Guild Wars 2

It fractures the player base and makes casual players quit. which in turn does nothing healthy for the game.

Wolfheart.1938:

JemL.3501:

Wolfheart.1938:

cool story

LOL = MOBA
WOW = MMORPG
SC2 = MMORTS
PS2 = MMOFPS

capiche?

Power creep? he doesnt explain anything than the obvious, he dont do a good job at it, he sounds like a console gamer. We arent playing The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. You cannot compare two different types of gameplay and game mechanics, is delusional.

That video is terrible in all aspects, period.

Sorry, what? So just because the genres are different you can’t make any comparisons in relation to a phenomen that is non-genre based? Power creep may not be present in Tetris, but it’s common in many different online videogames that are regurarly updated, such as WoW or LoL.
Also “ermagerd, console gamers r sooooo dumbz lol”.

The target audience of this game isn’t exactly the intellectually gifted. It was made to be more “accessible” than WoW and I didn’t even think that was possible let alone feasible, I knew MMO’s have become more casual over the years but kitten

The person you are quoting is likely one of the “ kitten halo CoD yeahhh” console kids otherwise he would know that UO is an MMO and was also used in the comparison. He would also understand the arguments being posed and why the comparisons are legitimate.

This is what happens when you create an MMO with replayability based on loot addiction and no monthly fee.

There are literally hundreds of games out there with VP.

Can we not have one quality game with HP?

And if you’re going to market a game as being grind free, able to access the highest stat gear with ease, then you better come through with those promises!

Don’t three months down the track say “Hey there, here’s another tier of gear you have to chase, it’s a mammoth grind. Have fun!”

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Twitchz.6407:

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Twitchz.6407:

Ganzo.5079:

There is nothing wrong with vertical progression, i played a lot of games with vertical progression in the past, but the problem is when you add vertical progression in a game that was advertised without it (or is better to say, without a mandatory gear grind).

If someone tell you that a new drink is the thing you will love if you hate coke, and then the new drink taste EXACLTY like a coke, someone will surely love it, but the original buyers the ones that thrust on the advertise, have all the rights to be concerned.

While this is true and I cant dissagee with your point, not a single person has complained about lvling from 1-80? Why not? no one brought this up in beta and its exactly what vertical progression is, if you wanted to complain then was the time to do it.

There is not even a response to that, I would suggest you go read the many, MANY threads and comments on the subject as you seem to have no grasp of what the issue is and I am not going to waste my time trying to explain what has been explained before.

I didn’t play GW1 for very long due to the fact that I joined late after it released and could never find a group to do anything with, however saying that there is no way I would waste my time getting an armor skin that i didn’t want just because its there.

As for your other response I haven’t seen any threads regarding vertical progression pre release, and if there are any I have to ask if you knew there was a lvl grind why did you buy the game. Could you point me towards any of these threads ShiningSquirrel because I cant seem to see any.

As you seem unable or unwilling to share your opinion on the matter though I’m afraid I’ll have to dismiss your comment.

Easy to dismiss a comment when you have no defense? There are no beta level griend threads are there are no beta threads, an there is and has never been any issues with “level grind”, this is something you have created on your own. No one is discussing it as it does not exist. The problem people have is with gear level grind, a completly different subject and norhing to do with player levels. There are hundreds of posts going over this, if you can not find them, there is a search function in this forum in the upper right hand corner of the page. And as you have said yourself, since you did not play GW1 for any length of time, you are not familier with the game and your opinion does not really rcarry any weight in this discussion, sorry, but turn about is fair play. And just because you would not work towards a skin you did not like, does not mean the other millions of players did not as well. History has proved you wrong.

But since you seem unable to to read the forums and understand what the issues are, here they are in a nut shell.

We where told there would be a level cap and a gear cap. You reach level 80. You get exotic gear, you are done leveling both player and gear. Legendary gear was the same stats as exotic, the only differance was the skin. This is what was told to us and this is why many of us purchased this game. This was the core of Guild Wars. To get max gear, you now must grind a VERY long time or spend a large amount of real world money. This is the game that was advertised. If that is not what you wanted, why did you purchase it? Those of us complaining are complaining because this is NOT what we purchased. If you purchased an RPG game, that was advertised as and RPG, but got a FPS instead, would you not complain and make your voice heard?

Defense? Against what? Am I supposed to be fighting something?
I never said I found Leveling a grind, as I did not. What I did say however that it is vertical progression. As for how much ‘weight’ my opinion carry’s I paid the same as everyone else did so I expect my opinion to matter just as much as everyone else, regardless of what you and your elitist attitude thinks.

I also think you need to understand also this isn’t the original Guild Wars game either, it was never Anets intention to recreate a clone of the first game. I purchased GW2 because it was different to GW1 and I have no issue with them adding more gear into the game at all.

I do however have issues with the gear being a requirement, things like the agony resist slot seems daft.

Just so that you know I am able to read the thread on the forums and I can clearly see a lot of people complaining about Anet adding new things to the game, what I don’t see however are many people suggesting things they would like to see in its stead.

I’ll answer yours if you answer mine – Why has the MMO market become stale and repetitive?

1. elitism
2. demands for gearscore, dps meters just to do normal content
3. breaking up the community
4. adding a caste system to a game
5. requiring people play dungeons only to progress
6. making crafting systems even more useless after working all that time to reach max

shoulkittenep going? I have more….

okay weird. someone needs to update the language filter because typing s h o u l d I
k e e p should not be considered a curse word.

