EC explains how the current progression system is flawed

[Zfz]

I got to about 1:30 and they started talking about WoW talent tree system. Then I checked the date of the video and saw it was 19 Aug 2015. That was enough info to tell me I didn't need to watch the rest of the video.

When a 2015 book talks about political systems and use the Roman Empire as an example, it is still as relevant as ever. It is talking about an actual example of a talent tree, and the (even though old and no longer in use) WoW talent tree system is one that is very widely known and one that has been experienced by a lot of potential viewers of the video, hence a good candidate to use as an example.

If the video was titled "a sample of current MMORPG progression systems" then your reply is relevant. But that isn't the case.

[Hix]

When a 2015 book talks about political systems and use the Roman Empire as an example, it is still as relevant as ever. It is talking about an actual example of a talent tree, and the (even though old and no longer in use) WoW talent tree system is one that is very widely known and one that has been experienced by a lot of potential viewers of the video, hence a good candidate to use as an example.

If the video was titled "a sample of current MMORPG progression systems" then your reply is relevant. But that isn't the case.

They definitely talked about WoW talent trees as if they were a thing that still existed. If someone talked about the Roman Empire as a thing that still existed today, then the credibility would be destroyed. And if they actually do know that Talent trees were taken out, but then don't discuss why they were taken out, it'd be similar to saying the Roman Empire is superior to today's republican governments, without discussing why the Roman Empire fell (or even that it fell at all). In either case, they either literally don't know what they are talking about (ie that WoW doesn't use talent trees anymore) or they are hiding highly relevant information (that WoW has decided that talent trees as progression system in an MMO don't really provide customization in the way they are trying to argue).

If the first thing in your argument is just blatantly wrong, then I don't need to read the rest of your argument.

[Zfz]

If the first thing in your argument is just blatantly wrong, then I don't need to read the rest of your argument.

That is applicable only if the argument is a flow of logical deductions. But the topic at hand isn't.

The section where the old WoW talent trees were mentioned, used it to illustrate the case where, and I quote:

if, when you first logged in to World of Warcraft, you were immediately given access to all the abilities in the entire talent tree, you'd feel really overwhelmed. A progression system can be used to introduce elements of the game to the player one by one, allowing them time to familiarize themselves and get comfortable with one facet of the game before moving on to the next thing they need to learn. The best thing about this approach...

You should see now using the Talent 2.0 of WoW, for example, would not be appropriate to illustrate the point that you'd be overwhelmed without a progression system.

The video is not claiming that the old Talent Trees are superior. It wanted a real world example where skipping the progression (giving you everything right at the beginning) would overwhelm you, and WoW's old talent trees was the perfect example.

The WoW old talent trees was used as an example where having some form of progression was better than having none. It made no claims on whether that particular implementation of progression was superior or not.

Hence there's nothing "balantly wrong" by mentioning WoW's old talent trees.

[Stanelis]

Reaching the point of why I'm saying all this now. I am not saying SE has to come up with so much content that they wouldn't have to gate at all, that's impossible.

In the burning crusade expansion of wow the content was gated by the completion of each tier of content (eg you had to run normal dungeons to unlock the first raids, the first raids and some heroics dungeons do unlock some more raids, those raids to unlock the later raids...) and the initial content of the expansion lasted for month (if not years) without feeling as a grind, a chore or w/e. You never got bored because you always had a boss to work on (and their difficulty weren't artificially inflated like what we have currently in alexander savage, on average you killed like one or two new bosses per week).

The fact is there was so much content at the expansion release (I'm only talking about what was release for the expansion, not about what was already in the game from wow vanilla) that it kept people playing for month, and there wasn't much grind innvolved (playing FFXIV require to grind way more the content than what wow required back in the day, believe it or not).

SE has to gate heavily stuff in FFXIV due to the tiny amount of content at level 60 in the game.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

In the burning crusade expansion of wow the content was gated by the completion of each tier of content.

In older WoW expansions it also took significantly longer to level and gear up, you weren't getting epic gear in LFR. It's pretty safe to say older MMOs, including WoW, did a much better job of retaining subs then ALL of the modern MMOs. Only 2 of the Modern MMOs have yet to go free 2 play.

I do think you have some valid points though.

[Omskahn]

SE has to gate heavily stuff in FFXIV due to the tiny amount of content at level 60 in the game.

Which is the crux of the problem. Apparently lots of people dont care though and are quite content, going so far as to say neverreap and a raid that is little more name and a picture in the current game count as end-game.

