Patch 2.2, Accessibility, Difficulty Levels, and Throwing Away Content

[Worm]

Don't focus on gear checks, I mean anything that actually creates a sense of progression like some content being harder than other content, content having an attunement line, or something to control how many people can see this content. You know something that makes beating the final boss more impressive than the ones before it. What you're talking about just sounds like having a lot of content that's generally pretty accessible once you hit level cap. I only have some limited experience with EQ and it's mostly secondhand, but the reason some dragon was hard to kill was because he wasn't always there and only one group could kill him and then he'd be gone. There was some kind of limitation that forced you to work together with people, join a guild, and progress not only in gear, game knowledge, skill, group synergy, but also socially. It's all nice and well to say "Make all the content good content that people will enjoy it", but is this progression at all? I haven't played FFXI, GW, or GW2 so maybe I just don't have the experience to understand what you're talking about.

I mean obviously if you fill a game with good content that people like and want to log in to experience, well it's naturally a good game, but that's not the easy part.

[Susanoh]

Don't focus on gear checks, I mean anything that actually creates a sense of progression like some content being harder than other content, content having an attunement line, or something to control how many people can see this content. You know something that makes beating the final boss more impressive than the ones before it. What you're talking about just sounds like having a lot of content that's generally pretty accessible once you hit level cap. I only have some limited experience with EQ and it's mostly secondhand, but the reason some dragon was hard to kill was because he wasn't always there and only one group could kill him and then he'd be gone. There was some kind of limitation that forced you to work together with people, join a guild, and progress not only in gear, game knowledge, skill, group synergy, but also socially. It's all nice and well to say "Make all the content good content that people will enjoy it", but is this progression at all? I haven't played FFXI, GW, or GW2 so maybe I just don't have the experience to understand what you're talking about.

I mean obviously if you fill a game with good content that people like and want to log in to experience, well it's naturally a good game, but that's not the easy part.

Content that is accessible once you hit end game is exactly what I'm talking about, and I personally would argue that it ends up making for a much better game in the long run.

To answer your question about whether it's "progession," if you mean in the sense that you become vastly more powerful than you were every patch, or in the sense that one piece of content leads into the next and then the next in a repeating pattern, then no, it isn't. But I wouldn't say that the power creep is really progression either. Yes, you may get 10 or 20% stronger every few months, but the mobs and bosses are also becoming 10 or 20% stronger along with you. The end result is that every bit of new content is just as challenging as it would have been had they not decided to buff both players and mobs, and all content that came before it becomes easier and over time, a complete joke. New content also may become gated by equipment, where players feel a need to collect newer items to have a shot at holding their weight. None of these make for a very good game experience IMO. On the other hand, if the same content is used in a horizontal progression method, it can still be just as enjoyable and challenging as if it were used in a vertical progression method, with the differences being that players don't feel that they're locked out of the content until they grind to get new equipment, and instead of obsoleting the existing content in the game, it adds to it.

To sum it up, horitonal progression:
-Allows for an expansive game where multiple activities created over months/years are challenging and relevant.
-Doesn't lock players out of content because they haven't upgraded to the latest equipment.

Vertical progression:
-Creates a game where only one or a few activities are relevant.
-May lock out players out of the new content for a time if new equipment is necessary to take down bosses.

Effectively, these are the only differences between the two methods that have a strong impact on how we actually play the game. The only other difference is in how it "feels," but I would much rather have a good game with lots of content than a game that provides an illusion of "progress" and has very little relevant or challenging content.

Lastly, creating good content that people want to play may not be easy, but creating a wealth of good content that players will want to still go back and experience even after new content has been created is something that some would want developers to strive for in an MMO, and many developers aren't even trying. You mentioned you hadn't played Guild Wars, and this was actually one of the best things about that game IMO. The level cap never raised, and equipment never crushed what came before it, and there was lots of content that players could go back and experience from launch day until the latest patch. And not just in a "hey, I'm doing things the retro way like nobody else does any more" like in present day FFXI. Last I played the game two years ago (it's a 2005 game), there were still people playing and doing content from all different time periods in the game's life. That's the type of thing I and some others would like to see developers strive for, a game with lots of content that players want to play that can stand the test of time and not be judged only by its latest patch.