Lionaeron.5724:

I’ll answer yours if you answer mine – _italic_Why has the MMO market become stale and repetitive?italic

EQ started it, WoW perfected it, everyone wants to be the best and MMO developers are too scared to make a PvP MMO. With the exception of CCP, let’s just hope their next MMO is less of a snoozefest due to mechanics, such a pity because their big picture for the game was spot on.

nofo.8469:

The target audience of this game isn’t exactly the intellectually gifted. It was made to be more “accessible” than WoW and I didn’t even think that was possible let alone feasible, I knew MMO’s have become more casual over the years but kitten

The person you are quoting is likely one of the ’’kitten halo CoD yeahhh" console kids otherwise he would know that UO is an MMO and was also used in the comparison. He would also understand the arguments being posed and why the comparisons are legitimate.

This is what happens when you create an MMO with replayability based on loot addiction and no monthly fee.

All your credibility towards me is lost, i dont own a xbox, let alone iam not fan of FPS games for say halo or cod, the only time ive played halo was with 3 friends in his house, and the MMO i used to play more was Lineage II not WoW, why dont you go and read the posts i made before we quoted each other, so you can try again.

and ‘’The target audience of this game isn’t exactly the intellectually gifted’’ /facepalm

next

Wolfheart.1938:

because the genres are different

Thats right, the video is bad, so many jealously and spoon-feed mentality is what happens here, not your ‘’power creep’’ rofl thing

I dont like the features of this game, i prefer trully sanbox world open pvp/pve but i adapt and play while others just cry and blame new content and use other kind of excuses for everything they cant do/obtain in a game, like the WoWers.

All the old content, all the old items, are for new players, not for you, you arent supposed to go afk one year and come back and be in the top like NP, again, an MMORPG isnt supposed to be beaten and leave it in the dust like happen with console RPG.

If it fail or success depends in the game design itself and developer.

Nothing is, and as this game flounders and WoW marches on people I think are seeing that vertical progression is still the way to go

Nothing wrong with vertical progression. There is something wrong with doing it poorly though. As someone not interested in dungeons or grinding hundreds of T6 mats, there isn’t much for me to do in terms of getting the gear without a credit card or hundreds of hours. Pass.

wookie slayer.4259:

Nothing is, and as this game flounders and WoW marches on people I think are seeing that vertical progression is still the way to go

Since when is this game floundering? I see more and more new people on my server everyday. It’s packed and filled with people loving the game. A few people on the boards can’t change the fact that you can login and see plenty of people who love this game.

1. elitism
2. demands for gearscore, dps meters just to do normal content
3. breaking up the community
4. adding a caste system to a game
5. requiring people play dungeons only to progress
6. making crafting systems even more useless after working all that time to reach max

Ok, im going to go through and explain why your wrong on each one.
1. Eliteism? yes the internet is full of dick bags stupid kitten will always happen
2.Demands gear score. There are two ways to look at this 1) either you are high enough power and the people who are rejecting you are dumb and dicks or 2) you try to jump ahead in content that you have not completed enough of the lower content to do the later stuff.(yes this is fair I dont kitten at games that make me start at level 1 and not beat the final level from the first minute of it)
3. Breaking community, I’d have to say no it doesnt as it requires coheisve guild that work together to best the dungeons that are hard and need people to be geared which is often best done by friends helping. (GW2 has the least together community ever as everything is zerg/puggable) Althought I could see how it could in some areas be playable.
4. Caste? Get real, Just because you have not completed as much content as others doesnt make you any different or less, you are just at a diffrent part of the game.
5. Not true although to get to higher dungeons (which is really the only place GS matters in well made games) it would make sense you get stronger pve stats from lower level dungeons. just like better pvp stats are gotten from pvp. Take wow for example other means such as daily farm and crafting can get you just as good items at a slower rate however which is fair as that is much easier.
6. Crafting in GW2 is the most useless i have ever seen in a game. With very little flavor items and a cosmetic only how could it get any less useful. In other games crafting items can be some of the strongest in game items. (this was your worst point)

I think vertical progression is the way to go, I think GW2 failure in end game has show this to many people.

maybe your server is diffrent from mine but i see less and less people every day?

wookie slayer.4259:

Nothing is, and as this game flounders and WoW marches on people I think are seeing that vertical progression is still the way to go

Why would we need ANOTHER direct clone of WoW? Every single game that tried to replicate them was a failure (in terms of how many people are playing it, not quality). GW2 should stay away from trying to combat WoW head-on. Compared to other MMO releases from previous years, GW2 is actually not doing that bad in terms of game activity. Does activity falls? Yes it does. Same as every other game minus pre-WotLK WoW. Even WoW activity in Pandaria drops down hard after initial weeks of new expansion hype. If you really want to have a nice gear threadmill, by all means, go and play WoW. I know I would. But I want to play GW2 becouse I want to AVOID the gear threadmill. It is also why I hope they will limit their ideas with the new ascended gear.

Nothing is wrong with it, the issue was this game was sold as not having it and thus those of us who purchased it under that pretense feel cheated and lied to.

If it was advertised as a vertical progression game then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

In short vertical progression is shallow and addictive, it is just the same content you put different names and numbers or value to it. You do the same level but because it’s level +1 and the mobs aren’t fat but skinny player have the sensation they do something, but in fact do nothing, that’s probably why player are bored so fast now when they play those kind of game, which is funny because vertical progression main reason to exist is probably for player retention. But you know too much of it kills it… Horizontal progression, doesn’t deal with addiction to make people stick to a game, it enrich the game with really new stuff, and create variety.

