Guild Wars 2

From what I see, there are two main reasons for players to want vertical progression. For many players, vertical progression is the driving force behind playing the game. As long as your character can grow no more powerful, you have run out of content to play with, and there is no point in playing. Another motivation behind the drive for endless progression is that there must always be a tier of “power” and “prestige” available, that are out of reach of “casual” gamers. There must be a scarce commodity out there that separates the “haves” and “have nots”, lest the latter starts feeling a sense of entitlement. The above reasonings, however, in my opinion, do not address the fundamental need behind gear progression, and do not take into account the side effects of its implementation.

Let me address the flaw with the first reasoning. Vertical progression, by definition, means your character gets ever more powerful the more you play. An equivalent interpretation, however, is that every monster out there gets easier the more you play. This flies in the face of traditional game design, where levels should generally get harder over time. More importantly, this destroys the very content you are looking for.

Let me explain. In Guild Wars 2 (let’s leave out Lost Shores first as I’ve not touched the game since Ascendedgate), there are exactly two PVE areas catered for level 80s. And most players stick to Cursed Shore. What about the rest? The truth is your character is too powerful to play in most of the other parts of the game. Enter a newbie zone and your enemies die if you so much as sneeze at them. Yes, the down-levelling is supposed to address this, but your gear is not down-levelled appropriately.

In Guild Wars 1, the developers have attempted to address this by implementing Hard Mode. Note that Hard Mode is accessible to level 20 characters, who can progress no further in stats. This means that the content remains relevant and challenging throughout your experience, no matter where you go. I think for most of us, having a sufficient challenge is an integral part of gameplay. My level 20 party can vanquish all the endgame bosses, do all the elite dungeons and still have to be extra cautious about fighting Roaring Ethers and Elementalist Bosses in Hard Mode.

When Guild Wars 2 was being developed, there was no doubt that they were recreating this sort of ideal. That every part of the game remains challenging. Yet Vertical Progression threatens this very ideal. A character with highly progressed gear would certainly find most content boring and unworthy of play. Already before Ascendedgate, my full-exotic (with nearly 200% magic find) Warrior is experiencing the problem of content obsoletion. Why bother with the rest of the world, when I can farm endlessly in Cursed Shore for the only worthwhile gear in the game? When monsters in other places die so easily, I fall asleep fighting them? Now Vertical Progression exacerbates the problem.

You wanna feel powerful? Fine. Don’t blame Anet when the rest of the content they painstakingly created and some of the most beautiful landscapes turn out unplayably easy for you. You are continuously funnelled away from these content anyway because they do not progress you, instead causing you to fall behind and denying access to the latest content. Because that is the ironic eventuality of Vertical Progression.

The second reason is that a sense of progression can still be achieved without the use of Vertical Progression. Once your character has maxed out, the only way to be more effective is for the player to actually upgrade his skills to handle the toughest challenges. Guild Wars 1 had a few missions which were frustratingly difficult for me. The most memorable one I could recall was the Ruins of Morah mission where you had to kill Varesh. It was exceedingly difficult for my Dervish and I spent over seven hours trying to gather a team to defeat her. Eventually we had to strategise and completely rework our builds in order to take her down. But it was satisfying! By contrast vertical progression yields none of that exhilaration of problem-solving. Can’t face a gearcheck boss? Go grind some more, repeating content you have already completed just to make the content easier for you. I believe most players bought into the manifesto of Guild Wars 2 under the impression that the same fun of Guild Wars 1 could carry over.

The other problem with Vertical Progression is that one can have all the same prestige and fame with Horizontal Progression as well. Guild Wars 1 had Ascended armor too, but ironically they are just as powerful as basic armor. But they look way cooler and are a strong motivation to attain as well. By contrast vertical progression causes inflation and inexorably the devaluation and obsoletion of whatever prestige you obtained that separates the “Hardcore” from the “Casual” masses. However if with the same horizontal power one manages to clear the toughest dungeons, and gets rewarded with the rarest skins, that is certainly a bigger achievement to flaunt, as it signifies real skill rather than endless repetition. One such achievement that comes to mind (sadly only 3 weeks before this) was the Mad King’s Slippers, awarded at the end of the Clocktower jumping puzzle. It truly signifies the great skill the player has to navigate the level. (I know I can’t do it. I suck at platformers.) Can vertical progression be more satisfying than this?

TL: DR?

Vertical Progression both “gates” and obsoletes content, creating a lose-lose situation for all players.

Horizontal Progression can be similarly used to distinguish players, in fact more convincingly as the main separation will be that of skill rather than endless grind.

Yes,

I too loved the the thrill of tailoring my skill part and my equipment loadout to take on specific maps in GW1. I had half a dozen different builds that I would run on just one character. While some of these builds seemed more powerful than other builds, they weren’t always the most effective for certain areas. They all had their own strengths and weaknesses, and there was a time and place for each of them. It was immensely satisfying to beat a challenging area because I had a well-designing skillbar that was played properly. Simply overwhelming the area with superior-statted equipment just wouldn’t feel the same.

As for equipment, it was important to use the right equipment. But it was like having a toolbox with a screwdriver, a wrench, and a hammer. They are all good at what they do, but they each have a different purpose. Moreover, none of these tools were difficult to acquire.

The saddest part of this is the irony of it all: Developers such as Blizzard are picking up Guild Wars 1’s many design strengths and implementing it into their game even as Anet abandons them. The skill-bar interface of Diablo 3 is highly reminiscent of Guild Wars’ customizability, accommodation to different playstyles and tactics. They also ditched their long-held stance of no-respec, and allowed players to choose whatever builds they wished on the fly.

Most ironic of all (I don’t play WoW, might need a fact check), is that MoP is releasing dungeon modes with Horizontal Progression. Venture into these dungeons, but with standardised gear for all players! (So stop comparing the new metagame to WoW. Because GW2 is not even WoW anymore). That is a true test of skill, not grind. And it makes the game easy to play, hard to master. Values which Anet once held dear.

I am writing this, not because I want Anet to read and respond to this (because I know they won’t), but to encourage players to look beneath the illusion of progress and see and appreciate the well-thought out and carefully crafted design elements we once had.

Frankly I harbor little hope for GW1 as well. GW2 shows signs of executive intervention (as a business guy myself I can see its handiwork), which shows signs of financial distress. And NCSoft will not keep an unprofitable venture’s servers running for too long. Right now the devs are probably gagged because they still want their stock options. But screaming at them is probably of no use as many of them probably did all these against their best intentions to appease their financiers. They probably feel the death of their creation more dearly than we do. So it is time to move on.