I want to play the game, without vertical, mechanical advancement, because it’s fun. I wanted to play old content as long as it remains fun to play again, and I wanted to play new content as it comes out, as long as it’s fun to play.
And if it ever stopped being fun, then I would stop playing – but I would know that, if I decided that I missed the game and wanted to come back to play it again, or if new content was released that did look fun, that I would be able to jump back in and still be maxed out mechanically, without having to go get entirely new gear.
And I wanted to be able to play multiple characters, and use equipment with multiple stat spreads for different kinds of builds on those characters, without having to waste dozens or hundreds of hours running on the treadmill again not only for every new character, but for every new build on those characters. If I wanted to have one character of each class, and I wanted to play two builds on each class that both use a different stat distribution, I would need sixteen sets of equipment. That’s currently (on average) about 15 pieces of equipment per build, which is 226 pieces of equipment. If Exotics cost 2g each, that’s 452 gold. On what Earth is that not an immense, immense grind?
And that’s not taking into account that those are the absolute cheapest Exotics available, so all of those characters would look like hobos unless I multiplied that grind by two or three to get decent looking equipment.
And I would be perfectly content to spend time earning things, if they were cosmetic bonuses. The game currently has a nice curve leading up from baseline Exotics to lower-mid tier Exotics, to mid-end/special Exotics, all the way up to sub-Legendary Exotics that require one to two thirds the investment that a Legendary takes. And, obviously, Legendaries, on top of that.
And there could still be new mechanical progression, even with just one character – just as long as it was horizontal gear progression. As I understand it, there is room in the game’s code for a Polearm class of weapon (a land-based weapon, not Spears). Adding new weapon types so that every class in the game had one new option would be mechanical progression, but as long as those new weapons were balanced with the others, there would be no vertical progression – and if those weapons were also capped at the Exotic level, there would be no enforced grind.
There could be new Runes added to the game, that were different but not more powerful than existing Runes – in fact the Halloween update did add new runes to the game. Did you see anyone complaining about having more progression then? (Why not?)
Or there could be equipment that can switch between different Exotic stat spreads, so I don’t have to dedicate an entire 15-slot bag to carrying around the things I need just to play in two different ways. I would be happy to have my Warrior work on acquiring a gear set that could swap on the fly between Berserker’s and Cleric’s stats, even if it took a long time to acquire.
Long-term, there could be new Utility/Healing/Elite skills, new equipment effects that are different, but not more powerful than existing equipment effects (+Endurance regeneration? +Dodge distance? +Range? What about accessories with no stat bonuses or very small stat bonuses, but can equip a Rune in their upgrade slot instead of just a Jewel, letting you have multiple Rune sets, at the expense of some raw stats?)
There’s a huge wealth of options that ArenaNet could have used when they designed progression moving forward into the game’s lifespan. That they chose the method that is least rewarding, least interesting, and least respectful of their player base is a little galling, to say the least.