The only real problem is from the dev team side, horizontal progression is super easy to code and launch and probably have a high and short resource spent for gain ratio, well because as said it’s the same content reskinned with value changes. Horizontal progression would be like adding house system, or create a character richness goal, or create totally new pvp or pve system like a mob vs player conquer realism for example, that need a lot more work companies aren’t able and just don’t want to do, in fact i’m not even sure they can even do that. The only real mmo that have strong horizontal progression was Uo and it came from it’s incredible richness, but then again the game was designed and created that way from the beginning. Honestly it seam like Anet a re a bit lost now and don’t know what to do next. I sure hope they’ll be back on their ground quickly.

It is boring, pointless, never-ending and soul destroying and lazy from a content point of view.
But that is just my opinion

luchifer.6401:

RPGs are about vertical progression, Dungeon and Dragons, the father of computer RPGs, has, along with a very nice journey, vertical progression through levels, XP and +items. And when you think you reach the top in D&D you start gaining epic levels, and then divinity.

RPGs are NOT about vertical progression. RPGs are about playing the role. It’s actually in the name.

It is true that a lot of RPGs have the leveling component with huge vertical progression but both of them are not necessary for the genre.

Horizontal progression isn’t impossible. People who aren’t smart enough don’t realize that a game can develop in a different direction other than just raising levels constantly and destroying it in the end by throwing things out of whack. This isn’t to say you can’t fix lvl caps, for instance if lvl caps were set too low, then you could always set them higher in a content patch or an expansion and that would fix the issue. But that isn’t vertical progression, it is just raising the lvl and stat cap to meet the original balance plan. If they wanted longer lvling times, they could always raise the caps at any time they wanted to. Same goes for larger health pools on mobs (so that they die slower) to give it an Everquest feel, but combined with action-oriented components as well.

This is the benefit to having a moderate lvling approach, it solves many issues such as grind and it also offers flexibility for future changes.

mulch.2586:

We have other threads about it.

Most rpgs have some progression to them, either “vertical” of improving your character’s capabilities, or progressing a story. With regard to GW1, it was notable in that there was limited gear progression that was vertical, and very limited time leveling.

Horizontal progression is a term for not having any vertical progression. I guess it’d be like advancing a story-line, except there isn’t really any in GW2.

The potential bad part of vertical progression isn’t the progression part, but rather that “gating” is often associated with it, where a player may be effectively locked out of game content if they haven’t vertically-progressed enough.

To add to this often when it comes to gear there is only one way to get it, this is not A_nets plan and they have admited to KITTENING UP by only putting the first bit of acended gear into just the fractals and are on record as saying that wont happen again.

Vertical Progression: You find a sword → play some more → you find a sword +1. The sword +1 is always better than the sword so you will use it.

Horizontal Progression: You find a sword → play some more → you find an axe. The axe may or may not be better than the sword depending on your play style/build/situation.

Vertical focuses on making your character more powerful while horizontal focuses on giving you more options on how to play your character. For example, horizontal progression in GW1 was through skill capping (and there were a ton more skills in GW1 than in GW2). You might start off as a necromancer and multiclass a monk so you can have some extra healing for your minions. Then maybe you see this super-cool build where the necro uses a mesmer secondary so you go switch your secondary class and explore the world to hunt down the skills that you need for the build. Then maybe you decide you want to try a melee necro, so you switch your secondary class to warrior and go around killing elite monsters to hunt down the skills you want to try for that build.

Given the number of classes and skills per class in GW1, you could spend thousands of hours hunting down every skill to run any possible build you want, but this doesn’t mean you’re more powerful than someone who stuck with the initial necromancer/monk build.

Vertical progression as major drawback is making older content and efforts obsolete.

We see now since this was introduced that most people are spending their time in fractals. As soon as the rest of the ascended gear comes out, people will go there, making it harder again to get groups for fractals below level 20 at least.

This also puts pressure on casual players and dedicated players alike. Why because even if they spend a lot of time in game they only get rewarded for doing specific content instead of being rewarded equally all around. I am convince that when the new dungeons come out in a month or two, they will drop ascended gear. Nobody will be doing the current dungeons anymore at all, when that happens and the leveling zones are already emptying out.

Why, because leveling is a basic requirement and not that experience they claimed it to be. It means there aren’t as many new players and the replay value is lower than gear grind for a lot of people.

So by itself vertical progression can be fun but in general it devaluates existing gear and content and so instead of adding variety to a game it replaces content.

Also the level of grind needed for the few ascended items that are there, not too mention the RNG element makes it much worse than it needs to be.

And then there was the expectation people had that it wouldnt have gear progression just like GW1. They never actually said there wouldn’t be but certainly didn’t do their best to debunk that general expectation from the original player base.

They just opted for something to keep people busy and as admitted by them it was brought out too soon.

If you step over the point of whether or not the game should have vertical gear progression, you can still see that it was implemented in a really bad way and because of the rewards compared to the rest of the game it already invalidated most of the existing game as endgame.

In fact it keeps people busy but gives them fewer viable endgame options as a consequence. Less variety means boredom sets in faster. I guess that’s what the events are supposed to do….keep people busy from one event to the next. Not my kind of game then.

