Design a game and someone will reply to tell you what real game is closest to that.

[epigramx]

I could start. It's exactly like WoW; but without any vertical progression at all; all rewards from raiding or dungeons or pvp are purely cosmetic(mounts or transmog or pets/etc.).

[Heathy]

there are no games without vertical progression.

even tic tac toe has vertical progression. roshambo has vertical progression.

without the progression its just either a story a movie or a static base point that never really changes. so you would be in exactly the same place you started, no matter how long you played the game.

if the game has 100 boss fights and 10000 pieces of cosmetic gear, you're still progressing through it, vertically. if the numbers don't change then its likely the difficulty of each boss won't change either. what would differentiate each boss fight if there aren't any stats. they all have the same total health pool, all deal the same amount of damage. it all sounds extremely bland. it doesn't sound like much of a game but more so a chat room. its a pretty simple case of deductive reasoning, what would wow look like if you removed all the vertical progression. it would be a chat room and very little else.

[epigramx]

there are no games without vertical progression.

what do you mean? every basic FPS game for example has no vertical progression: you just enter and play.

in fact they don't even have horizontal progression lol.

[Osmeric]

Let's ask ChatGPT to design a game!

Prompt: Describe a new cozy MMO.

Introducing "Garden Haven," a cozy MMO game that takes place in a peaceful and whimsical world where players can immerse themselves in the joys of gardening and building their own cozy homes.

In Garden Haven, players start by creating their avatar and choosing a plot of land to call their own. From there, they can start designing and building their own dream garden, growing a variety of colorful flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Each plant has unique traits and requires different care, so players will need to use their green thumbs to keep their garden thriving.

But gardening isn't the only thing to do in Garden Haven. Players can also explore the world, meet friendly NPCs, and complete quests to unlock new items and expand their land. As they progress, they can unlock new features like crafting and cooking, which allow them to make their own tools and dishes using their garden's produce.

In Garden Haven, players can also connect with each other, forming communities and trading their goods and services. They can visit each other's gardens, give feedback, and even collaborate on large-scale projects like building a communal greenhouse or organizing a flower festival.

With its charming graphics, relaxing gameplay, and focus on creativity and community, Garden Haven is the perfect game for players who want to escape into a cozy and joyful world where they can cultivate their own little slice of paradise.

[Nymrohd]

Let's ask ChatGPT to design a game!

Prompt: Describe a new cozy MMO.

Lol ChatGPT is designing Harvest Moon?

[Heathy]

what do you mean? every basic FPS game for example has no vertical progression: you just enter and play.

in fact they don't even have horizontal progression lol.

if you win, you now have 1 win, if you lose you have no wins, if you draw, you didn't win or lose but you still gained some experience.

I would say winning is vertical progression, losing is no progression and drawing is horizontal progression.

since you're not gaining any sort of persistent increase to anything other than the number of wins and losses, those are the only metrics you can measure in such a game. if the only thing you do gain is cosmetic gear you still start off with no cosmetic gear and aim to collect all cosmetic gear, so you're vertically collecting gear cosmetic or not, until you have it all.

if there are no stats, what defines the difficulty of the encounters. what differentiates one boss from another. nothing, they'd all be the same because there are no stats that can either increase or decrease the difficulty of the encounters. like a first person shooter everything would be uniform, everyone has the same HP, everyone does the same amount of damage.

I don't think there are any mmos or mmorpgs that work like this, pretty much all of them have some form of vertical progression. because they wouldn't be fun games if they didn't have staple gameplay aspects. a game like wow, that has no vertical progression would simply be eclipsed by wow.


first person shooters do have vertical progression, counter strike for example, when you join a match you only really have enough money to buy a pistol, maybe a kevlar vest with your 800$. when you win, rescue hostages or kill players you earn money so you can buy better weapons, maybe a rifle / shotgun. I play a lot escape from tarkov, well actually I'm not at the moment because the cheating problem is out of control, but that has vertical progression too.

doom has vertical progression you start off with a pistol and end the game with the BFG.... so yeah first person shooters do have vertical progression. being able to enter a game and play it, has no baring on whether or not a game has vertical progression. these aren't mutually exclusive things.

pokemon has vertical progression, can you enter the game and play it, yes you can. see how dumb it sounds. I can't enter a pokemon game and play it because it has vertical progression. you know its a game made for kids right? if they manage, and you can't, thats a you problem.

[Mysterymask]

A game where someone says some absolute nonsense that they obviously have no idea what they are saying and expecting a response that makes him feel superior but failing at every step of the way

[Zenfoldor]

A game where someone says some absolute nonsense that they obviously have no idea what they are saying and expecting a response that makes him feel superior but failing at every step of the way

That game already exists, it's called Disco Elysium.

[Mysterymask]

That game already exists, it's called Disco Elysium.

