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Here's the thing about FFXI: The people who were participating in "endgame" content were, by far, the minority population of players. We aren't even talking 20% here. We're talking a single digit percentage of players. So your dismissal of leveling as content is a serious issue here. I knew a lot of players in FFXI. I knew a lot of players who were not casual in FFXI. Know what they did? They leveled various jobs. They cornered markets. They crafted. They'd occasionally run the... whatever that PVP game was called. They'd do BCNM fights.

Almost no one fought the Gods, or did Dynamis. Most Monks could think of better uses for their time than sitting around and Boosting for 3 minutes to let out their one Chi Blast. Most players were more interested in trying the other jobs than doing the exact same thing on one the whole time.

If that's how you played FFXI, that's fine. But dismissing everything else as meaningless content is just plain absurd. Grinding up to 75, at least before they slashed the time it took to level, was months and months and MONTHS of work for people. Very, VERY few of them were doing that for any reason other than wanting to do it.

See, you're trying to make an argument against horizontal progression by holding up FFXI. The problem there is that your issues with FFXI aren't actually with horizontal progression - they're with the entire system. You considered the game to actually start at 65+, when the vast majority of players never even bothered with the content in that range. And there's just no way to control for that variable.

I liked horizontal progression. Do I think FFXI handled it well? No. It was poorly balanced and poorly implemented. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the concept, it just means that a game should probably have core gameplay that's less in shambles before you bother trying to launch an expansion, unless that expansion is specifically to target the problem that your core gameplay is in shambles.



The problem with this arguments is that you are taking an aspect of vertical progression and then painting a horizontal picture that hasn't bothered to be adjusted for core design principles. It's a strawman argument, because no one in their right mind would expect you to be able to take WoW's current raid system, and just continue on with it horizontally.

Vertical character progression is fully possible in a horizontal system. One possible answer is to add, where wise, ways for your character to progress. Another is to allow for the creation of more diverse content, so the concept of progression isn't uniform. Right now (well, I assume this is still true), Blizzard made the absurd move to ensure that PvE and PvP progression follow roughly the same system, and they're both using an extremely uninteresting, unexciting ilvl system.

And it makes no sense. Instead of forcing every player to engage with every form of PVP, why not actually develop them into separate entities, so people can play what they want, progress in what they want, and specialize in what they want? If I want to focus on arenas, let me focus on arenas. You can structure progression so that it boosts my performance in BGs, sure. But being king of the arena shouldn't make me the best flag capper of all time.

How? Creating more interesting, more dynamic skill systems in conjunction with gear that is less basic and dumbed down would be part of it. In a PVP setting, skill tiers and a ladder would be another.

And the same thing goes for PVE content. Right now, dungeons are just mini-raids, and raids are the real content. How about they make dungeons one type of content (and see if you can return to the days where there are random aspects besides which boss you fight), make raids another, add a wave-based combat system (something like what you might see now in WvWvW combat in GW2, except with mobs), etc.

Then you have the "casual" content like crafting, home-building, etc. Don't have a pathetic "press okay until it's gray" system. Make it interesting. Yeah, raiders won't be interested in it overall. That's fine - you aren't making it to please the raiders.

Horizontal expansions in this aspect would focus on adding more ways to play for everyone. It would add or change up the existing content (which is how EVE generally handles it), and add more content. Some examples: In a dungeon system with random options, add more of them, add more ways to cross-skill, maybe add new settings that require different skills to succeed in, progress the story in an old one. Similar for raids, but on a more grandiose scale.

Oh, and the other thing, STOP TELLING THE STORY ENTIRELY THROUGH RAIDS.

Did the picture I just paint turn out perfect? Hell no. I'm trying not to stray too far from the system WoW has now, which is a decidedly vertical progression system. And that's hard. But I'm not saying WoW should implement one now. It's way too late for that. I'm just saying that they can be amazing if the designers actually create a game to support one.

