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Vertical vs Horizontal Progression & How I Think You Can Have Both
Cactus_LFRez
Member UncommonPosts: 206
Quick Definitions
I think we know what the terms vertical and horizontal progression mean but some quick definitions.
Vertical progression is basically when your character's power increases over time through levels and gear. Numbers go up.
Horizontal progression is the opposite, you gain variety over time but the numbers do not go up.
Vertical and Horizontal Pros and Cons
Some pros and cons of the two options, in my opinion
Vertical
Pros
- gives players a sense of progression
- can be a good hook to keep people playing
Cons
- makes all lower level content obsolete
- requires developers continuously design more vertical content as players complete old content
Horizontal
Pros
- content is cumulative and evergreen, content is not outmoded
- can add a lot of variety over time
Cons
- doesn't necessarily have that hook to keep people playing
- can be overwhelming to new players
Why You Can't Just Do Both
With that said and the title in mind,
These types of progression are mutually exclusive and cannot be combined on the same mode of play.
By default if you have a character and new content makes numbers go up, that is vertical and is not horizontal, and if the new content does not make numbers go up, it is horizontal and not vertical.
It can be one or the other but not both.
So what the heck is the title of my post even about if I just said the two methods are mutually exclusive.
The catch is the same mode of play part.
Split Progression
My idea is basically take two different modes of play and apply vertical progression to one and horizontal progression to the other.
Split progression.
Imagine if you will, you have a game where you have a character and a ship you can pilot.
There is content both for character play and ship play. Like Star Trek Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea etc.
Now imagine the character and ship have different progression methods.
The character could progress horizontally like Guild Wars 2, the number could not go up ever or have a short tutorial leveling period before hitting cap.
New character content would be horizontal in nature, more variety of weapons, costume pieces, decorations, etc.
The ship could progress vertically like World of Warcraft, you could have ship levels and levels for parts and weapons.
New ship content could work like new dungeon tiers. Higher level hulls, engines, radar, guns, shields etc.
I am using character and ship as an example because it is what I thought of first and shows a clear distinction but you could apply this split progression method to other things if you put your mind to it.
Split Progression Pros and Cons
Pros
- provides long term progression through vertical parts
- has evergreen content through horizontal parts
- horizontal parts give players something to do between new vertical parts
- vertical parts can be the hook to keep players playing
Cons
- two modes of progression can be a lot of work
- assumes players want to engauge in two different types of play, in this case character based and ship based
- balancing the two types of play so one does dominate the other
This method really does require you have a game with two different types of play, if you had a game with just a character that did dungeons and such this wouldn't work.
TLDR
What if you had different types of gameplay (like a character and a space ship in Star Trek Online) and applied horizontal progression to one and vertical to the other to try to have the benefits of both.
Comments
Has had both vertical and horizontal progression since the beginning.
"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
Looter shooters are for sure vertical progression.
But, I always understood Eve to be a vertical progression game, albeit spread across a bunch of skills with slower time based progression, and a vertical hierarchy of ship classes, meaning some types of ships are just straight up better than others.
I guess there are horizontal elements in how you equip your ship, but that is generally true of any vertical game that has build choice.
It also depends if Eve has added power over time to the game, or kept the power capped and added horizontal progression.
The big difference between vertical and horizontal in my opinion is how they handle new content over time.
More power over time is vertical, capping power and adding variety is horizontal.
Even GW2 has a short vertical leveling section, but a really big horizontal endgame.
Usually there is a handoff, where vertical stops and horizontal begins, but you can't have both at once.
But that is the point, vertical has to end so you can have horizontal.
The power of gear can't both increase and not increase, or level cap can't both increase and not increase.
Unless of course you apply vertical and horizontal to separate things.
Go to this page and read the section on Categorization:
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Ships
Noodle on that.
These different types of gameplay have been there from day one, crafting is a form of horizonal progression if you are making house furniture for example. MMORPG's are hybrid games that do best with as many forms of play as possible but keeping the balance and often coherence of gameplay is hard.