Oh and I own it

[epigramx]

if you win, you now have 1 win, if you lose you have no wins, if you draw, you didn't win or lose but you still gained some experience.

we're not doing neuropsychology. we're talking about gaming design. wow has vertical progression when it gets to pve and pvp (e.g. it doesn't for say a mini game in darkmoon faire).

[Heathy]

it does have these though https://www.wowhead.com/item=93730/darkmoon-top-hat

which are used for vertical progression. I think the place has achievements tied to it. there is still content that you either have, or have not done.

i'm not sure what the point is exactly, that you want to play a game that consists entirely of darkmoon faire mini games. i'm sure they exist as flash games, probably not as an mmo though.

when you limit the metrics by which you can measure progress to wins and losses you're still able to tally up a vertical progression of wins and losses. you're either winning the mini games, or losing them. if you win consistently over and over and over again your number of wins is increasing, vertically. if nothing else changes beyond the number of wins and losses you make, what else is there that measures the progress you've made? what is the difference between the day you start spamming darkmoon faire mini games, and 6 months later when you been doing them for 12hrs a day every day. I think this is why games are more interesting when there is noticeable progress, beyond simply winning and losing.

are ppl doing the darkmoon faire mini games for the sake of the mini games, or are they doing them for either the cosmetic rewards or the consumable exp buffs. I'm going to bet that ppl aren't doing darkmoon faire mini games for the sake of it and more so because they can get something from it. whether or not they have any impact on your overall power level and progression is irrelevant, the rewards are still part of what would fall into the 'completionist' type of game play. where the goal is to collect all the items, or complete all the achievements. you can measure this by how much you've done and not done.

[nvaelz]

A game like Vanilla where spells had actual simple meaning and competitive m+ etc didn't exist yet.

[Skildar]

A game like Vanilla where spells had actual simple meaning and competitive m+ etc didn't exist yet.

Could Wow classic be the game you are looking for? If not then try Diablo 2

[Nymrohd]

Could Wow classic be the game you are looking for? If not then try Diablo 2

Or just try ESO

[Skildar]

Or just try ESO

indeed, I often forget about this game despite my brother playing it intensively because I'm not a big fan of the artistic direction.

[Nymrohd]

indeed, I often forget about this game despite my brother playing it intensively because I'm not a big fan of the artistic direction.

Sadly I am not sure ESO even has artistic direction. It's so damn basic. White girl playing a pretty elf levels of basic. Next to the stupid weaving gameplay one of its biggest weaknesses.

[Kathandira]

what do you mean? every basic FPS game for example has no vertical progression: you just enter and play.

in fact they don't even have horizontal progression lol.

Not exactly true.

If your successes in game are unlocking new weapons (See Call of Duty), you have a vertical progression system. If you do not do well in a match, you get a small progress gain towards the new weapon. If you do well, you get a larger progress gain.

Then of course, there are Looter Shooters like Destiny or Borderlands which also are vertical progression systems.

[epigramx]

Not exactly true.

If your successes in game are unlocking new weapons (See Call of Duty), you have a vertical progression system. If you do not do well in a match, you get a small progress gain towards the new weapon. If you do well, you get a larger progress gain.

Then of course, there are Looter Shooters like Destiny or Borderlands which also are vertical progression systems.

not all FPS games are Call of Duty: Call of Duty is a very late comer to "basic" FPS games.

plenty of games in FPS are almost entirely vertical progression free (especially in the medium term).

and I don't have to point out the obvious: vertical progression that is complete in seconds or minutes is a completely different design to WoW enforcing vertical progression that can take months or even years.

[schwarzkopf]

I designed a game in 1988 which was literally ain in game computer terminal where you programmed a virtual robot, the robot had to autonomously navigate up a damaged and irradiated building to get to the top. The only way you could get information was for your robot to return to the base.

So the trick was designing an ever more complex robot that could cope with more information to return to the base so you could repeat the process - until the robot was smart enough to reach the top of the building.

[Kathandira]

not all FPS games are Call of Duty: Call of Duty is a very late comer to "basic" FPS games.

plenty of games in FPS are almost entirely vertical progression free (especially in the medium term).

and I don't have to point out the obvious: vertical progression that is complete in seconds or minutes is a completely different design to WoW enforcing vertical progression that can take months or even years.

While call of duty has been around longer than WoW, I will admit the vertical progression in the game is relatively recent. However if we are to consider if vertical progression is popular or not, Call of Duty confirms that even outside of MMORPGs (which is a very different genre) it is even more popular in CoD.

The type of vertical progress that you seem to hold issue with, is when it is a live service game. As you said initially, it feels like it is a business model to stretch out the time required to complete the progression path in order to continue gaining subscription fees or in cases with there is no fee, engagement metrics. Which is absolutely is. Unfortunately though, this business model is incredibly popular. If it wasn't financially successful, it wouldn't strive the way it has.

In the end, the larger audience is voting with their wallet in favor of being blissfully exploited.