Naoko.7096:

Players who hate vertical progression are just those players in the wrong group. They are players who favor action-games than rpgs during their console-gaming phases in life.

Aside from the fact that people are quite capable of liking different genres for different reasons and not want to mix them up, my experience is the complete opposite. People who want horizontal progression are the ones who love RPGs. They play for the experience, for the immersion. The gameplay has to be good, yes, and developing your character is fun, but not only is an endless grind is far from the only way to do that, it’s also the most mindless one.

I like to progress the character like in storybooks than having a non-progressive character that makes stages harder through progression. At the same time, I want realism of the world. The “best items” have real rewarding functions. The “philosopher stone” in Harry Potter and “ring” in Lord of The Rings novels are not just aesthetics.

Doesn’t that contradict the stereotypical MMO “endgame” vertical progression? In storybooks as well as singleplayer or pen & paper RPGs, the heroes don’t run through the same inexplicably respawning dungeon 101 times to gear up so they can run the next same inexplicably respawning dungeon 101 to gear up so they can run the next … etc. ad nauseam et ad infinitum.

The more gear-dependent and gear-grindy a game is (MMO or otherwise), the less “heroic” and “storybook-like” it becomes, IMO. The Fellowship don’t start their journey with rags and rusty knives and end it with +12 Hackmasters and Godly Armor of Immunity to Absolutely Everything. They don’t have to do months of mind-numbing dailies to earn tokens and faction rep for Sting or Anduril or Galadriel’s gifts — only to discard these treasures after the next bossfight because they’re now outdated and obsolete. The vast majority of the characters’ strength is inherent in them, while in a typical MMO you’re nothing without the latest “epix”.

That is one reason why I dislike gear-obsessed games and vertical progression. Other strong reasons are the splitting of the playerbase, the gating of content, and the fact that the vast majority of the content will quickly and permanently become obsolete and empty, as others have said. It’s also an excuse for the developers to do the same-old same-old instead of trying for innovation and actual quality content that can stand on its own feet, that players do because it’s fun and not because they have to.

Most of all, many people bought GW2 in no small part because it was going to be a breath of fresh air among all the neverending treadmills. The introduction of vertical progression is a kick in the rear for the game’s own “manifesto” and a departure from what people were looking for. It’s one thing to be able to give a game a pass because you know it doesn’t and won’t cater to you. No harm, no foul. But when the premise of a game changes after you bought it, that’s not good and it implies that the developers were either dishonest, or don’t actually know what they want, or have little faith in their own product.

These are the purists, and the theorists. These guys were at work long before, and they have the correct approach, so you guys should listen to their ideas (I’m not talking about ANet, I’m talking about the WoW newbs out there). They knew the correct direction to take things in long before your time.

Horizontal progression is this theory. It also balances things overall right from the get-go, and you wouldn’t have all the hassled balance problems Blizzard has with WoW.

By incorporating perfect overall theory, you already have perfect initial balance. From there you can add variety and more detailed components to perfect things even further and add interest. It is the correct direction to take things.

With vertical progression, you’re not adding additional detail, you’re just raising the level caps and focusing on that content, and not making your existing world even more interesting or building upon it to introduce new elements.

So all in all, vertical progression is completely wrong, and horizontal progression allows for a world to be detailed further constantly. This would make for a much more detailed mmo than realized with certain past games. It would also live up to past ideals/visions. So this is nothing minor or trivial, and ANet has to get this right if they really want to take things to a new level.

Who really wants a lackluster environment with no details such as found in WoW with only vertical progressive content to participate in?
Nobody.

And I am typing all this because it is interesting to talk theory. Having perfect theory down gets rid of the need to fuss over all of the messy details.

Someone once told me, that theory and practice was a dialectical. If I was to at least apply pure theory, without the need for practice, then he said we could finally agree. Try and think about what this means, and don’t be like those arrogant jerks out there who only take practice to be important.

CJAncients.6907:

Naoko.7096:

Players who hate vertical progression are just those players in the wrong group. They are players who favor action-games than rpgs during their console-gaming phases in life.

There are reasons why RPG-fans like me hate games like Tomb Raider, Ninja Gaiden and other action-games. If people realised, Tomb Raider isn’t a RPG-genred even when you role-played as Lara Croft. RPGs isn’t just about “role-playing a character” but the progressive nature that develop the characters. RPG = Dedication > Player skills.

I like to progress the character like in storybooks than having a non-progressive character that makes stages harder through progression. At the same time, I want realism of the world. The “best items” have real rewarding functions. The “philosopher stone” in Harry Potter and “ring” in Lord of The Rings novels are not just aesthetics.

So who made you the authority on what a RPG has to be? How is your “realism” any more real than +1 gear that doesn’t exist in the real world?

Stop spewing nonsense.

Sorry if you feel that way. I can’t help you on that.
It’s just your over-imagination that you think others hold authority over it.
The whole “structure” has already existed since the beginning.

It existed in wiki too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game

Progressions, social interactions, role-playing, culture, system architecture and psychology are all part of what makes a mmorpg. Read the psychology aspect of mmorpgs that shares about few points of human nature. What is a mmorpg when there’s no realism in it? Mmorpg is not just a “game” where you play in arcades or console with multi-player options. It’s a virtual world. In novels, authors are recommended to learn about the realism of human nature and behaviours to move readers too. That is because there’s a “world” in books too. RPGs are the same.