You're doing your self a disservice by using WoW as an example though, people who play this game lose their minds at the mere mention of it, regardless of the way in which it's used.

[Hix]

The video is not claiming that the old Talent Trees are superior. It wanted a real world example where skipping the progression (giving you everything right at the beginning) would overwhelm you, and WoW's old talent trees was the perfect example.

The WoW old talent trees was used as an example where having some form of progression was better than having none. It made no claims on whether that particular implementation of progression was superior or not.

Hence there's nothing "balantly wrong" by mentioning WoW's old talent trees.

Did we even watch the same video? They talked about how talent trees are amazing progression mechanisms because they make you think about the game outside the game as you try to find that perfect build, unlike the terrible jrpg system of giving you new abilities based on level. Now to me this sounds like an argument that talent tree based progression is superior to at least jrpg progression, and they don't offer any other suggestion of a better progression system, so I think it's safe to conclude that they think WoW talent trees are actually a superior progression system.

In the burning crusade expansion of wow the content was gated by the completion of each tier of content (eg you had to run normal dungeons to unlock the first raids, the first raids and some heroics dungeons do unlock some more raids, those raids to unlock the later raids...) and the initial content of the expansion lasted for month (if not years) without feeling as a grind, a chore or w/e. You never got bored because you always had a boss to work on (and their difficulty weren't artificially inflated like what we have currently in alexander savage, on average you killed like one or two new bosses per week).

The fact is there was so much content at the expansion release (I'm only talking about what was release for the expansion, not about what was already in the game from wow vanilla) that it kept people playing for month, and there wasn't much grind innvolved (playing FFXIV require to grind way more the content than what wow required back in the day, believe it or not).

SE has to gate heavily stuff in FFXIV due to the tiny amount of content at level 60 in the game.

If FFXIV wanted to follow the BC progression model, then Aetherochemical Research Facility would have the difficulty of Alexander Savage 1, and you wouldn't be able to enter it unless you could clear The Vault in less than 15 minutes. I don't know where you get this idea that BC raids didn't have artificial difficulty unlike Alexander Savage. Do you know why they refer to gear in WoW as "Tiers?" Because the way WoW was originally designed, and this was true in BC as well, you had to be at least 1/2 geared in the previous Tier to even hope to complete more than the first boss in the next Tier. That's why it's called "Progression." You progress from one Tier to the next, farming each Tier for the gear needed to complete the next Tier. When people talk about "This gear only exists for raiders" they are talking about the Tier Progression system in WoW (even if they don't realize it), which you would now label as "artificial difficulty." Or do you imagine that you could jump right into Tempest Keep without extensive farming of Karazhan?

[Omskahn]

snip

But why are you focusing on the idea of WoW talent trees? That was just an example that they used to show how customization of your character can add longevity to a game, as a means to keep players playing due to the added strategic element.

The WoW talent trees are NOT the focus of the video, and their base argument holds up if you used another game with customizable character builds instead. Or if you didn't use the example at all.

And i'm guessing you didn't get this, so I'm reiterating. The are saying that talent trees are better than simply giving you abilities every level - in the context of adding a degree of strategy that allows players to occupy themselves playing around with to extend the life of gameplay. Not that Wow is da best, jrpgs suck

[Stanelis]

You're doing your self a disservice by using WoW as an example though, people who play this game lose their minds at the mere mention of it, regardless of the way in which it's used.

I do play wow and I was amongst the players who cleared sunwell before the nerfs (I also used to play FFXI and FFXIV).

What wasn't right at the beginning of TBC is that the whole expansion has been designed assuming each players would start playing from day one. Meaning it was very hard to catch up to the bandwagon if you were lagging behind. But don't forget that during TBC the player base jumped from a 5 millions active subscribers to 8 millions (I can't imagine this happening in a bad game). I know that it is hard to imagine with how scarce the content has become in new mmorpg, but the sheer amount of content of TBC was overwhelming.

In older WoW expansions it also took significantly longer to level and gear up, you weren't getting epic gear in LFR.

It took like 3 weeks only playing on the evening (Im' pretty sure gearing up one job via Alexander normal takes longer). What was time consuming at the beginning of TBC was unlocking the heroic dungeons (as you had to grind reputation, but if you quested your way to level 70 that wasn't an issue).

Also back in the day the blue gear you were getting from heroic dungeons were better than the epic gear from karazhan (it was patched a couple month later).