Edited, May 14th 2013 10:06pm by idiggory

The problem with adding more PvE content without the gear reset is that the content is either trivial to people that completed the last batch of content or inaccessible to the people that didn't. Unless you think people will continue to play without the ability to improve their character. The other thing we've seen in WoW is that, without the reset, crit chance and haste percentage go to obscene levels. While it's certainly fun for the players to crit on almost every hit, it breaks mechanics that proc off crit, and makes it nearly impossible to balance DPS. Upgrades become uninteresting if there is a hard-cap put on crit (say, 35%), and giving bosses ever-increasing crit suppression feels forced and arbitrary.

I go back to FFXI because, besides WoW, it's the MMO with which I have the most experience. For the people interested in the leveling experience, not raising the level cap actually hits them hardest of all because they will literally run out of game at some point. Crafting and gathering weren't level dependent, and so weren't affected by end-game stagnation.

Another game that I tried, briefly, is The Secret World. There's a lot in it to try to explain in a few paragraphs, but basically it was billed as a completely level-less, classless system. It's true, for the most part. They still use a form of trinity with support elements, but with 525 unique skills, there's a lot of room for variety. The problem the game has been running into, though, is what to do once the skill wheel is maxed out. What's left is gear progression or an AA system, but since the game is already essentially AA, adding to that is just a 'level increase' without calling it a level increase. So we're back to gear progression. If the gear upgrades are meaningful and interesting, new content has to be tuned to either people that have gear, excluding the entry level players, or it's trivial in difficulty to people that have completed that last set of content. FFXI (and WoW end-game in BC) showed what happens to players that don't get to do the content when it's current. Either they feel like an anchor to the rest of their team as the team goes back and tries to catch them up, or they struggle to get through the content.

As an aside, TSW has some amazing quests, but once you finish an investigation quest once, there's no mystery, and you have to wait until the next content patch for your next fix.

I wouldn't say the Ranch is awesome. It gets tedious far too soon and many people I know (me included) have stopped doing it entirely because it's so much nofun. At some point a few months past I read about the planned (and needed) oberhaul of FFIV. The part about the new profession system was extremely intriguing. I don't remember enough details and can't find a link, but if I stumble across it I will post it here. (Or maybe someone other than me can expand on this.) It sounded really great. But also it sounded like something that would be almost impossible to implement in WoW.

Edit: Found it.

Edited, May 15th 2013 9:54am by TherealLogros

To each their own, I still enjoy Sunsong Ranch daily, on multiple characters.

Face it, planting 16x Windshear Cacti (taking 5 minutes to do so) and then logging on the next day to pick&plant is far, far, far better than mindlessly killing humanoid mobs for hours.

Same goes for planting Raptorleaf seeds. I'd rather take 5min to plant Raptorleaf plants and then log on next day to get 50-55 leather and possibly a Mag. Hide than to go out and kill&skin 50 mobs.

Also, the Snakeroot seeds are good too; you always get 16 trillium every day. Try looking for 16 trillium ore the old fashioned way, it'll take you a lot longer than 5 minutes of work.

The farm is a very awesome alternative to mindlessly killing/grabbing nodes.

Also, I very much enjoyed the Tillers questline and becoming a Master of the Ways on my main. That was quite fun.

It's not so much that WoW is old is that Blizzard isn't doing anything all that new or innovative. Sure, they have a few gems here and there, but much of Blizzard's attempts at updating the game involve watering down things to the point there is no challenge left. I'm not looking for an EVE, I think it's a bit ridiculous, but long gone are the days where you had to actually put any effort into playing. Save for maybe raiding, it takes skill to die now. They've removed much of the risk and as a result watered down rewards. Even after adding cross-realm phasing they refused to bring back the group quests. Some of my fondest memories from WoW involved group quest chains like the ones out in the Plaguelands or BC (BC had some GREAT ones).

Sure, you can get a lot done very quickly, but none of those things feel very rewarding. I let my sub die and handed over my guild of 8 years a few months ago, and for the first time in 8 years, I don't miss it. It's not that I've been playing the same game for 8 years, but that the game I played 8 years ago has been turned into a chore.