The only difference with the world structure are:
[mmorpgs = players-players]
[rpgs = players-npc]

P.S. GW2 got the best rpg title, not the best mmorpg. GW2 deserves best rpg award because the [players-npc] interactions are one of the best in rpgs I played. The npc feel lively and they are very interactive/realistic.

This is why I said people who hate vertical progressions are playing the wrong genre. mmorpg is all about vertical progression. In books, movies and rpgs, character develops and progresses. It’s what keep readers, audiences and players anticipated.

Naoko, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. TLDR, once again, read my above posts, GW2 does not necessarily have to be an action game. You have got the wrong idea.

From one of my above posts:

“This isn’t to say you can’t fix lvl caps, for instance if lvl caps were set too low, then you could always set them higher in a content patch or an expansion and that would fix the issue. But that isn’t vertical progression, it is just raising the lvl and stat cap to meet the original balance plan. If they wanted longer lvling times, they could always raise the caps at any time they wanted to. Same goes for larger health pools on mobs (so that they die slower) to give it an Everquest feel, but combined with action-oriented components as well.”

Think a little before you attack those who speak the truth Naoko, or you’ll regret it.

Naoko.7096:

This is why I said people who hate vertical progressions are playing the wrong genre. mmorpg is all about vertical progression.

It is common now, yeap. But the mmorpg without a vertical progression is still a mmorpg. It’s just an unusual (you even can say outstanding) mmorpg.

Naoko.7096:

This is why I said people who hate vertical progressions are playing the wrong genre. mmorpg is all about vertical progression. In books, movies and rpgs, character develops and progresses. It’s what keep readers, audiences and players anticipated.

Funny that you mentioned Tolkien before. Let’s look at Lord of the Rings, shall we?
The goal of the “game” is not to obtain the Ring, but to destroy it. Frodo starts the quest with it, in addition to Sting and the mithril shirt – both of whose should be considered Best in Slot. And by the end of the books he loses all of those. He doesn’t become any more powerful throughout the story – his whole “progression” is purely psychological.
In fact, the LotR is a perfect example against your theory of RPG’s being about progression. RPG’s are about story first and foremost.
Unless you are a gamist, of course.

Vertical progression doesn’t bother me. Typical MMO vertical progression does. See my sig.

Also, see just about any other post I’ve ever made about my hatred of gems for gold. I was willing to tolerate it and even spend money for things like character slots and bank space when Exotics was the pinnacle of gear (except Legendaries for looks, and I never cared about that). But now there is a serious grind and more to come for the best gear and you can shorten that grind by opening your wallet. It’s distasteful to say the least.

Other players have issues with it because they don’t have as much time as the average player so they fall behind and no one wants to group with them. I have this problem for a different reason, I suffer from severe altitis, so even though I have time enough to play I’m never caught up with more focused players and so in vertical gear grind dungeon hamster wheel games the other hamsters don’t even want to play with me.

People who buy the game later suffer from this issue, too.

Also, it gets old. Vertical progression always seems to be tied to dungeons (again, see my sig). Why is that? And where are those alternate methods of getting Ascended gear that we were promises? It’s been a couple of weeks, no word on that? Why not?

Oh, and MMOs always tie it to forced grouping. No solo dungeon content for the best gear. Why not?

ahaha, i just looked up altitis, and the only definition i could find was from urbandictionary.com. this was a good laugh thank you.

FaRectification.5678:

Naoko, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. TLDR, once again, read my above posts, GW2 does not necessarily have to be an action game. You have got the wrong idea.

From one of my above posts:

“This isn’t to say you can’t fix lvl caps, for instance if lvl caps were set too low, then you could always set them higher in a content patch or an expansion and that would fix the issue. But that isn’t vertical progression, it is just raising the lvl and stat cap to meet the original balance plan. If they wanted longer lvling times, they could always raise the caps at any time they wanted to. Same goes for larger health pools on mobs (so that they die slower) to give it an Everquest feel, but combined with action-oriented components as well.”

Think a little before you attack those who speak the truth Naoko, or you’ll regret it.

Your last sentence or threat was uncalled for.
If you read, that CJancients is the one who “attacked” me.
You just did it to me too. So far, I’ve not refuted nor say others were uttering rubbish. =/

Your own “truth” is not the universal truth, but just your perception and ideal.
Don’t force upon your personal truth onto others. You won’t like it too if I ask you to discard your opinions away and I push mine on you.

Back on topic, GW2 appears to be approaching to a totally new genre with a mix-match of elements in different games. There’s nothing wrong with it. However, it’s just like chemistry. Only the correct elements mixed can produces good results. Imo, GW2 has done very well in [players-npc] interactions but poorly in [players-players] interactions. In games where your levels corresponds to the PVE monsters, it’s effective in single-player games [players-npc] like Skyrim and DA. However, in a progressive and evolving setting like mmorpgs, it may bring about cons in many aspects. There’re reasons why players enjoy the most during the Lv1-80 phase but not Lv80+. Players feel like they ended the game.

The “human behaviours” without end-game vertical progression:
1st – Players reach max cap level and gears.
2nd – Players get the their favourite appearance.
3rd – Players feel satisfied since they get a sense of “game completion”.
4th – Players only log-in once per month for one-time events.
Result – Low concurrency : Empty maps 80~90% of the time.
This is the truth shown by evidences. Is this what players want?

Vertical progression will kill WvWvW (imho the best part of GW2 but needing developers love). sPvP is already dead and for PvE (open world and dungeons) vertical progression is not needed. If you mean vertical progression just to play fractals, well I can not see the whole point of having fractals other than play some fun and infinite level dungeons.