In a sense all progression is pointless, it is just a game after all, it just depends what you value.
If you are the kind of person that likes getting a bunch of cards in magic to make all kinds of decks, you probably like horizontal progression.
If you like making your damage numbers go up as high as possible in Diablo then you probably like vertical progression.
This was actually a "vertical economic progression", though, to an extent, depending on how you look at it.
Once upon a time....
There is a core set of skills required to pilot almost any ship hull in EVE.
Ship types and activities (mining) have specific skills associated with them as well, with a few skills being totally unique to each one
All skill progression is capped at level 5 for each ship type or activity.
This means even a new joiner 20 years after EVE's launch can train the necessary skills in about 1.25 real life years and be flying EVE's most powerful vessels.
Same with mining, will take time, perhaps years even if skill training but eventually you will cap them all and be the equal of a 20 year vet.
Here's the thing, skill training isn't something which has to be completed in total in order for a player to be effective or have fun in EVE.
The power gap between level 4 and 5 is not significant and a capable level 4 skilled pilot can easily overcome a level 5 player like me...as I'm not personally skilled at fighting my boats.
I recall my first year of EVE being able to fly a sh!tfit Battleship, Raven I think but I did have most relevant skills at level 4.
I flew in a fleet of 75 + Raven Missile boats and we relentless pounded the defenses of the BOB alliance while other pilots /ships fought battles between Capital Ships like Titans or Dreadnoughts.
While much more powerful than my Raven Capitals stayed out of our fleets way, and my most memorable moment was when our fleet got to participate in the killing of a Titan that got separated from its support fleet.
All this with less than a year's experience and my corporation didn't even own a capital ship.
We actually took a BOB station but since we were not capable of defending it we traded it for what was called a Mothership back then, these days I think they are called Super Carriers.
The horizontal comes in by starting training on a new ship type or activity. Scanning or exploration are trying horizon in nature, opening up
I left EVE six years ago after 10 years of paid subs across up to 6 accounts.
I can fight dozens of ship types and perform activities like mining, wormhole scanning and exploration with the best of them.
Even were I to go back today I would be just as effective as when I left, though they have added some new hulls that I'd probably want to train into.
Even when CCP does add ships with extra power, like Tier 3 Heavy Cruisers, while superior in certain situations they could easily be taken down by a pair of well fitted T2's or a small swarm of interceptors and frigates.
For every ship hull or activity there is a counter to it. EVE is the ultimate Paper, Scissors, Rock model in terms of progression models.
"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
The only reason we are talking about "Horizontal" progression is because of the issues that "Vertical" progression has.
Those issues are based on the divisions that Vertical progression brings, player and world division into small chunks.
And THAT'S based on the huge Power Gaps.
So, if you design a game with both Vertical and Horizontal progression, but don't address those player division aspects, then you aren't solving the problems.
It's obviously a big problem, because even game companies have tried to fix it with "Scaling", which brings different problems (depending on how they do the Scaling).
Once upon a time....
But I think MMOs are overwhelmingly centered on vertical progression and always have been.
They may have multiple forms of vertical progression, but each one is vertical in nature.
If they do have horizontal progression it is usually something minor, like the furniture example.
And of course you can't have vertical and horizontal progression applied to the same thing, like gear progression can't be both vertical and horizontal at the same time.
In EQ you had race languages, you could not understand other races if they spoke in them. Over time with exposure to the language you "learnt" more and more words until you could understand it all. That is a great roleplaying example of HP, but roleplaying tools were steadily abandoned as a priority over the years. You would need more like that and studios just don't seemed bothered about anything other than core play.
On thing I did not touch on at all and you covered here is the power curve.
The difference between the top and the bottom.
WoW certainly has a massive power curve, while it sounds like Eve has a shallow power curve.
It is interesting though, because I would not necessarily think of that as horizontal progression, rather a variety of vertical progression, with shallow power curves and a cap on power.
