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

Originally Posted by Susanoh

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.