Sounds like everyone here is enjoying their ascended grind muchly. Good luck with the next carrot!

Naoko.7096:

The “human behaviours” without end-game vertical progression:
1st – Players reach max cap level and gears.
2nd – Players get the their favourite appearance.
3rd – Players feel satisfied since they get a sense of “game completion”.
4th – Players only log-in once per month for one-time events.
Result – Low concurrency : Empty maps 80~90% of the time.
This is the truth shown by evidences. Is this what players want?

This is true now, because the game is still growing. But with new events, new level 80 maps, new dungeon, new skins to collect, achievement, skill collection (i dont know why its not implemented, because this was a GW ace) etc etc… this sense of game completion will be less and less significant.
Add tier with higher stats, to avoid that people leave, its only a short time remedy, because after the people gathered the new equipment, they go directly on the 4° point of your list, and in the same time, you lost the poeple that dont like this kind of methods.

as i can say, if this ascended tier mark a non trepassing line in term of stats, can be a decent move(its not good, because of the PR disaster), its not a treadmill, but a correction of a design mistake. and when it will be fully released i will be glad to return to play.

The idea is there’s always a best way to do things Naoko, once again, you don’t necessarily have to develop the game in a vertical direction. You can develop it in a different manner. Your evidence is useless, because you don’t take into consideration for new ideas and new ways to do things.

I guess there is nothing really wrong with vertical progression. Like 99% of mmos do it. Not something that is wrong. But lets just say that is doesnt really work in this game.
Right now, we are getting a mix of vertical progression and horizontal progression. With the developers too scared to go throughout on either.

So what results is getting the worst of both worlds.

If it was real horizontal progression, it would have been an easy mode grind with next to nothing stat increase.If it was real vertical progression, it would be a much harder grind, but when you do get the gear. You get to be super leet with your super leet stats, and pew pew 2 shot anything that stands in your way.

In guild wars 2 gear is,

As hard to get as gear in vertical progression games (legendary grind like one of the hugest grinds ive ever seen)

While offering kitten stats on said very hard to get gear. Which doesnt satisfy my desire to 2 shot people at all.

Basically the result is = you get to grind months for some stupid item which is practically useless = very boring

Yeah, doesnt seem like a good use of my time.

The problem with horizontal progression is that when you feel your character is complete, you have no reason to continue, whereas with vertical progression, you’re (eventually) forced to continue. Apparently, and since vertical progression is used everywhere, the majority either loves it or doesn’t know how to live without it since it does offer a very clear goal. On the other hand, if only skins are offered, there’s no point in doing the content if you don’t like the way it looks, with the exception of doing it for the experience.

On the developer side, it’s all about getting the maximum number of players involved or interested. Since everything that horizontal progression can add can be done with vertical progression, vertical will always be more popular.

GW1 did feature vertical progression, though it was small and easy to overcome. At the very least, the lightbringer title, followed by the EotN pve skills are an example. Depending on how you look at it, some skills could also be considered, in cases where the skill was simply superior, making it a requirement over its older or nonexistent version.

Corvindi.5734:

Oh, and MMOs always tie it to forced grouping. No solo dungeon content for the best gear. Why not?

Because they don’t want to deal with it. Either the good players will find it too easy or the bad players will say it’s impossible.

If they do make it difficult, all the good players will be geared while all the bad players would be looking for groups. Since a majority of groups would be consisting of bad players, it just creates a mess.

I keep reading/hearing that Guild Wars 2 has no vertical progression, but when I check the market every few levels sure enough I see gear with better stats than the gear I currently have. So every few levels I buy and equip better gear than what I currently have, just like in every other MMO I’ve ever played.

It sure looks like vertical progression to me.

Or am I wrong? Could I just keep the gear that I acquire at level 10 and play with that all the way up to level 80? Because if I could then that would be ‘no vertical progression’.

Awe.1096:

wookie slayer.4259:

Nothing is, and as this game flounders and WoW marches on people I think are seeing that vertical progression is still the way to go

Why would we need ANOTHER direct clone of WoW? Every single game that tried to replicate them was a failure (in terms of how many people are playing it, not quality). GW2 should stay away from trying to combat WoW head-on. Compared to other MMO releases from previous years, GW2 is actually not doing that bad in terms of game activity. Does activity falls? Yes it does. Same as every other game minus pre-WotLK WoW. Even WoW activity in Pandaria drops down hard after initial weeks of new expansion hype. If you really want to have a nice gear threadmill, by all means, go and play WoW. I know I would. But I want to play GW2 becouse I want to AVOID the gear threadmill. It is also why I hope they will limit their ideas with the new ascended gear.

We wouldn’t and that’s where he’s wrong. We don’t need another direct WoW clone or any other clone for that matter.