As I've said to many of my friends, if I want to sit here doing mindless tasks for hours on end I'll do that with school/work/yardwork. At least I get something from it. I want a game, not a job, and it seems like in the process of satisfying people complaining about how much work went into an MMO, they actually turned a game into a job by making it pointless.

@Lyrailis: Of course it is more efficient than grinding mobs. I did not try to dispute that. But it is not any more engaging or fun. It is just as mindless as grinding some enemies. It only takes less time. I'd prefer a system that is actually fun in itself and not because it is faster than the alternative. The one I linked from FFIV at least sounds like it could be entertaining (to me).

Like I said, no system is going to be 100% vertical or 100% horizontal progression, but rather is going to be primarily one or the other with regards to content.

Your character getting better at one skill is vertical progression, your character expanding into new skills is horizontal progression, yes.

But what you're refusing to do is stop considering all these skills in the context of a vertical progression system.

You are looking at the system and saying, "Well, if I have archery, I don't need destruction magic." And, you know what, that may end up 100% true. I also don't really see a problem there. It's perfectly okay for there to be multiple pathways to the same end; it adds diversity to play style options. This is particularly exciting now that the MMO genre seems to be finally moving away from the action-bar-WoW-style combat, where the actual play is largely the same for every class. So it's fine, when we're talking within the context of a limited content scenario (like, say, Raiding), that we're going to have skills that its unattractive for the same player to have. That said, it doesn't necessarily follow that you wouldn't want both skills in the context of a group setting.

But please, PLEASE, stop thinking about these skills purely within the context fo a WoW-style vertical content system. You're looking at a system that has a very limited scope of content that it releases completely new iterations of, rather than revamping it and releasing new forms of content instead.

Yes, when we are talking about a system so constricted so as to fall into 3 content areas (PVE, PVP-BGs, PVP-Arenas), multiple skills that perform similarly in one situation is a serious issues.

When we're talking about a system that has a large variety of content areas, however, it would be the epitome of bad design for that to always be the case.

Example, let's say we have the following PvE combat systems: WoW-ish style raiding (characterized by high-intensity boss fights), Dungeon-delving (more trash mobs and mini-bosses, but unmapped, randomized, and in groups of maybe 1-3 people), Siege Offense/Defense (you seize NPC-run holds, or defend one of your own factions', against large waves of mobs), etc.

Now, let's say that Archery's most significant strengths were the ability to regulate firing speed to alternate between high output and high crit firing. It has a generally low ability to manage AoE, but when combined with bomb and poison skills, it can do a decent enough job there.

Destruction Magic would be slower-casting and primarily produce high damage AoE attacks or CC. If you're slinging spells, they'll probably be lower damage type castings that you're doing for reasons other than direct damage (firing off a ton of low-cost frost spells for snares or something). Direct-damage options would certainly exist, but they'd take a back seat to the AoE stuff.

So you're probably thinking "But then their DPS might not be equal on raid bosses!" You're right, they wouldn't. And that's not an issue. Why? Because we aren't talking about a vertical content progression system.

A Destruction mage could be extremely helpful in Dungeon crawling, for their ability to help mow down groups of enemies. An archer would be useful for quickly dispatching pack leaders, or taking out something making a B-line for the Mage. Otherwise, they can produce suppressing fire, and there's a very good chance they would have skilled into poisons, bomb-making, traps, pathfinding, etc. that would make them VERY useful, even if they aren't only there for the content.

Likewise, in a raid environment, when looking for damage you're probably going to prefer to bring along archers than Destruction Mages. But maybe your fight has a fair amount of AoE (either in the boss fight, or to reach it), and you still want a Destruction Mage. Or maybe you really want a player with the other skills that a Destruction skill is apt to have, like Thaumaturgy, Enfeebling, or who knows what else.

