Vertical Progression/gridning was never a requirement when designing an MMORPG.

[asadawa]

No, that's a you fault. Learn to manage your time better and you won't have to spend this supposed 10s of thousands of gold. God forbid you take responsibilities for your actions.

Ok. Good argument. Again, having something in the game that is neither rewarding or enjoyable is not good design. Sorry that you think so and need to turn it into an attack against my ability to take responsibility for myself when I'm not even just talking about myself.

Please explain how something not being fun or rewarding is good design.

God forbid you talk about the actual topic instead of turning to personal attacks.

It's not about time management. It's a video game. I play it for fun, not to follow unrewarding and boring processes for hours to fulfill your requirements before I can say it's bad design. Also, as I said, I HAVE farmed the mats. It's still bad design.

[Kathandira]

It only has to be massively multiplayer and role-playing: the end; everything else added to it is purely the developers' choice; people confuse what the developers of games like this 'often' do to what they 'must' do: but that's suspect because you've never proven that necessity and it's easy to avoid proving that necessity if you've never seen the alternative.

We already see clear signs that people often prefer horizontal progression; e.g. players often role-play without caring about technically leveling first or most pvpers prefer no vertical progression at all or most purely-mythic raiders hate split raiding and similar grinding even if they do it; it's obvious the main purpose of vertical progression is monthly fees.

RPG from a gaming perspective has a long history of vertical progression. When MMO’s were first designed, they were made to be that way as well.

[FelPlague]

Maybe you don't play as much and don't use the best potions. A single dungeon costs thousands of gold just in potions. Disenchanting isn't worth anything anymore. We also spent all our gold crafting. We don't want to spend our time farming herbs and ores, which I have done, and wasn't worth the time.

I can work overtime for a couple hours at work and buy 1 million gold from a third party, or spend forever farming herbs for almost nothing. I happened to do my weekly on 2 characters this week for 1500g each. This isn't even enough for a single night of doing keys.

I am literally doing the "bare minimum" you described and it's still not enough. Except that I don't want to spend my gameplay farming herbs. Saying I can spend more time in game doing things I don't want to do than doing the things I do want to do doesn't exactly make sense.

Not to mention I have multiple alts I want to make crafted gear on.

edit: maybe I'm overexaggerating slightly at this point in the expansion but potions of power were 4-500 gold just a couple weeks ago. Potions of chilled clarity still are 400g on my server, making a single attempt on a boss cost 4-800 gold depending on how long the fight went. With these potions alone a single night of serious attempts at a boss in which I need mana costs 10k gold. The 1500 from doing the weekly barely touches that. I shouldn't have to spend the time I get to play not playing the game.

Bro a single world quest gives like 200g.
Just doing your weekly quest gives like 10k.
Also just gathering as you fly around doing stuff you get plenty of resources.
Also why arebyou bugging gold illegally risking your account when you can buy legally?

[Jester Joe]

I haven't been able to do the weekly quest in like 5 weeks because that stupid assault quest isn't up when I am available to do it. Even if I have 3000 rep, it requires me to do that stupid assault that is on a long cooldown I don't want to wait for. When it comes back up I'm probably in raid, in a m+, or going to sleep. A weekly quest like that shouldn't be locked behind an event that spawns on a long timer.

I mean, I don't exactly disagree, I do prefer it when its' like, "Do 5 world quests". But the event is every other hour, it's not too bad to jump into an M+ if there's still like 40 minutes and then hit it after the M+.

Maybe you don't play as much and don't use the best potions. A single dungeon costs thousands of gold just in potions. Disenchanting isn't worth anything anymore. We also spent all our gold crafting. We don't want to spend our time farming herbs and ores, which I have done, and wasn't worth the time.

I can work overtime for a couple hours at work and buy 1 million gold from a third party, or spend forever farming herbs for almost nothing. I happened to do my weekly on 2 characters this week for 1500g each. This isn't even enough for a single night of doing keys.

I am literally doing the "bare minimum" you described and it's still not enough. Except that I don't want to spend my gameplay farming herbs. Saying I can spend more time in game doing things I don't want to do than doing the things I do want to do doesn't exactly make sense.