Here let me answer him:

1. Dunno why he thinks elitism doesn’t happen saw it looooooong before fractals. (you must be level 80 and in all exotics to go into AC with us)
2. sooo let’s see, you want everyone to be glass cannons in a game that’s specifically designed to one shot glass cannons, how does that help again?
3. it only allows for one play style, dungeoneering, nothing else there is no room for anything else. nothing open world nothing. That is the only thing that needs arguing and yes you can have a guild that does nothing but, but this game wasn’t designed for that originally was it.
4. yes it does make you less than, and here’s how, they put content into dungeons (or will be if they maintain this mess) that only geared people can see. Let’s see who else did that… (taps temple) oh yes EVERY game that’s ever had raids! see how that works, it’s called reality.
5. Why did you say that about crafting? that has nothing to do with why vertical progression is part of the bigger problem. Crafting in this game rocks (aside from the globs making rares thing in jeweler) It’s actually fun to level. Once you get there tho the end game items you can make become pretty useless because almost everything worth the price of admission are all mystic forge based. Seriously, look it up there are mystic forge weapons that are sooooo much better looking with the same mats that pretty much leave in the dust anything they have in the crafts. Vertical esc-que dungeoneering RNG systems do not enhance crafting in any way.

Why do people think that what would make this game more successful is the very thing that destroyed games like SWTOR?

Peregrine Falcon.5496:

I keep reading/hearing that Guild Wars 2 has no vertical progression, but when I check the market every few levels sure enough I see gear with better stats than the gear I currently have. So every few levels I buy and equip better gear than what I currently have, just like in every other MMO I’ve ever played.

It sure looks like vertical progression to me.

Or am I wrong? Could I just keep the gear that I acquire at level 10 and play with that all the way up to level 80? Because if I could then that would be ‘no vertical progression’.

nope you’re just playing it wrong and arena net are the best chuck out the rest.

Naoko.7096:

The “human behaviours” without end-game vertical progression:
1st – Players reach max cap level and gears.
2nd – Players get the their favourite appearance.
3rd – Players feel satisfied since they get a sense of “game completion”.
4th – Players only log-in once per month for one-time events.
Result – Low concurrency : Empty maps 80~90% of the time.
This is the truth shown by evidences. Is this what players want?

That is true only for gamists, people that need a win condition to have fun. These are not the only kind of players around here – though it’s true that they are the type that most of the MMO’s seem to designed for. You have to remember though, that a RPG player community (and, a player community in general, without even the RPG part) consists of more than only gamists. These are not even the majority.
Also, it’s entirely possible to make other “win conditions” that are not dependant on vertical progression. In GW1 one of those was a title completion, for example.

Healix.5819:

The problem with horizontal progression is that when you feel your character is complete, you have no reason to continue, whereas with vertical progression, you’re (eventually) forced to continue.

But it is only true for games where the vertical developing of the character is the main (or only) target. If the game have other sources of fun than you do not need vertical progression to enjoy it – at all.

And again, an RPG do not have to have a vertical progression to be a RPG. It is for sure true for RPGs in general, but it is true for the MMORPGs in particulary.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

mulch.2586:

We have other threads about it.

Most rpgs have some progression to them, either “vertical” of improving your character’s capabilities, or progressing a story. With regard to GW1, it was notable in that there was limited gear progression that was vertical, and very limited time leveling.

Horizontal progression is a term for not having any vertical progression. I guess it’d be like advancing a story-line, except there isn’t really any in GW2.

The potential bad part of vertical progression isn’t the progression part, but rather that “gating” is often associated with it, where a player may be effectively locked out of game content if they haven’t vertically-progressed enough.

To add to this often when it comes to gear there is only one way to get it, this is not A_nets plan and they have admited to KITTENING UP by only putting the first bit of acended gear into just the fractals and are on record as saying that wont happen again.

What about the other stuff they said on record like no gear treadmill and no grind and everyone will have fun in gw2 always cause no grind etc etc. And that everyone matters and when you save a village it will stay saved not stay saved for 3 minutes until the DE respawns indefintely.

I mean to give a short answer…. It doesn’t really work in this game because it’s heavily RNG/Farm-based to acquire rather than skill-based. It’s very much slapped in rather than really integrated into the system like other “successful vertical progression” games like D2 and WoW.

Healix.5819:

The problem with horizontal progression is that when you feel your character is complete, you have no reason to continue, whereas with vertical progression, you’re (eventually) forced to continue.

The thing is that horizontal progression doesn’t force you but max stats doesn’t mean you’re complete in that set up. Every set up has things you do and don’t like.

Do you PvE and PvP or not? Some prefer one, some like both to different degrees or the same. But you can choose this. You are not forced to PvP or PvE or both.

With vertical progression it’s not just that your character progresses but it also invalidates your current gear and endgame gear traditionally takes more work to get together than leveling gear.

A better way for me would be to add vertical progression in a horizontal manner. This would allow for gear progression without invalidating existing items. So what do I mean with this.

Well, currently you have a number of gear items that you could equip. But what if the back item wasn’t there initially. So in an expansion or patch at some point you add new item types for level 80 characters like the back piece and say a belt. You could add something like infusion slots also but make sure existing gear can get it as well. You can also link new item types to level cap increases.

Add new shiney skins. People can then choose. Get the new shiny skins or stick to my existing ones. But statistically it makes no difference.

And with that any new item types or options should be made available in a variety of places. So different playstyles are addressed.

Horizontal progression also means more activities to me. More things to do than just leveling and killing and looting.
Mini games, player housing, more pvp formats, new skins all of that is underrepresented here. It’s a new game I know, but currently I feel it doesn’t take long to get bored. That’s of course a personal opinion but vertical progression, especially in the way it’s done, certainly didn’t answer my existing concerns.