That throws a wrench in the spokes if people are operating with different concepts.
If for no other reason then it might give you something to ponder and think about regarding horizontal and vertical progression
See GW2 starts you out with the typical Vertical Progression, levels 1 - 80. Very generic for an MMO, with skills and traits you will learn and unlock, armor progression and the like as well.
But the game down levels you, so, you never quite out grow a zone, but you can grow into going into other, higher level, zones.
This is a super cool feature, because the world expands as you level up, you add zones you can go to, you do not lose any, as opposed to the normal MMO experience where the world Pidgeon holes you into only the higher end content.
Once you hit 80th (Max Level) the game become Horizontal, and this takes the form of Mastery Tracks, Gear Grinds, Unlocking Elite Specs, Mounts, and of course a damn near endless list of achievements you can strive for.
Most players joke that 1 - 80 is the tutorial, and that once you make 80th, that is when the real game starts, and given you wanted to talk about a marriage of both vertical and horizontal progression games, playing GW2 might be a great way to experience a system that incorporates some of those mindsets and features, first hand.
Not saying you will like it, you might hate the fuck out of it, but, it would be a way to see these systems in action.
Once upon a time....
So the difference stays very low and you are a bit more versatile. But thats it.
1997 Meridian 59 'til 2019 ESO
Waiting for Camelot Unchained & Pantheon
Neither really overpowers the other, but, learning Longbow is a sense of Progression
A lot of this also depends on the game.
To use a direct example, I enjoy a game called Dungeons and Dragons Online that is quite in-depth with their mechanics, and just like the game Dungeons and Dragons, some mobs have resistances, like Skeletons take full damage from blunt, but only half from slash/piercing, so making sure you can use a mace, which is blunt damage, is adventitious to you, even if the mace might end up doing less damage then say that longsword you are proficient with.
Equally so, using DDO again.
Imagine is Ability A is Fire Based, and Ability B is Acid based, it's to your advantage to unlock Ability B, if you end up fighting mobs that immune to Fire damage, like say Fire Elementals, for example
There is also other cases, like unlocking QOL abilities. For example, again with DDO, Ammo is finite, so having an ability to have endless ammo, while does not directly make you more powerful, it is desirable
There are other examples I could use.
For example in GW2
You can unlock special merchants
Gain faster run speeds while out of combat, this becomes handy when you are just traveling around, but does not give you any combat advantage
An ability called Gliding can be unlocked, is super handy as it helps prevent you from dying to falling damage, but like the run speed, it does not in fact give you any advantage in a fight.
Another common mastery line in GW2 is being able to open specific kinds of chests. Does not give you any combat advantage, but does give you access to more loot.
So there are many kinds of systems that can be put in place, that are not simple "This gives you +1 damage" that are things players will aspire for, and work towards.
Run speed / reduced fall damage as they permit a team to have extreme mobility on how or when to engage in a fight.
Resistance against specific damage type, or ability to overcome resistance of targets, PVP or PVE were a Hallmark of DAOC, along with run speed advantages.
Definitely not horizontal in nature, some were vital to ensure success and woe to a team which didn't have them.
"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
Tactical advantage could be being able to set a siege catapult on a hill, it does not suddenly make the Catapult better, stronger, or faster, but it's placement allows you to hit a target that cannot return fire to your catapult
Just like being able to get to a location faster, does not in any way mean you will not get destroyed by a superior fighting force that is there attacking your point already
Being able to glide to safety if you fall off a cliff, is not the same as getting a +1 damage to your attacks. One simply allows you to move around, the other directly augments your ability to win the encounter
If you wanted to play "Oh that's a tactical advantage" then everything is Vertical
No matter what, and Horizontal Progression is a bullshit buzzword to you, is it really a bullshit buzzword to you? because fuck all, even getting a new dye color could be a tactical advantage if used right.
Games this days are just so grindy that you can waste your whole life in a game and not get everything in the game.