 'painted on' - i.e. in world objects are fixed, immovable, static (barring a few scripted objects). Mobs mostly stay in one spot or a small area, and respawn in seconds. Same as bosses - kill the world's greatest evil and he pops up moments later, right as rain. Same as quests - "save my husband from the trolls!", but when you do the trolls immediately respawn and the husband re-materialises in their clutches, que "save my husband from the trolls!", ad infinitum.
Since, unlike in a single player game, in an MMO you can effect no changes to the world, more emphasis needs to be put into the only thing that you can change in the game - you.
eonowakb16_ESO wrote: »So the objective for a horizontal progression system must be to provide players with that same feeling of power they get from a vertical system, only to give it to them via intellectual stimulation (pick the right skills for this boss) or encouragement to practice (this boss is level 20, you will never level past 20, now figure out how to beat him). The resulting feeling of power will be more real than the illusion that is given be the vertical system, and players will fall in love with that feeling and will come back wanting for more.
Nice post! And not harsh, it is the truth. But, and that may sound harsh, i doubt that the base of potential players that get a intellectual stimulation from beeing progressed vertically is so huge, compared to the one that prefer to have there progession measured in numbers - and if these numbers are just plain levels. You can manage a challange in ESO (if there would be one) with good skills, good gear a bit in the horizontal way. But - the majority wants to show there progression to the rest of the world through the number of a level. Thats might be the reason why so much were complaining in the past, that we dont have a way to inspect someone....
Mos-De-Atmo wrote: »What actually is horizontal progression specifically?