Because, for me at least, it increases the content in an artificial way. You don’t go raids or dungeons for fun with friends, you do them for gear. If you took out the geargrind in WoW, a lot of people would instantly quit. Wow (or vertical progression) is (mostly) based on addiction, from lvl 1 to maxlevel to max gear. In Wow you login and you instnatly have something to do: Dailys, 25x the same dungeons to replace the blue with tokens or 150x warzones to get the full set. Sure, it’s motivation to play but is it a good motivation? Shouldn’t games be here for fun and relaxing? I doubt that vertical progression is anywhere near fun.

EDIT: “The problem with horizontal progression is that when you feel your character is complete, you have no reason to continue, whereas with vertical progression, you’re (eventually) forced to continue.”

This is exactly whats wrong with vertical progression. Like I said, games should be here to entertain and relax and not to be a second life.

Also as long as WoW is here, you have the king of vertical progression, so why not play that?

I think the idea here is to perfect the game, when they’ve fully perfected this game, they can move onto a new game model.

If higher health bars are needed, to give it an Everquest grind feel, then so be it. If it makes the game more stable and enjoyable to have mobs that take forever to kill, then so be it (especially if it gives the entire world scale and grandeur).

After this game has fulfilled what Everquest couldn’t do in its time, then we would move onto Guild Wars 3, and beyond.

This is the type of model all MMO development companies should take, and it is a correct approach.

When ANet has enough money and resources to work on Guild Wars 3, that’s when they can start pumping out a new Everquest type game with massive worlds, scale, and a long-long time to hit level cap just like in the original EQ. Until then I highly doubt they had the resources to do this in the beginning with GW2.

But agreed, I think it’s a bit easy to level and it doesn’t feel like an achievement, they need to stabilize that by factoring in skill adjustment or something. Scale how much additional damage can be done when a highly skilled player exploits all his skills to the max. This way there’s an ultimate balance with lvling speed. Not only this, but the leveling pace overall is a bit too fast, it needs to go back to EQ roots. EQ’s leveling system was very flat all-around and slow, when combined with gw2’s skill-based rewards system, it will be a good match. It’s just that the skill-based rewards to be tweaked down a little

As to how much additional vertical progression is actually needed, to perfect the game, that is up to the developers to decide on in the future.

In this vast universe of space and time, it’s hard to say whether things are limited or unlimited, but anything can definitely be perfected. Very zen and hard to swallow, but just my personal philosophy.

It’s also hard to analyze WoW’s future, as they are relying on the fact that they will be able to hold onto veteran players who will just keep doing the newest endgame content. This might be harmful in the end though, as it prevents new players from coming in.

If you want a game that will continue making money even way into the future, and not have an early sugar crash, then you have to follow moderation.

As it stands, Blizzard Entertainment has lost all respect and reputation from its players if you check the forums.

As for solving the issue of vertical progression, there are always new ideas you can try. For instance, for new content patches, xpacs, and ultimately dungeons: it has always been about the newly introduced and difficult mechanics has it not? So what can be done about this here, let’s think: you can keep your items/stats/lvl at the fixed cap and keep it remaining there. But, you introduce new and difficult things you have to do to beat the encounter.

The key aspect here also to maintain the difficulty involved when you face a new encounter with same level gear is to scale down that gear just as they scale down your levels in lower-lvl areas. Also, the primary element to new encounters is the challenge and all that acquiring new and more stat-heavy loot does is to give a sense of power or to be able to beat the next level. It is all skill-based in the end, and introducing new dynamics to challenge the players is the way to go. When you’ve beaten the same boss enough times, then you earn points to scale your armor gradually back up as a lootable drop, and this is a customization system in and of itself because you will have to choose which stats matter more. This is essentially a simple reverse engineering approach to WoW’s lackluster vertical progression approach. In the end, it’s also about a feeling of power and cosmetics, so as new content pushes old content back, old content can still be doable by introduction of horizontal development cosmetics or enjoyability loot. This way the level cap remains forever fixed, and no tearing occurs. This way the artificial difficulty can be introduced in a safe and natural way without introducing vertical progression. This is true horizontal progressive development.

There, your vertical progression problem is solved both on an abstract and discrete level

Simply said imagine being a new player on the server where the server average has one year worth of progression in front of you. You ll not find anyone to start to do the fractals (or super mega fractals we have by then). And even if you wanted to even try to catch up, you can’t. You go WvW to have some fun and every progressed char will one shoot you and you don’t even do a dent. That is basically the horror scenario if true vertical progression comes to be. Winning the fight shifts from the skilled player to the geared player.

Vertical = better gear.

Horizontal = different/unique gear, but same stats.

Every MMO I had ever played had vertical progression. I really started to hate it when you would work so hard to get something, finally have the whole set, look in the mirror and be both proud to have it and ashamed for wasting so much of your life on it, and then wham, next update your gear was laughable.

Yea, I’m done with that. I do NOT want to have to raid for the rest of my MMO days just to keep up with everyone else and see all of the content.

I like being able to get the best gear stats, then focus on the specific gear look I want.

God bless GW2. I think they did it great.

I’m OK with ascended too. For now. When they start adding a step between ascended and legendary, then I might start looking elsewhere. As it stands, I have no complaints.

I don’t know that anyone has argued that vertical progression is “evil”, only that they thought GW2 was going to be without it, and that is why a great many of us bought the game. Some people cannot enjoy a game without endless vertical enjoyment; others cannot enjoy a game with endless vertical enjoyment. Right now, virtually all modern AAA MMORPGs have a gear treadmill/power creep/endless vertical progression, leaving those of us who don’t want a vertical progression game out in the cold.