Or, you know what? Maybe Destruction Mages only end up in raids if Destruction is the subskill they use to damage the boss in between doing other duties like healing, support, enfeebling, etc. And maybe that's fine, because their single-target options could be high-damage casts with high cooldowns, so they get to make the most of their Destruction skill AND their other skills.

But then we still have other types of PVE combat-based content. We have the castle-sieges, which would definitely have big boons for both skills in both situations, and there's probably a lot more content that could be available where you wouldn't necessarily be using those combat skills as the number one feature. Say, if they implemented army-command content. Yes, you'd be using your personal skills, and your personal skills might matter, but the various skills you had expanded into for army-command would be better.

Etc.

And that's not to say anything about other content areas those skills could come into play. Poison-making could be a super effective skill for general game play when you're hanging out in a pirate port. Trap Making would be super useful for people interested in being huntsman. Stealth is useful for Sieges, Dungeons, Crime (a content form where a faction gave you a mission of X with Y parameters, such as you can't be caught... or have to kill anyone who catches you, and rewards you based on performance), PVP, etc.

The philosophy that every skill has to be useful for all content is really a BAD one. That's why every stat and the talents have been so reduced to insignificance. And it's been necessary because there is no diversity in the content available. All their resources go into maintaining their vertical content system, and it leaves very, very little room for horizontal expansion at all. And that's a serious issue with the game.

If you want a world where endgame is extremely limited in scope, then yes--a skill system like this won't make sense. But in reality, skill systems in general just don't make sense, because everything will always come down to the cookie-cutter system. Because everyone is only interested in accessing one narrow form of content.

As you say, to each their own. But, in my opinion, this is exactly one of the big problems with WoW over the course of its development. Immersion is sacrificed for the sake of convenience.

Yes, I get it. It gets old farming mats in the world. But, to me, farming enchanting mats, or ore, or cloth from a plot of ground in Sunsong Ranch is just not immersive. It's a gimmick to keep people playing that don't want to be bothered with actually, you know, playing the game. If it's really that much of an inconvience to get out in the world and interact with it, perhaps you've outgrown the game.

I don't intend this to be a slam on you Lyrailis, your post just illustrates something I think has been a steady downward trend in the game for a long time. Convience trumps immersion.

As for the farm itself...I got bored with it really quickly. It's not fun. Fighting stupid beasts over and over just when I just want to plant something or clear a plot is totally irritating, in my opinion

I think it's important to note that I'm not advocating one system as better than the other. I think I personally prefer horizontal content systems, but I think there's plenty of room in the market for both (and those in between). What's important is that these games are well-balanced, well-designed, well-supported, and well-advertised.

It's fully possible that there is a substantial population of gamers out there that are only interested in the kind of game where you are constantly vertically progressing through a single type of content. And I think that's absolutely fine - the point of a game is for people to have fun, and people who only enjoy one form of content shouldn't be forced to play others. That said, I don't think it's wise game design to try and please everyone.

I also think, due to the increasing popularity of games like Skyrim and EVE, as well as the excitement around FFXIV's and TSW's (and to a lesser extent, RIFT's) skill systems before those games had their atrocious launches, that there's clearly a market for the alternative. There just isn't a solid option in the fantasy rpg mmo genre yet. FFXI is the closest we have, and it's not realistic to label it a competitor.

I feel like both are viable from a game design standpoint. What I don't think is that a vertical progression system is going to work with a horizontal content system (a la FFXI), or that a horizontal progression system is going to work with a vertical combat system (a la some game that uses WoW's approach to gear, stats and leveling but doesn't use level-cap jumps).

Like everything, it just comes down to good design and innovation. And that's something the MMO genre has been desperately lacking the past 5 years or more.

Here's how I look at it. You've played the game since 2004, as I have too, thats 9 years of your life put into a game, of course its going to get old for you, I mean heck, look how far call of duty is, when wow was released they were only on the 2nd call of duty. There is noone who can say that any mmo did it better, look at subscriptions. They do prove that wow is by far the most successful game ever, there has never been a game that has sold as much or made a company as much money as wow.