Not to mention I have multiple alts I want to make crafted gear on.

edit: maybe I'm overexaggerating slightly at this point in the expansion but potions of power were 4-500 gold just a couple weeks ago. Potions of chilled clarity still are 400g on my server, making a single attempt on a boss cost 4-800 gold depending on how long the fight went. With these potions alone a single night of serious attempts at a boss in which I need mana costs 10k gold. The 1500 from doing the weekly barely touches that. I shouldn't have to spend the time I get to play not playing the game.

You're clearly not doing the bare minimum, you straight up just said you don't want to gather.

Like, that's fine and all, but don't blame the game for a flaw that you're creating yourself. You have the means to make gold just fine but you said yourself, you don't want to sell carries or make gold.

I mean, for raids alone, any semi-serious/decent guild can easily use a system for raid BoEs to go for guild funds to support consumables. Or ya know, have crafters that can help you make gear for characters for cheaper.

M+, if you're timing keys you'd only have enough time to use like 5-6 potions a run. I'm one of the few people in my group who use consumables constantly and I've never had gold issues, usually I'm sitting around 200k-300k.

[epigramx]

it is something in all RPG's.

no it's not. it's not even in wow. people role play without any vertical progression and most pvers hate grinding and the same is true for most pvers going for rankings.

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M+ and mythic raider here.

Some close friends and I often talk about this. We don't believe having gear progression is a requirement and would be entirely fine with it having a more arcade feel. We don't care to open a weekly chest, hoping to get lucky. We don't care to farm the same dungeon 20+ times for a single trinket. We don't care for tier sets to dictate who we invite and whether we get invited. We also don't care to wear normal tier, 20 ilvls lower, for the name of a tier set. We also don't care to have to farm outside of dungeons and raids.

We don't care for gold, having to buy gear, enchantments, consumables. This is just seen as Blizzard trying to get money as the ways to make any real money are obscure or non-existent aside from boosting. We don't really want to boost to support us either. I have yet to, but most of my friends buy gold against ToS.

We just want to do the dungeons. Sometimes it can feel nice to get the tertiary proc. Usually it feels dumb, especially seeing someone with 5 items with tertiary stats to our 1-2.

I don't believe most M+ gamers or even raiders require there to be gear and this type of progression. It can seem fun and a driving force in the game, but often leads to annoyance and frustation. At least in my small group, we feel that cosmetics and mounts should be what we earn. Cool ones, not just reskins. And, of course, no store mounts.

I have a hunter in my guild who is almost depressed about the bow from Ras. He is especially annoyed as he was in the same boat for Sylvanas - join groups that won't take him because there are 100 really good hunters trying to get into the same group, finally getting into one, only to wipe for 3 hours and get nothing. He feels that he has to do this in order to compete. With the loot system now being need/greed, only 1 hunter often gets into these groups, making the process even harder.

No surprise that he also buys gold from third parties in order to buy boosts just so he doesn't have to spend 5 hours a week doing this. He, like many others, feel progression and the economy is more and more made to push us into buying tokens.

I don't think this is the eruption you were expecting.

I feel the same way for years now (practically months after I saw wow). It's so obvious it's not done for the players' benefit but for keeping players subscribed.

It's interesting how both the most casual role-players and the most hard core pvers (and obviously the pvers) agree on that in secret.

[GreenJesus]

No its about having a system that rewards you for playing the game and giving you goals that will actually increase your characters power and not just only on gear, every season you need to gear upo again anyway and gain more power, loot only progression is not fun its just a boring system developers are too lazy to make better, catch up mechanics just get you to playing a new season they dont give you all the strength you could get in the last season because you didnt play and should be behind other players.

A game should rely on more than just gear progression.

So you want artifact power to grind? No thanks. I'll take gear. Simple and easy.

[FelPlague]

no it's not. it's not even in wow. people role play without any vertical progression and most pvers hate grinding and the same is true for most pvers going for rankings.

1. that is hilariously flawed logic, cause you literally just said wow DOES NOT have vertical progression.
2. role playing in a game does not make it an RPG, people role play in yugioh and star craft for fucks sake.
an RPG is not a game "people roleplay in"

[Toppy]

Vertifical progression isnt bad. It only becomes a problem when its too aggressive and starts hindering new players or people who take a break. Which is what WoW does. It far to easily makes you feel punished. They have this massive, unneeded gap that they started doing in Legion, and since then have been wondering why engagement keeps dropping.