[Fendred]

To sum it up, horitonal progression:
-Allows for an expansive game where multiple activities created over months/years are challenging and relevant.
-Doesn't lock players out of content because they haven't upgraded to the latest equipment.

Vertical progression:
-Creates a game where only one or a few activities are relevant.
-May lock out players out of the new content for a time if new equipment is necessary to take down bosses.

This.

All their development time is going to be spent creating more of the same stuff we have already done. It's not like they couldn't make really interesting housing options for players where players can construct their own unique dwellings. The reason the housing is so strongly preset is because the bulk of their development time is going to be spent on constantly rebalancing the game as they build upwards.

Eventually, people will want to see the old content restored so that it is meaningful and Squarenix will end up spending ridiculous amounts of time redoing old boss encounters just to make them relevant. Not to mention Squarenix is already going to have a bunch of developers getting part of their precious time locked into WoWesque style PvP rebalancing hell, which is driven more by PvP politics than anything else.

[Worm]

Content that is accessible once you hit end game is exactly what I'm talking about, and I personally would argue that it ends up making for a much better game in the long run.

To answer your question about whether it's "progession," if you mean in the sense that you become vastly more powerful than you were every patch, or in the sense that one piece of content leads into the next and then the next in a repeating pattern, then no, it isn't. But I wouldn't say that the power creep is really progression either. Yes, you may get 10 or 20% stronger every few months, but the mobs and bosses are also becoming 10 or 20% stronger along with you. The end result is that every bit of new content is just as challenging as it would have been had they not decided to buff both players and mobs, and all content that came before it becomes easier and over time, a complete joke. New content also may become gated by equipment, where players feel a need to collect newer items to have a shot at holding their weight. None of these make for a very good game experience IMO. On the other hand, if the same content is used in a horizontal progression method, it can still be just as enjoyable and challenging as if it were used in a vertical progression method, with the differences being that players don't feel that they're locked out of the content until they grind to get new equipment, and instead of obsoleting the existing content in the game, it adds to it.

I'm not talking about getting 10% stronger every patch but further the idea that you're always moving forward. I just don't see how you're going to create that with flat content. People will hit 50 have a choice of multiple raids, dungeons, and crafting stuff that we hope are all masterfully designed and that's the game. If you masterfully design vertical progression it can be just as fun. You're falling back too much on the game needing to be great. You just don't like gated content or power creep so you want a game without it, it really doesn't feel like there's more to it than that. What about not having power creep or gated content makes the game good? I don't like power creep or gated content either, but I like it better than the alternative of games that need to play like Korean grindfests to last.

Effectively, these are the only differences between the two methods that have a strong impact on how we actually play the game. The only other difference is in how it "feels," but I would much rather have a good game with lots of content than a game that provides an illusion of "progress" and has very little relevant or challenging content.

Well of course if one game has more content it will be better but you're just falling back into this 'good games are better' argument again. If you have a horizontal progression game with absolutely nothing to lock people out of content, how will that game last? By simply having 10 times as much content as competitors? You must see how this line of reasoning is a little unrealistic.

Lastly, creating good content that people want to play may not be easy, but creating a wealth of good content that players will want to still go back and experience even after new content has been created is something that some would want developers to strive for in an MMO, and many developers aren't even trying. You mentioned you hadn't played Guild Wars, and this was actually one of the best things about that game IMO. The level cap never raised, and equipment never crushed what came before it, and there was lots of content that players could go back and experience from launch day until the latest patch. And not just in a "hey, I'm doing things the retro way like nobody else does any more" like in present day FFXI. Last I played the game two years ago (it's a 2005 game), there were still people playing and doing content from all different time periods in the game's life. That's the type of thing I and some others would like to see developers strive for, a game with lots of content that players want to play that can stand the test of time and not be judged only by its latest patch.

I think it'd be nice if they strive for that too, however people play these games until they die, so I don't know that it's fair to point back and say "People are still playing this online so it must have had lasting power", when you've got people still playing Meridian 57 and things like that. I think the real trick for MMOs is to created a game for less than millions and millions of dollars and slowly grow content and playerbase along these lines. I don't know if a game like what you want can come out and appeal to a niche audience but also have huge AAA levels of content. I don't necessarily disagree with your intent or opinions but mostly your opinions on how they'd be logistically achieved.