If you ignore Mario.

No one is arguing that WoW wasn't a good game, or that WoW's systems are terrible. I'm arguing it's about time someone developed a game with meaningful horizontal progression, as I believe there's room in the market for one (and that people are burned out on vertical progression systems, as it's all they get nowadays).

But it's also somewhat absurd to imagine that WoW was successful because it was innovative, or because it was intrinsically better by a huge margin than all other games available at the time.

WoW was launched by a developer who already had a lot of notoriety into a relatively new MMO market, relative to the size of the population aware of it, as an expansion onto a game series that was already extremely popular. I mean, WC3 sold over 1 million copies in the first week. WC3 came out in 2002, TFT in 2003, and WoW followed in 2004. It's difficult to imagine a more perfect timeline for a product range, from a marketing perspective.

WoW also launched at a solid point in the MMO timeline. Enough games had already come out that there was a decent awareness of what was generally working or not working, and WoW managed to have slightly more polish than its competitors. It wasn't amazingly polished comparatively - nothing like the difference now. But enough that it was easy to transition into.

And that was its other major feature. It was generally accessible. Not endgame, of course. Endgame wasn't all that much more accessible than FFXI's (and leveling to cap actually was a feat). But the game itself wasn't super deep. It still had plenty of blocking features, like weapon skilling and poor balance, but it was solid.

Overall, WoW was a solid effort launched at the perfect time. And I don't say that to discredit Blizzard's accomplishments at all. WoW was made accessible by very, very wise marketing and development from that point on. But the vast majority of players joined WoW during TBC, and expansion continued into Wrath. Cataclysm reversed that trend, and MoP accelerated it.

And that brings me to the most important point: You REALLY can't argue sales as support for a vertical progression system when discussing WoW, for 3 major reasons:

1. The vast majority of players couldn't access content, period, in vanilla. Raiding required you to reach cap, run dungeons and build a raiding set (fire resist HO!), be a non-useless class (loldruid), get 40 people together, and be able to invest a ton of time in actually raiding. And gold was hard to come by back then, so raiding needed to be supported by a lot of time spent farming. It took a long time to access content, and a long time to progress through it. Most people who raided (distinct from "Raiders") were still on Ragnaros when BC was announced.

2. Because we are talking about the effect of a vertical content system on the perceptions of progression, you can't just look at success and call it a day. If most of the expansion happened in BC, then by the time those players left at the end of Wrath, they had only faced the reset once. We don't have any information on how long current subscribers joined WoW. Has WoW been sustaining high sub numbers by roughly matching the ubsubs with new subs? If they lose a ton of players each expansion just to replace them, it's something we can use for the sake of vertical progression. If, on the other hand, those are all players who joined for BC and have played since, then it's looking a lot better.

Cata makes this even more difficult, as they've had BIG pushes in marketing towards new players with both those expansions, Cata in particular. Who knows how successful those were.

As we don't have that info, we realistically can't use it as proof either way.

3. WoW's dominance still can't count as proof in the vertical vs. horizontal debate, because no horizontal competitor has yet to launch. For all we know, 70% of people playing WoW would REALLY prefer something else, but are settling. Or maybe none of them would.

We have no way of knowing, because we don't have that data.


Statistics are only useful relative to context. WoW's sub numbers can tell us its a successful name, they tell us Blizzard did many things right, they tell us a lot of people, in general, enjoyed the game, they tell us that WoW dominates the competitors from a consumer perspective.

What they don't tell us is anything about game design.

That's misleading. Those titles that came with the initial system purchase also cost roughly $50 more. You weren't getting the game for free in any sense of the word. Second, my argument is simply that Mario has been pulling in money pretty much hand over fist for Nintendo for more than three decades. If you want to argue "WoW is by far the most successful game ever," then you have to take that into account. World of Warcraft has sold merchandise like cards, clothes, toys, and expansion packs. Mario 1 has sold merchandise like cards, clothes, toys, and sequels.

Depends where you draw the line I suppose.