[chiddie]

The constant goal post moving is too strong, how long till the goalpost hits the moon.

actual fact, level has a MUCH higher effect on your power then gear, especially since 1-70 gives a 100x increase to your stats, while gear gives only a 3-5x increase to your stats, and DOES NOT give talents, unlike leveling.

most of our player power comes from leveling.

You are 100% right.

BUT when it comes the moment power starts to matter “for real” (endgame) most of your power will then come through gear.

You can post all the videos you want but a fresh level 70 with only questing gear up do that point will REALLY have a BAD life whatever activity he will choose and no matter how skilled he is. Because this game is not Dark Solus, you’re not supposed to beat Gwin naked with a broken sword because the combat system does not allow you to do so.

So, from a certain pov, he is right too. You gain most power 1-70, but that power will have zero value at max level unless you boost it with gear.

It’s the same difference in having a D3 toon with non-ancient items and the same toon with same skills and passives PLUS all items in ancient form plus 125 augments. They are not even remotely comparable in power.

[Yriel]

RPG from a gaming perspective has a long history of vertical progression. When MMO’s were first designed, they were made to be that way as well.

If you look at the early popular ones... Ultima Online was hardly a gear chasing game. And in Dark age of Camelot the best gear was crafted.

[Toppy]

If you look at the early popular ones... Ultima Online was hardly a gear chasing game. And in Dark age of Camelot the best gear was crafted.

Or WoW itself. Gear mattered but it was also readily accesible and the difference between players wasn't massive. For most players they never strayed from dungeon gear. TBC and on to MoP further made that gap much smaller by having badge gear which ensured that while gear did matter a great deal, the difference in power levels between players could easily be bridged.

[chiddie]

Or WoW itself. Gear mattered but it was also readily accesible and the difference between players wasn't massive. For most players they never strayed from dungeon gear. TBC and on to MoP further made that gap much smaller by having badge gear which ensured that while gear did matter a great deal, the difference in power levels between players could easily be bridged.

The main “issue” in WoW is that best gear BY FAR comes from group content only.

The type of the progression line is not an issue. Diablo is even more grindy and gear dependent than WoW but I’m still enjoying it a lot. Guess why: no grouping required to get best gear.

Problems come when whatever progression is tied to activities you don’t wanna do for whatever reason (group activities in this case).

[Toppy]

The main “issue” in WoW is that best gear BY FAR comes from group content only.

The type of the progression line is not an issue. Diablo is even more grindy and gear dependent than WoW but I’m still enjoying it a lot. Guess why: no grouping required to get best gear.

Problems come when whatever progression is tied to activities you don’t wanna do for whatever reason (group activities in this case).

Yes. And that is a trend that started after MoP. Before MoP you could get gear that was near highest raid level just by doing damn near anything. But the dev team changed with MoP and their mentality has ever been "RAIDING ONLY"

[kenn9530]

So you want artifact power to grind? No thanks. I'll take gear. Simple and easy.

No i want the character to earn power so even if you were not wearing gear you would still have most of your stats, have challenges each season to progress the characters power and the rest gear upgrades can fill out, if you are happy with boring and mediocre gameplay then thats fine and when you dont get gear dont complain.

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The main “issue” in WoW is that best gear BY FAR comes from group content only.

The type of the progression line is not an issue. Diablo is even more grindy and gear dependent than WoW but I’m still enjoying it a lot. Guess why: no grouping required to get best gear.

Problems come when whatever progression is tied to activities you don’t wanna do for whatever reason (group activities in this case).

Its not an issue, why should anyone have access to the most powerful gear without doing group content, its an MMO if you dont do group content you dont deserve the better gear, dragonflight has given way too easy access to powerful gear now you just need to work a little.

