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Choosing Your Path : Horizontal or Vertical Progression? | MMORPG.com
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Choosing Your Path : Horizontal or Vertical Progression? | MMORPG.com
Player progression is central to the MMORPG experience, but that progression is not always the same across the genre. Emilien looks at the age-old question: horizontal or vertical progression?
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My idea MMO would end gear progression with a handful of legendary quest lines for your class, getting your hands on that uber epic weapon/armor piece or whatever, but then providing additional means of progression through passive ability unlocks by completing dungeons/raids/rep grinds, etc. This would allow the release of more difficult content without invalidating gear.
Oh look:
My noob sword does 10% damage against monsters at my level.
My improved sword does 10% damage against monsters at my level.
My excellent sword does 10% damage against monsters at my level.
My uber sword of lightning does 10% damage against monsters at my level.
It's the same encounter over and over again with different graphics.
HEY HAMSTER, HERE IS YOUR PELLET!
vote for a limited vertical progression along with a wide horizontal progression.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Oh look my dagger attacks 4 times per second for 10 damage!
My sword attacks 2 times per second 20 damage!
My axe attacks 1 time per second for 40 damage!
They're both treadmills. Just one gives the illusion of progress while the other dispenses with the illusion.
1: When you fight a dragon with your sword, a player with fire resistance would do better than the one without the fire resistance. He's not doing better because of some arbitrary "level" which makes him better against everything.
2: With no fire resistance, a noob hitting the vet with a torch might do quite a bit of damage, instead of the weird absolutely no damage you get with levels.
As for your weapons example, I'd rather that daggers allow you to stealth, an axe has +2 against skeletons, and a long sword is brutal in open field battles so that more comes into play than the stupid stats.
I explore a cave and I find a chest. I examine the chest to see if the chest is enchanted or rigged with a trap. I roll a dex (investigation) check, and fortunately I roll a 17, thankfully it's just a simple wire spring trap, so I roll dex again for slight of hand and am able to lift the top of the chest enough to slip two of my fingers in far enough to trip and snap the wire on the inside, allowing the primitive makeshift trap at the base of the inside section of the chest to resolve without injury to myself or the contents of the chest, and then am safely able to lift the chest open to reveal a delicate robe inside that I later appraise; turns out it was worth 571g that a local mage was in search of.
I later spent 24g on, uh, 'nightly adult distractions' at the local seedy tavern. (it's a cheap tavern)
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Point being horizontal progression is not the magic bullet that solves all your design concerns and every game should shift to that approach. It will have plusses and minuses. It's like the class based vs skill based design question.
I also wouldn't claim that vertical progression is the cause of all problems.
It does come down to preference.
In a vertical progression world, some additional tasks can be added (fishing, treasure hunting, etc), that and house building and exploration can add a great deal of depth to a game. Also, because the buy in is so modest - people can indulge in PvP much sooner so that whole realm opens up.
As for a MMO with an "end", you've just described the problem with vertical progression in that it does keep on ending. Which is why LOTRO has added 100 levels or so since launch.
Consider this: To be competitive in the LOTRO PvP zone at one point you only needed to grind to level 50, now it is 150. Someone joining the game now has MONTHS of work to ever join his buddies in PvP - thanks to vertical progression.
And no matter what, do not do item scaling or level scaling, ever.
With vertical progression you can actually notice your progression. Going back to earlier content to farm is far more efficient than it would be in a horizontal progression system. To me vertical progression gives you something to aim for that allows you to take on more difficult content. When you're doing end game content like raids it feels awesome to build up gear that makes the fights easier/quicker, because you can actually gauge the progression, be it more damage, better survivability, and better tools, which just isn't present in horizontal progression focused games. In my opinion horizontal progression takes away what makes RPG's an appealing genre, and i may as well play an action, adventure, or some other genre of game that will do horizontal progression better, and with better game play.
Yeah level scaling feels like no progression at all.....
Your "gear" translates to "Enhancements" that you slot into your powers. When you level up, sometimes you get a new power, sometimes you get more slots to add more stats to said powers. So no matter what kind of level you get, you get a nice upgrade.
End-game materials for crafting said enhancements drop at every levels, with the higher levels/difficulties making that grind exponentially more efficient. But, you're still making a lot of money early on. You can even trade points you get from completing story missions for items that are also worth a lot of money. So right at the start, you're participating in end-game. High level/rich players get a steady flow of mats even from noobs. Noobs get damn good money at all levels. Win-win-win. On Homecoming, a private server, that supply and demand chain has never come close to ending with popular items still having in the hundreds of thousands of listings.
What makes its progression so damn smooth is that set enhancements have different level requirements that aren't just "max level." You can start kitting out your character in it's end-game build quite early on, level 17.
So the loop looks like: You grind to get exp, you get mats at the same time and therefore money, when you level up, you add slots to your powers and slowly use that money to buy set enhancements. Every level getting stronger, until you're invincible in your current difficulty and bump it up. You even get the option to +1-5 enemy levels, and that Diablo 2 feature of simulating more players. The game has diablo-style spawns, by the way. On 8 players, packs have like 15-20 enemies. VERY gratifying when you get to the point where you can safely grind x8!
The loop is so gratifying, with your progression and power constantly rising at the same consistent pace. There are slight spikes here and there, but it feels consistent, and every time you raise the difficulty, you get your validation that you're progressing. At first it's enemy quantity, then you're too strong for x8 players, so now you gotta overpower higher level enemies.
You might ask, but if you're "end-game" gearing out your character while leveling, you get to 50 and you're already geared so you're done? No, the game has additional leveling and progression systems past that, as well as additional difficulties past +4/8 (+4 enemy levels for 8 players).
Oh and it's probably the most altaholic-friendly game out there, so these common market items never run out of buyers. It's just a nice game, that made all of its features work together at almost any progression point. I'm almost mad no one ever even tried taking ideas from it.