Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[Ibi]

@Ibi then you plug away? Whats wrong with spending time on content when there is nothing else to do? What are people in such a rush for?

As I said in the post directly preceding yours: "No one's suggesting that every time someone enters a piece of content they should walk away with one of the available rewards."

The content you get isn't even required to do anything in the game anyway. So why does it matter if it takes you a week or a month? At least you have something to do that you want.

The issue is not when it takes weeks to get a reward. It's when it takes person A one or two days to get the reward and person B two or three weeks to get the reward.

Having the connection between effort invested and rewards obtained being completely random is a really effective way to increase player frustration and drive them away from the game.

And if that isn't appealing to you, then you will tend more towards games that are action and achivement based rather then MMOs that are Time Applied = Reward Appreciation. You appreciate more what you put more time in.

Even if that weren't completely subjective, it's only true up to a certain extent.

Most people have thresholds beyond which the time applied ceases to worth the reward, and they stop putting the time in altogether or beyond which the continued time investment becomes so burdensome that even when they get the reward it no longer feels like a reward; they're simply glad that the grind is over.