[Malkiah]

And that has nothing to do with good ol' memories of Vanilla, BC, Wrath. They WERE interesting, magnificent and enjoyable without modern grinding and what it represents. It's just boring. Somehow it worked in Legion, well guys, almost everyone liked Legion...They just made it qualitatively enough.

yeah about that... vanilla, BC, and wrath were absolutely full of "modern grinding"
actually scratch that, they were full of mid 2000s grinding which is in fact way worse than modern grinding.

the biggest difference between BC/WOTLK and now isn't the changes in wow, it's the changes in your brain.
you are fondly remembering a game you had just discovered and were enjoying with the passionate energy of youth.

in terms of execution and the daily gameplay loop, wow hasn't changed in 20 years excepting that in the last 7 years it started to include things to do post-max-level that weren't purely chasing ilvl - something that has been removed from this expansion because raidloggers are a bunch of whiny babies.

[chiddie]

No i want the character to earn power so even if you were not wearing gear you would still have most of your stats, have challenges each season to progress the characters power and the rest gear upgrades can fill out, if you are happy with boring and mediocre gameplay then thats fine and when you dont get gear dont complain.

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Its not an issue, why should anyone have access to the most powerful gear without doing group content, its an MMO if you dont do group content you dont deserve the better gear, dragonflight has given way too easy access to powerful gear now you just need to work a little.

There’s a reason I wrote “issue” with the “.

It’s a non-issue in WoW but it’s a gameplay that in the long term can surely drive away people. There are two barriers: it’s not only the difficulty of the content, it’s also difficult to ACCESS the difficult content, because it requires “manual” grouping and it’s not meant to be done with randoms (I’m not suggesting auto-queue for M+, I’m simply painting the current situation).

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Yes. And that is a trend that started after MoP. Before MoP you could get gear that was near highest raid level just by doing damn near anything. But the dev team changed with MoP and their mentality has ever been "RAIDING ONLY"

There’s no easy fix for this. Whatever solution will make someone unhappy.

Blizzard chose grouped content to have the upper side, this is somehow “natural” given it’s a MMORPG, we can only live with it or leave it.

I chose to leave because fighting this “war” is useless, they never changed their mind in almost 20 years, they never will.

[Greyvax]

It only has to be massively multiplayer and role-playing: the end; everything else added to it is purely the developers' choice; people confuse what the developers of games like this 'often' do to what they 'must' do: but that's suspect because you've never proven that necessity and it's easy to avoid proving that necessity if you've never seen the alternative.

We already see clear signs that people often prefer horizontal progression; e.g. players often role-play without caring about technically leveling first or most pvpers prefer no vertical progression at all or most purely-mythic raiders hate split raiding and similar grinding even if they do it; it's obvious the main purpose of vertical progression is monthly fees.

GW2 is horizontal progression and is a dead game.

MMORPG's have always been designed around vertical progression. it's always about advancing your character's power.

[Kathandira]

If you look at the early popular ones... Ultima Online was hardly a gear chasing game. And in Dark age of Camelot the best gear was crafted.

Progression does not need to be gear based. If you have a leveling structure, you have vertical progression. If a level 1 is not the same strength as a level 10, then it is vertical.

Even if the gear is crafted, it is still a vertical progression path if you need to accomplish things to unlock the ability to craft better items than what you start the game with.

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Yes. And that is a trend that started after MoP. Before MoP you could get gear that was near highest raid level just by doing damn near anything. But the dev team changed with MoP and their mentality has ever been "RAIDING ONLY"

I'd argue that it was before that. Shattered Sun Offensive dailies offered badge gear that was on par with the current raid gear as a catch up mechanic, and side-grade gear for entering the next raid.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Some games have gear progression and others don't. It's not that complicated lol

People like different things and that's okay. personally I get bored of GW2 and ESO very quickly without anything to chase, because I don't care about achievement stuff at all, just power!

[Utrrabbit]

It only has to be massively multiplayer and role-playing: the end; everything else added to it is purely the developers' choice; people confuse what the developers of games like this 'often' do to what they 'must' do: but that's suspect because you've never proven that necessity and it's easy to avoid proving that necessity if you've never seen the alternative.

We already see clear signs that people often prefer horizontal progression; e.g. players often role-play without caring about technically leveling first or most pvpers prefer no vertical progression at all or most purely-mythic raiders hate split raiding and similar grinding even if they do it; it's obvious the main purpose of vertical progression is monthly fees.

RPing is the smallest demopgraphic minority of the playerbase. I have no clue why you are using them as the example. It makes no sense and scewes your results.