[Susanoh]

What about not having power creep or gated content makes the game good?

As I've mentioned, it means more relevant content that people can and actually may want to participate in. It means the experience that players were able to have with content from months or years ago are still just as good as the day they were introduced.

As for the lack of gear gating, it means players can focus on enjoying content and getting alternative rewards to compliment their current sets rather than watching their current equipment become garbage and needing new equipment to be considered acceptable to participate.

I don't think I'm alone if feeling that the power creep and gated content do far more harm than good.

Well of course if one game has more content it will be better but you're just falling back into this 'good games are better' argument again. If you have a horizontal progression game with absolutely nothing to lock people out of content, how will that game last? By simply having 10 times as much content as competitors? You must see how this line of reasoning is a little unrealistic.

I think it'd be nice if they strive for that too, however people play these games until they die, so I don't know that it's fair to point back and say "People are still playing this online so it must have had lasting power", when you've got people still playing Meridian 57 and things like that. I think the real trick for MMOs is to created a game for less than millions and millions of dollars and slowly grow content and playerbase along these lines. I don't know if a game like what you want can come out and appeal to a niche audience but also have huge AAA levels of content. I don't necessarily disagree with your intent or opinions but mostly your opinions on how they'd be logistically achieved.

Games with no significant power creep can have lasting content that has other restrictions in place to keep people from spamming content and getting everything in a week (see: FFXI). Games can also have no power creep at all and have content that people can do any time on demand, and still have people logging in doing it today (see: Guild Wars). Guild Wars, by the way, sold six million copies and has no power creep whatsoever and still had people doing stuff from the original launch game 7 years after release (possibly still does now), so I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm preaching for a small niche that no significant amount of players could ever get into. I'm not saying anything crazy here. Similar ideas to what I'm suggesting have already been done by other games, and they didn't crash and burn because players didn't get to bump their iLVLs up every six months to a year.

[Worm]

Similar ideas to what I'm suggesting have already been done by other games, and they didn't crash and burn because players didn't get to bump their iLVLs up every six months to a year.

Would you list some? I'm kind of interested in what you define as a crash and burn.

Also don't you think a game with really good content which is gated and has power creep would be reasonably successful? I feel like you're making too much of an equivalency between the lack of two things you don't like and a game being good. You still need really good content and game management, which more often than not is the problem with these games.

[ApolloGenX]

Would you list some? I'm kind of interested in what you define as a crash and burn.

Also don't you think a game with really good content which is gated and has power creep would be reasonably successful? I feel like you're making too much of an equivalency between the lack of two things you don't like and a game being good. You still need really good content and game management, which more often than not is the problem with these games.

There is a substantial difference between the amount of power scaling between "tiers" in a game like Everquest and in a game that follows the formal WoW tier structure like this game. In EQ, there was a blend. The expansions were very broad and deep, with gear quality overlapping well up into the expansion, with the high end raid gear pulling ahead. In many cases this was with additional effects, clickable effects, or later with new types of stats that were relevant to the raids in that expansion.

Why does this matter? Because core power could remain steadily increasing, without a huge leap... but effects could change in relevancy from expansion to expansion, without characters becoming massively overpowered on the whole.

Example: Luclin brought gear with Flowing Thought (that was originally VERY rare)... but it introduced negative stats to pay for it, except for the most exclusive Vex Thal gear. PoP brought armor sets with spell enhancement, while GoD introduced DoT shielding. PoP gear was still useful in GoD. DoT shielding was just a nice stat relevant to those raids. Luclin gear became obsolete for most people in late PoP, but that was because the level was raised.

That is how gear should work. It should stay relevant in the level range, and become obsolete when levels are raised, not because new content makes the prior content in-tier pointless. You can have a whole array of effects, clickables, divergent stats, whatever for a level range of gear- offering a huge variety of options for a max level character.

Why would you not have thematic gear for your raid releases? They could all be comparable but follow different themes... all sets could be viable, but if you have three high end raids, you could have one set that is optimal (the effect provided) for tanks, one for healers, one for dps... it's not difficult to think beyond the Ilevel rush oversimplified system we have in place.

I still remember getting my (ethereal mist?) armor on my EQ cleric. Multiple planes had similar gear, but I wanted EM for the look- it was purple. Loved it.